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Outspoken presidents, affirmative admissions, and time

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ANIMAL RESEARCH

John Lauerman ("Animal Research," January-February, page 48) made a great effort to be fair and honest about how people on both sides of the issue feel, and I can't remember ever reading an article where both sides tried to get across their point in such a noncondemning way. For me, knowing that some animal is suffering, sometimes horribly, and never understanding why, just doesn't seem like the right way to make things better for us humans. I'm extremely happy to know that many doctors and researchers are using methods that do not require animals.

Shelley Rollins
Bradley, Me.

As someone who has debated animal-rights activists on TV and radio and in person, I can tell you that their moral arguments are entirely specious. Peter Singer's claim that rights are based on the capacity to feel pain is false. By this principle it would be okay to kill people in their sleep because they wouldn't feel a thing.

In fact, rights are based on the capacity to think (reason). Rights prohibit other men from using force, thus leaving the mind free to function and therefore preserving man's capacity to sustain his own life. Rights do not depend on IQ. Nor are they based solely on current functioning; children, for example, are potential reasoning adults and thus possess rights.

Doing animal experiments is not having it both ways. Animals are markedly different from people cognitively, but they are fundamentally similar with respect to physiology. That is why animals do not have rights and yet are suitable for certain types of medical experiments--experiments on which our lives depend. Given this, it is obvious that the deepest motive of the animal-rights advocates is hatred for man.

Edwin A. Locke '60
College Park, Md.

Thank you for tackling this controversial and important topic.

Lauerman's description of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) as an "animal-protection group" is misleading because it doesn't describe the full range of PCRM's goals. PCRM's membership brochure says the organization is "dedicated to preventive medicine, higher standards for ethics and effectiveness in research and education, and broader access to medical services." He correctly points out that the majority of animals used in research are not covered by the Animal Welfare Act. I want to add that even those covered receive very little protection from the act. The act covers such things as housing conditions (for example, cage size), but does not put restrictions on the experiments themselves. Therefore, chimpanzees, dogs, cats, and other animals are subjected to physical and emotional torment--often without use of analgesics--and the act does not prohibit this. Sadly, Lauerman's comment that painful experiments are things of the past cannot be accepted on face value. There are many instances in which research institutions have been caught lying, describing their experiments as humane--only to be embarrassed when videotapes of the real conditions were made public. Only if and when there is full public access to all the labs will we know what is really happening in each. However, we can get an idea of what is happening in some of the labs from this description in Lethal Laws: Animal Testing, Human Health and Environmental Policy by Alix Fano (1997): "Animals have been made to suffer convulsions, severe abdominal pain, seizures, tremors and diarrhea; they have been made to bleed from their genitals, eyes and mouth; vomit uncontrollably; self-mutilate; become paralyzed; lose kidney function; and fall into comas."

And for what? Limited research funding and talent could better be channeled into research using human tissue, epidemiological studies, artificial skin, careful clinical observation, etc. Most of the money used for research on animals comes from our taxes, which could instead be used for health care for all, including preventive care. It also could be used to clean up toxic waste and other environmental pollution.

Richard W. Weiskopf, M.D. '52
Syracuse, N.Y.

When Lauerman states that the numbers of animals other than mice used at Harvard is almost negligible and then goes on to mention 1,832 creatures of different sorts, he exposes his bias. He states that researchers now support the Animal Welfare Act because a dog who isn't walked is scientifically useless. Yet he fails to mention that researchers fought tooth and nail against the very amendment to the AWA that required minimal exercise for dogs (as they have against every single amendment to the AWA). And what about all the data from all the dogs who weren't walked prior to the passage of that amendment in 1985? When he writes of mice who are "happy and healthy even though they are denied the one thing they really crave (bedding)" or he raves about animals who "give their lives for human health," he is only perpetuating the perception that members of the animal-research industry are, in fact, clueless when it comes to really grappling with the ethics of this issue.

No less a figure than Nobel Prize-winner and Holocaust survivor Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote that the "smugness with which man does with other species as he pleases exemplifies the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might makes right. For the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."

Jessica Sandler '78
Boulder, Colo.

Lauerman's article seemed fair and balanced. I take issue, however, with researcher Norman Letvin, who asserts, "Every day, thousands of humans say, 'It is worth it for me to be involved in those studies [of ailing people] because, even though I probably won't benefit, others will.' In the end, the decisions I'm making with respect to experimental animals are not dissimilar." I couldn't disagree more.

