Evening star., 1932-12-02
HARVARD SEEKS
NEW PRESIDENT
Successor to Lowell to Be
Chosen Before Next
June.
Nj aMzR&Second Floor for Boys and Girls
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Who will be picked to succeed DR.. A.
Lawrence Lowell, who has resigned as
president of Harvard? The Office, Incl
dentally, is the second Oldest in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts,. 1t is
antedated only by that of Governor.
Presidential elections in Cambridge
have not always run smoothly or turned
out we'll Occasionally great men have
turned out to be very mediocre presi-
dents. Sometimes the faculty, some
times the student body once the corpo-
ration, forced presidents to resign.
Henry Dunster had to resign when
he turned Baptist. At the time. it was
against the laws of the Commonwealth
for any one but an out-and-out Pur1-
tan to hold any Office in the Common
wealth. Every effort was made to per-
suade Dunster to recant, but he stuck
firm to his new creed and was forced to
resign.
Leonard Hoar resigned after friction
with the tutors who resented his cleo
ton and thought that one Of their own
number should have been elevated to
the job.
Refused to Live There.
Increase Mather was president in fact
for quite number of years, but he was
q problem. He refused to live in Cam
bridge. Finally law was passed max
ing it mandatory for the president to
reside in Cambridge. Rather than move
there, Increase Mather resigned.
Cambridge apparently was not very
highly regarded as a presidential COM
munity in those days, for the next two
presidents of Harvard, Charles Morton
and Samuel Willard, were able to bear
only the title Of "acting president"
because, they, too, refused to live In
Cambridge.
The liberal tradition at Harvard
started with the next president, John
Leverett, who came to the post after
having followed experience as a tutor
a., at Harvard with career as lawyer
: and judge.
With Samuel Webber, who was in
augurated in 1906, the first Of line OF
Unitarian presidents was started. Elec-
tions in those days, and even up to the
election of Charles W. Eliot in 1869,
were tied up closely with religion. While
Yale was remaining firmly Congrega-
tionalist, Harvard went literally Uni
tartan.
John Thornton Kirkland, who ranks
with Dunster, Leverett, Quincy, Eliot
and Lowell on the list of the great
presidents of Harvard, was nevertheless
forced to resign after feud with the
Harvard Corporation. His successor,
Josiah Quincy. had been a member OF
Congress and mayor of Boston, and a
noted Federalist, and he gave Harvard
one of its most able administrations.
Unitarian Clergymen.
He was followed by two great men,
Edward Everett and Jared Sparks,
both of whom had begun their careers
as Unitarian clergymen. Everett had
served in Congress, been Governor OF
the Commonwealth, and minister to the
Court of st. James by the time he was
elected president at Harvard. He was
not very successful and did not Ike the
Jared Sparks, a great historian, found
that he, too, was not happy in the pres
idency. In the second hall OF the nlne,
teenth century agitation among small
group for increased attention TO the new
sciences gradually developed.
Cornelius c. FELTON,, WHO had been
professor of Greek, was president OF the
college from 1860 untilshis death In
1862. The agitation for more sciences
and less classics and religion grew a
little stronger, with the result that the
next man chosen by the corporation
represented a compromise.
Thomas Hill, successor to the classi-
cist, FELTON,, and predecessor TO the
chemist, Eliot, was minister. he mac
been president, not oversuccessfully, OF
Antioch College. His, incidentally, was
the sole instance whereby Harvard chose
the president of another college to take
that Job in Cambridge,
Charles W. Eliot who had been sort
Of secretary to Hills predecessor in the
presideut'S chair, James Walker, was
probably as well informed about the al
fairs of the university as any other man.
He was young-only "a. He had Just
published in the Atlantic Monthly what
appeared at the time to be radical arti-
cles on education. He was layman
and, what was more, a scientist. he
was teaching at Massachusetts Institute
OF Technology.
All these things were sources of worry
to the Board of Overseers, which is
made I'D of 80 alumni and the president
and treasurer of the university. DR..
Eliot had strong supporters, however,
and the corporation finally elected him
president.
The man who succeeded him was A
Lawrence Lowell Of the department OF
government. Next June, when his res
ignation is expected to go into effect
DR.. Lowell will become president emer-
titus. The students in Cambridge viii
miss seeing his slightly stopped figure II
the yard.
What qualifications must be looked
for in the next man to be chosen Il
succeed DR.. Lowell? An ideal man fol
the Job isn't living and he never will bt
born. The combination of the quail
ties of shrewd business man and sounC
scholar, of diplomat and forceful execu
tive and Of youth, and experience
difficult to find In one man.
Dean Kenneth B. Murdock Of the fac
ulty of arts and sciences is the mos
talked-of candidate, largely because o
his rapid rise at Harvard. He is onl
81, but at that IS older than Eliot wa
when he was named.
Others Considered.
Other young men whose names hav
come to the forefront recently includ
Francis Parkman, 18, headmaSter {
st. Marks; Charles p Curtis, jr., II
youngest member of the corporation
Prof. Samuel Eliot Morrison, '08, note
New England historian; Prof. G. Harol
Edgell, '09, of the Fine Arts Department
Edward M. Pickman, '08, little know
scholar of much potential strength
James Buell. Mum, 10, former assistar
dean of New York University, who hs
recently returned to the English depart
ment at Harvard; Assistant Pro
Edward A. Whitney, 1T; Levere
Saltonstall, IA, speaker of the Masss
chusetts house; Ogden L. Mills, o
present Secretary Of the Treasury, ar
Clarence Cook Little, 10, former pres
dent Of Michigan and Maine.
Among the older men the list includ
such men as the members of tt
Corporation: Prof Julian L. Coolidg
's5, master of Lowell House; Prof. Rog
B. Merriman, master of Eliot HouS
Prof Chester N. Greenough, master
pmster House; Secretary of the Ma
Charles Francis Adams, '88, for maj
years treasurer of the university. al
Eliot Wadsworth, '98, OF Boston.
There is no law that the presidel
has to be a Harvard man, but it is
custom Of some 260 years Standin
Or. Eliot sought to have the traditi'
broken in the choice Of his successt