Dropouts and Kickouts

I have come to think that the only thing I really got out of Harvard as an undergraduate was myself. Harvard for me was merely a prolongation of the Roxbury Latin School of which I had been one of the less enthusiastic students. At Roxbury Joe Sasserno prodded our stumbling feet through L’Avare. At Harvard I had to stumble through Le Misanthrope with a similar lack of interest. Three mornings a week I spent watching Frisky Merriman cavort about the platform of the New Lecture Hall, tangling himself up with an eight-foot blackboard pointer while he talked about the Defenestration of Prague. Daily I attended a course in corrective English (for those of us who scored low in the College Entrance Boards), read a piece about “The Daily Theme Eye” in Freshman Readings and handed in daily themes on such subjects as “My First Impression of Harvard.” Whatever we did, an avuncular eye was always on us. We had weekly quizzes, November Hours, Mid-years, etc. Any absence was duly noted.

Some time in my sophomore year a junior dean (I have forgotten his name) summoned me to University Hall. He informed me that in the light of my grades and attitudes my connection with Harvard was from that day severed. Since I was obviously not the academic type, he suggested that I might try retail selling, some place like Sears Roebuck, if I could persuade them to take me.

FR

About the Author

Francis Russell

Featured Tags

I have come to think that the only thing I really got out of Harvard as an undergraduate was myself. Harvard for me was merely a prolongation of the Roxbury Latin School of which I had been one of the less enthusiastic students. At Roxbury Joe Sasserno prodded our stumbling feet through L’Avare. At Harvard I had to stumble through Le Misanthrope with a similar lack of interest. Three mornings a week I spent watching Frisky Merriman cavort about the platform of the New Lecture Hall, tangling himself up with an eight-foot blackboard pointer while he talked about the Defenestration of Prague. Daily I attended a course in corrective English (for those of us who scored low in the College Entrance Boards), read a piece about “The Daily Theme Eye” in Freshman Readings and handed in daily themes on such subjects as “My First Impression of Harvard.” Whatever we did, an avuncular eye was always on us. We had weekly quizzes, November Hours, Mid-years, etc. Any absence was duly noted.

Some time in my sophomore year a junior dean (I have forgotten his name) summoned me to University Hall. He informed me that in the light of my grades and attitudes my connection with Harvard was from that day severed. Since I was obviously not the academic type, he suggested that I might try retail selling, some place like Sears Roebuck, if I could persuade them to take me.