Harvard Education

The Harvard mystique is undeniable, the authors would have us believe. But Harvard, in addition to being one of the oldest universities in the nation, is also one of the hardest to get into and one of the priciest. With that in mind, the Lampoon editors created a volume that has ``everything Harvard has to offer, short of a place to hide for four years . . . even the goddamn diploma ,'' but at considerably less cost in both time and money. Moving from a photo tour of Harvard Yard, which provides the authors with an excuse for inside humor, the book proceeds in course-catalogue style to heap abuse on the history, traditions and educational disciplines of the school as well as on the readers of the book. We learn, among other things, that ``If only Hitler and Napoleon . . . had bothered to study history, they might not have been so short.'' There are only a few real belly-laughs scattered throughout. Fortunately, in the ``Linguistics'' section, the authors have been kind enough to provide their own review: ``This Harvard book ain't no fun to read.'' Making allowances for the double negative, that's about right. (Sept.)