In his mansion in Boston's Back Bay last week died Abbott Lawrence Lowell, 86. "Harvard College, as it stands today, is to a large extent his handiwork," said his successor, Dr. James Bryant Conant. Abbott Lawrence Lowell, for 24 years Harvard's president, himself largely represented what both admirers and detractors meant when they spoke of Harvard, Boston, and the New England cultural tradition.

For the forefathers of this Boston Brahmin two Massachusetts mill towns are named. His older brother Percival discovered the canals of Mars and the planet Pluto. His younger sister was...