NEW HAVEN, Conn., Nov. 21--President Nathan M. Pusey called for all American colleges to cooperate in the battle against "profitless attacks" on education by "people professing one purpose yet finding it convenient to follow another," in a speech here today. Pusey's address followed, a ceremony in which Yale presented him with his first honorary degree since his inauguration.

Pusey spoke before 2,500 Harvard and Yale administrators, faculty members, and students, assembled in Woolsey Hall for presentation of the honorary doctorate of laws to him by Yale President A. Whitney Griswold, in the special morning ceremony.

Pusey declared that the country's colleges and universities are faced with "one common undertaking--to try to make and keep our national life reasonable." He continued: "Our numbers are legion; we are stronger than we know. All we need is a sense of unity."

Devotion to Truth

He described the "fellowship of educated men" as "perhaps the most important asset we have in the United States," and asserted that there is need to reestablish the assurance that college communities develop "a deep and binding devotion to truth."

With such cooperation, symbolized by the degree, Pusey concluded that Harvard and Yale will continue to lead the search for "ascendancy of mind and peace of spirit for which they have so long stood."

Pusey was presented for the degree by the Rt. Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill, presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who praised him as "cool-headed in opposing those who would destroy the teacher's calling."

"We have seen in Russia and in Germany that what has happened to learning when these enemies of freedom have had their way, and we are determined that they shall not have their way here. We welcome you not only as a friend, but as an ally," Sherrill concluded.

Processional Opens Ceremony

Following Sherrill's presentation, Griswold made the formal conferral of the degree, investing Pusey with the purple hood of the degree. The award was the first made by Yale in recent years outside of Commencement.