Chemist at Cambridge

(See front cover)

On October 28, 1636 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony "agreed to give 400-L- towards a schoale or colledge." Already a committee has been appointed for the celebration of the 300th birthday of Harvard University, oldest, richest, proudest in the land.

A milestone more significant for Harvard was reached last year when Abbott Lawrence Lowell, aged 76, stepped down from his 24-year presidency. And a more fruitful time for educational stock-taking arrived last week when James Bryant Conant, the 40-year-old chemistry professor who succeeded to the big paneled office in University Hall, revealed in his first annual report to its Board of Overseers the new course which Harvard hopes to steer through the years ahead.

Began President Conant: "An eventful and significant epoch in Harvard history has closed." That epoch dated back to 1909 when Charles William Eliot turned over to President Lowell a Harvard faculty unrivaled in intellectual prestige. Under the ambitious, Aladdin-like administration of President Lowell Harvard grew big and rich. Its faculty swelled from 600 to 1,692, its student body from 4,000 to 8,000, its endowment from $20,000,000 to $126,000,000. New buildings mushroomed--libraries, dormitories, museums, laboratories. On the human side, President Lowell's heart was with his undergraduates and he wanted to shape them in his own pattern--cultured, public-spirited and, if possible, scholarly gentlemen of Boston.

To achieve his end President Lowell laid well-marked paths through the maze of Harvard's free elective system. He introduced tutors and comprehensive examinations. He drew freshmen from their scattered lodgings into the communal life of Georgian dormitories near the Charles River. Finally in 1928 a gift of $13,000,000 from Edward Stephen Harkness allowed him to fulfill a longtime dream. By splitting his unwieldy body of upperclassmen into seven residential Houses he hoped to restore the fellowship of student and student, student and teacher, which small, oldtime Harvard had possessed.

No one doubted that President Lowell, an able political scientist,* held scholarship in high regard. Almost his last official act was to establish a Society cf Fellows wherein 24 young superscholars may seek knowledge free from academic or financial care. But thoughtful Harvardmen began to grow uneasy as the Lowell regime lengthened. Columbia was drawing ahead in this department, Chicago in that, Wisconsin in another. Old Harvard faculty giants--Royce, James, Palmer, Norton, Santayana--were dead or retired. Kittredge, Lowes, Copeland, Hocking, Perry were getting on. Where were the men to replace them? President Lowell retired with that question unanswered.

President. Boston has heard two versions of James Bryant Conant's accession to Harvard's presidency. Most Harvardmen believe that the university's governing Corporation listed faculty eligibles, cast about the country for non-Harvard opinion on them, was overwhelmed by praises of Conant. Outsiders say that the Corporation was definitely disturbed at Harvard's waning intellectual prestige, wanted a vigorous, young devotee of scholarship to restore and strengthen it.

With characteristic modesty, Chemist Conant last autumn dispensed with the pomp & ceremony of a traditional Harvard inauguration, took office quietly and quickly before a few officials in the Faculty Room. In last week's report, first public statement of his presidential philosophy, he left no doubt of his mind and purpose. James Bryant Conant is in love with the search for knowledge. He believes that Harvard's mission is to lead that search. He is sure that Harvard can accomplish that mission only by securing abler men.

Wrote he: "According to the account written nearly 300 years ago, Harvard was founded 'to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity.' ... In the last analysis, it is only by advancing learning that it is possible to perpetuate it. When knowledge ceases to expand and develop it becomes devitalized, degraded, and a matter of little importance to the community. ... A zest for intellectual adventure should be the characteristic of every university."

Under James Conant, Harvard is on a manhunt and intends to have the best, whether they have sprung from Boston's

Back Bay or Bulltown, W. Va. "Harvard must endeavor to draw to its staff the most able investigators and teachers in the world. . . . What they accomplish and those whom they inspire will be the measure of our success."

