In pure size, Harvard had outgrown itself. The University as a whole was 50 percent larger than its pre-war size. Enrollment in the College had soared over 5,000 persons, where administrators believed 4,300 to be a normal figure.

But even with the recovery after '47 from the effects of World War II, the College braced for another trauma in response to the war in Korea.

University President James R. Conant '14 spoke frequently and publicly on the looming possibility of a World War III. Even with the "grimness of the times," though, Conant believed all-out war was "by no means inevitable."

"If we were to assume a global war and postpone educational developments and then our pessimism proved false," he wrote in his 1950-51 presidential report, "we should have needlessly endangered essential elements of our national life."

The partial mobilization of the Cold War was different from the total commitment of the Second World War, he said, where the government had effectively enlisted the University, calling on all its resources for the war.

But the Cold War had no fixed duration. Some University resources already went toward defense research, Conant said, but professors and administrators should continue to work on education for its own sake, as well. The end of World War II left Conant free to pursue purely educational initiatives--despite what he called the "grisly business" of world mobilization.

Before the war, students and faculty increasingly expressed frustration with the College's system of distribution requirements and Conant appointed a committee to investigate alternatives.

In 1945, the committee returned its report on "A General Education in a Free Society," a blueprint for a new system of so-called General Education, which aimed to expose students to disciplines outside their field of concentration with courses in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences designed specifically for non-concentrators.

In the post-war period, the College and its instructors devoted time and resources to developing the new curriculum of classes, such as "Dante, Montaigne and Shakespeare" and "Understanding the Physical World." The liberal arts program began experimentally in 1946 but was not mandatory for graduation until the Class of 1954.

While administrators assessed how General Education fit into the College's educational objectives, talk of mobilization and the draft was everywhere on campus. Students lobbied successfully for the expansion of Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs.

But, when the College slightly expanded its own admissions in 1947, anticipating the loss of students to the draft, the losses did not come until the Class of 1951 was on its way out.

During the Class' first three years at Harvard just 25 students withdrew from the College to enter military service. Their senior year, with the war escalating, 81 left for the armed forces--but only six were members of the Class of 1951.

"[The draft] hovered over the college like a bird of prey," documented the 1951 yearbook. "No one could mistake its shadow on the ground, but since it did not swoop down, everything below went on pretty much as normal."

The Houses at 20

At the first High Table of 1950, Lowell House celebrated its twentieth anniversary.