No Confetti

Grey, patrician Joseph Clark Grew, erstwhile U.S. Ambassador to Japan, paid tribute last week to "one of the foremost military and naval academies in the United States." Mr. Grew referred to his own alma mater--Harvard University. He was speaking at Harvard's 292nd commencement, which was typical of 1943 commencements throughout the U.S. It was signalized chiefly by the tramp of 8,000 militarized student feet. Harvard gave only 1,115 academic degrees (against its prewar 2,500), but conferred 4,000 training certificates on Army & Navy officers, officer candidates, and Radcliffe WAVES. Only one honorary academic hood* was slipped over a distinguished head, and that belatedly--Joseph Grew, '02, had been confined in Tokyo when his LL.D. was awarded him a year ago. Last week he was back among such friends as Harvard's President James Bryant Conant, '13 and Governor of Massachusetts Leverett Saltonstall, '14.

Harvard's commencement was cut from a five-to a one-day celebration. Missing from the head of the academic procession for the first time in more than 30 years was the late President Emeritus Abbott Lawrence Lowell (TIME. Jan. 18). Missing, too, was the beribboned straw which, for an epoch, crowned the commencement head of John Pierpont Morgan '89. Gone was the traditional confetti battle between the seniors and their relatives and friends in Soldiers' Field. Gone was the reunion parade with its florid costumes, and the baseball game with Yale. No class tents were pitched in Harvard Yard, no lunches spread on the lawns. For music there was no traditional Harvard band, but Navy Yard and Coast Artillery brasses.

Joseph Grew churned up waves of nostalgia when he addressed the quiet celebrants as President of their Alumni Association.

Said he:

"On the last evening of the Harvard Tercentenary Celebration [in] 1936 . . . Dr. Koussevitzky played his special arrangement of 'Fair Harvard.' ... I had come all the way from Japan to attend, and the inspiration . . . can never fade. . . . The last verse, with the Symphony Orchestra and the Tercentenary Chorus . . . rang out like an exultant march, symbolizing the irresistible and inevitable triumph of American youth crashing through all obstacles to victory:

"Farewell! Be thy destinies onward and bright!

To thy children the lesson still give,

With freedom to think, and with patience to bear,

And for right ever bravely to live."

* Princeton last week, for the first time, since 1782, gave no honorary degree. Cadet Adolphus Andrews Jr. led Princeton's R.O.T.C. in review past Vice-Admiral Adolphus Andrews Sr.

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