(Miss Rand wrote this article in the Crimson office last night).

I sat on his lap in '29. It was-a-cold, hard, uncompromising lap; that, of course, was because he was a statue. He was ascetic John Harvard. He founded Harvard College.

I knew a fellow who went to Harvard--everybody knows a fellow who went to Harvard. That's how I happened to be sitting on John Harvard's lap, and that's because no one ever really sits on a Harvard man's lap. I found that out some years later when I attended a Harvard CRIMSON dance. Harvard men don't give you time to sit on their laps.

Harvard Lecture

Then there was the time I lectured at Harvard. I was invited that time. I spoke on the subject of "How to be Intelligent Though Educated." They came to scoff, but they stayed to ... ask for my autograph anyway. It was the custom in that era for lady lecturers to have question and answer periods. So I had one too. What did they ask me?... for my telephone number, which shows that they were intelligent if not educated (what am I saying?).

But hold, I was invited back again. That's really the proof of being a wanted guest, only this time I decided not to lecture. I thought it would be fun just to have a conversation with a Harvard boy or boys. It was. Then I decided it would be fun to dance a Viennese waltz with one of them. Intrepid, he arrived on the stage first. That was understandable. He was six foot eight or so, and simply strode over the heads of the others. We waltzed I, being five feet tall in my high heels, literally didn't touch the floor. The boys were delighted. Then they snug to me.

Last Fair Harvard

I'd been giggling and having fun, and so had they. And then their voices rose in "Fair Harvard". There were a thousand of them or more. Pink faces, a sea of them...and young. Their voices rose in unison. I thought of thousands of other young faces in Europe's war (we weren't in It then) whose voices weren't raised in song. Whose voices would never be raised in song again.

All right, so I'm a ninny ... I think I have never been so moved... I didn't say anything then. I couldn't explain it to them. Even if I could, it would have embarrassed them, anyway I had a lump in my throat. They took me home. We talked, we laughed.

"Goodbye, thank you. I had a wonderful time."

But I never forgot. They sang "Fair Harvard" to me. Some of them will never sing any more. But I'll remember.