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The revolution has even extended to the Harvard Clubs, which with their plush sanctums on their remote locations long seemed immune to any regenerative influences from Cambridge.

The Clubs have existed almost as long as the University itself, and represent probably the best example of an alumni institution that has matured decisively over the past two decades. The old tradition--which, of course, has by no mean disappeared--was described by Sperry in his article "The Alumnus," as he told about spending the night at a metropolitan Harvard Club:

"Elderly club servants in somewhat moth-eaten vestments...were shuffling about with trays of ritual cocktails being served to what President Eliot once called--and his successors still call--'the society of educated men'. Even the olives and cherries, the orange peel, and toothpicks in the glasses seemed to have taken on moral dignities and a sense of mission which they can never hope to attain in the outer illiterate world where they are at the best the unashamed symbols of candid self-indulgence."

It is only a handful of the larger Clubs that maintain clubhouses, however. More typical would be an organization that might exist in a city the size of Omaha. It would have, say, 40 members. Normally these members would get together perhaps twice a year, once at a Christmas party for present and prospective College students and once at a dinner meeting to be addressed by a member of the Harvard Faculty. In the old days the old grad's Club activity would be limited to these two meetings. He would insist, moreover, that the Faculty member sent out to speak was a football coach, and that he brought with him movies of the past season's games.

But gradually the activities of both the local Harvard Club and the old grads in it have changed considerably. Of course football coaches still speak and show films at many clubs each year. In 1954-55, however, head coach Lloyd Jordan addressed exactly four full-Club meetings. Meanwhile President Pusey made eleven such appearances, Professor Robert G. Albion seven, Professor Arthur E. Sutherland and Professor Perry Miller three each, and Bart J. Bok, professor of Astronomy, took the year's honors with a grand total of fifteen speeches in Clubs as well-scattered as California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Iowa, South Carolina, and Syracuse.

Academic Speakers

In general the Clubs no longer want athletic speakers. Especially in cities such as Atlanta or Houston, where many of the Club members attended one of the Harvard graduate schools but not the College, movies of last year's Yale game just will not go over. But the Law School's Professor Sutherland, speaking on "The Banning of the Communist Party," will. According to Secretary Pratt, who co-ordinates all speaking schedules for the Alumni Association, "a coach may still be O.K. for a Christmas party, but for a dinner or evening meeting a Club wants an academic man."

The sphere in which Harvard Clubs are currently serving the College best is that of schools and scholarship work. In the old days each Club probably had a few members who kept an eye open for good high school football players in the local area. Supporters of the College football team may well hope that such men are still operating. Since the last war, however, 84 of the Clubs have built up schools and scholarship committees whose members do the same sort of scouting with significantly different objectives.

These committeees perform three func- tion. The "recruiting" one, whose importance varies directly with the Club's distance from Cambridge, now concerns intellectually promising high school students who would not ordinarily apply to Harvard. (Of course, a good scholar is not disqualified if he also happens to play fullback.) Generally more important is the screening role that the Club members play, interviewing local applicants to the College and relaying their evaluations to the Admission Office in Cambridge. Thirdly, the Club committees actually raise funds--a national total of $70,000 last year--to endow College scholarships for deserving local students.

Yet even now the activities and attitudes of the Harvard Clubs are not uniformly enlightened. Although the Clubs have matured greatly since the war, traces of adolescence still remain.

A minor complaint is that ticklish situations sometimes arise between University Hall and a remote Harvard Club in regard to the screening of a prospective freshman. Critical standards are likely to vary with the miles, the years, and the enthusiasm of the interviewing alumnus, so that an applicant highly recommended in Spokane, Washington may get turned down in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A flustered air mail correspondence often results.

Much more serious is the fact that a number of Harvard Clubs, especially but not exclusively those in the South, maintain prejudices that cannot help compromising the reputation and principles of the University. The Washington Club admitted its first Negro several years ago only after much internal wrangling and indirect pressure from Cambridge. Several Clubs in the Deep South, such as the one at Atlanta, still steadfastly refuse to admit the qualified Negro alumni in their area.

The schools committees of the most of the Southern Clubs, moreover, are careful to visit only those local high schools that consist of all white students. It is apparently true that no Negro student has ever come to Harvard via the recruiting or scholarship facilities of a Southern Harvard Club.

Meanwhile the College itself, of course, admits or rejects applicants without regard to their race. It thus seems somewhat anomalous that these organizations which consist of Harvard graduates, use the University's name, and are supposedly cooperating with its Admissions Office still maintain a stritctly racist policy.