Harvard Anniversary Ceremonies : Charles Calls for Strong Moral Teaching

Britain’s Prince Charles opened Harvard’s 350th anniversary ceremonies today by calling for renewed emphasis on moral education to go along with technological training.

“We should never lose sight of the fact that to avert disaster, we have not only to teach men to make things, but also to produce people who have complete moral control over the things they make,” Charles told a gathering of 18,000 Harvard alumni, faculty and guests.

Charles urged parents and educators not to let children become dominated by technology “but rather teach them that to live on this world is no easy matter without standards to live by.”

Charles also urged that religion “teach people to recognize that there is a dark side to man’s psyche and that its destructive power is immense if we are not aware of it.”

‘Rejected the Best’

“We have for too long, and too dangerously, ignored and rejected the best and most fundamental traditions of our Greek, Roman and Jewish inheritance,” the heir to the British throne said.

In a light moment, Charles, noting that one newspaper criticized his invitation to speak at the ceremonies, quipped: “Have no fear, ladies and gentlemen. I am used to being regarded as an anachronism.”

He said he had not been called upon to speak to so large a gathering “since I spoke to 40,000 Gujarati buffalo farmers in India in 1980--and that was a rare experience.”

On Wednesday, Charles toured a high-tech computer manufacturing plant (Story, Page 20) and presented Harvard with a crystal bowl engraved with his and the university’s coats of arms in honor of the school’s 350th birthday.

He was not accompanied on his four-day trip by his wife, Diana, or their two sons, who are vacationing at the royal family’s castle in Scotland.

The 38-year-old prince is a graduate of England’s Cambridge University, which also graduated Harvard’s namesake, John Harvard, who bequeathed his library to the fledgling college.