250 Hear Conant Discuss Post-War Education at Meeting of Sigma Xi

"Science and Society In a Post-War World" was the subject of a public address Monday night in Sanders Theatre by President Conant, who made his first speech to a Cambridge audience since the Valedictory to the Class of '43 on January 9. Some 250 people attended.

The same address was delivered by President Conant at a meeting of the New York Academy of Public Education and also read before the American Philosophical Society some time ago, but it had received such widespread praise that it was sponsored again Monday night by the Harvard Chapter of Sigma Xi.

Five Point Program

The address carried centrally the development of a five point program to provide a basis for future educational work in America, stressing the intrinsic principles of high competition, equality of opportunity, the best in equipment, and freedom from any sort of government control.

A high point showed the interdependence of technological research and scientific progress in the structure of a free society. But liberal education must be continued in its present or pre-war role, and not crowded out of the educational picture. But here Conant predicted that it would experience a renaissance in the post-war.

Newly-elected president of the Harvard chapter of Sigma Xi, Harlow Shapley, Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy and Director of the College Observatory, acted as chairman for the meeting.

Shapley's position in the meeting was qualified, not only by his officiality in Sigma Xi, the scientific Phi Beta Kappa. He is president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and affiliated with other academic groups.

Although the assembly in Sanders Theatre was intended to be not merely for men affiliated with Sigma Xi, and considered strictly open, a special invitation was extended to College members of Phi Beta Kappa. It is expected that this meeting of the two honorary societies will encourage future relations.