Four baits has a university for luring talent to its faculty: 1) prestige, 2) plant & equipment, 3) salaries, 4) academic life. Harvard's prestige, though rivaled, is still mighty. Its plant & equipment are superb. Its salaries, which have not been cut in Depression, rank with the best. But: "Academic life in Cambridge must be made more attractive in a number of ways."

To make academic life at Cambridge more attractive President Conant last week called attention to the problem of faculty housing. He would make masters as comfortable as their luxuriously-housed pupils. Said he: "It is no longer as pleasant or easy to live in Cambridge as in many other university communities." A placid suburb 25 years ago, Cambridge is now a bustling city of 125,000, circling the university in a tight-clenched grip. Pleasant residences have steadily grown scarcer, more expensive.

Higher than physical comfort the scholar holds adequate time for research. To classroom duties which distract him at every university, Harvard adds tutorial work. Tugged three ways at once, the scholar finds himself spread thin. President Conant would ease the classroom strain.

President Conant knows how to use money to please other scholars. For the scientist: special laboratory equipment. For the historian: books, manuscripts. For the economist: secretarial aid. And every scholar yearns to see his precious but non-commercial findings in print. With such satisfactions would President Conant lure the world's best scholars to his Cambridge fold.

Students. But great masters are only half the Conant formula for Harvard's future. He wants the best apprentices too. Under Abbott Lawrence Lowell, scion of a rich and ancient Boston family, it could be argued that Harvard had become a "rich man's college." James Conant was born in unfashionable Dorchester, Mass., son of a photo-engraver. He has made himself an intellectual aristocrat. Under him Harvard's favored sons will be, beyond argument, the rich in brains.

Wrote he last week: "The universities in this country should be the apex of a pyramid based on our highly developed school system. A path to the top should be open to all of exceptional talent. . . . To accomplish its mission Harvard must be a truly national university. . . . We should be able to say that any man with remarkable talents may obtain his education at Harvard whether he be rich or penniless, whether he come from Boston or San Francisco."

That such a goal must be distant even for rich Harvard, President Conant admits. But as first steps toward it he would combine present funds, make one fat $1,200 fellowship out of four thin $300 scholarships, award it for two or three years instead of one. As an experiment, he would like to set up half a dozen $1,000 freshman scholarships in a section of the

Midwest. "No one," he told 600 alumni in Manhattan's Harvard Club last week, "can predict in what locality able young men may be found or into what family they may be born."

If he can get 200 or 300 genuine scholars into his student body of 8,000 President Conant will be satisfied. But he hopes to persuade the rest to cheer learning from the sidelines. For: "It is not sufficient to train investigators and scholars; a large body of influential citizens must have a passionate interest in the growth of human knowledge."

But he will tolerate no mediocre minds or spirits in his Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Its halls are sacred to scholars. He wants incompetents "ruthlessly" weeded out. Says he: "Unless a man is exceptionally gifted and filled with a passionate interest in his subject he should not remain in the Graduate School and he should certainly not receive our Ph. D. degree."

University. No. 2 Harvard administrator is Kenneth Ballard ("Cotton-top") Murdock, 38, professor of English and dean of the faculty of arts & sciences. Son of a Boston banker, he is solemn, efficient, popular, scholarly, and the author of two books on Increase Mather. He has been President Conant's warm friend since boyhood, was best man at his wedding. But their relations were strained for a time last year by James Conant's shy embarrassment when, not long after congratulating Friend Murdock on his certain election to Harvard's presidency, he himself got the job. Some Harvardmen think "Cotton-top" Murdock might be president today if early Lowell backing had not exposed him to attack.

Dean Murdock's faculty of 300-odd teaches in both College (enrollment: 3,450) and Graduate School (enrollment: 915). President Conant has lately proposed to restore its voice in administrative affairs by substituting a representative assembly of some 60 members for present poorly-attended general faculty meetings.

