Scholarships: With Strings

According to Yale legend, a scholarship to that school awaits any son of an Indian maharajah who cannot afford his own elephant to carry him about the campus. Eccentrically conditioned scholarships, though deplored by colleges, open some novel opportunities at this time of year, when the only thing harder than getting into college is getting into college cost paid. Even at schools such as Harvard, where liberal-minded donors have piled up a sizable dollar pool that any needy student can dip into, restricted funds are still accepted and awarded on the theory that they release unrestricted money.

Harvard President Nathan Pusey’s undergraduate days in Cambridge were enriched by a restricted scholarship. As a transplanted native of Council Bluffs, Iowa, he was eligible for aid offered by Charles Perkins, president of the Chicago, Burlington &; Quincy Railroad, whose trust fund gave preference to youths “who come from the territory in Iowa served by the C.B. & Q. Railroad.” Princeton engineering students from states served by the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co. can apply for a special scholarship. At N.Y.U., would-be teachers tap funds given by Mrs. Finley J. Shepard-daughter of Railroad Magnate Jay Gould, if they happen to live along railroads Gould controlled.

A Switch of Ground Rules. Cornell’s Charles Green fund is reserved for students who either attended the Schuylerville Union Free Academy or lived at the Masonic Home in Utica. A Bucknell grant, new this year, provides full aid for students who graduated from Mount Carmel (Pa.) High School, lived in the town (pop. 10,760) for at least ten years before applying for help, are not habitual users of tobacco, narcotics or alcohol, and have never taken part in “strenuous athletic contests.” Bucknell found four qualified applicants. Wayne State University, on the other hand, rejected a scholarship restricted to a student “who does not smoke, drink, gamble, go to church or otherwise endanger his health.”-Whose many other philanthropies included wounded veterans of the Spanish-American War, the Red Cross, and Master Swindler Gaston Bullock Means, to whom she reportedly paid at least $100,000 in 1932 for the source of threatening letters sent to her and signed “Agents of Moscow” Means was never tried for defrauding Mrs. Shepard; he had already been indicted for cheating Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean, owner of the Hope Diamond, of $104,000 for promising to return the kidnaped Lindbergh baby. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, died after six.

Some colleges ignore the letter of the law for the sake of the spirit. U.C.L.A.

for several years interpreted “handicapped” students supported by the Will Rogers Fund to mean financially handicapped. Other colleges plead with donors or their heirs to liberalize the ground rules, and often win. Adelphi University on Long Island accepted a scholarship reserved for applicants named Smith from nearby Franklin Square, which proved to be short of smart Smiths. Finally the dean of students successfully appealed to the donor to limit his restriction to qualified residents of Franklin Square, and a bright lad named Montgomery won the scholarship.

California’s Occidental College received an endowment intended for widows from Orange County who promised not to join any “organization with a selective membership”-meaning a sorority. After three years of looking, the school broke the condition in court.

Amherst appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court and finally won the right to $200,000 that had been reserved for “Protestant Gentile” boys who did not drink or smoke.

No Encore for Pianists. The first appeal to a court was taken by venerable Harvard-and over its first scholarship gift. In 1643, Lady Ann Mowlson, the former Ann Radcliffe and the college’s namesake, gave Harvard £ 100 to maintain a poor scholar. Harvard took the money, but twelve years later decided to spend it instead on buildings. The court blocked the move; Harvard has not contested a grant since.

Calvin L. Crawford, financial director of Long Island University, says hopefully that the day of “giving scholarships for redheaded piano players of Scottish descent from Oshkosh is largely over.” Colleges may eventually refuse all conditional gifts and break all restrictions.

Until then, any students who fit the terms of a scholarship with a string attached might just as well pull the string.