"It sounds like a college party; doesn't it?" said J. Lawrence Dohan '55 as he approached the door to "G-3," a ward high inside Metropolitan State Hospital at Waltham, Mass. "Well, it isn't, he continued, without smiling. "It's a mental hospital, and the sounds you hear are coming from patients who were considered hopeless cases a little while ago."

Then, after unlocking the final, fifth door between the ward and the outside world, he stepped into a scene rarely found in hospitals for the mentally ill. The "Bunny Hop" was blaring on a little wind-up phonograph. A Radcliffe freshman was dancing with a wizened old man whose eyes were almost as lively as his feet. A Harvard junior was getting ready for a game of musical chairs with seven women whose ages were hidden behind prematurely-drawn faces.

Each woman had a yellow daffodil in her stringy hair, and they had all just finished gulping down cookies and purple punch. What had happened to the usual somber atmosphere of "G-3"? The simple answer was provided by a patient standing near the door. "The volunteers have come," she said, almost breaking into a smile.

A Violin Solo in 'G-3'

After several minutes inside the ward, it was not difficult for a visitor to sense that there was something gloomy beneath the carnival spirit. Although the ward of about 50 women--specially joined for the afternoon by men from another ward--was generally clean, a strange antiseptic-like odor permeated the place. And, if 25 of the women were dancing, another 25 were sitting sullenly in the two long lines of chairs on either wall--some watching the gaiety with scorn, others gazing vacantly out the windows, while still others were constantly chattering to themselves and to anyone who would listen.

Then suddenly one of the patients picked up the record and smashed it on the floor; the volunteers were packing up to go back to Cambridge after three hours of hard but rewarding work, and the tensions of the patients were again coming to the surface. Soon the corridor would return to its usual state.

Aside from the volunteers, who now come to the ward every weekday afternoon, these particular patients have little to break their monotony. Infrequently they do have access to the limited "occupational therapy" facilities, but generally they just sit--waiting for volunteers, bedtime, and meals. Meals, according to an occupational therapist at the hospital, are "quite a sight." "The food is mainly bread and macaroni," she bitterly explained, adding, "The patients are herded to the cafeteria, or rather to the mess hall--and I mean mess."

The ward itself is by no means a "mess." It is not even drab any more, for the volunteers have gone to work with brushes and paint and put colorful murals on the pale green walls. One attendant explained that the volunteers had offered to wash off the pictures, "but the patients," she said, "wouldn't have it, and the paintings are still here. They really brighten the place up, you know."

When Dohan began the volunteer program in October, 1954, "G-3" desperately needed brightening up. All day, every day, every week, every month, the patients found nothing but a long corridor. There was nothing to do, no one to talk to. Dohan had served as a volunteer at Boston Psychopathic Hospital a year earlier, but last spring switched to Metropolitan State, where there were no volunteers at all. Beginning with only two volunteers, Dohan has expanded the program, under Phillips Brooks House, to include, at present, over 200 Harvard and Radcliffe students.

About 70 students are working actively in two adult wards at Metropolitan State. As student leaders of ward activities, Maeda Jurkowitz '56, Ann Gaines '57, and Alice Bonbright '57, all from Radcliffe, are in charge of planning the dances and organizing the volunteers into groups of six or seven which return to the same ward once a week.

In addition to group activities involving the patients themselves, volunteers have distributed 250 pairs of shoes collected in a PBH clothing drive. They have also sponsored theatrical and musical entertainment led by students. As a hospital attendant commented, "Last week, I found a student playing a violin for about 50 patients, who were sitting quietly listening to the music. Now that's something you wouldn't have found in a mental hospital five or ten years ago."

Another hospital employee agreed, saying, "We appreciate the entertainment almost more than anything. There is absolutely no budget allotment for recreational therapy of any kind and the total occupational therapy figure totals only $300 annually. And that is supposed to be enough to provide about 1,700 adult patients with carnivals, dances, and all kinds of craft work. It's just not enough, and the volunteers help immensely."

The volunteers help not only in entertainment and in organized activities, but also in just treating the patients like normal human beings. As one of the volunteers said, "We don't try to cure the patients. We just talk to them, if they want to talk, or play with them, if they want to play."

One of the most amazing results of such talk and play has been the sudden and dramatic response of 12 patients who had not spoken to anybody for years. The case of Mrs. A., in "G-3," is typical.

Every day, for the past 15 years, Mrs. A. had been sitting in a hard wooden chair at the end of the hospital corridor. With her dress forlornly covering her hear, she had never spoken, rarely moved except when forced. One of the doctors compared Mrs. A. to a near-sighted woman hit by a car on a busy street: "She is now standing on the psychotic side," he said, "and is afraid to cross to the normal side. Everything looks out of proportion--the street wider, the cars bigger, the danger greater. So she turns her back to the world and closes her eyes."