Scholar-Writer Bliss Perry retired almost three years ago and Humanist Irving Babbitt died last July, but Harvard still has giants in its English department. One of them is tiny, big-voiced John Livingston Lowes, 66, keen student of the Romantic Movement. He is perhaps the most brilliant U. S. example of the great scholar-teacher whom President Conant wants on his faculty. Another giant is snowy-bearded George Lyman Kittredge, 73, bon vivant, Chaucer and Shakespeare authority, prime link between Harvard's past & present.

In philosophy Harvard has religious-minded William Ernest Hocking, 60, profound Alfred North Whitehead, 72, one of the three "geniuses" whom Gertrude Stein has known (others: herself, Painter Pablo Picasso). Ill health made William Zebina Ripley, 66, railroad expert, retire last March but economics in 1932 acquired brilliant Josef Alois Schumpeter, onetime (1919) Finance Minister of Austria. Since 1882 Frank William Taussig, 74, tariff authority, has been one of Harvard's proudest possessions.

Other arts & sciences aces: Harlow Shapley, 48 (astronomy), Charles Hall Grandgent, 71 (Romance languages), Percy Williams Bridgman, 51 (physics), Kirtley Fletcher Mather, 45 (geology), last week named director of the Summer School.

President Lowell left direction of his Law School (enrollment: 1,462), oldest (1817) and best in the U. S., to its famed, scholarly Dean Roscoe Pound, 63. President Conant has been dropping in occasionally on Law School meetings. Once while the Law faculty was sitting for its portrait, he eased Dean Pound out of his accustomed place in the centre of the picture. Others in the picture: Samuel Williston, 72, foremost U. S. authority on contracts, Thomas Reed Powell, 53, Zechariah Chafee Jr., 48, Manley Ottmer Hudson, 47, Sam Bass Warner. Absent: Francis Bowes Sayre, 48, criminal law expert and son-in-law of Woodrow Wilson who last November went to Washington as Assistant Secretary of State; Felix Frankfurter, 51, author of the Securities Act, and this year's exchange professor at Oxford, whose friends think his good friend Franklin Roosevelt intends him for the U. S. Supreme Court's next vacancy.

Harvard's Medical School, in the U. S. topflight with Columbia's, Cornell's, Johns Hopkins', may expect a friendly eye from President Conant, long a frequent visitor to its laboratories. Failures are rare among its hand-picked students, limited to 125 per class. It has all Boston's hospitals for laboratory, most topnotch Boston doctors on its staff. The Medical School plumes itself on Elliott Carr Cutler, 45 (brain surgery); Walter Bradford Cannon, 62 (physiology); Hans Zinsser, 55 (bacteriology); Varaztad Hovannes Kazanjian, 54 (plastic surgery).

Stocky, philosophical Dean Wallace Brett Donham, 56, has linked his Graduate School of Business Administration firmly with big business, made it the best of its kind in the U. S. But with big business no longer so popular as it was, scholarly Harvard is debating whether it should ever have entered the business school field. Enrollment this year is down to 811 from last year's 960, the previous year's 1,102. But over 90% of last year's class are employed.

Man. Last spring trustees of Roxbury (Mass.) Latin School were on the hunt for a new headmaster. They decided to inspect Alumnus James Bryant Conant, invited him out for a speech. Professor Conant went, spoke. Roxbury trustees looked, listened, decided that Professor Conant, reserved, stiff-bodied, boyish-looking, with no jot of showmanship, no trace of "Harvard accent," definitely would not do. Few weeks later Professor Conant was elected president of Harvard.

That was not the first time Roxbury had turned James Conant down. Only an indignant plea by his mother got him admitted as a student in 1906. He had flunked his entrance examination in spelling. No infant prodigy, he did not learn to read until he was seven. But soon after that he was brewing malodorous compounds in a makeshift laboratory labeled: "Only two persons allowable in shop at a time." He insisted on going to Roxbury, against his parents' vote for more fashionable Milton, because it had a friendly science master named Newton Henry Black. Master Black is now assistant professor of physics at Harvard and its president's great & good friend.

