COLUMBIA
LIBRARY
COLUMNS
 

History-Makers on the Campus

T
 

/■ ]f ^ HE nineteenth-century student of history was very often
preoccupied with the remote, the antique—with "the glory
that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome." He did
 

not expect, on raising his eyes from the pages of Livy, to see before
him in the flesh Scipio Africanus or any other hero of classical
times. In 1952, the young historian in Burgess Library, typically
a student of the contemporary world, might at one moment have
been studying the campaigns of Eisenhower, and a few minutes
later have actually encountered this new conqueror of Carthage
in the elevator! Members of Columbia's Russian Institute Stu¬
dent Group have had the unique experience of discussing with
Kerensky, Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government
of 1917, some of the reasons for the failure of his regime. Former
Ambassador Jessup is once again meeting students on Morningside
Heights. The name of Virginia Gildersleeve, a familiar figure on
the campus, is inscribed with those of other delegates from the
United States in the United Nations Charter. And the now Presi¬
dent of the United States has been succeeded as President of Co¬
lumbia by Grayson Kirk, himself one of the mental architects of
the United Nations.

We dedicate this issue, which contains several articles about
Columbia's contributions to the political sciences, to Grayson
Kirk. An educator, a historian, a statesman, he is a distinguished
representative of men at Columbia who not only teach and record
but also make history.