Furthermore, it is rather easy to debunk the notion that Harvard should train men to occupy top positions in nearly all fields throughout the country. In contrast to Britain (where Oxford and Cambridge men dominate business and the civil service, and academic life) America is far too diverse and democratic to accept a small homogeneous elite. Political leaders and business leaders gain standing in particular states and in particular companies, not through their undergraduate education.

Since Harvard is powerless to change this historic pattern, it is futile for it to attempt to train a "broad national elite." Instead, it should concentrate on what it can do best--training an academic elite.

This line of argument has won most of its supporters in the sciences and is particularly associated with George B. Kistiakowsky, Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Chemistry.

We do not have to accept it, though, to dispute those who view "sterile academicism" with excessive alarm.

In the first place, the critics do not distinguish between the attractiveness of academic careers, and the increasing professionalism of all careers. These are two different phenomena. The first is measured by the number who become academicians. Shinagel calculates this is about a fifth of the last few graduating classes. The figure is lower than the number of men who do graduate work in the arts and sciences, for about half the scientists (who comprise about two-fifths of this group) take jobs in industry.

General professionalization is measured by the number of men going to graduate school who do not become academics. This group has comprised about 60 percent of recent classes. In the late 1930s it was about 50 per cent of each class. This not too spectacular rise mainly reflects the greater number of men who take degrees in law and business administration to prepare for business careers.

The increase of interest in academic careers has certainly been substantial. Academic life claimed 10 per cent of the class of 1939; 15.5 per cent of the class of 1948; and about 20 per cent of the class of 1963. But even 20 per cent is not high enough to justify the charge that Harvard graduates are becoming a homogeneous group of academicians.

Moreover, the expanding number of men entering the academic field has been matched by the expansion of the field itself. The most apparent expansion has been in numbers. During the past decade employment opportunities in college teaching have boomed, and men have naturally moved where demand was great.

The academic field has expanded in another respect: money. Professors' salaries have increased substantially since World War II. Men no longer are deterred from college teaching by the penury it entails. In consequence, academia has been opened to middle class men. No longer is it dominated by the well-to-do who have independent incomes. Academic life has become a prime avenue of social mobility.

But the change in the character and range of "academic life" has probably been its most significant form of expansion. No longer is it a field of scholarship and teaching closely confined to the library, lab, and college classroom. The scope of the academic scientist has expanded spectacularly. Many now direct extensive research groups in costly projects, advise government agencies, do consultant work for corporations at substantial fees, travel widely to professional meet-ahead of the faculty. We were reading avant-garde works. English literature courses stopped with the Victorians. Now the students can't be ahead. They are faced by extraordinary, wide-ranging, and erudite men; worldly men, one of whom may have criticized Naked Lunch before any student saw it."

"In the 20s and 30s," Riesman continues, "professor was seen as a sheltered person who was not very manly. This view was somewhat false then but now it is widely askew."

How much does this new sort of professor "seduce" his students into the academic life? Clearly, he does not lure them to prize academic values to the exclusion of all others, as the critics charge. His own values are by no means exclusively academic.

Furthermore, it seems from an informal sampling that senior Faculty men do not downgrade non-academic careers. For instance, one eminent member of the History Department this spring took a special interest in a senior who intends to become a professional soldier.

Junior faculty members, on the other hand, seem more exclusively committed to their own fields. For example, in biology there are many accounts of lab men steering bright students away from medical school.

This attitude may be partly responsible for reports from many medical schools that they no longer attract the best science students. Harvard Medical School, however, has not yet noted this phenomenon. Neither has Harvard Law, although some other law schools have complained of a comparable problem--the siphoning off of top students by the social sciences.