What he did not know, even after four years of education, was Harvard College. What he could never measure was the bewildering impersonality of the men, who, at twenty years old, seemed to set no value either on official or personal standards. Here were nearly a hundred young men who had lived together intimately during four of the most impressionable years of life, and who, not only once but again and again, in different ways, deliberately, seriously, dispassionately, chose as their representatives precisely those of their companions who seemed least to represent them. --from the Education of Henry Adams

It is perhaps unfair to choose from Henry Adams' catalogue of the ills of Harvard College the only significant one that remains, 101 years after his commencement. A mere perusal of local "representative" organizations shows, however, that Harvard students are still unable to choose "representative" representatives, and partly as a result of this, the value of "personal or official standards" is still not set as high as Adams or his modern heirs would wish.

The Student Council has recently completed an investigation of the former problem as it relates to the position of Class Marshal, one of the positions Adams had in mind 50 years ago. Shaken by the uproar over the Marshal election in November, the Council has attempted to devise some revision of election procedures to make Class Marshals more "representative."

Larger Problems Involved

The practical matters of Marshal and Council elections are but a mechanical byroad of a major problem raised by the inability of Harvard undergraduates to choose someone to represent them. The consequences of this situation involve the whole relation between academics and extracurricular activity, between students qua students and students qua leaders and even between the Faculty and the student body.

Because of the impossibility of representation, many students thus feel nothing but disdain for those who bid for their vote and pass themselves off as their representatives. In addition the belief of the academically oriented that those who politick are in a lower class causes disdain for another reason, and so the student may mark his ballot with the patronizing view that he is pampering to the foolish whims of these politicos who perhaps do what they do because they lack the intellectual strength to study and become immersed in academics, and so must compensate for their academic weaknesses by attempting to gain recognition through politics. Although this may be a somewhat facile judgment, it bears consideration in the light of the growing academization of Harvard, the continued admission of students who are below or at least work below the Harvard academic median, and the increasing number of voluntary drop-outs.

Most Seek Recreation

But most students enter extracurricular activities for recreation, and not recognition. Most stay away from representational activities but join foreign affairs clubs, drama groups, and publications because they have an interest in these fields. Most continue to enjoy these clubs as diversion from study, and do not seek executive positions.

In contrast to this majority, there is the small group of students who either by election as representatives of a class or a House, or by election to office within their own activity, take on a new status, not only as student qua student, but also as student qua leader. The member of Student Council, the president of the Lampoon, the president of the Young Republican Club can no longer regard his extracurricular activity as merely extracurricular. It is a part of his curriculum, and it affects his standing in the community and his regard for himself. In his tutorial group he may flounder about for the answer, and blench under the cool satire of his tutor, but once inside his office he is a different person. This double role may conceivably lead the student-leader into almost a withdrawal into what might be termed academic schizophrenia in which he loses contact with the academic reality of Harvard and narrows his world to that of the group he heads.

Leader Represents Club

The leader of an activity is also as much a representative as is the Marshal or the Student Council member, though the sphere of his representation may be smaller. The head of a political club is as involved in representing the member of his activity as the Council member is in representing the student body.

This absorption in one's activity differentiates the student-leader from the regular student's absorption in study or in his own problems. The student-leader may look at his grinding roommate and feel the disdain for his single-mindedness that his academic roommate may feel for his unacademic pursuits. The student-leader, in absorption in something not at all academic, becomes, to a certain extent, alienated from an academic community. In colleges where success is the ideal for the majority of the student body, the student-leader is placed in a plane above the majority, which feel a degree of awe toward him; at Harvard, whre intellecual proficiency is the ideal, the minority student-leaders are regarded as perhaps a step below that of the majority of the student body; in any case, they are regarded as a group apart, a group with alien purposes and standards.

Representative Alienated

Thus arises the paradox of the representative becoming divorced from the group he is supposed to represent. Even as a leader in his activity, the student-leader represents the members of his club only while they are in the club building; once out of it, the two groups are again servered.

It takes a while, however, for the student-leader to note that no matter how hard he may be working to represent his fellows, no one really considers him his representative. The feeling that no one appreciates what he is doing (and this applies as well to the club officer's regard of his rank-and-file) leads to a martyred bitterness toward those whom he is supposed to represent. The realization that his fellows are asking "Who cares?" eventually leads him to mutter, "The hell with them," and the chasm between the academic reality and the dream of the leader increases considerably.