Leigh Hoadly Will Replace Murdock as Hutch Master

Never again will Professor Murdock, ex-Master of Leverett House and "Ken" to the Rabbits, come charging through the Bunny-hutch Common Room, arms swinging fantastically up and down as if he were clutching at the smoke in the air, and throw his entire length upon the deep sofa for half an hour's relaxation after dinner.

For Kenneth B. Murdock '16, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of English Literature, has resigned his Mastership after ten years to devote greater time to a treatise he is writing in collaboration with Howard Mumford Jones, professor of English; and President Conant has appointed Leigh Hoadley, professor of Zoology, in his stead.

The new Master, who was one of the youngest men ever to be honored by the College with a professorship, has had a brilliant academic career at Chicago, Brown University, and Harvard, where he was Chairman of the Zoology Department and serves on the Administrative Board.

When America entered Word War I, Professor Hoadley was in the middle of his undergraduate career at Chicago, but before the Armistice was signed he had seen twenty months of service in France, eight of them with the Ambulance Corps.

After a year of study in Europe, he took a post at Harvard in 1927, but returned as exchange professor to the Sorbonne several years later.

The fame of the retiring Master of Leverett will not be as short-lived as his tenure. One of the most successful traditions fostered by Professor Murdock was the annual Christmas reading, which Professor Hoadley intends to perpetuate. The evening was invariably begun with an excerpt from the Gospel according to St. Luke, but before long "Ken" launched into long quotations from Dorothy Parker and Bob Benchley, whose works, along with those of P.G. Wodehouse, lined his library shelves.

Professor Murdock prided himself on Leverett's hospitality to guests of the University. However, several years ago he was preparing to meet Hervey Allen, author of the then best-seller "Anthony Adverse," and discovered several minutes before the reception that no copy of the book could be found. Mr. Murdock himself sprinted up to the Square and bought one in the nick of time, and while the author scrawled his autograph on the fly-leaf, concealed the uncut pages with masterful grace.

Unlike his colleague, "Frisky" Merriman, Professor Murdock has refused for several years to act in the annual House play. When he once played a drunken porter who drove the other characters off the stage with a blunderbuss, the audience went wild, and he modestly decided not to tempt fate with another appearance.