The voluntary self-sacrifice of humans is a marvelous example of the best in us. But we cannot allow ourselves the illusion of nobility in using and often killing our animal servants. They are captives, not volunteers; and when they suffer, they do so unknowingly, without even the gifts of altruistic intentions and future hopes. Until such time as humans can truly communicate with animals, and seek their permission, we must recognize our research animals as mute slaves, however comfortable their cages.

Richard P. Taylor, M. Div. '94
Berkeley, Calif.

I'm sure Letvin's "judgment" that killing a "limited number of animals" in a particular research project may be justified is of great comfort to the individual animals as they die. How would you like your body left to science against your will while you are still in it?

Jane Hoffman
New York City

As a psychologist, cofounder of Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PSYETA), and author of a recent book on animal experimentation, I thank you for your article on animal research that touched on some concerns of animal protectionists.

Although Lauerman writes that pain relief has been required since 1970, the Animal Welfare Act does not ensure such relief will be provided for animals in laboratories. Experimenters may and do withhold anesthetics and analgesics by providing a simple statement in the facility's annual report stating that the suffering was necessary to the procedure. According to a study by Martin L. Stephens et al. in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, the percentage of animals enduring unrelieved pain and distress doubled from 1992 to 1994.

A key question is how to evaluate the contribution of animal-based research to advances in understanding and effectiveness of treatment of human disorders. Arguing largely on the basis of similarity of a few models to their respective human disorder, Lauerman's sources present anecdotal evidence regarding the purported contribution of several animal models. In my book Animal Models of Human Psychology, I offer a rigorous scientific method of evaluating animals as models that goes beyond resting on the argument from analogy. Such evaluation would eliminate pointless experiments and make research more effective and economical, sparing countless apes, monkeys, dogs, mice, rats, and other animals, and reducing the social strife that will continue to divide our society until animal experiments are a thing of the past.

Kenneth Shapiro '65, Ph.D.
Washington Grove, Md.

LIFE IN THE LEGAL STRATOSPHERE

"Playing by the Rules," by Randall l. Kennedy (January-February, page 27) is a useful and transparent review of The Good Black, an important, provocative book. I, too, am a Law School graduate originally from a (Southern) barely working-class culture, who exited Wall Street practice under significant duress some years ago. Not having examined my expectations, what I learned abruptly was that the air is very thin indeed in some large, wealthy, influential firms.

I did not know until I arrived that it is a world even the best-equipped enter at some risk. There is small latitude for altruism or emotional first aid. Intelligence, credentials, competence, determination, and stamina are only the beginning. Mastery of the choreography of social nuance, and unshakable confidence maintained in the face of ruthless self-preoccupation, intramural malice and suspicion, and intense alpha-male competition, are indispensable. So is luck. The decline of Larry Mungin's field of bankruptcy practice was very bad luck.

It would appear that Mungin's mother's axiom was good advice. Playing by the rules is not a sure ticket. But doing so remains a good idea, because in general it allows one to rise as far as fate and the Zeitgeist allow, whereas malicious failure to play by the rules becomes a professional game of chicken. But I am not the only graduate to have learned that access to the professional stratosphere is not guaranteed. Unavoidable temperamental fault lines may dictate our direction as we attempt to make it.

Subsequent to that experience, I have found a path of nonlegal service that uses more of my training, and makes me happier, than Chicago-New York-D.C. white-shoe law practice ever could. I would therefore wish Mungin satisfaction and contentment in new paths to his journey's end.

Barbara Cavanagh, J.D. '72
Austin

McCARTHY v. DEFIANT HARVARD

In his letter regarding academic freedom during the McCarthy era (January-February, page 12), Robert N. Bellah compares Harvard unfavorably to Princeton, Columbia, and Chicago. My recollection is that under pressure Princeton terminated the well-known physicist David Bohm, while Harvard retained Wendell Furry in the face of pressure at least as strong. Harvard might have done better, such as by promoting Furry to the rank of full professor, but I do not believe that any university publicly defied McCarthy in the way that Harvard did.

James A. McLennan '48
Bethlehem, Pa.

