His writings include The Republican Roosevelt, The National Experience, The Promise of America and works on Henry Morgenthau, Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 and Henry A. Wallace. Blum, who received both a masters and doctorate from Harvard, once wrote that "within the rhyme and meter of American history, I have made men the subject of my first concern."

His citation reads: An historian clear and discerning, a teacher kind and encouraging, a Fellow acutely sensitive to all of Harvard's concerns.

Author of the classic Social Theory and Social Structure, Merton has been a University professor at Columbia since 1974. The recipient of numerous awards and degrees, Merton did graduate work at Harvard with the late Talcott Parsons and went on to develop a theory of social adaptation, which includes "conformists, innovators, ritualists, retreatists and rebels."

The 69-year-old Merton held Columbia's Giddings chair in sociology until 1974 and is the author of many works, including The Sociology of Science and On the Shoulders of Giants. Known first for his 1950s study on how medical students acquire the values and emotional resources to become physicians, he is often called "Mr. Sociology."

Merton's citation reads: Eminent scholar-teacher, Harvard bred; his path-breaking studies have advanced his discipline and enlarged our understanding of human organizations."

Writer, co-author and editor of 18 books, Robinson is professor of economics Emeritus at Cambridge University, where she taught for more than 40 years. Her 1933 classic, Economics of Imperfect Competition, restated the theory of values and is still considered one of the leading works in the field.

The 76-year-old economist, educated at Cambridge, is also the author of works on Marxian economics, theories of economic growth, economic philosophy and China's Cultural Revolution.

Her citation reads: With insight and elegance she has examined the imperfections of the market and revealed the inconsistencies of poverty and wealth, scarcity and abundance.

A visiting professor at Harvard from 1956-57, hart was professor of jurisprudence at Oxford from 1952 to 1968 and is currently an honorary fellow of Oxford University College. One of the leading experts in legal philosophy, Hart's ground-breaking work of 1961, The Concept of Law, still provides the foundations of debate for legal philosophers.

Hart, 74 years old, has struggled to define the relationship between law, coercion and morality; he is author of Law, Liberty and Morality, The Morality of the Criminal Law, and Punishment and Responsibility.

His citation reads: Illustrious professor of philosophy of law, he forges stronger links between law and morality, punishment and responsiblity.

President Bok this morning conferred honorary degrees on:

Walter Cronkite, broadcaster--Doctor of Laws;

Ernst Mayr, ornithologist and Agassiz Professor of Zoology Emeritus at Harvard--Doctor of Science;

John Morton Blum '43, historian and Woodward professor of American history at Yale University--Doctor of Laws;