ASWARM of 161 potential China pundits arrived at Kirkland House on July 4 to begin ten days of apprenticeship with Harvard's most celebrated Sinologist, John K. Fairbank, and his wife, Wilma, at the Alumni College.

From Coop card to diploma:

The inaugural of Nostalgia '73 began in April. Alumni of Radcliffe, Harvard College and University, as well as parents of undergraduates, were invited to return to their (or their children's) alma mater for ten or five days of lectures and discussions. There were two sessions offered: China (its history and culture) and/or black fiction and cinema. Appended to the description of the China offering (Session I) was a picture of Chou Enlai flanked by the Fairbanks.

Along with identification tags, returning alumni received reading lists, ordering forms and Coop cards.

Ten days after settling in their "student quarters" temporarily refurbished with carpets, pole lamps, and coffee tables, the Chinese pundits were shepherded into Harvard's most recent architectural monstrosity, the Science Center, and accorded another parchment: "This is to certify that-----has participated as a member of Harvard Alumni College sponsored by the Associated Harvard Alumni at the Harvard Summer School July 1973."

This year alumni were polled for occupational status. The largest categories were business and law. Next came "education": in addition to elementary school teachers, several professors (and one college president) attended this year's sessions. Other occupations varied from evangelist to woman of thought (a fine arts student).

Why did you come back?

ALUMNI OFFICERS, alumni, and alumni instructors differ in explaining the return of alumni to their alma mater; Henry de Montebello, coordinator of A.C. this year, emphasized nostalgia as the big reason. In a sense, the A.C. is an intensification of reunions. Alumni shack in student dorms, eat at the Harvard Union, meet Faculty members who give a couple of lectures, and have group-pictures taken. For bonuses A.C. gives classes at 8:30 and 9 a.m., reading lists, library privileges, reserved books, and a diploma. Cocktail hour revitalizes burdened minds and provides a natural setting for University personnel (President Bok, Dean Rosovsky, Dean Phelps, Dr. Chase Peterson, Eliot Master, Alan Heimert) to meet alumni. None, however, solicit funds for the College Fund. Perhaps it is felt, as James H. Bates, executive director of the Association of Yale Alumni, say that "it would be like mixing oil and water." Mixing money and mind would be as unseemly.

For Professor William Alfred, a favorite speaker on the lecture circuit, the nostalgia theme is important. Alumni come back to classrooms to find out about the changes they are unable to experience vicariously, through their children.

What does a 19-year-old know about sin?

FOR Roger Rosenblatt, who leads the black-fiction seminar this year, A.C. serves the real audience of fiction classics. "What does a 19-year-old know about sin?" he asked a mother who had decided to return to college after more than 20 years away from school, although she felt embarrassed before her younger classmates. To Rosenblatt the alumni's questions about literature are more important than those asked by undergraduates for they dealt with life-related rather than literary-related themes. He was astonished when an alumnus sought to draw a parallel between Invisible Man and Watergate. Rosenblatt echoes many instructors who have taught alumni summer sessions when he reviews his experience: "Undergraduates and graduates are aware of the limitations of literary analysis. They don't ask questions pertaining to their own lives."

Faddism or inarticulateness?

The disparity between the numbers attending the sessions on China (161) and on black-fiction and film (35), underscores a notorious feature of A.C., the thin line between 'interest' and 'fad.' Four years ago, when black-fiction was "in", one could have expected droves of chic radicals enrolling in a five-day seminar catchily titled, Black Rage, from Little Rock to Black Panthers. Today only a handful of devotees remain, like Jeremiah Sheehy who believes that "black fiction is more relevant to my life than China." For many, then, A.C. may represent a sophisticated 'prep school' for cocktail circuits. That many adopt a faddist topic was underscored by an appalling inarticulateness among the participants of the Cinga session in expressing their interest for the subject. The vast majority of those I spoke to explained that China was important because it contained about one-third of the world's population. It seemed that China had surfaced to terrestrial history last year, and only then legitimized. It was a rare person, like Steve Hall '15, who poopoohed the number argument and applied what he had learned from the lectures: China was an internally-oriented society, with little interest in imperialist, foreign ventures; there was no reason to fear it.

THROUGHOUT the seminar, right up to the end, many of those I met explained that what most appealed to them in China was its peace and quiet, its ancient ethical system. The revolution of 1949, the Great Leap Forward of the 50s, the Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the late 60s, were tucked away.

It is dubious that many took to heart Professor Fairbank's caution: "They are no model unless we go backward in material terms... Their inspiration for us is very superficial." Nor his earlier one referring to the changing attitudes toward China since the 50s: "They're the same people... the same Mao... It's an anti-individualistic society but we admire it... I suggest we face a contradiction. We can admire a people living on a not admirable basis, but achieving something, and not admire ourselves... The recognition of this reality is the beginning of wisdom." Watergate must have dulled many critical faculties for unabashed admiration for China exuded from the participants.