Education: Neilson’s Successor

Twenty-two years ago Smith College chose a Scot to be its president. It never regretted its choice. It liked witty, tolerant William Allan Neilson so well that when he retired last June it asked him to help choose his own successor. Last week Dr. Neilson and Smith’s trustees together picked another British-born scholar to head the college: Herbert John Davis, a native of Northamptonshire, now chairman of the English department at Cornell.

Like Dr. Neilson, Mr. Davis is an authority on English literature. Dr. Neilson’s specialty is Shakespeare, Mr. Davis’ Jonathan Swift. Mr. Davis was graduated from Oxford, was an artilleryman in World War I, taught at the University of Leeds and Cologne and for 16 years at University of Toronto before he went to Cornell last year. He remained a member of the Church of England but otherwise quickly became Americanized. He moved into an old colonial farmhouse, drove a car, played a good game of golf, joined a few clubs. Slim, fair and sandy-haired, he likes to play the piano, smokes a pipe, looks younger than his 46 years. He has two daughters, aged eight and two.

Mr. Davis will come to Smith as soon as Cornell lets him go; meanwhile Mrs. Dwight W. Morrow* will continue as Smith’s acting president. To Smith’s girls, impatient to see their new prexy, Dr. Neilson last week reported that after considering 100 candidates the trustees had elected Mr. Davis “very enthusiastically.” Said he: “In general personality and the scholarly and executive qualities that seemed to be demanded, Professor Davis proved to be just what we wanted.”

* For news of Mrs. Morrowand her son-in-law, see p. 12.