From the time of its founding in 1879, Radcliffe contained what many thought would be the seeds of its own destruction. The schools's original charter provided in no uncertain terms that Radcliffe's funds and property could be turned over to Harvard College whenever such an arrangement would improve education at the two schools.

Harvard made it plain from the beginning that it was in no way responsible for the "Annex." But in 1893 President Charles W. Eliot and the Fellows of Harvard College realized that they would have to contend with "X College."

After painstaking negotiations, Elizabeth C. Agassiz, Radcliffe's founder and first president, finally persuaded Harvard to take some responsibility for the girls at the Annex. President Eliot agreed to countersign the women's diplomas, Harvard assumed responsibility for approving Faculty appointments, and the president and Fellows were to be the "visitors of X College."

But the college still suffered from the worst kind of identity crisis--it had no name. Since its inception it had officially been referred to as "The Society for the Intercollegiate Instruction of Women." Agassiz proposed to name the school for Ann Radcliffe, who in 1643 had donated 100 pounds sterling for a Harvard scholarship. So in 1894 the Annex was incorporated as Radcliffe College.

In 1903 Agassiz retired and LeBaron Russell Briggs, dean of Harvard College, became president of Radcliffe. During his term, the endowment expanded, the curriculum was diversified, and the Faculty grew--Radcliffe was assured permanence. And the objections of Corporation members and alumni stalwarts--who had vociferously opposed the education of women or, at best, Harvard's participation in such a dubious endeavor--gradually died down.

In 1923, as Ada Comstock took over the presidency, the college embarked on an aggressive building campaign: Briggs Hall was dedicated in 1924; Longfellow Lecture Hall followed in 1930; Byerly Hall in 1932; and finally Cabot Hall in 1937.

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The trend toward coeducation really began during World War II out of nothing less than sheer necessity on Harvard's part. The war had so depleted Harvard enrollment that the merging of most educational facilities became the only pragmatic financial arrangement for Harvard.

Until 1943 Radcliffe had hired its own professors; all were Harvard instructors, but Radcliffe paid them separately, and they taught their women students in the Radcliffe Yard.

But in 1943, Wilbur K. Jordan, Radcliffe's new president, made the first overtures--on Radcliffe's part, at least--toward coeducation. Harvard agreed to educate women in Harvard buildings and with Harvard money. Radcliffe would no longer pay the professors; rather, it passed its tuition revenue on to Harvard.

"Now Harvard and Radcliffe educations are the same except for the name on the diploma," one Harvard dean said smugly after coeducational classes had been initiated. But in 1962 Radcliffe women began to receive Harvard degrees, though Harvard clung to separate commencements for another eight years.

When Radcliffe suggested in 1969 that she merge with Harvard, it seemed certain that the inevitable consequence of 90 years of growing non-separatism between the wealthy university and its indebted sister college would soon become reality.

Just two months later, 1200 men and 300 women would receive letters of admission to what appeared would be a single, sexually heterogeneous Class of 1974. These acceptances, most assumed, would be the last to bear distinguishable letterheads. And the days of the seemingly arbitrary distinction between Harvard men and Radcliffe women--students receiving identical educations but "attending" different schools--appeared numbered at best.

This schizophrenia, however, had been present since Radcliffe's birth. As far back as 1879, there had been such a thing as a "Harvard girl." And although the term, coined by President Agassiz, was used by almost no one else, it foreshadowed the course of the alliance between the two bastions of higher education--the one for men and the one for women--and the dubious position held by Radcliffe women throughout the history of the school.

As the trend toward coeducation had developed--and peaked in 1968 with the admission of women to arch-rivals Yale and Princeton--the sudden and official transformation of Radcliffe women into Harvard women, as if by the stroke of a wand (and not by the vote of the Corporation), seemed imminent.