The future of James Bryant Conant on the national scene is promising but as yet uncertain. It is certain that the next months will find a world figure occupied with what might seem to be the relatively prosaic duties of running Harvard University. But the drama of the local situation must not be minimized because of the smaller stage. Though there are many extenuating circumstances, Harvard finds itself in 1946 at the same cross-roads that provided an opportunity for a new President to strike out in a new direction in 1933. Thirteen years ago it was felt that Conant's ideas of "social mobility," implemented by the National Scholarships, would give the University a greater cross-section of the nation's promising young men. It has achieved this in a geographical sense but financial balance in the undergraduate body has not been given the same attention. The full weight of any new liberal influence has not been exerted on the University; at least it has left few signs that could be interpreted as the workings of a new and youthful hand.

The circumstances of the past thirteen years all point to the fact that this unmarked slate is not the result of lack of direction from Massachusetts Hall. Thirteen years is only a fraction of the time required by the slow maturing process of a Harvard administration. Five of those years were war years; the chief policy-maker was in the active service of his country. To expect any great change in the workings of the University after only eight years of normal educational activity is to demand precocity of the administration, and precocity is traditionally suspect at Harvard. Whatever evidence there may be of a "tired" faculty at Harvard today can be traced to its decline from the heights in the last years before Conant.

But evidences of continued decline exist and are of great concern to those who feel the absence of the traditional Harvard leadership. Perhaps the faculty has been enervated by the war. Whatever the reason, Harvard has lost pre-eminence in many of the departments of the Humanities. The very base of the individuality of the University, the tutorial system, is threatened; new concepts of the old truism, intellectual balance within the student body, spread doubt that a worthy theory will be applied. The faculty may already be committed to the General Education Plan, but the undergraduate body stands at the shore, doubtful that the ice is strong.

These are the problems facing President Conant as he returns to fulltime duty. If their solution is to be part of an active liberal tradition, the President must turn to intimate and personal contact with the inner workings of the college. To allow policy to stem from intermediate and lesser sources is to give the lie to the prophecy that the next years will be the years of "Conant's Harvard," much as the College of the beginning of the century was "Eliot's Harvard," and "the Great Harvard." It is not a matter of imposing the will of the President on the so-called "intellectual freedom" of the University, but more an application of what may be an outstanding educational philosophy to the dilemmas of the current crisis. It is generally acknowledged that only departure from orthodoxy will lure to Harvard the intellectual wealth that is being attracted elsewhere. Equally great is the need for a strong hand to prevent the College from veering off on tangents that may lead to even greater difficulties.

It is time to turn to the job at hand. The next years contain the answer to where Harvard, under Conant, is going. As the President returns from his greatest successes, he enters a phase of great trial, with the prime position of Harvard as well as his own future at stake. For a foundering Harvard will carry down with it the fate of those at the helm.