Policy Changes

The magazine's policy began to change, however, when John D. Merrill '89 took over its editorship in 1903. To be sure, there was still a preponderance of articles and editorials on athletic subjects, but these pieces now showed an interest transcending the simple necessity of beating Yale every year. The Bulletin staunchly resisted the advent of professional coaching, for example, and delivered the supreme insult to Harvard's athletic chauvinists when, despite heavy criticism, it declared that in the interest of "modesty" it would continue referring to athletic contests as, for instance, the Yale-Harvard game, and not the Harvard game.

Then, in 1907, the Harvard Alumni Association took over sponsorship of the Bulletin from the Athletic Association of Harvard Graduates, and the switch, in the words of Greene, "rid the Bulletin of even the shadow of control by athletic interests."

The magazine had finally broken away from Soldiers Field and the river, there could be no doubt about that. But when John D. Merrill became editor again in 1919 (after having left the job in 1907), it appeared that the magazine's interests might travel right past University Hall and Widener, and end up in the laboratories.

Merrill's second editorship, from 1919 to his death in 1940, has been characterized by Bulletin historians as the period of the "frogs of Guatemala." This epithet does not imply that there ever was a Bulletin article specifically discussing Guatemalan frogs, but only that there might as well have been. For as one scans the issues of this 20-year period, and notices the astonishing frequency of articles reporting esoteric scientific field trips, one gets the distinct impression that "the frogs of Guatemala" would be right at home on the cover of the following issue.

And although the aforementioned frogs never do reach the Bulletin's cover, their African brothers do in the cover article "Hunting Frogs in African Forests," which appeared in the issue of January 18, 1935. The apes, however, made the Bulletin cover twice: once on December 22, 1933 ("The Apes in Animal Sociology"), and again on May 27, 1938 ("The Living Asiatic Apes"). In addition, other esoteric cover articles of the Merrill period featured "The Harvard Observatory at Bloemfontein, South Africa," "'Malaysia.' Its Governments and Physical Beauty," "Collecting Fossil Insects," and "A Way to Control the Gypsy Moth."

Yet all was not frogs during these 20 years, and the Bulletin, by publishing articles like "The Religion of a Scientist" by Kirtley F. Mather, and "A Liberal Education Viewed in Later Life" by brooks Atkinson '17, was gradually establishing a national reputation for distinguished journalism.

Drab Cover

But the Bulletin of 1939 was hidden under a drab, cream-colored cover that usually announced equally drab scientific reports, and distinguished as it may have been, it was drastically losing subscribers. In competition with attractively packaged and styled publications like Time and The New Yorker, the magazine obviously needed a complete brightening, both visually and journalistically; but its staff, accustomed to 20 years of traditionalism, tended to resist any change.

Into this difficult situation stopped publisher Hamlen, characterized by present Bulletin editor Norman A. Hall '22 an the "elder brother" of the magazine's editorial staff. Recognizing both the acute need for a change and the obstacles to be overcome, Hamlen in the summer of 1939 commissioned David T. Pottinger '06, associate director of the Harvard University Press, to design a completely new cover and inside format for the Bulletin. In the fall, Pottinger presented Hamlen with the new magazine he had wanted; the small, stuffy type on the inside had been replaced by an easier-reading style and re-arranged in double-column pages, and the cream cover had given way to a bright red one with provision for--of all things!--a picture.

Unknown to Staff

The following week Hamlen took Pottinger's design still unknown t the magazine's staff to a Bulletin board meeting. "Gentleman," he said, producing the bright trial copy from under the table, "here is the way Alumni Bulletin."

It is typical of the modern Bulletin, which Hamlen inaugurated that day in 1939, that what he called "the new Alumni Bulletin" itself became old-fashioned within two years. Under the leadership of David McCord '21, who replaced Merrill upon the latter's death in 1940, the magazine was again completely redesigned for the fall of '41. In addition, the old athletic weekly was finally made a bi-weekly, and thus the Bulletin took the essential form that it has today.

Bentinck-Smith who became editor when McCord resigned in 1946 and held the post until last winter, brought the magazine more certainly than over into competition with leading commercial publications. His aim, he says, was to make the bulletin combine the news efficiency of Time with the literary flavor of The New Yorker, and his efforts toward that end were officially recognized in 1948 by the Sibley award committee.

As publisher of the Bulletin, Hamlen says he is constantly afraid that some big national magazine will lure away his editor. All of the past several editors could have gotten a job with virtually any magazine they chose, the publisher explains, and he extends this statement to the Bulletin's new editor, Norman Hall. And indeed Hall has already shown that he will maintain, if not improve, the Bulletin's "high level of editorial achievement."

Of the several regular features carried in the Alumni Bulletin today, by far the most popular is the alumni notes. These items, which record marriages, promotions, or births pertaining to the members of each graduated class, are avidly read by alumni, according to editor Hall, because "everyone likes gossip." One cannot mention the Bulletin's alumni notes, however, without mentioning Jane E. Howard. Miss Howard, former secretary and now assistant to the magazine's editor, has painstakingly complied and checked the notes for 32 years. She is known, semi-officially, as "the lady without whom the Alumni Notes would appear under the wrong classes or never appear at all."

Letters Column

Other features in the contemporary Bulletin are a comprehensive and well-read letters department, a column of "antiquarian chitchat" by ex-editor McCord entitled "The College Pump," a university section in which current releases from the Harvard News Office are re-written in a clear, light style and with background information added, an Undergraduate column written by the Bulletin's undergraduate editor about life at the College, and--of primary interest to many alumni--a report on the past fortnight's athletic happenings.

For despite the Bulletin's long and arduous trek away from Soldiers Field and up into the Yard, there are still certain alumni among its subscribers who read only the athletic column, and care only about beating Yale. Happily, however, this group is small, and Bulletin editors find that more and more they can turn away from apologizing for the football team, and devote themselves instead to putting out and improving "the most distinguished alumni magazine" in America