Harvard students are accustomed to wading through tour groups of camcorder-toting overweight fiftysomethings and overeager high-school seniors perpetually gathered around University Hall, gazing up in are at the John Harvard statue.

But Saturday, the Harvard students were the tourists--learning about their own University's history.

"What school is your group from?" asked one confused spectator of the "alternative historical tour" of Harvard Yard, led by Todd L. Lake '82 and Key Hall '87 Saturday afternoon.

Hall and Lake led the group of students to all the familiar tourist Johnson Gate, the John Harvard status and Memorial Church. But their narration wasn't taken verbatim from the Crimson Key handbook.

The tour, which was part of the three-day Veritas Forum, examined Harvard's Christian history.

The Veritas Forum was a week-end-long conference of lectures, panel discussions and workshops sponsored by members of more than a dozen Harvard-affiliated Christian organization.

Lake, minister of the Cambridgeport Baptist Church, said Harvard's religious heritage is often toned down or ignored is the spirit of modern secularism.

The tour's design was to offer stu- dents a more accurate historical view of the University, he said.

"We don't want to return to the 1630s, but we'd like to recognize our heritage," Hall said.

The tour focused on the various manifestations of Harvard's shield and motto which can be seen around campus--specifically those with the third book (bearing the syllable "TAS") turned face down.

Hall said the three books on the shield originally represented more than just general symbols of learning.

According to Hall, the volumes are supposed to depict the Biblical Old and New Testaments and the overturned Book of Life, which symbolizes the limits of human knowledge.

The flipping of the third book and the truncation of Harvard's motto reflects a trend of rejecting religion, Hall said.

"Human reason was exalted as fully sufficient for our needs," she added.

Harvard's motto once was "Veritas, Christo en Ecclesiae" (truth for Christ and the Church), and it appears as such in Sanders Theatre, Johnston Gate and the Freshman Union.

As with most Harvard tours, the guides injected a sprinkling of architectural trivia: they pointed out rarely noticed crosses in the wrought iron of Johnston Gate and the brickwork of Matthews Hall.

The Veritas Forum