Building Memorial Church, Swamping a Celebrity, Resisting HUAC

Every week, The Crimson publishes a selection of articles that were printed in our pages in years past.

February 28, 1928: New Memorial Chapel to Rise in Honor of Harvard's War Heroes

That the proposed University war memorial will definitely take the form of a new chapel to be erected in the Yard on the site of the present Appleton Chapel was made known officially last night. The announcement comes as a result of the passing of a resolution by the President and Fellows of Harvard College yesterday morning. The resolve was then submitted by the Corporation to the Board of Overseers at their meeting yesterday afternoon. It was voted upon, accepted, and placed on file. A committee will be designated to draw up plans and make the necessary investigations.

The adoption of the resolution to build a war memorial chapel culminates a movement for a University memorial which began early in the World War, as soon as the deaths of Harvard men were reported. It will require the demolition of the present chapel, but inside the new memorial there will be a small chapel which will be called Appleton Chapel.

February 26, 1940: Crimson Mob Swamps Folies Queen in Mad Publicity Stunt

Fifty Harvard men, Stan Brown's Crimsonians, the head of the Yardling Dating Bureau and his assistants, the Bachelors' Club, and a box of roses turned out yesterday afternoon at the South Station to greet the New Haven Express, which bore Mademoiselle Paris of the Folies Bergeres and 60 beautiful girls 60.

This "spontaneous" reception originated in the fertile brain of Ruben Rabinovitz, press agent for the Folies, and everybody connected with the University who wanted a little publicity joined the mad procession.

February 27, 1953: Furry Denies All Present Ties with Any Red Groups

Associate Professor of Physics Wendell H. Furry, who early yesterday refused to tell the House Un-American Activities Committee whether he is or ever has been a Communist, declared last night, "I am not a member of the Communist Party, I have no personal knowledge as to whether or not there is any Communist Party activity at Harvard of anywhere else."

Furry, who has been named by three earlier witness before the House Committee as a member of a Harvard "Red cell" in the 1930's, did not say whether he had belonged to the Communist Party in the past.

He refused to answer all questions pertaining to Communism or Communist activities under the provisions of the first and fifth amendments of the Constitution.

February 24, 1961: Exams, Final Papers—Or Revise The System

An ancient (and perhaps apocryphal) College rule once entitled students taking final or midyear examinations to receive a mug of ale at the end of the first hour. This sympathetic gesture seems rather anomalous for the strait-laced old Puritans who supposedly made it. Perhaps even they, despite their conviction that "all work and no play sends Jack to Heaven," had some unconscious qualms about the examination system.

Progress has eliminated beer-quaffing in Memorial Hall, but it has also done away with universal agreement among Faculty members that examinations are a Good Thing. A few have gone so far as to suggest that examinations be abolished entirely, while many have ceased to regard formal testing as the only way to evaluate students' performance. These attitudes have produced a notable increase in the number of courses using term papers as a substitute for the once-ubiquitous "finals."

February 24, 1971: The Great Pre-Med Boom

The desire to be a doctor is suddenly grabbing hold of more and more Harvard and Radcliffe students.

Although official statistics are still unavailable, premedical advisors at three Harvard Houses estimated independently that the number of Harvard seniors applying to medical school this year exceeded last year's figure by 20 per cent.

At Radcliffe the number of applicants has risen from 30 two years ago to about 50 this year.

—Compiled by Nikita Kansra and Amy L. Weiss-Meyer