How many applicants were chosen to be admitted at Harvard in 1954?
Give a brief sociological review of the Harvard freshmen 1954.
Retell the passage in brief.
The following passage describes how a Hungarian refugee happened to come to the USA, to obtain a new name, to start to learn English and to get enrolled in Harvard.
… The first tavern was a mere six hundred yards away. The older man was already there, leaning casually against a fading wooden sign that identified the establishment as “Der Wiener Keller.”
“It means the Vienna Wine Cellar,” explained Miki, pointing to the placard. “It’s a sort of weak pun on ‘Wein’ and ‘Wien.’ Not sophisticated enough for gentlemen like us. I suggest we move on.
Without another word they set off.
“How’s your English?” asked Miki, as they marched briskly.
“I don’t know a single word,” George replied.
“Oh yes, you’re one of those privileged party children who get to study all those years of Russian. Not very provident of you, was it?”
“No. But I’ll start learning English the minute I can buy a book.”
“You’re walking with one,” his fellow refugee replied. “If you pay attention, I will have you speaking good American before we reach Vienna.”
“Okay.” George smiled. “Start teaching.”
“First lesson. Repeat after me, I am a cool cat8. You are a cool cat. He is a cool cat. She is a —’ ”.
“What does that mean?” George asked.
“ ‘Cool cat’ is a nice compliment meaning ‘good person.’ Trust me, George, I’m up-to-date from studying all the newspapers. Now stop the questions and start repeating.”
After two hours, George was able to make a modicum of idiomatic small talk. He knew how to flatter his future countrymen. To tell them that life in Hungary was “a drag.” And that the United States was the hope for the future of all mankind. On the more pragmatic side, he was able to ask where the men’s room was…
… “Listen, Gyuri, if your name were Karoly Lukacs, wouldn’t you change it to something more familiar to the American ear?”
George agreed. And immediately applied the lesson to his own predicament. “But, Miki, what will they make of Gyuri Kolozsdi’?”
“They will make a mess of it, my friend. An American needs an American name.”
“Well, what would you suggest?”
“ ‘Gyorgy’ is no problem,” answered Miki, clearly enjoying the opportunity to rebaptize an adult. “It simply becomes ‘George.’ But Kolozsdi’ must be replaced by something clear and neat.”
George searched his mind. For some strange reason, his thoughts returned to that first tavern on the road to freedom — Der Wiener Keller. “How does ‘George Keller’ sound?”
“Very dignified. Very dignified indeed.”
At this point they could have taken a tram, but George was loath to leave his new friend.
“Do you think they’ll want a simple student? I mean, I have no degree or anything.”
“Then you must find something that will make them want you.”
“I was studying Soviet law. What good is that in America?”
“Aha — there you have it. You have had a thorough party education. You know Russian almost as a mother tongue. Tell them you want to use this knowledge in the struggle against world communism. Tell them you want to go to university to help in this fight.”
“Any university in particular?”
“In America, the two best are Harvard and Yale. But you’d better say you want to go to Harvard.”
“Why?”
Miki smiled. “Because for a Hungarian, ‘Yale’ is too hard to pronounce.”
They finally parted company on the Ringstrasse.
“Good luck, Georgie.”
“Miki, I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me.”
Several moments later George discovered an envelope in his pocket. It contained Miki’s future address in Highland Park, Illinois. And twenty-five U.S. dollars.
The American Red Cross committee seemed fairly impressed with George’s academic background. But instead of receiving an air ticket, he was assigned to barracks on the outskirts of town. This wouldn’t do.
George approached a fresh-faced official wearing a Red Cross tag that identified him as:
“Excuse me, Mr. Redding,” George said politely. “I would like to go to Harvard.”
“Who wouldn’t?” The young man laughed. “I got turned down flat9. And I was third in my graduating class and editor of the paper. But don't you worry, we’ve got lots of colleges. You’ll finish your studies, I’ll promise you that.”
