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'Cliffe Scores Sarah Lawrence For Over-Emphasis on Individual

By Mary ELLEN Gale

Education at Sarah Lawrence is characterized by a "frightening concentration on individualism" at the expense of scholastic excellence, according to a Radcliffe student who spent last week at the college.

"I don't know that this great emphasis on each girl as a single soul is healthy," declared Andres S. Miller '63 in a discussion last night among Radcliffe exchange students who visited five different col-college.

Girls in Ivery Tower

She criticized Sarah Lawrence girls for living in an ivory tower in many ways." Although the educational system offers them the opportunity to develop their individual talents, she explained, "they can excuse not doing their reading if they can come up with a whopping good personal problem."

As a result, she noted, class discussion is too often "chaotic" because students lack the "necessary background for understanding the subject."

In addition, the emphasis on artistic and creative occupations encourages girls to become "aggressively feminine," according to Elize D. Kellegg '62.

"The atmosphere at Bryn Mawr is very much more relaxed than at Radcliffe," commented Linda J. Rubin '63. She approved of the college's "flexible education" and pointed out that "Radcliffe rigidity makes for a lot of unhappiness by forcing students to plan their college program so early."

Susan S. Stein '62, who visited Howard University in Washington, D.C., described the predominantly Negro school as "very social and sophisticated on the surface." With a few notable exceptions she found little intellectual motivation among the student body.

"Duke University has achieved a wonderful blending of masculine and faminine education," declared Carland E. Crook '62. She praised the school for being "intellectual as well as very hospitable," but noted that the professors and students "don't have quite the intellactual capacity to become what they are trying to be--the Harvard of the South."

At the University of Pennsylvania, "students do their work for classes, but don't think about it outside," claimed Jennifer Belt '61. "They have less contact than we do with a working intellectual life."

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