An Era's End: Brinton Retires

With the warm humanity and scholarly precision which have characterized his teaching career, C. Crane Brinton '19, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History, gave his farewell lecture at Harvard yesterday.

Hundreds of students and Faculty members packed Lowell Lecture Hall at 9 a.m. to do him honor. Their standing ovation at the end of the lecture seemingly overwhelmed and bewildered the kindly Brinton. When his attempts to quiet the applause only increased it, he simply grabbed his hat and coat and fled.

Brinton's last lecture was a defense of intellectual history, the field which he has spent his life establishing as a respected discipline. He declared his ultimate belief in the rightness of human reason, and praised the complexity and diversity of modern democratic society.

Since he became a professor in 1942, Brinton's courses have been known for their informality. His scholarly background and anecdotal style of lecturing have won him the respect and affection of all his students.

Brinton scrupulously avoided a show of sentimentality during his lecture, preferring to stick to his accustomed erudite style. He did allow himself, one prediction, "the great bulk of those facing me today will be alive in 1984, and will find the world not vastly different from what it is today."