Yesterday's News

1928 Massachusetts reports an over-supply of trained teachers. Referring to this "interesting condition of affairs," the editors note, "This seems to show one thing—that the rewards of teaching compare favorably with the rewards of other occupations. It does not show that the salaries of teachers are high enough to get the kind of teachers needed, either in schools or in colleges. It does not show that the uncorrected working of demand and supply can be depended on to tell what a good teacher is worth."

1933 In a letter to the editor, Westmore Wilcox Jr. '17 ascribes Yale's defeat of Harvard in football to remedies, such as the reduction of practice hours, meant to undermine the "over-emphasis" on athletics. He suggests, "It can be neither fun nor salutary to play football so badly that teams of comparable man-power are able to inflict humiliating defeats."

1943 President Conant analyzes America's ongoing "Fight For Liberty in Peace and War" in delivering a valedictory speech "not in June but in midwinter, to mark the graduation of the senior class...[and] the departure of many members of Harvard College whose academic course is far from over"—but who are leaving for war.

1948 A former student council officer, John C. Harper '46, writes of the "validity and rightful place of student activities at Harvard" in a fervent letter to the editor. He argues that "the college or university owes to its students every facility possible for extracurricular activities, for only in this way can a general education—taken in its broadest sense—hope to be achieved." 

1953 The winter examination period has proved "more trying than most," to say the least. "A wave of food poisoning struck the houses on January 21," reports student columnist Michael J. Halberstam, leaving most of his fellows struggling with both illness and tests.

1958 At the onset of the second academic term, Harvard College registrar Sargent Kennedy '28 proclaims that only "acts of God" will void the $10 fine for late registration for undergraduates—thereby successfully speeding up a process that had in recent terms taken much longer than expected. 

1973 The Graduate School of Design begins using an early form of video-conferencing technology in classrooms in an effort to foster greater instructional collaboration between Harvard's professors and those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

1983 Harvard and Penn share the Ivy League football title, having attained identical league (5-2) and overall (7-3) records for the season.