Long heralded in dental circles, the opening of the new Harvard School of Dental Medicine was announced yesterday by Leroy M. S. Miner, Dean of the Dental School. The first class, largely experimental in nature, consists of nine carefully selected students from widely separated parts of the country.

The new school, made possible by an endowment of $1,500,000 mainly derived from gifts of the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Markle Foundations, will replace the present Dental School. The latter, however, will continue to exist until the present second year class is graduated.

Occupying a total of five years, the new course will integrate medical and dental training and lead to both the M.D. and D.M.D. degrees. The opening, according to Dean Miner, "marks the beginning of an important experiment in American dental education. The student will receive the basic training in medicine required of all physicians without sacrificing the essential training in the restorative and reparative techniques of dentistry.

The Faculty of the new school will be composed, in addition to Charles S. Burwell, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, of 13 men who are now serving the Harvard Dental School with distinction, and three men who have been called from the outside to work in the development of the new program.

Two new laboratories, one of Dental Medicine and the other of Oral Pathology, will act as centers for Faculty and undergraduate research.