A relationship between Harvard and Roxbury High School was almost formalized last week with the announcement of the special masters plan for school desegregation which links the two in an as-yet-undefined way.

But the tie between the University and the Roxbury community has existed for years, and a knowledgable source said this week that those past ties were the basis for the masters' decision to let Harvard come to Roxbury.

As far back as the late '60s the ties existed: mainly through the Graduate School of Education's Center for Urban Studies and Master's degree in teaching program, the University was very much in the community, Ed School doctoral candidates taught Ed School student teachers in Roxbury, and the teachers in turn taught grade school children.

Staff members of the Center for Urban Studies were a part of the creation of new schools in Roxbury, and the Implementation of new programs in others--such as the William Monroe Trotter School and the King Timilty School project. Harvard people--almost all Ed School people--advised, trained teachers, and helped plan curricula for Roxbury schools.

With the coming of the mid-seventies the tie between the University and the community weakened. Educational projects begun with the social spending of the '60s ended and were not replaced through the "benign neglect" of a conservative national administration.

The Center for Urban Studies's federal grant for the teaching of student teachers ran out around 1972; in that same year the Ed School suspended its M.A. in teaching program, which had provided the student teachers for Roxbury. The Ed School's swing toward policy research and away from practical activity had begun.

What Harvard will now provide Roxbury is unknown, and awaits contract negotiations between the University and the high school--which will take place only if federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. approves the plan.

If the plan is approved, an up-swing in relations between Harvard and Roxbury is likely. Most important, federal funds for the program will probably be forthcoming: if the federal government is serious about desegregation, it will very likely have to support Boston's program with money.

But Harvard's special relationship with Roxbury could not be without suspicion on the community's side. Universities--Harvard included--have often looked on ghetto schools as places to do studies on, but not to aid on the schools' own terms.

Bernice J. J. Miller, associate director of the Center for Urban Studies and a Roxbury resident, said last week that "Roxbury people will expect more help from people who look like them than Harvard has available."