Education: Boy Hopes to Meet Girl

Connecticut’s small (1,075 men) Wesleyan University in Middletown is brimful of new ideas, is rated by educators as among the nation’s liveliest. But the region around Wesleyan is also brimful of potent rivals, and Wesleyan has long lost top applicants to better-known Harvard, Yale, Amherst and Williams. Now President Victor L. Butterfield, once a canny Cornell quarterback, has called a play that may gain Wesleyan half a Harvard Yardage. Eying Harvard’s Radcliffe, Butterfield wants Wesleyan’s trustees to approve a similar “coordinate” college for women. Most men no longer seek “monastic education,” reasons Butterfield, and women will boost Wesleyan’s “drawing power.” As for finding the women, Wesleyan men are confident of their own natural drawing power.