Letter to Harvard

When Harvard's new President Nathan Pusey made his first major address at the Harvard Divinity School last fall (TIME, Oct. 5), his words had a reassuring sound to that long neglected institution. At 137 years of age, the Divinity School was hobbling along with only three full-time professors, and Dr. Pusey was the first Harvard president to speak before a Divinity School exercise since 1909, when revered Charles William Eliot delivered a discourse there on "The Religion of the Future." Though a small band of alumni had been valiantly trying to raise $5,000,000 to make the school an "interdenominational" center of religious studies, they had found it hard going. Now Episcopalian Pusey quoted Unitarian Dr. Eliot on the New Religion (". . . public baths, playgrounds, wider and cleaner streets, better dwellings . . ."), and bluntly said: "This faith will no longer do ... It is leadership in religious knowledge, and more, in religious experience ... of which we now have a most gaping need."

Last week Pusey's eloquent plea brought in some unexpected results--a gift that will boost the Divinity School's kitty to $2,000,000, plus an additional $500,000 from the Harvard Corporation.* The gift had come to Pusey in the form of a personal letter from a notable Baptist layman:

"Your profound belief in the underlying importance of the spiritual life promises to have a far-reaching influence on education . . . Because I so fully agree with you in that belief, I shall be happy ... to contribute to Harvard University for its Divinity School . . . $1,000,000 ... In the position which Harvard University and you as its president have taken, I see the dawn of a new day in the educational world. With sentiments of high regard, I am, John D. Rockefeller Jr."

Which had promised that amount when the fund got to $2,000,000.

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