LiBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Shelf ...i.QjJ f) C 
 
 rfA2- 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
The American Girl 
 AT College 
 
T 
 
 HE American Girl 
 AT College, by 
 LiDA Rose McCabe 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DoDD, Mead & Compa 
 
 1893 
 
 OMPANY \y 
 
 ( 
 

 V 
 
 Copyright, 1893 
 By DODD, mead & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
TO 
 
 MY FATHER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. — Higher Education, 
 II, — Physical Development, 
 III. — Esthetic Culture, 
 IV. — Social Life, . . 
 v.— Scholarships and Fellowships, 
 VI. — America to Japan, . ^ 
 
 VIL — Higher Specialised Work, 
 VIII, — Presidential Silhouettes. 
 IX. — Co-education, 
 X. — Relative Cost, 
 XI. — Self-Help, 
 XII. — Practical Outcome, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 15 
 26 
 
 45 
 62 
 
 75 
 86 
 
 95 
 106 
 121 
 141 
 153 
 
 XIII.— The Association of Collegiate 
 
 Alumna, . . • - .181 
 vii 
 
 \ 
 
''All the adventures of knights will 
 not prome one lady's valour. She must 
 fight her o:wn battles, " 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A BOOK with an apology rarely has 
 excuse for being. Conscious, however, of 
 the interest and importance of the sub- 
 jects here treated, I feel it due to the 
 colleges mentioned in these pages to 
 state that the volume is the outcome of a 
 flying visit to the woman's colleges of 
 New England and the South. 
 
 The topics discussed are attracting the 
 attention of scholars and educators, some 
 of whom were pleased to discover in my 
 homely discussion of them information 
 valuable to the American family and 
 kindly urged their presentation in a more 
 permanent and desirable form than the 
 ephemeral newspaper. Written within the 
 limitations of journalism, they do not 
 
 xi 
 
Preface 
 
 invite technical consideration and are no 
 more than what they aimed to be — facts 
 garnered from personal observation and 
 authentic sources. 
 
 If a college girl gleans a practical hint, 
 the future historian a suggestion by the 
 perusal of this humble little volume, it 
 will not have been " Love's Labour Lost/' 
 
 LiDA Rose McCabe. 
 
 New York, May 15th, 1893. 
 xii 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HIGHER EDUCATION 
 
 THE higher education of woman has 
 ceased to be a conundrum. Wo- 
 man has solved it. Statistics refute 
 ahiiost every objection raised against her 
 highest intellectual development. Wit- 
 ness the scholastic standing of the four 
 great women colleges of the United States. 
 The standard is equal if not higher than 
 that of the average man's college, which 
 proves that only earnest workers aspire 
 as yet to collegiate training. 
 
 There are indications, however, that 
 higher education may develop into a fad. 
 In such a crisis, doubtless, feminine dul- 
 lards will be coached to college and to a 
 
The American Girl at Collet<e 
 
 lower scholastic standard, as are the mas- 
 culine drones infesting our great insti- 
 tutions. Certain is the wide-spreading 
 popularity of collegiate training for wo- 
 man. More than three thousand students 
 were enrolled the past year at Vassar, 
 Smith, Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr. Last 
 year some two hundred degrees were con- 
 ferred. Mt. Holyoke — the pioneer in 
 higher education — chartered a college in 
 iS88, and the Woman's College of Balti- 
 more — the first in the South — conferred 
 in 1892 degrees on their first graduates. 
 The class at the former numbered ten, 
 while the Woman's College had five 
 graduates. In equipment it is one of the 
 educational marvels of the South. 
 
 Harvard Annex, unique in educational 
 development, rounded its twelfth year 
 with flattering results, conferring the Har- 
 vard certificate, the equivalent to a Har- 
 vard College degree, on nine women. 
 
 Barnard College or the Columbia Annex 
 is about to send its first graduates, eight 
 women, to receive from the President of 
 the University the same degrees which 
 
Higher Education 
 
 are conferred upon men, as the reward of 
 advanced scholarship. The founding of 
 Barnard accentuates an epoch in the 
 higher education of women. No other 
 affiUated college of the non-co-educational 
 institution is recognised so honourably as 
 an essential part of the university proper; 
 no other commands so great generosity 
 in degrees. 
 