But George had a trump card, one of the “key American phrases” Miki had taught him on their march from Eisenstadt to Vienna.
“Mr. Redding,” he said with a slight quaver in his voice, “I—I want to be in America ... for Christmas.”
It worked! George could see from the expression on Redding’s face that he was moved by this lonely refugee’s yeanling.
“You’re a good fella, you know that?” he said with genuine affection. “Look — give me your name and I’ll see what I can do.”
Gyorgy Kolozsdi spoke his freshly minted appellation for the first time. “It’s Keller. George Keller.”
“Well, George,” said Albert, “I can’t promise anything, but come back and see me tomorrow morning, okay?”
“Okay. ”
“And if there’s anything you need in the meantime—”
“There is,” George interrupted this gentle attempt to brush him off. “I understand it is possible to get messages on the Voice of America, yes?”
“Uh, sure. That’s not my department, but I could pass it on.” He withdrew a pad and pencil from his jacket pocket and George dictated.
“I would simply like it said please that . . . ‘Mr. Karl Marx has died.’ ”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, please.”
The young man looked up at George and inquired diffidently, “Say, don’t they know this behind the Iron Curtain?”
“It may shock some people,” George replied. “Anyway, thank you, mister. I will return tomorrow early.”
At seven-thirty the next morning, Albert Redding was in a state of shock.
“I dunno,” he muttered to George, waving a telegram in his left hand. “Maybe I should have been born Hungarian.”
“What is it?”
“I just do not believe this luck,” the young man repeated in dismay. “Listen to this: ‘To the Field Director, American Red Cross, Vienna — Harvard University has set up a committee to seek out and subsidize one or two qualified refugee students from Hungarian universities We would appreciate complete details on any potential candidates. Please reply to me with fullest particulars. Signed, Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, Assistant Professor of Government.’ ”
Redding looked wide-eyed at George. “Do you believe that?”
“Who knows? But let us anyway quickly send this person a report about me.”
The response came within twenty-four hours. This young refugee was just the sort of candidate they were looking for. The rest was merely bureaucratic detail.
Eight days afterward, George Keller boarded a bus for Munich, where he was placed on an aircraft; twenty-six hours later he alighted at Newark Airport, USA. He was not at all tired by the long journey. It had allowed him time to memorize more of his newest acquisition, a book called Thirty Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary.
Customs at the airport was perfunctory. It had to be. All George possessed were two books, three newspapers and some clean underwear the Red Cross had given him. As he walked tentatively out of the Immigration area, a pale angular man with a crewcut held out his hand.
“George Keller?”
He nodded, still slightly unfamiliar with his new name.
“I'm Professor Brzezinski. Welcome to America. We’ve arranged for you to sleep tonight at the New York Harvard Club.”
COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS:
How did Gyorgy Kolozsdi become George Keller?
Why did he change his Hungarian name?
How did George start to learn English?
What was his first phrase in English?
Retell the fragment in brief.
Students need a lot of things for their studies. George came to the USA as a refugee and naturally needed practically everything.
Andrew first met George Keller after lunch in Master Finley's office. Professor Brzezinski had just brought the young refugee over from South Station and made the introductions. He then gave Andrew two hundred dollars and asked him to take George around the Square and fit him out with all the basic clothes he’d need. They would have to be thorough, since the Hungarian didn’t even have pajamas. Lest Andrew get the wrong idea, Brzezinski cautioned, “We are on a tight budget, Mr. Eliot. So I think it wise you do most of your shopping at The Coop10.”
As soon as they reached the Square, George began to read the billboards out loud, and then he eagerly asked, “Do I pronounce these words correctly, Andrew?”
He recited everything from slogans such as “Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco” to “Eight Minutes to Park Street” (on the electric sign over the subway). And then he would immediately try to use this verbiage in a sentence like, “What do you think, Andrew? Shall we buy some Lucky Strike? I’m told that it is fine tobacco and it is very good to smoke.” Or, “I hear the journey into Park Street, which is known to be the center of Boston city, is eight minutes only from this Harvard Square. Am I correct?”
