In its peculiar conglomeration of civilians and servicemen, Harvard has lost much that made it the Harvard of peace-time; traditions and practices have succumbed is the axe of Mars not only in University Hall, but on Mt. Auburn and Plympton and Holyoks Streets.
Perhaps the best signpost to the trend of the times is the plight of Pudding, now the Hasty Pudding Service Club, for the use of officers stationed here. Then there's the Yard, with a play-pen for officers' kiddies next to Hollis Hall, and civilians seance as hen's teeth among the ancient elms.
Service Schools
The roster of the service schools now includes some three all-Navy schools, four Army schools, and two Army-Navy groups, with one more Army group coming in the fall. They include everything from Apprentice Seamen in the V-12 unit to high ranking Army officers in Overseas Administration ration. And then there are two branch units in Harvard's neighboring girl schools; Radcliffe with its well-established contingent of WAVES and Wellesley, with a group of overflow students from the Navy Supply Corps due to disembark on the Wellesley hills in October.
The Navy holds the edge in numbers. Its three huge units and affiliates total almost 4000 men and women, while the smaller and more varied Army schools run to well over a thousand men.
Civilians
The civilians look a bit puny beside the hordes of servicemen but are attempting valiantly to hold their own with 1000 undergraduates and a fluctuating contingent of grad students running at present at about 700. College activities have naturally taken a nosedive, but since the Guardian folded last spring, only the Advocate has passed away.
Dying Mother Advocate is really only going into suspended animation. Its last issue for the duration comes out this summer, probably within a fortnight. That other so-called publication, the Lampoon, is still going along at its usual pace and has three issues a term of the publication schedule.
The Network is under some handicaps mainly a greatly reduced audience, but the airwaves still hum with "Swing Out" and "Shangri-la." The Student Council and PBH, of courses, stand like arm rocks in the heaving sea; but a student council meeting today looks more like a civilian Navy parley as V-12 and NROTC men fill many seats.
Activities, etc.
Looking just about as active as it ever did is the Post-War Council. It has held one forum with Senator Pepper on the rostrum, and is planning several others, one for this week. Meanwhile, the language clubs have been going along pretty well; a new French club may be formed as a revolt against the exclusive, strictly French-speaking Cercle Francais.
Small, but not lost, the four-columns of twice-weekly SERVICE NEWS are fighting to fill the bigger shoes of the Crimson. This is its first extra. The paper has a strange audience, varied and separated, so that a lot of changes are in evidence in its pages.
"Hardest hit" are the clubs and societies. They have extra space and war time Cambridge needs it. Besides Pudtling, Delphic and Speakers are giving up their rooms to officers, Signet Society is closed, and not a restaurant is still open. Elections are still going, but closure looks likely for the handful of "exclusive" organizations still running.
More Service Schools
And still there are all those service schools. They work hard. But they play hard, too. The biggest, and one of the oldest, the Navy Supply Corps School is also the most conglomerate. Under its broad wing it harbors its Senior and Junior classes, a group of ex-Midshipmen, recently commissioned, some regular Midshipman, an embryo Wellesley branch, and 104 WAVES.
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