Class Unconscious

Each spring during Commencement week it is customary for the class holding its Twenty-Fifth Reunion to present the University a check for at least $100,000. Each spring President Conant appears properly astonished and pleased, though his surprise would be unfeigned only if the presentation did not take place.

In addition to non-utilitarian gates and plaques, Alumni have been known to make other little donations to the University-libraries, scholarships, and dollars in the amount of several score millions. Without the contributions of Alumni to the University coffers, Harvard could hardly have reached its present status, and were the golden flow suddenly quenched, the University would find it necessary to curtail many of its most valuable activities.

The spirit that motivates these gifts does not flower magically at the moment the giver's name is added to the Alumni rolls; nor is Harvard the recipient of bounty because its graduates are unable to find other worthy beneficiaries. Only the memory of four years well and enjoyably spent will bring Alumni to the point where they are glad to part with hard cash to enable posterity to participate in the same experience. But memory is a fragile thing. It must be stimulated and refreshed by such things as reunions, class secretaries and albums. Of all these the Class Album is probably the most important, because it preserves for the graduate an attractive and condensed record of the accomplishments of his class and contains the pictures of old and cherished friends. It is his most concrete tie to the past, and the source of many pleasant hours of nostalgic reminiscence.

The University's stake in the publication of an Album is greater than that of any other group, including the classes concerned. This is particularly true as the classes of '42 to '49 did not see Harvard on its best behavior. Accelerated courses, show lines, and crowded rooms are not the usual concomitants of happy college days. Men who were in Harvard during and immediately after the war may be inclined to look back on their undergraduate days as an extension of Army training or as just another vocational course. An Album, artificial cohesion though it might he will be one of the very few forces tying together war-shredded classes in later affluent years.

The '47-'48 Album's troubles began two weeks ago, when the University declined to release to the publication's business staff a list of purveyors. Having in its possession a slightly out-of-date listing this particular Album might be able to publish an emaciated version without the use of new purveyor lists, but Album editors of future years will face extinction almost certainly unless some source of revenue is found beyond that of subscriptions. The University has apparently had two feelings on the subject of purveyor lists; economic and ethical. It was felt, first, that money spent by purveyors on Album advertising reflected back on the University in the form of higher prices. And, second, the University has felt that purveyor solicitation might be regarded by the purveyors as a polite form of black-mail.

Although there has, in past years, been small reason for such fears, the University might resolve its doubts in two ways: (1)by requiring that purveyor lists be checked through the purchasing office to insure that advertising solicitations be kept within reasonable and ethical limits and (2)by notifying -possibly at the Album's expense-all purveyors that as far as purchasing is concerned the University takes no cognizance whatsoever of any advertising in any Class publication.

Another alternative which might permit Albums to operate as something more than name and address books should be thoroughly investigated. The University, acting with the permanent class committees, might set up a revolving fund which is drawn on by a class to support its Album with the explicit understanding that the money be repaid out of class funds at a later date.

Whatever course it takes, it is to the University's self-interest to see that Class Albums do not cease to fulfill their traditional function. And at the very least the University should refrain from making the problems of publication any more difficult. Withholding purveyor lists at this time is something like stepping on the fingers of a man hanging over a cliff-he may hang on, but his chances of salvation are not increased.