STATES OF THE CONFEDERACY

David West was doing a great job of explaining the flags of the Confederacy ("Not the Stars and Bars," January-February, page 11) until he wrote his final sentence. While it is true that the Confederate Battle Flag contains 13 stars, only 11 states seceded from the Union. The other two stars represent Kentucky and Missouri, whose legislatures voted against secession. Extra-legal gatherings under the protection of Confederate troops did later pass secession resolutions, however, and the Confederate congress was more than pleased to seat representatives of these factions.

Surely, this is not the only example of a flag with a bit of propaganda in its design.

Paul Antokolsky, A.L.B. '87
Boston

MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

TRENDSETTER?

The photo of Henry Bryant Bigelow '01, PhD. '06, S.D. '46, on page 47 of the January-February issue ("Vita") shows him at the wheel of a sailing vessel wearing his cap with bill backwards. Did a Harvard man start today's fashion of wearing baseball caps bill-backwards, or have seafaring men always turned caps around?

John Eliot Spofford '54
Boston

Kudos for the "Vita" of Bigelow and the campy, revealing photograph of a great oceanographer "at the office." Brickbats for the failure to mention Bigelow Laboratories Foundation of Boothbay Harbor, Maine, which is a world leader in research on phytoplankton, the ultimate building block of the marine food chain.

MacVicker Snow, J.D. '48
Washington, D.C.

OUTSPOKEN COLLEGE PRESIDENTS

James O. Freedman ("The Bully Lectern," January-Febuary, page 36) longs for the "giants" of the past--those who "use[d] the privilege of their positions to speak out on important issues of the day." I think, rather, that the current presidential model is more appealing than the one president emeritus Freedman admires.

I would have thought it obvious that institutions would want to choose a president with the skills necessary to be CEO of a complex academic institution. Among these skills, I do not imagine speaking out on the important issues of the day ranks particularly high.

To be sure, presidents should speak out on issues that intimately concern the governance or operation of the college or university itself. The value of affirmative action in admissions policies is one clear example. But that is far from suggesting that they should speak out on foreign-relations policy, impeachment proceedings, or whatever else may be on the nation's list of "hot-button" topics.

The nature of the college and university is that they are open to a variety of points of view. It seems preferable not to create the danger that the president will be perceived as speaking on behalf of the institution, given the central value of the promotion of vigorous aca- demic debate within the institution.

Thomas H. Jackson
President, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.

I found Freedman's whining article to be nauseating.

It is whining in the same sense as the woman who complains that she finds it impossible to have five children, partake fully in their rearing, shop 10 hours a week, keep house, and also be corporate president and CEO. It just may be that the human condition does not permit the ordinary mortal to have it all.

It is nauseating because it expresses the same intellectual arrogance found in Lenin's vanguard theory. Freedman apparently believes that intellectual talent is highly limited, and that somehow ideas and social commentary must be generated by university presidents or they won't be generated at all. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I have spent most of my years since 1954 at the University of Chicago, with one year each at the Harvard Russian Research Center, the University of Moscow, and Rutgers. In all those years I cannot recall offhand anything profound by any university president, but much of interest from professors, journalists, and even corporate CEOs, politicians, and career public servants. I yearned for profundities when I came to Chicago (two years after President Hutchins had departed), but those sentiments ceased after I learned about the near financial bankruptcy that was the Hutchins legacy.

University presidents are well advised to be satisfied with their often exorbitant salaries and limit themselves to choosing competent lesser administrators who know what the various aspects of a university are about. In the ordinary course of events, others can do the philosophizing and society's problem solving at much lower cost and considerably greater profundity.

Richard Hellie
Professor of Russian history
University of Chicago, Chicago

BRUINS BETTER THAN ALLEGED

In your tabulation of final Ivy league standings for 1998 ("Sports," January-February, page 80), you list Brown's overall record as 6-4 when in fact it was 7-3. After beating only Lafayette in their first four games, the Bruins proceeded to beat Fordham, Penn, Cornell, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Columbia on the succeeding six Saturdays, something that probably won't happen again for at least another generation.

Allan S. Nanes, Ph.D. '49
Silver Spring, Md.

