All Souls for Harvard

Dr. Abbott Lawrence Lowell of Harvard has spoken of "separating future creative scholars into a distinct body. . . . Such an atmosphere should carry intellectual contagion beyond anything now in this country.'' Dr. Lowell has also referred often to "the stranglehold of the Ph. D." on education. To loosen it at Harvard he announced last week a "Society of Fellows --24 young men who will spend three years in comfortable study, free of any academic regulation and lured by no prospect of credits or degrees. Graduates of any college, aged 25 or younger, they will be known as "Junior Prize Fellows," appointed and supervised by seven "Senior Fellows" among whom will, ex-officio, be the university president. The Junior Prize Fellows will live in Harvard houses, use Harvard facilities, commingle socially, receive free room and board and an annual stipend of $1,250 to $1,500.

Nearest thing to Harvard's Society of Fellows is All Souls ("Warden & College of the souls of all faithful departed in the University of Oxford"), which provides 21 graduate fellowships, some of which pay -L-300 the first two years. An All Souls fellowship is a rare honor; some men, like Sir William Blackstone of the famed law commentaries, have spent a lifetime there; others, like Aircraftsman Thomas Edward (Lawrence) Shaw, return from time to time.

Frosty old Dr. Lowell, 76, is retiring (TIME, Nov. 28). Announcement of his plan last week was like a graceful curtain speech at the end of a farewell tour. Immediately it was estimated that the endowment of the Society of Fellows is $1,000,000. Dr. Lowell is rich for a pedagog. He gave the President's House in Harvard Yard, the $750,000 New Lecture Hall, kept the benefactions secret until months afterward. Many people believed last week that some day the Society of Fellows would be revealed as coming from Dr. Lowell's purse as well as his mind.

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