A dinner in Dunster House at 7 p.m. tonight will mark the 300th anniversary of the Harvard Corporation, the oldest corporation in the Western hemisphere. This group--composed of the President and six Fellows of Harvard College--acts University policy in almost every matter of importance.

Meeting twice monthly, the Corporation listens to specific University problems that have been thought out previously by the faculty and alumni. The Fellows do not generate many ideas but, like the aboard of directors of a business firm, they decide what proposals to accept. The agenda at Corporation meetings is crowded: the group not only discusses into major policy questions but also approves all University appointments and goes deeply into minor Harvard problems, such as a visiting lecturer's salary.

Decisions of the President and Fellows on important educational policy, on all appointments for more than a year, and on the awarding of degrees also need the approval of a separate group, the 30-man Board of Overseers, before they are final. The Overseers--who at present include scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer '28, author John Mason Brown '23, and journalist John Cowles '21--are elected by the University alumni--five each year for six-year terms. In actual practice the Overseers at their monthly meetings almost invariably approve Corporation's decisions.

Although President Conant's selection in 1933 as the new head of the University to succeed Lowell was announced a month before the Overseers were to meet to confirm the appointment, today very few decisions are publicized until the Overseers give their formal approval.

Overseers Retain Control

The financial affairs of the University are closely directed by the President and Fellows, and one of the members of the Corporation is Treasurer Paul C. Cabot '21. The Overseers retain final control in this matter through their annual approval of the Treasurer's Report and through an Overseers Committee on Administration and Accounts.

300 years ago this month Harvard received the first corporate charter conferred in the colonies. The Corporation today is a similar group of seven men, including the president and treasurer exofficio, as the original charter specified. The anniversary dinner is being held in Dunster House in recognition of Harvard's first president, Henry Dunster, who led the work that brought about the incorporation.

The Board of Overseers had run the College in the period prior to 1650, but the first Corporation, made up of Dunster and six young teachers, assumed almost at once the operation of the College. The Harvard Corporation was the predecessor of many later educational and business groups, but its executive set-up has seldom been copied.

Many have said that on paper it doesn't seem possible for the Corporation to operate efficiently, if at all. Its double-board arrangement--with a Board of Overseers in addition to seven men on the Corporation trying to act as a single executive--has been duplicated only at Bowdoin.

Conflicts Take Place

Conflicts did occur between the Overseers and the President and Fellows, but during the 18th Century non-teachers entered the Corporation and asserted its right to lead the University. The more-mature Overseers had previously dominated at times the young teachers who had served as Fellows.

In the early 19th Century the University pioneered the idea of a lay board of trustees directing a university, for few teachers reached the Corporation after 1800.

From the start the Corporation had been a self-perpetuating body, the group electing its new members with the approval of the Overseers. This fact has tended to maintain the same philosophy of education in the leaders of Harvard for generations. Under the Corporation's leadership, there have been few revolutionary changes in the University, but rather slow and steady growth.

The Corporation dominated several of the weak presidents of the first half of the 19th Century. Corporation meetings are completely secret, but the indications are that today the Corporation follows the president's lead most of the time. This has been the result of the lengthy reigns of two very strong presidents, Eliot and Lowell.

Conservative in investment, educational, and political matters, the Corporation through the years has stood out consistently in favor of academic freedom. Public pressure against men like Harold Laski and Charles Eliot Norton has been great, but the Corporation has backed the idea of free expression and inquiry.