Despite the influx of students who are going to Smith College "because it is the thing to do," the academic standard "has not been brought down to the intellectual level of Harvard and Yale."

This was the statement of President William Allan Neilson of Smith College, delivered yesterday afternoon in the Hotel Statler before 1000 members of the Alumnae Clubs of the Seven Associated Colleges--Smith, Wellesley, Radcliffe, Mt. Holyoke, Vassar, Bryn Mawr and Barnard.

President Neilson does not believe that Smith College has fallen so low, intellectually, that it is on the Harvard Yale level. "In fact," he said, "I think we have more than held our own." There has been a tremendous change in the attitude of parents and girls toward education in the last 50 years, he said.

"I am going to make a rash generalization," he said. "No girl endangers her social status or her chances to marry by going to college. Also it is less risky for one's social standing to say one studies hard and likes it."

A few years ago it might have been considered dangerous for a girl with social or marital ambitions to spend four years at college, but times have changed. As a result there are many more students at college and a larger number of girls who have prepared at excellent schools. Boston Herald