Smith College, the biggest woman's college in the country, is sort of a collegiate variety show.

It has neither an academic specialty, particularly distinguished landmarks, dominant style of architecture, nor a "typical student."

Probably the most consistent thing about Smith is the way the girls dress. From Sunday night through Friday afternoon, the Smith student dresses with abandon that seems almost frantic. Skirts, except for a brief period around dinner time, are as rare as television in Tibet. Instead, she wears pedal pushers, or, if still in touch with an older tradition, dungarees. Above the waist, she will wear sweater, blouse, or shirt--anything, so long as it is sufficiently aged. If she's a senior, she can throw an academic gown over the whole costume when it normally would need washing.

Friday afternoon, as if some super-charged fairy-godmother had waved the wand, girls who looked so-so start to look good and girls who looked good, look great. They become ladies all over. Sunday night, they become pumpkins again.

The weekly metamorphosis of most Smith girls is of some interest for itself, but is worth special notice as a symptom of a way of life. Northampton, Massachusetts is tucked in the Connecticut River Valley at the foot of the Holyoke Range, a two hour automobile trip from New Haven, about a two and a half hour drive from Boston, and a good deal more than that from other spots of social interest.

As a result of this relative isolation, Smith has become a community--a community of college girls. Its members see a lot of each other, play a good deal of cards, participate energetically in what the community has to offer, support an elaborate student government, and feel concern for each other's well being. It is proud of being democratic and it is. "COLLEGE NOT ELITE CLUB: NO QUOTAS, ALL CLASSES;" one of the two student newspapers, "Sean," headlined a story last fall. Students in this year's freshman class come from 40 states, (Alabama, Idabo, and Nevada haven't sent anybody to Smith for four years), their parents represent 67 varieties f income; some 55 percent come from private schools; over a third are Episcopalian, 94 are Jewish, 76 are Presbyterian, 62 Roman Catholic, and 59 Congregational. Some 90 or so others are split among several faiths. The variety show element is ever present.

Nor are these all rich men's daughters, the article proudly noted. Of Smith's enrollment of over 2,200, about four-fifths can't meet the expenses, which start with a basic fee of $1600 for tuition, room, and heard. In a later survey, "Scan" found Smith offers more self-help than any other of the "Big Seven" women's colleges. Needy students, it reported, could knock about $250 off their college fees, for instance, by living in a dormitory where students did all the housework, including the buying and preparation of food.

Said "Scan," "...a cooperative system which reduced Smith students to one of the greatest drones of the collegiate world is justified financially. It exists as one of the many ways the college can skimp enough to offer the richest opportunities to the student who must be paid for her work or renounce a life of study." The word "drones" which the "Scan" writers used refers to the four hours of work per week that every Smith girl has to put in, on watch (Smithian for bells), in the dining hall, or as housemaid.

The campus they live on straggles over Northampton in such a way as to make Harvard's layout seem orderly and well planned, Dormitories, little ones, middle sized ones, and big ones, seem to ebb all over town. A walk north from the chief administration building, College Hall, leads through a campus that isn't beautiful, in the way that Wellesley is impressively beautiful, but it is pleasant. The area around Paradise Pond is as collegiate as any Hollywood college scene.

During the week, the Pond is a place to study by, cluster to for a sunburn, and row on. Weekends, couples languish around it, properly dreamy, canoe on the Pond, occasionally go strolling through nearby Paradise Woods.

Just what the girl who decides to live in these surroundings for four years hopes to get out of them is unclear. Like their male counterparts, many Smith girls have only fuzzy notions about what they expect to do once they get their degrees. Rarely do they want a career, in a sense that a feminist of the twenties insisted upon a career. Often what they look forward to is a job which can serve as a worthwhile way to spend time between marriage and graduation, and then, preferably, between marriage and children. The mating-instinct, as one magazine writer noted, is strong; marriage is the number one topic of over-coffee conversation. But not for all of them for the variety characteristic holds true here as elsewhere.

Even more than in a men's college, Smith girls study for the sake of personal development rather than for particular gain. History and English have long been popular majors, and Government is climbing fast.

Beyond the fact that Smith's distribution requirements are very similar to Harvard's, Wright don't yet seem to have made any particular innovations resembling the General Education program he nursed through its early stages while he was still here. A few courses of a general nature exist but they do not bear the GE tag. Smith has been making a drive for "integration" of studies in the final year and has instituted a tutorial-like program he calls 40B. While 40B works like tutorial in some departments, in other it is a seminar program, or merely involves writing a thesis.

Besides some 600 courses, Smith also offers the undergraduate student the Junior Year Abroad, a plan innovated in 1935 allowing students to study one year abroad for credit. Where possible, students live with families. Currently, Smith has Junior Year groups in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Mexico. An international studies program in Geneva was set up in 1946.

Be it because of "community interest," these on her hands, curiosity, or immense vitality, nearly every Smith girl is interested in some sort of extra-curricular activity.