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The opportunity to meet today provides a sobering occasion to reflect upon the things that a Harvard President must try to do within the time allotted to him to serve. And it is important that the President use such occasions well. Unless he perceives the critical goals and responsibilities of his office, it will be only too easy to exhaust each day in coping with the immediate problems that intrude from every side, only to discover, some years later, that a multitude of crises have been resolved but no enduring progress made.
Some of the President's most critical tasks are familiar enough.
Certainly, he must defend the freedoms of debate and inquiry, for they provide the foundation for teaching, for scholarship, and for the morale and self-respect of those who work within the institution.
Certainly, he must conserve and build the resources of the University, in hard as well as easy times, in order to maintain a high quality of teaching and learning for the present generation, without endangering the opportunities of generations yet to come.
And certainly, he must protect the University from the complacency toward which its excellence might incline it, and arouse its deans and faculties and all who are connected with Harvard to the fullest realization of what the institution can accomplish.
These are all traditional tasks. Yet beyond them lie new challenges that seem likely to press with growing intensity upon the University and its President.
Among these challenges is the need to pay closer attention to the issues of value and moral choice that inhere in the subjects we teach and explore. By this, I do not suggest that we should seek to indoctrinate ourselves or our students. I do mean that we should recognize that knowledge is a potent force in an imperfect world, and that institutions dedicated to propagating knowledge should search for ways to encourage a lively debate over ends as well as means.
A second challenge arises from the effort to provide an education for our students that will continue to serve them well through their rapidly changing lives. This task would be hard enough in any time. But it will be more difficult still in an era in which competence will demand intensive specialization, while wise judgments will require an understanding of many diverse fields.
A third challenge results from our desire to reconcile our valued traditions with new needs of society. We must try to preserve the virtues of self-determination in our separate faculties, and freedom in our research. But we must also recognize an obligation to address ourselves to social afflictions that can be resolved only through the cooperation of many disciplines and through the sustained, imaginative inquiry that only a great university can provide.
If Harvard makes the most of these opportunities, it will make greater contributions to mankind than ever before. The effort to conquer disease, unemployment, injustice, and so many other problems that concern us most will increasingly require the special training and complex research that are our stock in trade. Nevertheless, one final challenge remains that may hamper our ability to be of maximum service. Universities face growing pressure from forces in society that are no less threatening because they are so well-intentioned. There will be efforts to induce the universities to devote their energies to problems that other institutions are better equipped to resolve. There will be temptations to levy upon the resources of universities, and thus diminish their contribution to the larger society, because the communities that surround them cannot find the funds they need to cope with the urgent problems they confront. There will be pressures to ignore the needs of institutions of great quality in order to avoid the awkward appearance of favoritism. And there will be risks that support from public bodies can be purchased only at the price of encouraging ventures of doubtful merit, and encumbering universities with regulations that compromise their individuality and endanger the quality of their teaching and research.
These challenges are formidable, and we must not exaggerate the role of any single individual in overcoming them. Our ultimate success or failure will be the work of many minds, and much will depend on forces over which we have but little control. Yet surely the President must help to identify the critical challenges and opportunities that Harvard must confront. And surely he must help define the overriding purposes of the University and explain their importance in convincing terms. For if he does not, we cannot expect the University and its members to direct all of their energies and enthusiasms to the proper ends of the institution, nor can we be confident that the larger public will provide the support and the understanding that a university needs to carry on its work.
I accept this office, therefore, with the expectation that I will work to maintain the freedoms and standards that have been developed by so many predecessors over so long a time, and with the hope that I can help to renew a vision of our future that will rally faculty, students, staff, and alumni to the effort that our special resources permit, and the circumstances of our times require.