Neilson's 20th

A salesman once fell into conversation with a goateed little fellow traveler in a smoking compartment, finally asked: "What do you do? My line is skirts." Replied President William Allan Neilson of Smith College: ''That's my line too."

Last week Smith's Neilson journeyed from his Northampton, Mass. campus to nearby Springfield, to be the guest of honor at a City Club dinner celebrating his 20th anniversary as president of the largest resident college for women in the U. S. In the gathering of 400 Neilson admirers there were 18 college presidents and a liberal sprinkling of deans and professors. But there was very little solemnity.

Said Wheaton College's President John Edgar Park: "He has done a delightfully artistic job at Smith." Complained Wellesley's youthful Mildred Helen McAfee: "Dr. Neilson is constantly held up to us as a shining example!" Revealed Andover's Headmaster Claude Fuess, who studied English under Dr. Neilson at Columbia: "I remember when he did not think so much of girl students. In fact, he discouraged them by keeping his office in a constant fog of smoke." Radcliffe's Ada Louise Comstock, who once served as Smith's dean, recalled a Neilson lecture on the evils of tobacco which began: "Smoking is a vile, unhygienic, distasteful habit to which I am addicted." Said Dean Joseph F. Sullivan of Jesuit Holy Cross: "If you are to behold his monument, look about you." At this point Dr. Neilson bobbed up to remark: "Many of you have been my friends for years but I never before realized you bore such a good opinion of me. . . ."

Smith's Neilson today seems to Smith's 2,000 girls and their parents the very model of a modern college president, although his strong opinions have occasionally differed from those of many Smith alumnae. He went to Northampton in 1917 from an English professorship at Harvard, where his tall German wife Elizabeth had been snubbed by War-minded faculty wives. Stanchly liberal, Dr. Neilson defended Sacco & Vanzetti, early advocated the recognition of Russia, invited such figures as Bertrand Russell and Harold Laski to speak at Smith.

President Neilson reformed at home by gradually abolishing the college's cliquish off-campus houses in favor of dormitories, introducing tutorial work in special honors courses, in general treating his girls as though they were not very different from men. Smith girls, who are inclined to be smart and well-balanced, respect President Neilson's wishes in such matters as not knitting or chewing gum in class. But when several Northampton residents once complained that his girls should pull their shades down at night before undressing, President Neilson observed that they should pull down their own instead. Once a particularly conspicuous wave of amatory misbehavior moved Smith's administration to call a compulsory chapel. President Neilson appeared, cocked his head to one side, and instead of delivering the expected lecture remarked: "If you must kiss men, you will do well to pick gentlemen. They never tell."

Hale and spry at 68, President Neilson walks to his office in the morning, works until one o'clock with ten minutes off for milk and crackers, works all afternoon-- sometimes so long that his wife appears to coax him home. He keeps close watch on everything at Smith and as much as possible on the world outside. While Dr. Neilson is far from satisfied with education as it is, youngsters like Chicago's Hutchins who harbor elaborate and drastic schemes for reforming it, he considers "naIve." Chief extracurricular activity in recent years has been his editorship of Webster's New International Dictionary. Currently Smith is worried over reports that President Neilson is going to resign. That he will not do so until he is ready is certain, since he is chairman of Smith's board of trustees.

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