When the office of the dean of freshmen placed its order for an ex-executive secretary, it undoubtedly read: "send a motherly-looking woman to calm frightened freshmen confronting the powers-that-be for the first time."

Mildred Powell fit the bill. As executive secretary to F. Skiddy von Stade Jr. '38, dean of freshman, she supervises the work of a small corps of secretaries assigned to the paper-bound problems of the freshman class.

Mrs. Powell herself points out that her motherly appearance was part of what the job called for, as well, of course, as her administrative skill. "The work is drudgery, but every freshman class is a new freshman class," Mrs. Powell says. "Any minute a freshman may come in . . . he may want to drop a course, but he may be a delight. I guess that's what keeps me here."

Mildred Powell is the kind of secretary who returned to her work after marriage. Her eight years in the College pale in the shadow of some of the secretarial 'giants" whose work has given rise to the legend that the secretaries run the University per se.

Martha W. Robinson, secretary of the History tutorial office, will retire this July. She came to what was then the History, Government, and Economics Department in 1936. Her approaching departure is partly responsible for the naming of the first assistant senior tutor of the History Department, as well as a secretarial replacement.

Mrs. Robinson sets up the tutorial assignments for the sophomore, junior, and senior classes. She makes sure that seniors have their these topics set, sees that these are handed in on time, makes sure they reach readers, gets them to the President's office for approval, and determines honors rankings. The records of all the students in Harvard's largest department are in her charge.

Mrs. Robinson's conversation is sprinkled with references to the senior tutor, Elliot Perkins, and his decisions. She is concerned when people think she makes all the decisions herself.

"She has a strong sense that secretaries don't have decision-making powers," says Perkins. He attributes the great sweep of her duties to her experience. Mrs. Robinson simply has had questions answered for her already that send newer secretaries scurrying to professors for advice.

She still brings Perkins any case that isn't open-and-shut to her. "I then say 'what do you think we should do?'" Perkins reports.

Miss Hill observes that the Mrs. Robinson kind of career secretary, the kind that legends and affectionate aphorisms grow up about, is vanishing from the Harvard scene. At least that's the way it seems. Few secretaries, or professors for that matter, come to a job expecting to serve there for 30 years.

One who would fall into Miss Hill's "beginning" category of secretary is Mary Ellen Crowe, who in just 18 months has begun to approach Mrs. Robinson's level of competence. Directing the History and Lit office, she has freed H. Stuart Hughes, chairman of the department, and David M. Kalstone, senior tutor, of most normal departmental paper decisions.

The limited size of History and Lit makes for a more informal office. Miss Crowe knows almost all of the 180 undergraduates. She refers to her job as simply "keeping track" of them.

But because the department has only a small number of tutors, it must restrict its size. Miss Crowe must face the people who are turned down. "That's kind of bad," she says.

Her ability to raised crushed spirits has not gone unnoticed. "She's some-one of extraordinary tact," says Kalstone, referring also to her dual job as Hughes's personal secretary.

A growing group among Harvard's secretaries are the wives of graduate students. Sally Marks, secretary to Francis H. Duehay, assistant dean of the Graduate School of Education, came to Cambridge with her husband,, a student at the Ed School.