He then listened with frenetic intensity to whatever nonsense Andrew replied, immediately asking for definitions of words he had not understood.
“Please, George,” Andrew begged at last, “I feel like a walking dictionary.”
Not that George wasn’t grateful. He kept effusively repeating things like, “Andrew, you're a really cool cat.”
The preppie wondered where the refugee had picked up slang like that. But then concluded that it must be a translation from Hungarian.
Inside The Coop, George acted like a child in Santa’s storehouse. He had never seen such an array of merchandise in his whole life. What struck him most was the amazing brightness of the colors.
“Back in my home — my former home, I mean to say — all things were gray,” he commented. “Also a great big drag.”
Despite a gleam in his eyes that made Andrew think he wanted to buy everything in the place, when it came down to selecting the most trivial of items, George was enormously fastidious. They stood in the underwear department and engaged in a long dialectic as to whether the majority of Harvard men wore boxer shorts or “the most cool of them” preferred the jockey type. (Every part of him had to be fashionably American.)
They ran the same investigative gamut when it came to socks and ties. Andrew steered him toward the reps, of course.
With notebooks and similar supplies, it was a good deal easier. George simply picked everything that had the college emblem on it (even the ballpoint pens, strictly a tourist item)
And yet he was a little leery when Andrew explained that Harvard types carried their stuff around in a green bookbag.
“Why green? Is not the official university color this winelike crimson?”
“Yeah,” Andrew sputtered, at a loss for words, “but —”
“When what is the reason you make me buy green?”
“Hey, George, I honestly don’t know. It’s just an old tradition. I mean, all the cool people —”
“Oh, truthfully?”
“Even Dr. Pusey ,” Andrew answered, hoping that the President of Harvard would not mind his invoking him in vain.
They spent an aeon11 in the textbook section. On the train Brzezinski had helped George work out a schedule of courses that would suit someone with perfect Russian. Still in addition to his class texts, he bought all sorts of English grammar books and dictionaries. Anything that would advance his crusade to conquer the language.
COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS:
Who helped George with shopping?
Where did they go shopping?
What did George buy for his studies?
How did George study English while going shopping?
Retell the fragment in brief.
In the American system of education, college students do not study in fixed groups and in strict accordance with the established curriculum as in Russia. The right choice of the disciplines to study during your college years is very important for the student’s further studies. The passage below describes the process of choosing majors and disciplines by the students.
Study cards were due in at 5:00 P.M. on Thursday. This gave The Class of ’58 a little time to shop around and choose a balanced program. They’d need courses for their majors, some for distribution, and some perhaps for cultural enrichment. And, most important, a gut12. At least one really easy course was absolutely necessary for those who were either preppies13 or pre-med14.
For Ted Lambros, who was certain he’d be majoring in classics, the selection was fairly straightforward: Latin 2A, Horace and Catullus, and Nat. Sci.15 4 with the pyrotechnic L. K. Nash, who regularly blew himself up several times a year.
Both as a gut and a requirement, he took Greek A, an introduction to the classical version of the language he had used since birth. After two semesters he would be able to read Homer in the original. And in the meantime, as a fourth course, he would read the famous epics in translation with John Finley, the legendary Eliot Professor of Greek Literature. “Hum 2,” as it was affectionately known, would provide stimulation, information, and, as everyone at Harvard knew, an easy grade.
Danny Rossi had already planned his schedule during his cross-country trek. Music 51, Analysis of Form, an unavoidable requirement for every major. But the rest would be pure joy. A survey of orchestral music from Haydn to Hindemith. Then, beginning German, to prepare him to conduct the Wagner operas. (He’d start Italian and French later.) And, of course, the college’s most popular and inspirational free ride16 — Hum 2.