James Conant passed his Harvard entrance examinations in 1910 with A's in physics and mathematics, a B in chemistry, D's in history and English. First two years he lived at famed Miss Mooney's at No. 5 Linden St., hard by Hasty Pudding which he was not asked to join. No grind, he worked hard but quickly, spent most of his hours in the laboratory. But he found time to help edit the Crimson, dance with the "Baby Brats" at famed Brattle Hall. He did not seek popularity and few of his classmates, including Junius Spencer Morgan, Sumner Welles, Nicholas Roosevelt, Gilbert Seldes, noticed the shy, towheaded, unprepossessing youngster from Dorchester. Those who did became his fast friends, won by a quick, appealing smile, a quiet humor and good sense.

In Junior year he broadened out, joined Signet, helped found Harvard's chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma chemical fraternity. Delta Upsilon made him its president. In 1913, aged 20 and a year ahead of his class, he was graduated magna cum lande with a brilliant record in chemistry.

A summer in Philadelphia's Midvale Steel plant decided him against a career in industrial chemistry. Back to Harvard he went for a Ph. D., a year of teaching. Then War came. War-hating son of war-hating parents, James Conant promptly marched to Washington to enlist in the ranks. A scientific friend called him a "blithering idiot," turned him over to the Chemical Warfare division in which he became a major at 25. He developed the process by which the A. E. F. was supplied with mustard-gas. Later, in "The Mousetrap," an old motor factory near Cleveland surrounded by barbed wire and mystery, he worked 18 hr. a day, slept in his laboratory, managed his jittery subordinates with tact and understanding. Too late for use in the War he perfected a laboratory process for manufacturing sinister, superdeadly Lewisite gas. His two sons, aged 10 and 7, have never seen their father's uniform, never heard from him his War record.

At Harvard again in 1919 he sped up the academic ladder--associate professor of chemistry in 1925, full professor in 1927, head of his department in 1931. Students found him harddriving, businesslike, admired his vast authority. Meantime he was deep in the chemical researches which in time made European scientists first ask visiting Harvardmen: "What's Conant doing?"

Confreres say that James Conant became one of his country's foremost organic chemists because he was thoroughly conversant with other sciences and quick to apply their techniques to his own. His most famed achievement was discovery of the chemical structure of chlorophyl, green coloring matter which sustains plant life. He was working on synthetic manufacture of Vitamin A when Harvard's Corporation called him out of the laboratory for good.

James Bryant Conant is a lineal descendant of Roger Conant, founder of Salem, Mass., and of Plymouth Colony's Governor William Bradford. A New Englander to the core, he loves New England and Harvard. In 1915 an Ohio rubber company offered him the top post in its research division. Said Graduate Student Conant, 22: "I'm going to be married and the kind of woman I'd marry wouldn't live in Ohio. If she would I wouldn't marry her."

Six years later he married Grace Thayer Richards, daughter of Harvard's Nobel Prize Chemist Theodore William Richards. Handsome and talented, she has lately persuaded her husband to do a little painting. He likes to motor over Europe, hike in the White Mountains, swim on Cape Cod. But chemistry was his real play. That gone, he is temporarily lost for diversion. To friends who asked why he gave up a great career in chemistry to become Harvard's head he replied: "I guess it's my sense of adventure." His mother thinks the same qualities which made him a great chemist will make him just as great a university president. Says she: "He won't get excited. Everything works out by formula: he'll compound his formula for running the university, and then stand over while it develops into substance."

* Last week the Harvard Crimson boomed President Emeritus Lowell as Republican nominee for U. S. Senator from Massachusetts: 'Anyone acquainted with him will readily testify that it will be a long time before Mr. Lowell is 'too old' to hold any office, least of all that of Senator."

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