"Harvard takes perfectly good plums as students, and turns them into prunes"

Frank Lloyd Wright’s clever remark uses fruit as a metaphor to critique higher education at a prestigious institution like Harvard. Comparing incoming students to “perfectly good plums,” he invokes the image of something fresh, ripe, supple, and natural, full of potential in taste and vitality. Plums symbolize youthful promise, individuality, and inherent goodness. The transformation of these plums into “prunes” is laden with meaning. Prunes are, essentially, dried plums: shriveled, less vibrant, and altered from their natural state for the sake of preservation or conformity.

Wright is suggesting that the educational process, especially at elite universities, often takes young people who are full of life and unique qualities, and processes them into something more uniform and, perhaps, less exciting. The implication is that the environment at Harvard overemphasizes molding, preserving, and conforming, sacrificing the fresh individuality and verve of its talented students. While prunes still have value, their appeal and texture are markedly different from plums. The critique here is not just of Harvard, but of an educational philosophy or culture that values standardization and safety over originality and living potential.

There’s also an underlying skepticism of institutional authority. Wright, famed for his creative work and his often unorthodox thinking, sees large institutions as entities that seek to control and reshape individuality, channeling youthful energy and innovation into more predictable, packaged forms. Harvard becomes emblematic of this broader tendency: it may offer prestige and tradition, but, in Wright’s eyes, at a cost. Creative spontaneity and natural growth are dehydrated in favor of résumé-building, cautious conformity, and a controlled intellectual dryness. The saying calls for a reconsideration of what education should foster, not preservation of tradition at the expense of what makes each student juicy, unpredictable, and uniquely themselves.