He had wanted to take Walter Piston’s Composition Seminar, and had assumed that the great man would admit him even though Danny was a freshman and the class had mostly graduates. But Piston turned him down “for his own good.”
“Look,’’ the composer had explained, “the piece you handed in was charming. And I really didn’t have to see it. Gustave Landau’s letter was enough for me. But if I take you now, you might be in the paradoxical position of — how can I put it? — being able to sprint and not to walk. If it’s any consolation, when Leonard Bernstein was here we forced him to do his basic music ‘calisthenics’ just like you.”
“Okay,” Danny said with polite resignation. And as he left thought, I guess that was his way of saying my piece is pretty juvenile.
Freshmen who are preppies have a great advantage. Through their network of old graduates familiar with the Cambridge scene, they learn precisely what the courses are to take and which ones to avoid.
The Harris Tweed underground17 imparts to them the secret! Word that is the key to making good at Harvard: bullshit. The greater the opportunity for tossing the verbiage like so much salad (unimpeded by the need for such trivia as facts), the more likely the course would be a snap.
They also arrived at college well versed in the techniques of the essay question, and could pad their paragraphs with such useful phrases as “from a theoretical point of view,” or “upon first inspection we may seem to discern a certain attitude which may well survive even closer scrutiny,” and so forth. This sort of wind can sail you halfway through an hour test before you have to lay a single fact on paper.
But you can’t do that in math. So for God’s sake, man, stay away from science. Even though there’s a Nat. Sci. requirement for course distribution, take it in your sophomore year. By then you’ll have perfected your prose style so that you might even be able to argue that, from a certain point of view, two and two might just possibly equal five.
The program Andrew Eliot selected was a preppie’s dream! First, Soc. Rel. 1, because the name — Social Relations — was itself an invitation to throw bull. Then English 10, a survey from Chaucer to his cousin Tom. It was fairly rigorous but he’d read most of the stuff (at least in Hymarx18 outlines) in senior year at prep school.
His choice of Fine Arts 13 also showed astuteness. Not much reading, little taking down of notes. For it mean mostly watching slides. Moreover, the noon hour of its meeting and the semidarkness of its atmosphere were most conducive if one needed a short nap before lunch. Also, Newall pointed out, “As soon as we find girlfriends at the Cliffe19, that auditorium will be the perfect spot for making out.”
There was no problem about his final course. It had to be Hum 2. In addition to its many other attractions, since the instructor held the chair endowed by Andrew's ancestors, he looked upon Professor Finley as a sort of family retainer.
The night they handed in their study cards, Andrew, Wig, and Newall had a gin-and-tonic party to honor their official course commitment to self-betterment.
“So, Andy,” Dickie asked after his fourth, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
And Andrew answered, only half in jest, “Frankly, I don’t think I really want to grow up.”
COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS:
How many subjects do Harvard students choose for a term?
What did Ted, Danny and Andrew major in?
What subjects did they choose?
What advantage do the preppies have in choosing the subjects for semester?
Retell the fragment in brief.
STUDIES
Students have different learning strategies. This fragment describes how George Keller studied at Harvard.
ANDREW ELIOT’S DIARY
January 18, 1957
This George Keller is driving me insane. Maybe it’s the immigrant mentality. In fact, I’m working up a theory that Americans are driven by ambition in direct proportion to how recently they’ve set foot on these shores.
I mean, I once thought Lambros had a bullet up his ass. But he was born here. It was his father’s generation that came over on the boat. But nothing, absolutely nothing, tops the frenzied drive of this Hungarian, barely two months in America. I mean, if he were a locomotive he’d explode, he’s stoking his fire so hot.
When I wake up at what for me is the ungodly hour of 8:00 A.M., he’s already hard at work, having long since eaten breakfast. Almost every day he tells me with a kind of gleeful pride that he was first man in the dining hall. (Compare this to Newall, who revels in the distinction of never once having gotten up for breakfast in his entire Harvard career.)
