Officials Oppose Change in PT; Affirm Necessity of Requirement

The physical training program at Harvard will not undergo any substantial changes in the foreseeable future, Dean von Stade and Nathaniel A. Parker, director of Physical Training, said yesterday.

Both men denied that useful comparisons could be made between the Harvard program and that of Radcliffe, which was made voluntary last fall. Mary Guest Paget, director of the Program in Sports, Dance, and Recreation, said Tuesday that Radcliffe was "reaching more upperclassmen and getting more intensive and skilled participation with the new system."

Parker said yesterday, "I'm not convinced at all by what happened at Radcliffe that Harvard should change its program along similar lines." He declared that while total participation at the 'Cliffe may have increased, the number of girls participating in actual physical recreation had not.

"It's as if we added an art appreciation course or a painting seminar to our regular activities," he continued. "To me, this isn't the purpose of freshman P.T."

Von Stade, while expressing "frank surprise" at the reports from Radcliffe, agreed that there could be no comparison because "girls are different from boys." He had warned last fall that the 'Cliffe program would hurt upperclass athletics there.

Freshman Program Vital

Parker and von Stade said they still believed the freshman P.T. requirement to be the backbone of the upperclass intramural athletic program. Both feel that the requirement remains necessary to insure the participation of those who would not ordinarily go out.

Parker said that while he doesn't visualize any "startling new developments," he personally favors a system like Dartmouth's, where entering freshmen are rated by a physical fitness test. If they achieve the highest rating, they are exempted from the P.T. requirement; otherwise, they must take physical education for up to two years.

"You can't think your way into better physical fitness," Parker concluded.