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New Freshman Find Many Changes in Harvard at War

Some Courses Same But Tradition Gone

By Lawrence G. Ralsz

Arriving at College after the completion of Harvard's metamorphosis into an armed forces training center, new Freshmen will find little left of the old ways and traditions of happy, peacetime undergraduate life. Courses and activities are changed almost beyond recognition with the inroads of draft and essential service.

The major activities are still going, although most of them are under highly curtailed schedules. Phillips Brooks House, the College social service center, continues with many of its facilities now devoted to helping the service men.

The Student Council is here with regular elections and has, in fact, added to its membership a V-12 House Committee to represent the Navy men. Class officer elections for '46 and '47, however seem to be relegated to future, more peaceful times.

The publications are with one exception, alive. The Guardian, magazine of the social sciences, was suspended last spring. Harvard still has a literary magazine, a fairly funny magazine, and a newspaper. The Advocate, Harvard's oldest publication, almost folded up its tents early this summer but has staged a comeback.

The Lampoon, nested in its harpy hangout on Bow Street, is thriving, while the SERVICE NEWS, successor to the peacetime CRIMSON, puts out a 4-to-8-page issue twice weekly. Both will hold competitions this fall.

Other miscellaneous organizations which still carry on include the Glee Club, the Orchestra or Pierian Sodality, the Outing Club, and various language clubs and smaller groups. Positions as team managers are still available in many sports but few bring with them letters.

Sports Informal

Harvard's sports program flourishes under an informal basis with neither letters; intersectional games, nor big events, but with plenty of chances for all to play the game, especially in House Sports. Intramurals have become even more important with the war and may soon play the major part in College athletics.

Harvard's famous education is admittedly no longer what it used to be, but it has a lot to offer. A few courses have been cut out but most are left. A lot of teachers have gone, are teaching army and navy men, or doing research, but many good teachers are here.

History still has its famous men, Fay, Matthiessen, Karpovich, and the rest, and History 1 is still a wonderful way to learn what college means. History 1 is even more desirable now because so many other courses have been given a feverish wartime tinge.

The Government department is one of the most riddled, but Payson Wild teaches very popular courses and several new men have been doing a great deal to keep the fires burning. Government 1 is the standard Freshman survey course and pleased most past classes.

In other departments, especially languages, things are proceeding as usual. Teachers leave but others replace them and the textbooks are still the same.

Harvard is different in atmosphere, but more or less the same in education. There is still meat for students at the old College, and if you look hard, Mike's has a pinball machine, and so do and Dirty Mary, and then there's always the OG

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