May 1957

Nevitt Sanford, director of the Mary Conover Mellon Foundation for the Advancement of Education, was quoted in The Lady’s Home Journal on the Mellon program’s work. “…we made a study [at Vassar] to find out what distinguished good students from poor ones; and we found out that the most important factor among good students was that their mothers had intellectual interests and aspirations.” Dr. Sanford also noted some features of student culture at Vassar: “Toward one another, students are expected to be friendly, co-operative, pleasant. Toward the faculty, polite, dutiful, impersonal. The college work is to be taken seriously, but not too seriously…. The emphasis is on moderation, keeping everyone on the same level of behaviour and accomplishment…. With respect to ideas and issues, the thing is to be open-minded and non-controversial, above all to avoid unpleasantness. If an ethical decision is to be made, the proper course is to find out what others think.”