Charles H. McIlwain, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in American History in 1924, has been appointed to the George Eastman Visiting Professorship at Oxford University, it was announced Tuesday. He will probably leave within the next two weeks, although the exact date of his departure is unknown. McIlwain's specific functions at Oxford have not yet been revealed to him.

The professorship McIlwain is to fill has been vacant since 1940, when it was suspended because of the war. Dr. Frank Aydelotte, President of the American Association of Rhodes Scholars, reports that the work in being resumed at the request of Oxford authorities.

After graduating from Princeton in 1894, and taking a master's degree at Harvard in 1903, McIlwain taught at Princeton and elsewhere. He came to Harvard as Assistant Professor of History and Government in 1911, and reached the full professorship in 1916; he has held the Eaton chair since 1927.

McIlwain's best known books are "The American Revolution; a Constitutional Interpretation," "Constitutionalism, Ancient and Modern," "Constitutionalism and the Changing World," "The Growth of Political Thought in the West from the Greeks to the End of the Middle Ages," and "The High Court of Parliament and Its Supremacy." In addition, he is the author of many articles and pamphlets.

Government 6, the History of Political Theory, which McIlwain was scheduled to give this spring, will be given by Professor Carl J. Friedrich.