George borrowed fifty bucks from me (which he’ll pay back as soon as his scholarship money comes through), and bought a portable recorder he takes to every class.
Now in the afternoons he plays back the lectures — and sometimes not just once — till he practically knows them by heart. Lots are in Russian. Which may be great for him, but makes me feel like I’m suddenly living in the Kremlin. Needless to say, George has the suite pretty much to himself during the days…
…Now here’s a shocker. I have no idea what time he goes to bed. In fact, I have the sneaking suspicion that the guy doesn’t sleep at all! And I had this really weird experience late the other night.
After a hard session of drinking at the Pore, nature obliged me to get up at around 2:00 A.M. As I was standing in the john taking care of my needs, I suddenly heard this ghostly voice emanating from the shower, saying things like, “begin-began-begun, bite- bit-bitten, sing-sang-sung.”
I called out to George, but, instead of answering me directly, he simply went on rehearsing his verbs in that tile echo chamber.
Then I pulled back the shower curtain. There he was, naked except for his new a la mode jockey shorts, holding an English grammar. He barely noticed me as he droned on, hammering new words into his head.
I warned him that he’d drive himself to death. To which he replied, “Drive-drove-driven.’’
I went to the sink, picked up a glass of cold water, and poured it over his head. He shivered and looked at me with comatose astonishment, then ripped the curtain from my hand, slammed it closed, and continued his verbal gymnastics.
“Show-showed-shown, speak-spoke-spoken.”
Shit, I thought. He can kill himself for all I care.
I shut the bathroom door behind me so that at least Newall could have some peace, staggered back to my bed, and went to sleep.
Or, as George would have put it, sleep-slept-slept.
COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
Describe George’s methods of learning English.
Characterize George as a student.
Why do you think George was such an eager student?
What surprised Andrew in George’s behavior?
Retell the fragment in brief.
Sometimes university students fruitlessly wander around majors which may lead to leaving a university without a degree. Andrew is one of them. Nevertheless there are people capable of resolving such students’ problems…
Professor Samuel Eliot Morison was among the most eminent members of the Harvard faculty20, and by far the most prolific. Renowned for his many volumes of naval history and his chronicles of Harvard, this distinguished gentleman was also, as his middle name suggests, vaguely related to the Eliot in The Class of ’58.
Andrew had been gliding along for almost three years now, flitting like a bee from major to major (English, American studies, even Ec21. for a few silly weeks). But now his senior tutor sent him an ultimatum: he had to choose a subject and stick to it. Knowing that he had to graduate from Harvard with a degree in something, he was panicked into seeking professional advice.
Gathering his courage, he wrote Professor Morison a note. And was agreeably surprised to receive an immediate invitation to visit the great man in his map-lined office deep in the stacks of Widener.
“What a real pleasure,” he remarked as they shook hands. “I see before me living proof that old John Eliot’s line is vibrant still. I knew your father when he was an undergraduate and tried to get him to help me a bit with my colonial history. But I guess the banking branch seduced him.”
“Yes,” Andrew averred politely, “Dad is sort of fond of money.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” said Morison, “especially since so much Eliot philanthropy has helped to build this college. My own namesake, Samuel Eliot, endowed the first professorship of Greek back in 1814. Tell me, Andrew, what’s your major?”
“That’s just it, sir. I’m a junior and I still haven’t made up my mind.”
“What do you think you’ll be doing after college?”
“Well, naturally, I’ll have to do some military service —”
“The Eliots have long served with honor in the navy,” he commented.
“Yes, sir, Admiral Morison,” Andrew replied. But did not tell him that that was why he was thinking of the army.
“And after that?”
“I guess Dad expects me to be some sort of banker.” After all, he thought, I’m coming into so much dough22 in four years I’ll at least have to visit where the bonds are kept. That’s sort of banking, isn’t it?
