(This is the third of a series of editorials in which the CRIMSON is undertaking an examination of undergraduate life at Harvard. The series will lay special emphasis on the effect of the academic and social organization of the College on the individual student. Early editorials in the series will attempt to reveal the situation as it exists, not to reach conclusions or to recommend changes. Later editorials will view the picture as a whole and take a definite stand on problems that have been raised.)

During a Freshman's first few days in Cambridge, one of the less memorable events of his academic career takes place. He and his "adviser" solemnly devote fifteen minutes to laying out an academic program, a process which is likely to consist of two sets of cordial handshakes sandwiching a signature.

The effect of this casual meeting is powerful. The Freshman receives, in his first personal contact with the Administration, the sharp impression that his life in Cambridge will be planned and executed entirely on his own initiative, guided by nothing but his instinct. That vague thing he knows only as "Harvard", he realizes, does not much care what courses he takes, what field he concentrates in, or what he does in his spare time, so long as he fulfills the provisions of the Rules and Regulations. He understands, furthermore, that his adviser is nothing more than a personification of those rules and regulations, and is not at all to be considered a source of advice.

The Victim

The Freshman thus becomes the embryo of that self-reliant "individual" typical of Harvard student bodies. Not until his Sophomore or Junior year will be realize that he has also become a victim of advisory indifference. Then, if he is like the many upperclassmen now in the University, he will regret having taken, or not having taken, certain courses during his Freshman year. He will wish that somebody had told him that all University regulations are flexible, and that there had been no need for him to wallow exclusively in Freshman courses for a year. He will feel that intelligent guidance might have helped him to find a niche in the extracurricular work much earlier than did his own trial and error probings.

This is not to say that advisory indifference effects all undergraduates equally. The adviser's sink or swim attitude goes to work on a group that is severely split before it ever arrives in Cambridge. The need of a Massachusetts prop school graduate for a capable adviser will not parallel the need of a student from a small town in Kansas. The prep school product is likely to have a friend or a brother already at Harvard with whom he can consult on academic and other activities. The midwesterner will probably be entering a new and alien society, without personal contacts or previous experience to aid him in adjusting. The impact of an impersonal adviser on these two men will have widely divergent results and importance.

The Exception

No less than it depends upon the needs of the individual student, the effect of the Freshman adviser system rests on the individual adviser. Some of the present 111 advisers have been little short of inspirational. These men have fully utilized the material provided by the Freshman Dean's office--material that includes all the information concerning the student that was available to the Board of Admissions, as well as placement grades and a confidential parental letter. These advisers do not necessarily pamper or subdue the individual. Rather do they help him to adapt his individuality to his college with a minimum of friction, a minimum of mistakes. They stand as interpreters of the University, not as mere representatives of its rule books. When a Freshman arrives full of eagerness to plunge into his field of concentration, such an adviser shows him the pitfalls of a narrow first year curriculum. When a Freshman is doubtful of the line his college career will take, this adviser attempts to aid him, to guide him, to keep him from wasting precious months and precious courses heading up a dead-end program.

If this adviser represents an ideal, he also represents a small minority--a minority that is not likely to increase in size. Freshman advising will remain a casual business as long as Harvard remains a university college, as long as the majority of advisers are more concerned with their own research, their own teaching, and their own academic futures than with the fate of their advisees. It will continue to take the College's raw material--and the split, the schizophrenia, the polar extremes inherent in that raw material--and turn it back on its own unequal resources for the important work of planning a Freshman year in college.