The work of the University's largest organization continued to spread as its members (800 last year) found more and more ways of helping students and people. A ticket agency operates to save undergraduates time and expense in reserving seats for plays and shows in Boston theatres. A speakers group was formed to recruit entertainers and speakers to lecture and perform, free of charge, for the experience, to any group that wanted them.
An undergraduate Faculty tutors any child who has trouble with his arithmetic or French. One group collected a ton and a half of used clothes to send to Europe last year. Another found Thanks giving dinners for almost fifty needy Boston families.
The war opened even more opportunities. Blood was needed, and PBH has been making and breaking records every year since, topping off all records with this year's total. The Contact Committee, which operated during the war has just revived. Through it, University men in the service are told of other University men in their camp. They can find the addresses of men they knew as students and they can send a friend a letter through PBH which will forward mail to a serviceman anywhere in the world. The committee also notifies Harvard Clubs throughout the country of an ex-student in the armed forces stationed nearby.
Stillman Visitors
A group called the Special Events Committee runs the annual tea dances that gives anyone who has a mind for that sort of thing a chance to look over the new crop at Radcliffe in an atmosphere more relaxed that that of the 'Cliffe's jollyups. A Hospital Visiting Committee makes daily trips to Stillman to carry mail, assignments, books, and stationery for bedded students.
The tutors who travel into Boston every week find that the work helps them as much as it does the kids. Many plan to be teachers later in life, and say that this type of work is the best experience they could have.
They also find startling things about the condition of public education in Boston. Primarily, their job is to help the kids who are having trouble with certain studies in school. One tutor reported that his charge was "intelligent, but up against the abominable educational system of Boston Latin School--a system that has not changed since the 17th century. Unfortunately," he adds, "one cannot fight a reactionary system, but one can help its less fortunate victims."
Another of the "undergraduate faculty" said his tutee's school teacher was of the "work-it-out-yourself" system, and refused to help his students.
But by far the most important, and for all concerned, the most satisfying, of PBH's activities is the work it does with local wails in the settlement houses. Besides the tutoring, parties, coaching, and civilizing, PBH recently began another operation in its healthy-minds-inhealthy-bodies program.
One-Third III
Third-year students from the medical school, part of that school's PBH committee (The Law School has one, too) made up a traveling clinic that tours the settlement houses for periodic check-ups on the kids. The plan was launched in the fall of 1950. By Christmas, the would-be-doctors will have visited 14 settlement houses. The examinations are completely advisory in nature, but so far have disclosed that 30 percent of those examined had something physically wrong with them that needed, and consequently got, the attention of a doctor.
The Harvard students who worked with them, in their reports, say the kids have a genuine affection for them and the system. The house in Roxbury is not big enough nor the leaders numerous enough to take care of the crowd, says one leader. Another claims his group is the only one in the neighborhood that has not caused any trouble.
Phillips Brooks may not have realized when he started the idea of service that it would take this turn, for PBH has changed from the days of its conception. It will probably change many more times in the years to come.