Dean Bender, writing in the Alumni Bulletin, confessed that he was disturbed about his 3500 veterans. Too may of them, he said, were digging "academic foxholes." Dean Bender underlined the existence of two levels on which the undergraduate operates: on one he is the pure individual, plowing alone through the work laid out for him on his study card; he is, on this level, the only individual that matters. On the other level he is an individual in society: one of two, or three, or four roommates, one of three hundred members of a house; one of 5500 undergraduates.

The Freshman finds, when the shock of the initial weeks has worn off, that the college is a group community. He sees his companions, faces that have already become familiar to him, eating together in the Union, going to the movie in rapidly solidifying groups. In every place that the rude alphabetical democracy of the classroom does not apply this breakdown evolves. Later in the year it is a matter of applying for Houses, and the yard roommate pattern is altered.

The Background

It places the Freshman to believe that he has acted as a free agent in picking as his House roommates the people he like the best. He is apt to believe he has chosen of his own volition those who will be his closest associates throughout his college career. This is true, but in a much more limited sense than our Freshman would like to believe. The major group outlines are already formed; they were formed, as a matter of fact, before he ever stepped off the subway in Harvard Square.

Family background, in the very broadest sense of the word, shaped his first year hear. This, in combination with his section of the country, his type of community, his school, and myriad other factors made it inevitable that these fellow classmen, rather than those, should be his companions. During his upper class years the undergraduate may broaden his field of friends, or he may narrow it-this is up to the individual.

The Problem

For the slow to integrate, or the misfit, the years are torture. He is acutely aware of his difficulties, and he seeks desperately to get "in" with groups he knows. He watches the club group; he finds out he is excluded if he does not meet certain restrictive standards. He watches the publications group; unless he has certain peculiar talents he cannot gain entry there. He may abhor politics, social work, card playing, or drinking; these groups are therefore out. The terms of the search should not be put too baldly, but it goes on nevertheless. Success equates with satisfaction, failure with unhappiness. Very few are strong enough to go the whole way alone.

The eternal search, however, is for security and exclusiveness. He looks for these qualities in a group. Neither the House, grown very far from the dreams of President Lowell, nor the class, far from the hopes for the Alumni Association, provides a coalescing force. The individual must, therefore, find a group outside these mechanical divisions which will assure him against "outsiders" intrusions and at the same time give him a sense of belonging to an "exclusive" set.

The well-rounded man is not a mere product of the classroom, no matter how excellent the instruction. The man who has found a niche in the social structure finds Harvard a worthwhile place. The man who has to is a man for Dean Bender to worry about.