Between leaving Harvard in 1890 with his crisp new diploma and returning a little more than a quarter century later to establish a highly efficient purchasing office in place of a mess of independent budgeteers, William G. Morse tried his hand at a hundred different jobs. One-time chauffeur, salesman, laborer, riveter, puncher, fitter, inspector, gang boss, foreman, grain merchant, retailer, jobber, manufacturer--he has the broad knowledge of buying, selling, testing, and using, needed to handle wisely the spending of millions of dollars on items ranging from bottled stallion urine to Business School dormitories.

The parts of Morse's autobiography dealing with his varied career and his later struggle with eccentric professors make fascinating reading for undergraduates. Dignified Professor Pound putting buckets under leaks in the Law Library roof and spending the repair money on more books, President Lowell deciding that the non-upholstered armchair for the College dorms should be designed to be comfortable with your feet on the table, and College dietitians deliberately planning extra good meals in the fall to make easier the transfer from home cooking and then in the spring again bettering the menus to meet the expected undergraduate protests about board--these are but a few of the additions Mr. Morse has made to Harvard folklore. The quarter of the book which deals with the younger Morse's however, will interest only the persons concerned.

Straightforwardly though not brilliantly written, the volume is a bit of Harvardiana which well repays undergraduate browsing. Even the Ivory Tower, needs some one to get the coal for winter and watch over the plumbing installation.