“Well, then,” said Morison, “you’ll have a fine vocation. Now you ought to choose a major that will give you some enriching avocation. Have you ever thought about the history of your own family?”
“Dad never lets me forget it,” Andrew responded with honesty and some discomfort. “I mean, while I was still in diapers he was already lecturing me about our noble heritage. To be frank sir, it’s a bit off-putting. I mean, over pablum23 I was hearing about John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians, and great-granddad Charles, the famous Harvard President. I was practically smothered by the foliage on our family tree.”
“But you’ve just leapfrogged several centuries,” the admiral remarked. ‘What about the Revolutionary War? Do you know where all the Eliots were during the times that tried men’s souls’?”
“No, sir. I just assumed they were shooting off their muskets around Bunker Hill.”
Now the professor smiled. “Then I think I have some enlightenment for you. The eighteenth century Eliots were splendid diarists. And we have records in their very words of what they saw and did during the Revolution.
“Andrew, I can think of nothing more exciting, especially for an Eliot, than studying what Harvard graduates were up to at that time. It could be a splendid topic for a senior thesis.”
At this point Andrew had to confess. “Sir, I think I should tell you that my grades are not exactly at the honors level. They’d never let me write a dissertation.”
The great historian smiled.
“Then you can have the essence of true education, Andrew. I’ll arrange for you to have tutorials with me, and we’ll go through the Eliot diaries together. Grades won’t enter into it. Just reading them will be their own reward.”
Andrew left Morison’s office almost breathless with elation. Now there was a chance that in addition to receiving a diploma, he might even get an education.
COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS:
What majors had Andrew chosen during his three years at Harvard?
What were the reasons for Andrew’s failure to stick to some major?
Who helped Andrew to resolve this problem?
What subject was finally suggested to Andrew?
Describe Prof. Morison.
Retell the fragment in brief.
EXAMS
The following passage describes the examination period at Harvard, how different students get through this difficult time.
Then suddenly, almost abruptly, freshman year was at an end.
The month of May began with Reading Period for exams. These special days were theoretically for extra, independent study. But for a lot of Harvard men (like Andrew Eliot and Company), it meant sitting down to do a whole semester's work, beginning with the very first assignments in their courses.
The athletic season culminated with the many confrontations against Yale. Not all the clashes went in Harvard’s favor. But Jason Gilbert led the tennis team to victory. And took particular delight in watching the Yale coach’s face as he unmercifully destroyed their number-one man, and returned with Dickie Newall in the doubles for another round of sweet revenge.
Now even Jason had to settle down and do some heavy studying. He drastically reduced his social life, restricting it to weekends only.
Meanwhile, in Harvard Square the sales of cigarette NoDoz pep pills24 rose dramatically. Lamont was packed around the clock. Its modern ventilation system spewed back all the scents of unchanged shirts, cold sweat, and naked fear. Yet no one noticed.
Examinations actually were a relief. For The Class of ’58 learned to its great delight that the old proverb about Наrvard was quite true: The hardest part was getting in. You had to be a genius not to graduate.
And yet, as freshman dorms were emptied — to make room for the ancient graduates of twenty-five years previous who, would be living in them once again during Commencement Week — some members of The Class were leaving, never to return.
A tiny number had actually accomplished the impossible and flunked out. Some honestly conceded that they could not bear the prospect of more pressure from such unbelievably ambitious peers. And thus, capitulating to preserve their sanity, elected to transfer to universities near home.
Some went down25 fighting. And lost their minds in doing so. David Davidson (still in the hospital) was not the last. In fact, at Easter there had been a suicide compassionately misrepresented by the Crimson as an auto accident (although Bob Rutherford of San Antonio had actually been parked in his garage when death occurred).
And yet, as certain rugged members of The Class would argue, was this not something of a lesson to both the victims and the survivors? Would life at the very top be any easier than the self-inflicted torture chamber that was Harvard?
But the more sensitive of them recognized that they still had another three years to survive.
COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS: