That was for sure a different era. A lot of people on this board wouldn't have had any chance at all to get into Harvard or many other "exclusive" schools no matter how good were their academic credentials.
The front end of Widener Library is basically a mausoleum dedicated to the son who passed away before his time -- on the Titanic. The rest of the library is an amazing thing. That's pretty funny about Lithuanian grammar being his test case.
Last edited on Fri Sep 28th, 2007 09:46 pm by mackinaw
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One of his teachers had been to Tufts and thought he should apply there, so he did. About 20% of his school went on to Harvard, so he applied there. To visit Harvard in the spring of 1941, he walked the 6 miles from Dorchester, 20 cents for bus fare not being something to spend lightly. He went to the Widener Library, which looked like a Greek temple, all marble columns. An enormous room was filled with card catalogues and he wondered what he could look up to test the depth of the collections. He was very interested in languages, so he checked to see what their holdings were in Lithuanian grammar texts. 19 different volumes! He was enchanted, and went to Harvard that fall.
