" . . . With Fear and Trembling"

For many a long year it has been customary to tell the Freshman that he needn't be as bewildered as he is often pictured, and the old saw still holds good. This year, however, the reasons for his confusion are a great deal more valid. Registering in June is a new experience not only for 1946, but for every other class in the College. Only an insignificant portion of the undergraduates have ever attended Summer School before, and it's just as novel to them as to the Freshmen.

Many of the basic facts of Harvard life are, of course, and old story to the upperclassmen. The actors and the scenery may have changed a bit from the usual standard of the fall and winter terms, but the locale and the traditions will be much the same. Symphony Hall and the Raymor are still snuggled together on Huntington Avenue, Radcliffe is still up beyond the Common, and the Yard hasn't moved from its age-old position between Mass Avenue and Memorial Hall. But this year Symphony seems to go on forever, and the Yard is filled with Army and Navy officers. Things are much the same in form, but have altered mightily in substance.

Some of the customary advice-to-Freshmen still applies. It's usually divided into two parts, the curricular and the otherwise, and the schism stands in spite of all the transformations. In his studies, the new Harvard man nearly always finds his greatest difficulty not in a newly uncovered ignorance, but in simple fear. There is no blinking the fact that instruction by lecture is a terrifying method when you're not inured to it, and it is equally useless to deny that course work can be harrowing, especially in a jazzed-up Summer Session. Luckily, however, the instructors in Freshman courses realize that fact and will have intelligence enough to allow for it. Just remember that if the stuff becomes too much for you, go to your adviser or your instructor-that's what they're there for.

The way in which you choose to spend your spare time is strictly up to you. Harvard has assumed that its students are adults, and so far the assumption has stood the test fairly well. This year, as is usual in Summer School, there will be a series of dances, teas, and so forth, designed to help people get acquainted. It doesn't do any harm to make use of them, and it may help a great deal. The Houses, into which Freshmen are moving for the first time, will make arrangements for men of 1946 to meet and to cement some sort of class solidarity. All of these social events are entirely voluntary. If you want to go, then go. If you prefer to stay home and make your own friendships, that's your privilege.

Above all, don't get the idea that Freshmen are to be seen and not heard. That concept has never taken very deep root around the Square, and would be especially foolish now. None of the men around you, Faculty and undergraduates alike, has ever seen a term quite like this before, and most of them are just as much at sea as you are.