"A person knew his place, his role. There was an organic unity to society that we no longer sense," he said in a conversation after the class.

Donald sees connections between the dilemmas of the 1819-1861 years and those facing modern Americans. "It was an era of eroding social standards. You can't say, 'everything since 1820 was catastrophic.' Instead, you look for new, developing values," he said. "Similarly, we have to view contemporary counter-culture as a potentially positive good--an emerging set of values."

Donald came to Harvard after 11 years as professor of American History at Johns Hopkins University. His idealization of community spirit, as he perceives it in 1820 America, surfaces as he discusses some of his reasons for leaving Hopkins: "The undergraduates were curiously disorganized. There was little feeling of continuity among them--each year was like starting over."

Among his positive reasons for coming to Harvard, Donald cites Widener Library, "the strength and expertise" of Harvard's History Department, and "some of the best graduate students in the country." (Hopkins' history department has 14 members, and loses many promising applicants to Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley, Donald said).

Donald is interested in meeting undergraduates individually. His first lecture violated convention, according to many who attended, with a concluding invitation to come by and "just talk." "It's important to me to know whom I'm teaching. I want feedback, the student's sense of the problem," he said.

At home in Lincoln, Donald's hobbies include playing the clarinet (as a youth he aspired to direct a band), gardening and history. He and his wife, Aida DiPace Donald, also a Ph. D. in American History, have shared historical writing and research projects since they met at Columbia. They have a 15-year old son, Bruce Randall.

Donald, who taught previously at Columbia and Princeton and spent a year lecturing at Oxford, notes his distinction in the History Department here as a "non-Harvard man." That is, he has neither studied nor taught here in past years.

Donald says he questions whether he will feel "altogether at home" here. "It's so big, so complex. It would take a lifetime of growing in," he said. "First you have to learn the names of all the buildings. And then there are the 'family jokes' that newcomers just aren't familiar with."

But a one-time Mississippi farm boy, who has left his mark on Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins and Oxford, will undoubtedly find a way to come to terms with the Harvard experience.