Harvard's watchdog is the alumni elected Board of Overseers. Overseer visiting committees are the only outside groups that regularly inspect all sections of the University. Whenever a serious protest arise, over the de-emphasis of Geography for example, it is the Board of Overseers that investigation.

They are 30 very distinguished and diverse watchdogs, including the chairman of the board of J.P. Murgan, the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, and the man who supervised the making of the first atomic bomb.

Of course, the Overseers are more than investigators, for they stand at the top of the entire University administration, having the final decision on all "major policies" and all permanent appointments. But the watchdog role remains the Overseers' greatest contribution. The Board carefully considers the appointments and policies put before it, but it invariably approves the proposals.

On the other hand, and Overseers' report on one of their annual inspections can do much constructively. In its 1949 report on the Department of English, the visiting committee called for two professorships for teachers of writing. The report hit the past over-emphasis on scholarship in the department and said that since tutorial was inadequate, professors were needed who were "primarily" teachers. In its discussion, the committee criticized professors who hoped General Education would die out rapidly and reported there were a number of faculty members who felt that way.

In addition to criticizing, the Board serves as a "bridge between the teachers and the layman." Professors sum up their work and report on departmental progress in their annual meetings with the visiting committee. The committee membership, besides several Overseers, includes other persons interested or qualified in the specialty. With almost 50 of these groups, no section of the University escapes outside interest and assistance.

Departments 'Mislead' Overseers

Times arise, however, when the departments seem to lose interest in the Overseers. Author Walter D. Edmonds '26, a former Overseer, recalls with amusement frustrating attempts to hear several English professors. Warren House sent him to the wrong room, to classes that weren't meeting that day and finally to courses that were having guest lecturers. Edmonds was told a certain professor was in Washington, only to see him an hour later on the steps of Sever. "It is much easier," Edmonds concludes, "if you offer to lecture in place of the professor, since he is then certain to be there."

Overseers could teach in quite a variety of fields; the present board includes six manufacturers, four writers or editors, four lawyers, four doctors, four teachers, and three bankers.

Only One Lived in a House

None of the Overseers is too familiar with the present University from the students' viewpoint. The most recent alumnus on the Board--the only one ever to live in one of the seven Houses--is Dr. W. Barry Wood, Jr. '32, a Crimson football great. The oldest graduate on the Overseers is the retired director of the Fogg Mucsum, Edward W. Forbes '95.

Some members of the Board may hear about student life from their sons in College, and all of them visited the Houses for lunch last May, but the Overseers are more interested in the formal scholastic side of the University.

Aside from reports, the work that takes the most time at the seven annual meetings is the approval of all permanent appointments and those temporary ones of more than one year. Overseers are anxious to make clear that they are no rubber-stamp, but only four men have been turned down in the last 100 years.

President Eliot was one of these four; the first time he was suggested the Board sent his name back to the Corporation, the other governing board, because of his youth. When the Corporation ones again supported Eliot, he was finally approved.

Another one of the four rejections led to the Overseers' present composition. From the Board's founding in 1637 until the middle of the 19th century, the government of Massachusetts had placed a great many representatives on the Overseers. But in 1851 the controversial appointment of Francis Bowen as a history professor was rejected by a straight party vote.

Prior to the ballot, the press had attacked Bowen strenuously because of his unfriendliness to the Hungarian independence movement. He had written articles attacking Kossuth and saying that an independent Hungary would oppress 5,00,000 other people in south-eastern Europe.