"I think we had better pause for a few minutes and ask Mr. Eliot to draft a resolution."

Others must have noticed Eliot too, for he was named to the Board of Overseers, and then as the 22nd (if Headmaster Nathaniel Eaton is considered first) president of Harvard, succeeding Thomas Hill (1862-68.)

The circumstances relating to his actual selection are unique, although shaded with sorrow. On March 10, 1869, Eliot was attending a routine Board of Overseer's meeting. His thoughts were interpreted by James: "At home his wife's fatal illness was drawing to a close ... She had been the romance of his life. The future without her must have looked like an empty loneliness."

At this point, however, Rev. George Putnam, a member of the Corporation interrupted the meeting, and taking Eliot outside, told him he had been offered the nomination to succeed Hill.

University Expanded

Eliot consulted Walker and others before finally deciding, and told his wife of the honor bestowed upon him shortly before the died.

Eliot served for precisely 40 years, continually displaying the administrative talents which won him early notice. In his own report of the major points of his administration, he included reorganization of the Medical, Law, and Divinity schools, establishment of a Board of Preachers, perfection of the elective system, unification of the University and College, improvement in the faculty, and increase in endowment.

Nevertheless, while Eliot was thus expanding and improving the University, some thought the College was being neglected. It was a brilliant young lawyer, lecturer here and writer about government, who realized and attempted to remedy this weakness.

Globe Predicts Head

A. Lawrence Lowell, according to his biographer, Henry Aaron Yeomans '00, "Thrust himself forward because he realized that a man who aspires to leadership must show his capacity to lead." And although Eliot supported Jerome D. Greene '96, secretary to the Corporation to succeed him, Lowell's "character, talents, background, and activity in the University" brought him the presidency.

There was greater controversy when Lowell resigned in 1933, However. As early as 1926, the Boston Globe listed the following criteria for his successor taken from S. Baldwin's "The Next President of Harvard".

He must be a man "Intellectually safe and financially capable," a Harvard graduate, socially Presentable, between 30 and 40, probably Protestant, and leaning to Republican views.

The Globe went on to list several possibilities including Clarence Cook Little '10, then president of the University of Michigan, and E. A. Whitney '17, and assistant professer who was said to have gained prominence as all undergraduate by becoming president of the CRIMSON.

Murdock Favored

The Globe also realized the need for an alumni leader. It added; "Besides being a facile talker before Harvard Clubs (he must command) the confidence of the men who have the money. A well-spoken speech may not only ten where a word in the right ear will not a hundred thousand and dollars of a new gymnasium."