Erich Segal: The Class

Danny Rossi had already planned his schedule during his cross-country trek. Music 51, Analysis of Form, an unavoidable requirement for every major. But the rest would be pure joy. A survey of orchestral music from Haydn to Hindemith. Then, beginning German, to prepare him to conduct the Wagner operas. (He’d start Italian and French later.) And, of course, the college’s most popular and inspirational free ride — Hum 2.

He had wanted to take Walter Piston’s Composition Seminar, and had assumed that the great man would admit him even though Danny was a freshman and the class had mostly graduates. But Piston turned him down “for his own good.”

“Look,” the composer had explained, “the piece you handed in was charming. And I really didn’t have to see it. Gustave Landau’s letter was enough for me. But if I take you now, you might be in the paradoxical position of — how can I put it? — being able to sprint and not to walk. If it’s any consolation, when Leonard Bernstein was here we forced him to do his basic music ‘calisthenics’ just like you.”

“Okay,” Danny said with polite resignation. And as he left thought, I guess that was his way of saying my piece is pretty juvenile.

Freshmen who are preppies have a great advantage. Through their network of old graduates familiar with the Cambridge scene, they learn precisely what the courses are to take and which ones to avoid.

The Harris Tweed underground imparts to them the secret word that is the key to making good at Harvard: bullshit. The greater the opportunity for tossing the verbiage like so much salad (unimpeded by the need for such trivia as facts), the more likely the course would be a snap.

They also arrived at college well versed in the techniques of the essay question, and could pad their paragraphs with such useful phrases as “from a theoretical point of view,” or “upon first inspection we may seem to discern a certain attitude which may well survive even closer scrutiny,” and so forth. This sort of wind can sail you halfway through an hour test before you have to lay a single fact on paper.

But you can’t do that in math. So for God’s sake, man, stay away from science. Even though there’s a Nat. Sci. requirement for course distribution, take it in your sophomore year. By then you’ll have perfected your prose style so that you might even be able to argue that, from a certain point of view, two and two might just possibly equal five.

The program Andrew Eliot selected was a preppie’s dream. First, Soc. Rel. 1, because the name — Social Relations — was itself an invitation to throw bull. Then English 10, a survey from Chaucer to his cousin Tom. It was fairly rigorous but he’d read most of the stuff (at least in Hymarx outlines) in senior year at prep school.

His choice of Fine Arts 13 also showed astuteness, Not much reading, little taking down of notes. For it meant mostly watching slides. Moreover, the noon hour of its meeting and the semidarkness of its atmosphere were most conducive if one needed a short nap before lunch. Also, Newall pointed out, “As soon as we find girlfriends at the Cliffe, that auditorium will be the perfect spot for making out.”

There was no problem about his final course. It had to be Hum 2. In addition to its many other attractions, since the instructor held the chair endowed by Andrew’s ancestors, he looked upon Professor Finley as a sort of family retainer.

The night they handed in their study cards, Andrew, Wig, and Newall had a gin-and-tonic party to honor their official course commitment to self-betterment.

“So, Andy,” Dickie asked after his fourth, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

And Andrew answered, only half in jest, “Frankly, I don’t think I really want to grow up.”

The occasions that we thousand-odd will meet together as a class in our entire lifetime are extremely rare.

We gather three times while we are in college. First at the Freshman Convocation — sober, serious, and boring. Then at the notoriously gross Freshman Smoker — just the opposite. And, finally, after jumping all the necessary hurdles, one June morning four years hence when we’ll receive diplomas.

Otherwise, we go through Harvard on our own. They say our most important meeting is a quarter-century after we all graduate. That would be 1983 — impossible to think that far away.

They also say that when we come back for our Twenty-fifth Reunion we’ll be feeling something vaguely like fraternity and solidarity. But for now, we’re much more like the animals on Noah’s Ark. I mean, I don’t think the lions had too much to chat about with the lambs. Or with the mice. That’s just about the way me and my roommates feel about some of the creatures that are on board with us for this four-year voyage. We live in different cabins and sit on different decks.

Anyway, we gathered all together as The Class of ’58 tonight in Sanders Theater. And it was pretty solemn.

I know Dr. Pusey isn’t everybody’s hero nowadays, but when he talked tonight about the university’s tradition of defending academic freedom, it was kind of moving.

He chose as an example A. Lawrence Lowell, who at the beginning of this century succeeded my greatgranddad as President of Harvard. Apparently, right after World War I, a lot of guys in Cambridge had flirtations with the Socialists and Communists — then preaching hot, new stuff. Lowell was under tremendous pressure to dismiss the lefties from the faculty.

Now, even guys as dim as I caught Pusey’s tacit parallel with Senator McCarthy’s unrelenting war on him when he quoted Lowell’s great defense of professors in the classroom being absolutely free to teach “the truth as they see it.”

You have to hand it to him. He’s demonstrated courage as Hemingway defined it, “grace under pressure.” And yet The Class of ’58 did not give him a standing ovation.

But something tells me that when we’re older and have seen more of the world, we’ll feel ashamed that we didn’t acknowledge Pusey’s bravery tonight.

“Where you going, Gilbert?”

“Where does it look like, D. D.? To breakfast, obviously.”

“Today?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Come on, Gilbert, you should know better. Don’t you realize it’s Yom Kippur?”

“So?”

“Well, don’t you know what it is?”

“Of course, the Day of Atonement for Jews.”

“Gilbert, you should be fasting today,” his roommate admonished. “You talk as if you’re not Jewish.”

“Well, D. D., as a matter of fact, I’m not.”

“Don’t give me that. You’re as Jewish as I am.”

“On what evidence do you base that categorical statement?” Jason said good-humoredly.

“Well, to begin with, haven’t you noticed that Harvard always assigns Jews to the same rooms? Why else do you think they put you with me?”

“I wish I knew,” Jason said jocularly.

“Gilbert,” D. D persisted, “do you actually stand there and deny that you are of the Jewish faith?”

“Look, I know my grandfather was a Jew. But as far as faith is concerned, we belong to the local Unitarian church.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing,” D. D. retorted. “if Hitler were alive he’d still consider you a Jew.”

“Listen, David,” Jason answered, unperturbed, “in case you haven’t heard, that bastard’s been dead for several years now. Besides, this is America. You do recall that bit in the Bill of Rights about freedom of worship. In fact, the grandchild of a Jewish man can even have breakfast on Yom Kippur.”

But D. D. was far from conceding defeat.