'Holiday' Issue Reveals Fervent 'Cliffe Emotions

December's Holiday has added its 60 cents worth to the universal discussion of "The Radcliffe Girl."

Radcliffe faces have little in common, says author Nora Sayre, except "exhaustion, due to love or study." Miss Sayre, herself a 'Cliffe "a few years ago," denies the existence of a representative student. The college itself, however, is summarized in the first sentence as having "no faculty, no campus, and few rules," and existing only as a "climate for fervent emotions."

These fervent emotions are suggested in the six-page article by a series of disconnected impressions: the "violent pace" of daily life, "exhaustively faithful" couples, "repellent" dormitories, and sympathies "flying in all directions." A Radcliffe student "must be bright enough to do well in her courses while she performs Cressida or Mother Courage and breaks three engagements to marry."

"The work is not very difficult, but there is too much of it," says Miss Sayre, going on to question completely the value of Radcliffe and higher education. "Radcliffe's Olpmpian reputation is perhaps half-deserved," she says. Like Henry Adams, she feels that her actual education here was nominal, although less hurtful than that gained at other schools. "We didn't thing it wonderful, but it was inconceivable to go anywhere else."

Fantasists and Neat Ankles"

Most education is subjective: to meet and know the other students, says Miss Sayre. These seem to consist of "the worthies, or the neat ankles," who lead blameless, well-groomed lives and exude "beige-colored righteousness"; and girls like Miss Sayre's friends, "fantasists" (sic) who seek "elaborations in dress, emotions, and language."

"The social standing of one's family hardly mattered, but behavior did," she says, neatly listing all those traits (such as wearing angora collars) which marked a girl as "irretrievably stupid."

Cambridge, according to Miss Sayre, is "stern and permanent," "dirtier than New York," and so influenced by "Dead Puritans" that it made the author continually feel guilty.