One thin dime and one subway stop away from the Yard, the 13-year-old Cambridge Police Station is as sensitive to Veritas vibrations as University Hall itself. Situated within whistle-distance of Central Square, the triangular four-story building is home base for a force that has worked hand and stick with the University Police since 1846 maintaining a Widener-like order throughout the College. With a reputation for knowing the student better than does his dean, the 214-man force keeps its headquarters informed on everything from Mt. Auburn pinball machines to Boylston Street bookstalls, and not even the Radcliffe dorms are beneath its notice.

Originally chopped into four precincts with a separate staff for each, the Cambridge police were consolidated in 1934 with the erection of the present Station. Now completely modernized and operating on the latest FBI syllabus, the Station takes advantage of its proximity to the University by enlisting local talent in many of its classes. The Police Training Center, for example, has just wound up a course in Inter-Racial Relations with Gordon Allport showing the policemen the sociological ropes. This is probably the first time a Harvard professor has been a visiting lecturer at a police station.

With the exception of a slight fracas in 1926, the Station's relations with Harvard students have been calm enough to make the "rowdy undergraduate" stereotype seem fictitious. The one irregular episode occurred when the U.T. was first opened and students, perhaps to intimidate the unfamiliar apparitions, heaved over-ripe vegetables at the screen. Police were quickly summoned and a few heads were dented. But since that time, all patrolmen assigned to the College have been carefully chosen and no major incidents have developed. Furthermore, by keeping in close touch with University officials, the police have managed to apprehend any trouble well in advance of II-hour.

Always ready for such extra-curricular activities as football games and Commencement exercises, the Station throws extra men into the breach whenever the need arises. During Churchill's visit in the summer of 1943, all the men not on duty were placed at strategic spots along the line of march, while plainclothesmen infiltrated throughout the Yard. Police strength was increased two-thirds during the last Yale game, but here attention was directed more to stray pocketbooks than missing goalposts. The Force considers gridiron shenanigans with little concern but any attempt at dynamiting Soldiers Field is regarded as carrying seasonal jocularity too far.

With the addition of patrol cars and two-way radios, the policeman's job is becoming more and more a profession, the role of the Police Station more and more pervasive. But despite the record Harvard enrollment, student brushes with the Law have remained at a pre-war minimum and as far as duty around the Yard is concerned, W. S. Gilbert was all wrong. The policeman's lot is getting better all the time.