CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - One could take a look at the list of speakers at John Kenneth Galbraith's memorial service -- feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem, former Sen. George McGovern, Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy -- and think that it was as much a requiem for a philosophy as it was for a man.

But Wednesday afternoon's service at Harvard's Memorial Church was not a nostalgia trip, a lament for the passing of liberalism and one of its great standard bearers. It was an afternoon of laughter and remembrance of a man who figuratively, as well as literally, towered over the intellectual landscape of America.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Galbraith, the famed author, economist, academic and public servant who died on April 29 at the age of 97, was remembered for his wit and intelligence, his generosity and kindness, and most of all, for his famously outsized ego -- referred to by his son James as "Galbraith's First Law -- that modesty is a vastly overrated virtue."

Of course, one might be entitled to a big ego if one has written 33 books, served an advisor to every Democratic president from Roosevelt to Clinton and was one of Harvard's most famed academics. Galbraith was all that and more, one of the most prominent public intellectuals of the 20th century.

At the same time, he was generous to his friends around the world, including Newfane, where he spent his summers with his wife Catherine and their family for nearly six decades on what he called his "unfarmed farm."

His biographer, Richard Parker, spoke of Galbraith's place in the past and present of economic and political life.

"Reading through the obituaries and memorial pieces after his death, I'm afraid that too many treated him mistakenly as synecdoche, the man that bespoke another era, an earlier time that he -- and we -- had long outlived," said Parker. "To the very end, he never was a synecdoche of a time gone by -- but of immense relevance today, a figure of exceptional and independent mind and spirit, a skeptic always of power and privilege."

That skepticism of power was cited by many of Wednesday's speakers.

Steven Schlesinger read a letter from his father, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who couldn't attend due to illness. The 90-year-old historian and author was a neighbor and longtime friend of Galbraith's.

Schlesinger cited English author Thomas Carlyle's famous dismissal of economics as "the dismal science." "Carlyle never forsaw John Kenneth Galbraith," wrote Schlesinger. "(Galbraith) reconnected economics with human and economic realities."

Another longtime friend, as well as political sparring partner, William F. Buckley, recalled how Galbraith's "poker face" made him never quite sure whether he was teasing him or not.

"He told me once that the reason his prose was so perfect was because he rewrote everything five times, making sure he injected spontaneity into the fourth draft," said Buckley.

Steinem, who met Galbraith as a young reporter in the early 1960s, said what struck her first about him was that it was "rare that so much trust rested with so much power."

She spoke of how little difference there was between the public and private Galbraith.

"As John Kenneth Galbraith, he changed the world's consciousness," Steinem said. "As Ken he won our love and trust. The public and private selfs were never dissonant."

His eldest son Alan Galbraith spoke of how his father "was always working on that turn of phrase for our own amusement," such as one day when his father was asked how he was feeling. "He said, 'I'm old, sick, weak and intellectually perfect.'"

McGovern, the Democratic party's nominee for president in 1972, spoke of being at the Galbraith farm in Newfane, planning strategy for the election. "We assumed that anyone who won the Democratic nomination could beat (Richard) Nixon," McGovern said. "I guess our timing was off."

Kennedy called him "an eloquent voice of reason for our times" and thanked Galbraith for how he and Schlesinger supported John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign and "gave Jack the gravitas he need to become a serious candidate. There might not have been a 'New Frontier' without Ken."

Peter Galbraith, his youngest son, had the last word. He saluted his father for all the things he learned, from the importance of clear and persuasive writing, to how all of his children and grandchildren have pursued careers in public service and the public good, to the appreciation of beauty from the hills of Vermont to the canals of Venice.

"My father was always an optimist," he said. "When someone asked what he hoped for when he died, he said 'I'm hoping for heaven, but I'll settle for Venice.'"

Galbraith fought for years against what he famously called "the disparity between private affluence and public squalor," in his most famous book, "The Affluent Society,"

"We do not have 'the Good Society' that my father wanted," Peter said, "but he helped bring us closer to one."

The service ended with a chorus of "Auld Lang Syne," and as the mourners walked to nearby Annenberg Hall for a post-service reception, they were led by a bagpiper, a nod to Galbraith's Scottish heritage.

More than 500 people attended the service, which was taped by C-SPAN for future broadcast.

Copyright © 2006 Associated Press

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