"Camel and Mercedes Benz pass our front door in unequal haste," wrote Ward. The photograph shows him with his family in 1963.CREDIT

A NOTE FROM THE CAMEL RIDER

I was delighted to find my message to classmates, sent to you as a class note from Jordan in 1962 when I was attached to the U.S. embassy in Amman, reprinted in your "Centennial Harvest" of notes (November-December 1998, page 41). I had not seen it in print before. As Mark Steele's illustration suggests, I did ride camels on occasion, but sans mustache and avec blond hair. Enclosed is a photograph of Cecilia, me, and the crew at the Parthenon on our way home after our two-year stint in Jordan.

Richard Ward '45
South Dartmouth, Mass.

PRINCELY ERRAND

"The College Pump" (January-February, page 84) describes Prince Henry's receipt of an honorary degree from Harvard in March 1902. The prince had another errand in the United States. Kaiser Wilhelm II had commissioned a schooner yacht, the Meteor, to be built in the yards on Shooter's Island, in New York harbor, between Staten Island and Elizabeth, New Jersey. The invitation to the launching lists the guests of honor as H.R.H. and the president of the United States. I believe Theodore Roosevelt did not attend, and there being no vice president, sent the chief justice in his place. After World War I the Meteor was seized as reparations.

Small matter of protocol: Albert, another honorand, was not king of Belgium, but rather king of the Belgians.

Samuel L.M. Cole '39
Bloomsbury, N.J.

SURGEONS' ROBOTIC SENSORS

Drs. Howe and Peine are entitled to suitable kudos for their innovative tactile sensors, but Kathleen Koman seems to tell your readers ("Robotic Surgical Assistants," January-February, page 21) that minimally invasive surgery or the concept of operating through the least damaging route and by the most precise instrumentation is a fin de siècle invention. In 1907, while Harvey Cushing, father of American neurosurgery and professor at Harvard Medical School, was still in training, Schloffer in Germany removed a pituitary tumor with a cystoscope inserted through the nasal sinuses. Endoscopy of the brain dates back to 1910 when Lespinasse attempted to cure hydrocephalus by electric coagulation of intrinsic blood vessels. In 1937, Pool illuminated a simple cannula with a modified otoscope to examine the contents of the spinal canal.

My own training in brain surgery began at the Mount Sinai Hospital in 1970 with Dr. Leonard Malis, a pioneer in microneurosurgery. Operating the binocular microscope reduced the surgical site to 6 centimeters. In 1991, I studied arthroscopic surgery with Dr. Parvis Kambin, who developed the instrumentation for a 6.5-millimeter approach to the spine.

Today frameless stereotaxy, sonic digitizers, real-time imaging, and the interfacing of digital and video imaging are becoming part of every neurosurgical training program. Alternating between direct observation of surface features and indirect visualization of deep structures with high-resolution, high-definition systems has supplanted the need for exploratory surgery by direct or robotic manipulation of the brain and spinal cord.

Martin H. Savitz, M.D. '63
New City, N.Y.

I found this article extremely interesting, but it contains an error in terminology. A minimally invasive surgical procedure is described as an arthroscopic procedure. An arthroscopic procedure, from the Greek, is one in which a joint is examined with a video-assisted microscopic technique. If the abdomen is examined, a laparoscopy is performed and if the chest is studied, a thoracoscopy is performed. Examinations of the chest, abdomen, or pelvis are performed with microinstruments, with videoscopic control, but not with an arthroscope.

Thomas F. Drake '64, M.D.
Mankato, Minn.

JAEGER CAUGHT NAPPING

"The College Pump" on Sheavian slips (September-October 1998, page 84) reminded me of an anecdote current among students of classics in the Fifties. John Shea, among his other duties, would deliver mail to the faculty offices in Widener Library. His custom was to knock on the office door, then immediately open the door and deposit the mail on the office desk. One day he knocked on the door of Professor Werner Jaeger, the great classical scholar. Jaeger kept a sofa in his office on which he often took an afternoon nap. When Shea entered the office and saw Jaeger napping on his sofa, he said, "Excuse me, Professor, I didn't know you were declining." To which Jaeger, opening one eye, purportedly replied, "Well, it's a good thing I wasn't conjugating."

Stephen G. Daitz '53, Ph.D.
New York City

AFFIRMATIVE ADMISSIONS

It is a truism of social science research that investigators with a very strong commitment to a pre-existing position will find it virtually impossible to escape biases that result in interpreting the available data in ways favorable to their beliefs. Daniel Steiner's review ("The Browser," November-December 1998, page 27) of the book The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions, by Derek Bok and William G. Bowen, provides a vivid example of this truism: both the book's authors and the reviewer have a long-standing commitment to the implementation and advocacy of affirmative action in admission policies, and it is therefore unsurprising that Steiner considers this book to provide powerful support for affirmative action and brushes off the negative effects seen by affirmative action's critics.

