Perhaps President Conant expressed it best when he told last June's graduating class, "For the present, events have proven the pessimistic conservatives more accurate prophets than the optimistic liberals." Indeed, events of the last few weeks have gone right on backing the "pessimistic conservatives" up, and if there is hope for the rest of us, it appears a shadowy horizon at best--for the present.

For the apprehensive entering student this is the real Commencement. But it is not an auspicious beginning at all. At the least, the new Harvard man must wonder and worry about what his venture into highest education will-bring him. After all, learning and frustration often cross. At the same time, he is terribly aware that his future depends on the unpredictable actions of Major General Hershey and Congressman Vinson of Georgia and, of course, Premier Joseph Stalin. No, this is not a beginning to crow about, hardly a start to the supposedly leisurely, satisfying process of learning.

All right, say it is a poor start. Say further, if you will, that the twentieth century has become a horror. Agreed that the "Age of Longing," the age of the Cold War and all that that phrase connotes is hardly an age worth living in, let alone preparing for by the hard study and effort.

Then, we believe, you would be wrong. If the pessimists are correct at the moment, so is the broken clock right twice each day. Proving the clock broken is only a matter of time, and some patience. The dead watches, or the dead minds cannot be allowed to rule merely because no one will stand up and argue.

As a matter of fact Harvard offers you less of a welcome than a challenge anyway. It greets you with its great libraries and sharp-headed teachers first, offering you the knowledge of its snow-covered Yard and its view of the River in spring a little later. In a world of unknowns, however, these few "givens" should be more than enough.

Welcome to Harvard.

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