Abstract

The Loss of Tragedy

The article presents information on the students of City College, New York. The City College students, it was reported incredulously, not only survived the rigors of daily commuting to the edge of Harlem, not only supported themselves by working part time, not only coped with the demands of a curriculum devised during the Dark Ages, but also passed on to doctor of philosophy degree, in numbers unsurpassed by any other institution in the world and won more coveted Woodrow Wilson Fellowships than students elsewhere. In addition, they found time to fight for radical causes, which they equated with progress and humanity. Their radicalism possessed a puritanical quality unique to the "Holy City of the Left," and anyone who met a City College graduate knew himself to be in the presence of one committed to the improvement of self, city, country and mankind.