Up on the top-floor library of Gifford Hall eight boys were at case in sweaters and shirts open at the neck. But five of them were "blowing up a storm." A trumpet, trombone, guitar, piano, and drums were whooping up some loud Dixieland jazz. Two fellows were listening and watching; another was studying. Across the street the girls dorms were quiet, their occupants studying.

The road that separates the girls from the boys and the rest of the Middlebury campus is not as wide as the Common between Radcliffe and Harvard, but it might just as well be. Academically and socially it is a chasm.

But despite music among the books and the coeducational split, Middlebury College compares strikingly with Harvard and Radcliffe, and the comparison reveals the advantages and disadvantages of a big-city educational plant.

The scholastic averages of two-thirds of all the girls at Middlebury fall within 93.8 and 80.4 points. Out of the 502 girls and 693 boys in the undergraduate body, there are 162 women on the Dean's List and 58 men. This is practically a three to one ratio, and in a small community it has powerful effects.

Part of the problem can be traced to the atmosphere on both sides of the Middlebury campus. It begins with the fact that girls who apply to Middlebury apply to it as a first choice. Many are turned down who are accepted at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Vassar, Smith, and Bryn Mawr. But boys apply as their second or third choice, and if they end up there, it is generally because they were turned down elsewhere.

And when the female freshman arrives at Middlebury, looking for and expecting to find enjoyable learning under coeducation, she finds a highly regimented campus social life. She must be in her dormitory by eight o'clock every night, unless she signs out until ten. Only on Saturday nights can she sign out till twelve thirty. Evening athletic contests at the school are the exception.

Women cannot be in the boys' dormitories at any time under any circumstances. This throws the load of indoor socializing onto the fraternities, but here Middlebury College law has strengthened Vermont State law to a severity that outdoes the deplorable situation in Massachusetts.

Like most small colleges, Middlebury is fraternity-dominated. The Interfraternity Council controls the fraternities, with the Dean of Men advising. "We've been well pleased by the workings of it," the administration reports, and there has been little interference, though the right to interfere is maintained. Because of the Vermont law against drinking under 21 and because of strong objection to College rowdyism by the village townspeople, the Council has ruled that there is to be no drinking in public view. It must be taken inside the fraternities.

This is not a severe request; considering town feeling, it is a wise one. But while the boys are perfectly happy to have their parties in the fraternities, the girls are not. College regulations forbid its girls to drink, and it is difficult to break this regulation on campus. This has led to the double punch bowl problem and 14-mile trips across the State line to freer New York.

Girls Are Further Restricted

If the proper chaperones are picked for fraternity functions (women cannot be in the fraternities unless there are chaperones present), the punch bowl downstairs will be pure. The one upstairs won't. The Middlebury women have forced this. They prefer it to two separate dispensaries downstairs, one for Middlebury women, one for others. Imported dates are under no drinking restrictions.

The sororities do not alleviate the situation since they are merely rooms in an office building in the town. If a girl wants entertainment, she must go one state west or 100 miles up to Montreal. But this is complicated by the transportation problem. There is no general exodus of students over the weekend at Middlebury because there are no longer trains in or out.

The result is that cars are plentiful among the men. They are not allowed to the women until after the Spring vacation of their senior year. Each car must be registered with the school, and discovered borrowing brings a revocation of driving rights. Girls are thereby forbidden to drive on two counts, which means that if a male enters a condition in which he cannot conduct his date or vehicle home from what is, for him, a legal drinking bout, the couple, by College regulation, is stranded.

The last alternative the girl has, if she can get the transportation, is the overnight on a weekend. For this reason the bulletin board at the Student Union is always covered with ride requests from girls. To take a weekend, however, a girl must first obtain permission from the Dean of Women. This comes after the girl has presented a completed form from her parents, filled out at the start of the year, for permissions of all types: "Are you willing to have your daughter . . ."

The Dean of Women, Elizabeth B. Kelly, is a warm, realistic woman who approaches her problem in a highly practical way. She came to Middlebury after World War II, during which she had to protect 21 girls from over a thousand men on a base in New Guinea. Noting that a diploma is only so good as a school's reputation, she says, "We of my sex want the privileges of a double standard without any of the responsibilities."