Harvard’s DegringoladenJohn LeBoutillier: Harvard HatesnAmerica: The Odyssey of a Born-nAgain American; Gateway Editions;nSouth Bend, Indiana.nby Walter TrohannvJurs is a society in which high esteemnwas once given to the search forntruth in our institutions of higher learning.nThis search was conducted in annatmosphere as dedicated as t^at ofnPlato’s groved academy, but one hallowednby the measurement of socialnvalues against spiritual unity. Perhapsnnone of these institutions is more influential,nif not more venerated, thannHarvard, which has turned out morenpresidents, more philosophers, morenNobel Prize winners, more writers,nmore poets and more professors thannany American hall of learning.nBut it is a long way from the collegenof Charles William Eliot, and his fivenfoot shelf of the world’s great literature,nto the university of John LeBoutillier,nwhere four-letter words are intoned innivy-mantled classrooms and red radicalismnis often more honored than thencrimson badge of the institution. Thennot-so-old Harvard was designed tonpromote independence of thought andnmind, whereas the new Harvard thrivesnon regurgitation and imitation of thenliberal line, according to its recentngraduate and undergraduate, who is sonobviously literate and challenging.nOnly about half of this slender butnexplosive volume is devoted to Harvardnand the rest to politics, which is concernednwith how the Republican Partynlost its soul and how it might regain thenkingdom of the elected. The academicnsection commands our attention, becausenall who are attending college ornMr. Trohan, now retired, was on theneditorial staff of the Chicago Tribunenand chief of that journal’s Washingtonnbureau.nhave left, more or less recently, willnfind matching experiences in their ownnschools, if only they have the honestynand courage to say it in these days ofnregimented conformity, which has becomenthe cult of culture.nDr. Eliot became president of Harvardnin 1869 at the age of 35. He laborednfor forty years to make it a great university.nBefore his death in retirementnin 1926, the cultists had begun theirntransformation of thought by inquiryninto thought by conformity, which sondistresses Mr. LeBoutillier, who wrotenhis book in his 23rd year and is nownonly 25.nIn Eliot’s later days, many professorsnabandoned spiritual unity and turnednto the calls for social justice, voiced innthe storm and bloodletting of the FrenchnRevolution. It was easy for them to forgetnthe reign of terror in their absorptionnwith the goals of demagogues, andnno less easy to forget that the criesnended in the despotic empire of Napoleon.nNaturally, it was not difficult fornmany of these cultists to embrace thenrevolution of Lenin and to forget itsnresulting mass purges and slave laborncamps, which have ended in the onlynsurviving and aggressive empire ofnour day.nThe objectivity of the 19th centurynwas abandoned for the calls for socialnjustice of the 17th. Truths were jettisonednas ephemeral; history was rewritten,ncourses were reshuffled. Innall fields, teachers were enlisted in whatnwas held to be a war for social progress,neven though what was offered wasnrooted in the failures of the guillotine.nWhen LeBoutillier passed throughnthe gates of the Harvard yard, withntheir invitation: Enter To Grow innWisdom, the first professorial voice henheard was one calling for the electionnof George McGovern in 1972, partlynbecause the senator was calling for thenimposition of a 100 percent tax on in­nnnheritance. This same professor, LeBoutilliernlearned some minutes later, wasnthe third largest contributor to McGovern’sncampaign, having given or loanednmore than 1250,000 of his wife’s inheritednsewing machine millions to thenman dedicated to end inheritance. Le­nBoutillier found that another facultynmember, given to scatological outburstsnagainst America, owed his home, carnand fine clothes to his wife’s father, thenchairman of the board of a huge WallnStreet bank. This same teacher railednagainst America and bowed to Marx,nHegel, Mao and their peers in a coursensupposedly devoted to such 19th centuryndevelopments as slavery in Americanand the English industrial revolution.nThe sale and use of pot and otherndrugs on the campus, the cuddling ofnhomosexuals and lax grading for favorednstudents was shocking enough, but itnwas the interjection of personal opinionsnby professors and invitations to controversialncharacters or groups to lecturenon the campus which launched the newnHarvard student on the warpath. This,nof course, is not confined to Harvard.nLiberal students and professors, LeBoutilliernconcludes, are not “ideologicalnsoldiers engaged in a lifetime commitmentnto some ideal, but rather they areninsecure people desperately searchingnfor some sort of identity.” He adds thatnin almost every case, “the loud andnranting voices calling for radical changesnin America were not the voices of dedicatednsacrificing ideologues; no, theynwere really the voices of a generationnsearching for something that wouldnprovide an umbrella under which theyncould find security and legitimacy.” Nondoubt conformity is the womb to whichnthe uncertain seek to return. He emphasizesnthat not all of the studentsnand faculty he knew at Harvard werenas bad as the instances cited. Yet onnthe day of his graduation with honors,nhis house master urged him to take anfew steps to the left, and the good mann17nChronicles of Coltiiren