Word: commoner
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...note is what groups the society breaks into. One would hope, at least, that in a highly intellectual community the primary divisions would be along lines of intellectual interest, but Harvard "apathy," with a very few exceptions, is nowhere more apparent than in the failure of those with common intellectual interest to come together...
...Harvard in particular wants desperately to find a group to which he can attach himself, and, since there is little or no opportunity to meet his intellectual colleagues in the lecture hall or even in the section, he turns to some formal or informal social group whose only common denominator is an interest in football games, cocktail parties, and desultory bull sessions...
...prewar days it did so to some extent. President Lowell's idea of the intellectual exchange over the dinner table was an admirable ideal but has not worked in practice. I have known students in the Houses who eat together religiously, not because they had the slightest thing in common (which was evidenced by their conversation) but because they happened by mere chance to be thrown together as roommates and, knowing no one else, formed themselves into a little group of fellow sufferers. On rare occasion I have seen these same people in contact with their real intellectual confreres...
...common answer to this is that those who do not take shortcuts are forced in preparing for an exam to have mastered most of the material in a course in order to pass, and that therefore the tutoring school should be made illegal, thus forcing everyone to do a modicum of normal studying...
...Salvemini fears most are war which would mean the total downfall of Europe, Tite's taking possession of Trieste, and a Communist triumph in the elections. The Fascists, who were not powerful in 1946, must be reckoned with in this election since they hold about half of the defunct Common Man party's votes...