Despite this evidence, though, Shinagel is probably correct in maintaining that exposure to the Harvard faculty reinforces well-considered academic inclinations. But this reinforcement does not seem to be as great as the critics suppose.

Harvard faculties have probably always tended to increase academic interests among their students. What is so different now is how widespread and serious academic interests are among entering freshman.

This is largely the result of the change in Harvard's admission policy. Until World War II, Harvard was essentially a rather non-competitive Eastern university dominated by preparatory school boys from established families. Nearly everyone who wished to enter passed muster; but not many outside those who naturally expected to come to Harvard asked to come in. For example, 90 per cent of the boys who applied for the class of 1937 were admitted. Twenty-four years later Harvard admitted only one quarter of those who applied for the class of 1961. The University had become a national institution, drawing to its cornucopia many boys of middle class families and and many immigrants' grandsons.

Naturally, there was a toughening of academic standards; there was also a considerable heightening of competition based on academic achievement. The Admissions Office, in emphasizing diversity and special talents, has struggled against this movement. But by and large it has understandably succumbed. Most boys are rightly admitted to Harvard on the basis of "academic promise."

But the result of this policy has been to increase academic competitiveness in high schools, and hence raise the standing of academic values. "It is during this formative period of calculated planning for college," Shinagel says, "with its emphasis on high and consistent academic performance, that any intellectual or academic professionalism may owe its origins."

However, the chain of causation goes back farther than this. As Riesman stresses, both the change in Harvard's admissions policy and the competition to be admitted to Harvard are reflection of major changes in American society. Especially since World War II, leadership in American society has been democratized; "class" institutions, such as the Ivy League colleges, have been opened to all who qualify by "meritocratic" standards.

"There is a much greater desire by students now to do something useful," Riesman says, "and making money is not regarded as useful."

This movement has recieved its greatest expression at small liberal arts colleges such as Reed, Swarthmore, Antioch, and Oberlin. Riesman notes that a far larger proportion of their graduates become academicians than do Harvard graduates. The orientation of Harvard seniors to academic careers is symptomatic of a national cultural change in which Harvard has been rather laggard.

Shinagel would like to bring many more men in non-academic fields into the Houses. He would give groups of doctors, lawyers and businessmen a status in the Houses similar to that of the journalists on Nieman Fellowships. Through this means he hopes students will realize that satisfying intellectual careers can be found in many fields--not just in college teaching. The innovation would tend to break down any "career monopoly" that the faculty might have.

Before we agree to adopt it, however, we should be aware of two points. The critics have probably exaggerated the extent both of the "career monopoly" and of the pressures toward academicism.

Secondly, there are sound reasons to doubt the efficacy of any institutional remedy for the problem of over-emphasis on academic values. For if Riesman's analysis is correct origins of the focus on academia are to be found in a basic transformation of American culture. Tampering with admissions or with the House dining halls would have little effect on so fundamental a process.

The attractiveness of grad school is not principally a reflection of Harvard's academicism, for that academicism, though ascendent, is still far from overbearing. It has been produced instead by changes in American-society--principally, its increasing democratization--and by changes in American values--especially, the veneration of the expert. There has also been a vast expansion of what academic includes. More men then ever are crowding into academia, but the wall between the academy and the world is dissolving