A Sennet Within

For all anybody yet knows, Drumbeats and Song may have in The Pajama Game a superb show or a shuddering wreck of a production. In any case, the organization behind the production, Radcliffe Grant-in-Aid, is no wreck at all. It came into being in 1949, for the purpose (so runs the Charter) of giving scholarship aid to "deserving and needy undergraduates without reference to scholastic standing and with preference given to those who have contributed significantly to college life."

What one finds most appealing about this student run subsidy--besides, of course, its admirable aims--is the touch of whimsy in its stratagems for raising funds. Originally its gaiety appeared inappropriate: a preference for musicals composed by undergraduates but possessing few other virtues once nearly drove Grant-in-Aid out of business. Now they have settled for the solider stuff of Broadway musicals; they sponsor an auction of things forgotten and unclaimed; they even (alas) run the freshman mixer. Held against the grey formality of the Financial Aids Office, their fund looks filled with life and color; it is eminently worth preserving.