Eliot Orators Uphold Classics, Beat Commuter Trio as Finley Pinch-Hits

An Eliot team led by John B. Finley, Jr. '25, assistant professor of Classics, took the affirmative on the question; "Resolved, That Harvard should place more emphasis on the Classics and less on the Social Sciences," and defeated Dudley in an inter-House debate last night in the Dudley Common Room.

The other member of the Eliot team, since Finley took the place of the absent third, was Archibald B. Roosevelt, Jr. '40. The Dudley trio was headed by Reginald B. Phelps '30, Dean of Records, associate of Dudley Ball, and was composed of Lloyd G. Butterfield '40 and Morris Yarosh '41.

Finley opened the debate with a ten-minute argument in which he emphasized the value of a classical education, which takes an objective view of the whole span of modern events with an eye to classical parallel situations. He also asserted that the classical writers treated of the general phases of human endeavor and that since our modern civilization is based on cold fact, we need the classics as a balance.

Finley's colleague, Roosevelt, stated later in the debate, "We are the slaves of facts, and the classics are our only liberators. The humanities are expelled by the sciences. The study of the social sciences has corrupted the classics. History has gone entirely economic."