Word: yearbooks
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Since the average "reader" of the Yearbook gets no further than the pictures, it seems worthwhile to begin a review of Three Twenty Two with a few words about the book's uneven level of photographic achievement. The high-points are some very nice portraits of professors and several pictures best described as "moody." There are many candidates for the low-point, but the worst would seem to be the PBH photographs that appear to have been taken through a bowl of split pea soup. Many other photographs are out of focus, poorly lit, and just plain dull...
After a brief glance at the pictures in this section, it becomes painfully apparent that Yearbook photographers were unable to cover the year's events adequately. If an activity receives several pages of pictures, it means that a photographer happened to be present, rather than that the activity deserved extended coverage. For example, there are three photographs for The Master Builder, including one of a page and a half, and none of the Hasty Pudding Show...
...better. Such errors of omission, however, are almost matched by the errors committed in the realm of editorializing. Three Twenty Two is seriously marred by the inability of the editors to limit themselves to reviewing and analyzing the previous year. Rather than limit themselves to the role of a Yearbook, they attempt to create a Book of Judgement, passing on the value of anything available. This is especially unfortunate since their judgements are bad. For example, the section on the Lampoon declares, "With the return of Thresky the Golden Ibis to his perch above the building, the Poonsters launched into...
Probably the only readers who get past the activities coverage to the feature articles are reviewers and Yearbook editors. This seems somewhat sad, since a great deal of effort and space was spent on these sections. The opening feature on "The House System and Harvard College" is a competently written, thoroughly researched study. The next one, on ROTC, is dull, confusing, and rather unimportant. "The Creative Artist" is well written and interesting, although some personal details and quotations from the artists would have helped considerably. The scholarships article is clearly written, but lists nary a dollars and cents figure...
...feature on teaching fellows that opens the faculty section barely bothers to review, or even to analyze. Rather, it plunges into some naive proposals for abolishing teaching fellows. An editorial has no place in a yearbook now, and will seem even more out of place twenty-five years hence. The Radcliffe story, in dialogue form, is a good try for creativity, but it fails. At the back of Three Twenty Two is the Yearbook's magazine "Cambridge 38." The article on professionalism raises an interesting and possibly serious problem, but its failure to define professionalism (is it a concern...