President Conant, now in his fourth year as head of the University, celebrates his forty-fourth birthday today. The twenty-fifth president is planning a routine day with the usual office hours, and a dinner with members of his family is his program for tonight.

Entering Harvard as a Freshman in 1910, Conant specialized in chemistry and graduated with high honors in three years. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and holder of an honorary John Harvard scholarship. In 1929 he was elected Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry.

The President has had a busy year. In academic life he has defended stiff courses and hard examinations, emphasizing concentration and pointing to the tendency to take too many survey courses as of value only in "Twenty Questions." Lately he has been making a plea for a deeper study of History and has proposed a non-departmental, non - credit, extra - curricula course in American History to "Inoculate the student body with educational virus."

In the political field, Conant made his first appearance in the political arena by strongly opposing the Teachers' Oath Bill as "Unamerican, unnecessary, and unwise." Recently he blasted the President's proposal to pack the Supreme Court.