The greatest flaw of the book and Steiner's review lies in the attempt to dismiss as trivial the impact upon those who are discriminated against by these policies. There seems to be a complete blindness to the moral issues raised by any policy based upon racial discrimination, even though it was the appeal to these very same moral issues expressed by Martin Luther King in "I have a dream..." that resulted in the success of the original civil rights movement.

Numbers games of this sort ignore the individuals who are impacted by racial preferences. Even a 6-percent decrease in the chance of being admitted to Harvard doesn't mean that just 6 percent of each deserving white student fails to get admitted; it means that specific individuals suffer a 100-percent denial of admission in favor of blacks or other minorities who merit admission less by any relevant academic or intellectual criterion. It is this impact upon specific individuals that is grossly unfair, and it is the awareness of this unfairness that encourages all non-minorities to feel justified in resenting minorities, and thereby contributes much to the poisoning of race relations generally. No combination of sociological rationalization and statistical manipulation can cancel the moral evil represented by racial preferences that invert King's dream and "judge our children by the color of our skin, not the content of their character."

David C. Williams '57
Albuquerque

MIRTHFUL CONCHOLOGISTS

I could almost hear the bivalve, gastropod, and other assorted shells rattling in their trays as I read "A Visit to the Mollusk Department" (November-December 1998, page 106), where I so fondly remember taking a freshman seminar with Professor Kenneth Boss, who, along with Richard Johnson, is one of a long line of inveterate humorists and pranksters to inhabit the recesses of the MCZ mollusk department. Skipper Boss skillfully guided his freshman crew through a semester of adventure and seminal evolutionary/biological discovery as we voyaged with the ever-brave Darwin on the rough-and-ready Beagle.

I hope Harvard has continued the freshman seminar program, one of the most stimulating and healthy undergraduate instructional programs I've ever known about. It made an early impression on students of the palpable realness of intellectual endeavor and the search for knowledge, as well as providing invaluable enrichment from such early-on collegiality.

Robert Dean '82
Morrow, Ga.

Editor's note: the program--first funded by Edwin Land (see this issue's "Vita")--lives on. This term 14 freshman seminars are offered.

DISMAYED BY THE COST OF MONEY MANAGEMENT

I am not ashamed to be possibly among the first to voice publicly what I suspect many graduates must be feeling since we read in the Boston Globe that Harvard's six top money managers walked away last year with $45 million for managing the University's investments. In recent years it has been shown that everything and anybody, from computers to chimpanzees, from blindfolded, random choices to small children, do as well with picking investments as do the experts. Why cannot Harvard find--within its circle of highly intelligent and savvy (and well-heeled) faculty and alumni--individuals to manage its investments for considerably less? It appears that those of us who donate annually--albeit, in my own case, token sums--are supporting Nobel Prize winners on the one hand and wealthy investment counselors on the other.

What I would like is for you to commission an article from the appropriate person to explain why people like myself should go on contributing our few dollars to one end of Harvard while $45 million is being paid out the other end.

John S. Bowman '53
Northampton, Mass.

Editor's note: see "Riches Richly Rewarded," page 75, for compensation details.

RAILROAD TIME

The recent 115th anniversary of the adoption of standard time zones in the United States provides a good occasion to reflect on the subject of "Sundial Days" (November-December 1998, page 128).

The article correctly describes the tradition of "local time," whereby cities and towns set their own time, usually by the sun, until 1883. This practice was not a problem until railroads began regular intercity service, at which point it became confusing and dangerous.

However, the article incorrectly states that the four time zones that we know today were established by federal law in 1883. In fact, it was the railroads that got together and decided that they would, on their own, institute a system of one-hour time zones that suited their needs. On November 18, 1883, the railroads changed their clocks and waited for the citizens to change theirs. It wasn't long before the great majority of individuals and localities saw the convenience of the new system and adopted it. But not until 1918, when Congress established daylight savings time, was the standard time system enshrined in federal law.

