Edward Stevens was the new crew coach, and for the first time lectures would be added to English A "to give freshman a broader outlook and stimulate their thought and ability to write on vital topics." There was also talk of extending tutorial to all departments.
The sophomore felt that now he was a part of the college. He could try out for the Glee Club, the Lampoon, or the CRIMSON, and many found berths on varsity teams. But the second year at Harvard also brought with it new responsibilities. The Class of '26 remembered their own first item difficulties and formed a Freshman Information Service which spent the first few weeks of the year giving help and advice to the Class of '27.
During the early part of the term the main topic of conversation around the Memorial Hall dining room was the situation down at Yale. President Angell had greeted the incoming freshmen with the dictum that either they observed prohibition or face dismissal. "The University will not permit dissipation. No man can come to any great success at Yale who is known to be a dissipated man." The Class of '26 also found that its sophomore compatriots had been forced to sign a pledge swearing they would never take part in a riot. It's good to be at an emancipated institution, the Harvard man thought, as he tried his best to sympathize with the Yalies.
In October, Lampy shocked the College by inaugurating a clean humor policy--"To say that the Lampoon is about to reform is not quite the story," President F.H. Nichols said, "for I think that the Lampoon has always been the cleanest of college comics; there have been, however, occasional lapses when it has strayed after false gods. In the future we shall endeavor to eliminate these periodical lapses." The Lampoon wasn't the only College publication to make innovations. The Advocate began livening up its issues "to rid itself of the stigma of being merely 'academic' or 'precious.'"
Up until the Yale game the 1923 football season was more than successful. After a 16-0 defeat at the hands of Dartmouth (bemoaned in those days as the "worst game since 1907"), the team had been playing inspired and winning ball. It was in the peak of condition to meet the Blue on Soldiers Field. But hard-plunging Yale backs gave the visitors a 13-0 win in a driving rain. Hopelessly cheering until the last play, the man of '26 lighted up a Melachrino, took another nip at his pocket flask, snuggled a little deeper into his raccoon coat, and brought his date into Boston to see the smash hit of the day, Mr. John Galsworthy's "Loyalties."
Monkeys and the Klan
For some time the biggest college news had been the publication of President-emeritus Eliot's new book "Harvard Memories," a new Radcliffe administration, and a monkey who had escaped from Anthrop House. Life was getting pretty dull for the Harvard man, until one day he picked up his morning CRIMSON and read "Ku Klux Klan at Harvard--Awaits moment to strike. 'We may be inactive, but our influence is felt' are the Leader's ominous words." The undergraduate began looking over his shoulder to see if he were being followed. President Lowell rose in wrath to expose the miscreants and stamp out any trace of the Klan at Harvard.
The forces of evil made a fast exit, and the college settled down to unveil a memorial plaque to Theodore Roosevelt. A field of concentration poll was taken, and English Literature came out on top as Harvard's most popular subject.
"Can you propose without being accepted. How to propose realistically and how to keep their acceptances and refusals in accord with your whims--immediate and future--Is the crux of the perfect line." Or so said "Vanity Fair," a magazine which was avid reading material for the Class of '26. Other literati were getting free seats to "Oedipus Rex" at the Opera House by being part of a Theban mob which ran up and down the theatre during one scene. "I think that Harvard students make a very creditable mob..." the show's director said.
Polls, Polls, Polls
Later in the fall, the University anticipated the Social Relations department by requiring students to fill out a questionnaire which asked "Have you ever felt mental telepathy?" There were no figures released on who were the lucky few who had. Polls, polls, and more polls, the undergraduate griped as he filled out another on prohibition. Harvard's sympathies evidently didn't lie with the government, and the wets won a decisive victory.
Now well indoctrinated into the ways of Harvard politics, the Class of '26 held elections early in December. Nathaniel S. Howe was Class President; Frederick S. Moseley Vice-president; Everett W. Martin Secretary-Treasurer, and William C. Ladd Student Council Member.
After vacation the college came back to find that some enterprising Harvard Square proprietors were campaigning for elimination of the Subway Kiosk. But when the business men discovered that having to walk from Central Square would drive away customers, the razing program went up in smoke.
Exams were here again, and Scotch comic Harry Lauder came to cheer up the University. But an ominous warning from the faculty that any "intellectual bootlegging" of lecture notes would be prosecuted, lent a sobering note to the proceedings, as the men of '26 sat down to spend the next two weeks writing in blue books. Widow Nolan's tutoring school did a flourishing business, and a New York firm succeeded in smuggling printed lecture notes into the College past the watchful eyes of the deans. But the ordeal soon passed, and the Class of '26 could breath easily for the next four months.
A summary of the doings, fads, and problems of the Class of 1926 during its four years at Harvard will be continued in the next two issues of the special Class of '26 papers.