beds," said an official of the University Housing Office to The Crimson about the plight of six newlywed couples placed in the hotel.

The 386 families in the Fort Devens community, officially dubbed "Harvardevens" but commonly referred to as "Harvard Colony," fared little better; they had a three hour daily commute from their "Quonset hut" style homes.

But even with more than $1million investments in Fort Devens and Hotel Brunswick, there were still homeless students.

Harvard spent another quarter-million dollars to purchase 200 fiberboard "temporary housing units" from the Federal Public Housing Administration and erect them on any land they could find. Small communities of housing refugees sprang up near the Divinity and Business Schools on tennis courts and previously empty lawns.

On Kirkland Place, a 110-person Quonset hut was constructed and housed new faculty-nursery school teachers for veteran's children. Provost Paul H. Buck made light of the overcrowded facility, saying that the makeshift school had a "waiting list rivaling that of the Committee of Admission of Harvard College."

New-Found Academic Rigor

The housing crisis passed, the Office of the Registrar absorbed the Office of the Counselor for Veterans by March and Harvard then turned its attention to academics.

The war had caused a strange division in the Class of 1950. The military men were in their early twenties, mature from their war experiences, often married. The civilian first years were younger than their pre-war counterparts had been. Twenty percent of first years were under 18 when they arrived at Harvard in 1946, and a handful of 15-year olds entered with each post-war class.

An administration concerned about the veterans' family responsibilities and long absences from formal education predicted "a greatly increased number of withdrawals and a higher proportion of low records" with the class in 1946, but found none.

The veterans took advantage of the opportunity Harvard and the G.I. Bill granted to them. The Harvard education, previously barred to many veterans because of economic and social conditions, now was open to them. They had no plans to have their "connection severed" from the University and so worked far harder than anyone foresaw.

"We were...WW II military veterans anxious to get on with earnest study after three dead-brain years of doing grunt-work duty getting rid of dictators abroad," McMurtrie wrote.

The number of forced withdrawal for academic reasons dropped to 2.2 percent from its pre-war averages around 6 percent. Despite their disrupted educations and competition with students from the nation's best preparatory schools, veterans' average marks were as high as those of civilians.

"Our veterans are easily the most experienced, most mature, most serious and hardworking group of students that Harvard has ever seen," said Dean of the College William J. Bender '28.

However, the academic success came at a cost--the sacrifice of usual undergraduate revelry.

The seriousness of the returning soldiers coupled with their family obligations took them away from the normal social circles at Harvard. The administration encouraged the veterans to relax, and not without a certain wistfulness, noted a fall-off in fun.

"There has been less than the usual amount of disorder and disciplinary problems have been relatively few," Conant said.