The manner in which this change was adopted speaks volumes about the roles and relative influence of the railroads and the federal, state, and local governments in 1883. The railroad leaders realized that if the time problem was going to be settled quickly and to their satisfaction, they would have to settle it themselves. They were aided in this respect by the scientific community, which supported their plan, thereby increasing its credibility.

Several Harvard individuals helped confer this credibility. Professor Edward Pickering, chief of the Harvard Observatory, and J. Raynor Edmands, his assistant in charge of the observatory's public time service, gave their blessing to the change. Pickering became recognized as the dean of astronomical research in America. Professor Benjamin Pierce was also influential. A graduate of Harvard, a member of the faculty for 49 years, a founder of the Harvard Observatory and the National Academy of Sciences, he was recognized in his time as one of the nation's leading mathematicians. Finally, there was Dr. Thomas Hill, an early leader in the movement for an hour-zone plan. Hill graduated from Harvard with distinction in mathematics, went to divinity school, became a minister, then president of Antioch College, and then president of Harvard from 1862 to 1868, before returning to the ministry.

Frederick W. Allen '73
Washington, D.C.

Editor's note: thanks to Allen for the correction and amplifications. William J. H. Andrewes, Wheatland curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, adds that the system adopted in 1883 was devised by Charles Ferdinand Dowd, principal of Temple Grove Ladies' Seminary in Saratoga Springs, New York--a Yale man.

THE UNEXAMINED ACCENT

As someone who is also interested in languages, I read John D. Heller's "Like a Native" (January-February, page 58) with interest. I was disappointed, however, to read that Heller proudly felt he had acquired a "neutral, essentially northern accent." What is neutral about a northern French accent? I am surprised that a university language instructor would fall into the trap of conflating one particular region with neutrality. Wanting to master a language often also entails wanting to master the language standard that carries the greatest social and political cachet. This desire is not necessarily conservative or elitist, but it does merit some awareness--especially in a classroom. It is also worth considering the pleasure and sense of mastery that can come from learning less-standard language standards--or from being multidialectical as well as multilingual. Heller may enjoy it when people cannot tell exactly where he is from (and I don't fault him for feeling this way; I fault him for not critically analyzing his own position, desires, and assumptions), but I for one love it when my very particular southern Cameroonian French accent is recognized.

Valarie Moses '91
Ann Arbor, Mich.

THE ROOTS OF WELDIANA

"The Welds of Harvard Yard" (november-December 1998, page 69) omitted reference to the first of the lot: the Reverend Thomas Weld (father of John the burglar), who was "active with other ministers in the establishment of the College in Cambridge of which he was in the managing committee."

Weld matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1611, earning a bachelor's degree in 1613 and a master's in 1618. Evidently a troublemaker in a troublesome sect, he eventually got himself excommunicated and charged to depart. On March 9, 1632, he set sail for New England, arriving in Boston on 5 June on the ship William and Francis, together with a goodly number of other gentlemen. Soon after landing he wrote to his parishioners in England that: "Mye wife all the voyage on ye Sea better than on land, and sea sick but one day in a xi weeks at sea, my children never better in their lives."

Apparently, banishment did little to cool his zeal. According to the Reverend Amos Adams, Weld was chosen and invested with the pastoral care of the first Church of Roxbury, where he was notable for "his interest in upholding the Puritan doctrine in its original vigor." With John Eliot and Cotton Mather, he authored the Bay Psalm Book, the first hymn book to be published in America. (Is it any wonder that son John was a bit wild?)

Weld later returned to England, leaving his children at home, and secured certain gifts for endowment and scholarships for Harvard. He also secured a living at a church outside of Newcastle, but was ejected after the Restoration, dying shortly thereafter.

The real founder of the Weld family in America was Thomas's brother, Joseph, who also settled in Roxbury on a grant of several hundred acres given to him by the colony for his services in numerous fights with the Indians. Joseph served as captain of the Roxbury Company, which was incorporated in the militia regiment commanded by Col. Winthrop and Lt. Col. Thomas Dudley, and when he wasn't busy bashing Indians, he was busy accumulating property. In his will he bequeathed a sum in trust to Harvard "for worthy but poor students," naming Messrs. Dunster and Eliot as his trustees. It is wonderful (or is it wonderfully provincial?) how all these names resonate throughout Harvard's history.

Christopher Minot Weld '54
Essex, Mass.

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