Standardized Testing and the Beauty of Staying the Course

In 1933, James Bryant Conant, a Harvard University-trained chemist and a second lieutenant during World War I specializing in chemical warfare, became Harvard’s 23rd President. It is not recorded if his skills in chemical weaponry were seen as advantageous for the position by Harvard’s Board of Overseers. Conant brought with him not only intimate knowledge of chemical warfare but also what was for Harvard a radical educational philosophy. His agenda involved dispensing with customs such as class ranks and the requirement for Latin classes. He eliminated athletic scholarships and instituted a policy under which professors who were not prolific in their scholarship were terminated.