'Life' Tails Cute 'Cliffies

A Life magazine photographer and reporter are now finishing up their conscientious tracking of 15 Radcliffe girls around the Square.

The girls--mostly blond, and all chosen for their good looks--averaged six hours of posing this week. A black and white feature will soon appear in Life, pointing up the coincidence of "beauty and brains" in Cambridge.

In the afternoon sunshine yesterday, the photographer snapped wholesome pictures of 'Cliffies running up Widener stairs, struggling with assorted clothing at the Grant-In-Aid auction, and smiling through drippy sandwiches at Eisie's. A mass tableau of eight or nine girls riding bikes along the Charles is planned.

Problems

One Harvard-Radcliffe phenomenon is very strange to the Life magazine world. "But where would everybody be at this hour?" the reporters ask imploringly. "Where do all the students gather in the afternoon?" The students try to explain.

A few of the girls are apparently enjoying the hours of smiling. Some are slightly annoyed. "Well, at least there won't be too much writing," said one of the less enthusiastic. She was just a little apprehensive about the generalizations and descriptions that would appear under her picture.

"Life" is Fourth

With the publication of this article, Life becomes the fourth national magazine to run stories about Radcliffe in a year. Time started the series by discussing Mrs. Bunting last October, with oblique references to a Radcliffe "too busy for newspapers and politics." Also, said Time, "all Radcliffe girls have three things in common--guitars, English bicycles, and hard work."

Holiday countered in December, painting a hysterical picture of a Radcliffe of lovesick exhaustion, fantasy, and wild experimentation. And in June the New York Times magazine ran some somber pictures of brunettes, outlined the social rules, and described the emancipated 'Cliffie as "Keenly enthusiastic," "down-right solemn," and "better-looking."