The girls of Lesley College, that little island within the huge Harvard ocean, suffer from a hang-up. It's a strange condition best described by some of its manifestations. They include:

* her embarrassed look when she tells a Harvard man she goes to Lesley, after she's asked him to guess where she goes to school and he's guessed Wellesley or Smith;

* her uneasiness as he sneers, "Oh, Lesleeey," after she has told him.

* and her fiery challenge to a Harvard date to prove that he is not making fun of her non-Harvard type College Boards.

Unfortunately, the Harvard men who see this behavior do not realize that it is a result of their own sneering, not a cause for it. And the worst of it is that the Harvard men who cause this hang-up really don't know what they are talking about.

But this doesn't keep them from talking. Everyone has heard of someone's older brother's roommate who once had nothing to do so he called up a Lesley dorm and. . . .

Unfair Judgment

The characterization is an unfair one; which poor Lesley bears mainly because of its smallness and its proximity. Lesley College is a four-year girls school whose purpose, according to its official catalogue, "is to educate young women and to prepare them to be effective teachers for the elementary school, the kindergarten, and the nursery school."

The special study of elementary education is one of Lesley's distinctions. The college is highly regarded in its field; and in addition to its regular program Lesley maintains three teaching schools and is currently conducting several exciting, experimental programs in teaching the underprivileged and mentally retarded.

Except for the emphasis in elementary education, Lesley is probably very much like any other American girls school. The dean of students sees the current enrollment of 536 as middle-to-upper class in background. (Tuition is a healthy $1600 a year for students in residence. The total basic fixed costs for resident students are $2690 a year.) And when you are confronted by eight smiling, giggling, Lesley girls, it's obvious that they are the same type of girls who go to any other college. Except Radcliffe, of course.

The eight Lesley girls -- Sharon Clifford '70, Beesie George '70, Sue Geller '67, Jo Anne D'Amato '69, Linda Wickeri '69, Sandy Lindell '67, Judy Johnson '68, and Fran Drier '68 -- all agreed that Lesley was just what they wanted.

And it was clear that they enjoyed Lesley. "The school is not very good-looking, but it's got lots of atmosphere," Sharon said. Lesley suffers only in its relation with Harvard and the girls all saw one reason for that -- the misinformed attitudes of Harvard men.

But the cynical mind wonders if the girls didn't actually come here for the social life and the famous MRS. degree. Every college girl thinks of marriage sometime, but was the idea of a Harvard marriage the Lesley lure?

"I have to admit I thought of it," said Sharon, and the others concurred. But they didn't seem to be as intrigued by the prospect as their parents are and as they were before they came to Cambridge. Jo Anne leads tours for prospective students and their families. "When I show parents Harvard Law, their eyes light up," she said.

So the girls come aware of their own goals and the social opportunities, then the shock comes. A Lesley girls meets a Harvard man, tells him where she goes to school and he says, in the words of one of the girls, "Oh my God, a school teacher -- Ding Dong School." Soon Lesley upperclassmen clue the new girls in to the fact that Harvard men have pretty strange notions about Lesley girls.