Today's Marshall Plan

"Marshall scholars?" said Britain's Prince Philip to an American not long ago. "Oh, yes. Wonderful of your government to send the lads over. Fine gesture." It is quite the other way around: the British government established Marshall Scholarships just ten years ago as a gesture to the U.S., naming them for the late General George Catlett Marshall, who inspired the postwar plan of U.S. aid to Europe.

Philip's confusion is not surprising. Marshall Scholarships have been so overshadowed by Rhodes Scholarships, the pinnacle of U.S. campus prestige, that most Americans are unaware of them. Yet last week, as the academic "Marshall Plan" named this year's scholars, connoisseurs were passing the word that a Marshall in many ways tops a Rhodes.

Both scholarships are for two years' study in Britain, can be renewed for a third year. But there the similarity ends. Rhodeses are open only to unmarried men, aged 18 to 24, and winners must go to Oxford for undergraduate study. Marshall scholars are men or women, married or not, and as old as 26. They must be college graduates, which Rhodesmen need not be, and they work to earn either graduate or undergraduate degrees at any of Britain's 24 universities, including the rising provincial "red-bricks."

20th Century Scholarship. Today, with bright U.S. collegians avid for graduate study, the Rhodes plan is losing some of its glamour. One Oxford don argues that "there can be no doubt that a Marshall Scholarship is better than a Rhodes. I don't say the boys are of better caliber; the scholarship itself is better attuned to the 20th century. Today a scientist might well want to avoid Oxford."

Marshalls make less splash than what one Marshall calls "big, strapping, celibate Rhodes scholars." But in many ways their lives are richer. "I've seen a great deal of England that most Rhodes scholars never see," says Paul Cable, now studying political science at the University of Manchester. "Up here it isn't all flowing academic gowns, green lawns and sherry parties." Says Dallas Holmes, now at the London School of Economics: "I came from Southern California with very right-wing opinions. I haven't turned Socialist, but I see that British doctors don't have whip marks on their backs."

Feminine Gender. Marshall scholars are basically chosen by five U.S. regional committees, with the stress mainly on intellectual promise. Rhodesmen are basically picked by state committees, which seek "all-roundedness" as well as brightness. In highly competitive states, Rhodesmen are thus highly formidable young men. But in less competitive states they may well be more athletic than academic. Picked more evenly, Marshall scholars feel that they are more warmly interviewed. One Michigan boy recalls his recent Rhodes interview as a combination inquisition and fraternity rushing. His Marshall interview was a free-form discussion that became "an intellectual experience in itself."

The Marshall Plan is now getting more applicants for its 24 places a year than does the Rhodes system for its 32. The inclusion of women makes Marshalls all the brainier. Only 34 of the total 168 Marshall scholars to date have been women. But of the six who won cherished "firsts" in Britain, four were women. Says one Cambridge don: "I tutored a lady Marshall once. Terribly bright."

This Year's Picks. Last week, as this year's 24 Marshall scholars were announced, they looked as bright as ever. They come from 18 U.S. campuses, led by Stanford's three winners, Harvard's two.

The new University of Sussex will get 21-year-old Eileen Janes, a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science and Brandeis University. Scholar Janes is getting her M.A. at the University of Wisconsin, wants to earn her doctorate in 19th century English history at Sussex, because it has the finest professor in her field. Pomona Senior David Drabkin, who has already spent a semester in India studying economic development, is also headed for Sussex to study international relations.

John Willis, 24, the first Negro Marshall scholar, will study medieval African history. To tap it, Willis has learned classical Arabic at Boston University, will aim for a Ph.D. at the University of London, which he calls "the best school in the world for African studies." Stan ford's Tom Grey might well be the prototype Marshall scholar. He went to Exeter, where he edited the Exonian, won a National Merit scholarship to Stanford. A veteran of Stanford-in-Germany, he earned a junior-year Phi Beta Kappa key, is an honors student in philosophy. No athlete, Grey is a witty, articulate student who was president of his Stanford fraternity, will study P.P.E. (philosophy, politics, economics) at Oxford, and then perhaps go to law school.

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