Exeunt

The year 1937 saw the retirement of many a leader in U. S. education.* Last week, at the year's end, came two of its most remarkable exits.

Russian-born Morris Raphael Cohen, a tailor's son who roomed with famed Law Professor Felix Frankfurter at Harvard and had as teachers William James and Josiah Royce, has taught mathematics and philosophy at the College of the City of New York for 35 years. A modern Socrates with an acid tongue, he has turned out students who thought him harsh but loved him. Political Scientist Harold J. Laski called him the most penetrating and creative U. S. philosopher since William James. Though Professor Cohen has no law degree, Felix Frankfurter has said no U. S. lawyer or judge has been uninfluenced by his legal philosophy. His Law and the Social Order and Reason and Nature are landmarks in philosophy. He was president of the American Philosophical Association in 1929. Sought by swankier universities, Morris Cohen refused to leave City College because he found Jewish boys "eager for new ideas." But last week, sitting on a communal chair in the 8-by-12, cement-floored "office" that he shares with ten other members of the philosophy department, Professor Cohen, tired of the teaching routine, was saying goodbye. Next month, at 57, big-domed, grey-haired Dr. Cohen will retire to conserve his frail health, to write, to think.

English-born Kirsopp Lake has lectured on the Bible to Harvardmen for 23 years. An archeological explorer, he is credited with having discovered Jezebel's tower, a missing link between the Egyptian and Phoenician alphabets, and the original Sinai tablets. Once he was crushed by a camel on Mount Serabit, continued to direct excavations until he collapsed. Last week 65-year-old Professor Lake, facing more than 500 students in his Harvard lecture room, told a Biblical story, began to read from Rudyard Kipling. When he came to the phrase "by my own work," his voice suddenly broke and tears poured down his cheeks. "I can't read," he sobbed. "You, you are my work." Dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief, he added: "In the words of old Jacob, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless all the lads." As the students roared applause in the most emotional demonstration Harvard had seen in a decade. Professor Lake gathered his papers, put on his overcoat and walked slowly out of his last lecture.

*Notably President James Rowland Angell from Yale and Professor William Heard Kilpatrick from Columbia's Teachers College.

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