Almost with awe one scans the list of scholars on whom Harvard will bestow honorary degrees at the Tercentenary of the university next September. Only a few of the names will be recognized even by educated persons, busy as they are with the ordinary activities of life. Many of the fields of study in which these scholars have specialized will be a terra incognita for the average man. What it "the ultra-centrifuge"? And "neo-positivism"? What is meant by "the chemistry of sesquiterpenes"?

Merely a cursory examination of the roster, however, produces certain distinct impressions. The whole world, eighteen countries in all, including the United States, is representated, a fact which itself indicates how great a demonstration Harvard will make on this occasion. Brains and the patience to apply them to the search for truth are monopolized by no country or race. Little Switzerland will receive five degrees, half as many as Germany; Denmark gets two as does Japan; the United States leads with fourteen followed by England with twelve. All fields of human knowledge are covered, at least indirectly. Science is heavily emphasized, but art, music, literature, law, history, finance, commerce, each presents at least one specialist. The famous universities of the Old World will send faculty members to Harvard, and among those of the United States are California, Chicago, Columbia, Michigan, Princeton and Yale.

These men are coming from the ends of the earth to spend some days in Cambridge in round table conferences with scores of younger scholars in attendance. Display is not the one purpose in view, although Harvard has full right to vaunt itself at such an anniversary as this will be.

Mankind never will know how much it owes to such men for the conquest of the woes and the lightening of the burdens of human life. "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife," with hardly a thought of material rewards for themselves, they quietly pursue their quests. Only at intervals does the world hear of them, as when they bestow some gift on their fellow-beings which makes all men their debtors. One is to be recognized at Harvard for his work with infectious diseases, another for his studies of the child mind, a third for his research in cugenics. There are biologists and economists in the list.

The whole concept of this celebration appeals powerfully to the imagination of all who have any vision of what ought to be. The university will put on a splendid pageant in the Harvard yard and results of permanent value for the world should accrue from the collateral conferences. Indeed, the tercentenary promises to occasion one of the most distinguished gatherings in American history. --Boston Herald