 The quota of women at the great co- 
 educational colleges is constantly increas- 
 ing, while Yale, Johns Hopkins, and the 
 Universities of Pennsylvania and Chicago 
 now offer her equal privileges. Room, 
 more room, is the cry of every woman's 
 college, while the number following post- 
 graduate courses increases yearly, sub- 
 stantiating the assertion of their precep- 
 tors that woman's colleges are founded on 
 the old Hellenic idea: " Culture for cul- 
 ture's sake." 
 
 When it is recalled that at the close of 
 the Revolution many ladies of high stand- 
 ing in Boston could not read, that wives 
 of distinguished men signed deeds with a 
 cross, that a girl instructed by a master 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 was unheard of, and to be permitted to 
 hang on the doorsteps of country schools 
 to hear the boys recite was deemed a 
 privilege, well may we exclaim with the 
 President of Smith's College, "Woman's 
 intellectual awaking is like a dream!" 
 
 But what is the drift of this much-talked- 
 of higher education ? What is the differ- 
 ence between. common schools, colleges 
 and universities, and of what value are 
 degrees to women, is a question that 
 old-fashioned, home-keeping women find 
 themselves asking their sisters in " the 
 swim." A college presupposes a knowl- 
 edge of the common branches essential to 
 intelligent and successful performance of 
 any business or to a proper discharge of 
 the duties of common life. A college 
 does not train a student in law, medicine, 
 theology, agriculture, commerce, art, sci- 
 ence or literature. This is the special 
 work of universities. Between the com- 
 mon school and the university, then, lies 
 the college — that higher education which 
 aims to impart to women through liberal 
 studies the discipline, the culture of the 
 
Higher Education 
 
 powers of observation, perception, reflec- 
 tion — the normal development of a sound 
 mind and a good heart in a healthy and 
 graceful body — in short, the education of 
 the whole woman for the fullest accom- 
 plishment of the highest and best work in 
 life. To accomplish for young women 
 what our colleges are doing for young 
 men was the hope of the founder of the 
 first woman's college — Matthew Vassar. 
 Twenty-five years ago Vassar College 
 conferred degrees on its first graduates, 
 and in the interval it has enriched the 
 home and professional life with more than 
 a thousand equipped women. 
 
 The serious work of the " fair Vassar 
 girl" in all the higher walks of life has 
 silenced the gibes of men's colleges and 
 crippled the jingles of the funny man of 
 the press. 
 
 Vassar graduated in '92 its largest class 
 — fifty-five. A large proportion are now 
 teaching. A number married and as- 
 sumed social responsibilities at once, 
 while others have entered on medical 
 studies or are following post-graduate 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 courses at Yale, the Chicago or other uni- 
 versities. Scarcely an educational insti- 
 tution for women in the country is with- 
 out a Vassar girl on its Faculty. It 
 continues to furnish leading libraries with 
 librarians, while journalism and periodic 
 literature are enriched by its contributors. 
 The reputation of Maria Mitchell is sus- 
 tained by her successor. Miss Mary W. 
 Whitney. The recent observations of 
 the new comet made by Miss Whitney 
 and her students were published in the 
 Astronomical Joiwnal. Two Vassar girls 
 are assistants and computers in the ob- 
 servatories at Yale and Harvard. Miss 
 Murray, of Harvard, was the first to dis- 
 cover the facts which led to Prof. Picker- 
 ing's recent theory as to double stars. 
 
 Ten years after the opening of Vas- 
 sar, Smith and Wellesley Colleges were 
 founded. Their growth is marvellous. 
 The cordiality existing between the wo- 
 man's colleges, as shown by their supple- 
 menting their Faculties by an interchange 
 of graduates, is a strikingly wholesome 
 feature of this great transitory period. 
 
 6 
 
Higher Education 
 
 Wellesley was founded by a rubber mer- 
 chant of Boston, Mr. Henry F. Durant, 
 whose belief in woman's intellectual 
 power was early stimulated by the women 
 who imparted to him his knowledge of 
 the classics. Wellesley is controlled en- 
 tirely by women. It contributes largely 
 to the missionary fields. Its graduates 
 are found in many professions. The col- 
 lege has at present 700 students. Many 
 of last year's graduates have entered 
 upon various bread-winning careers, while 
 the increase in post-graduates is marked. 
 Wellesley is fully abreast of the times, 
 eager to assimilate new ideas and put 
 them to practical test. 
 
 Smith College was founded by a woman, 
 and the Faculty is divided. It began 
 with fourteen students. "We thought," 
 said its President, " that if we had one 
 hundred in twenty years, great strides 
 would have been made. We have now 
 650. We can't accommodate the num- 
 bers demanding quarters on the campus." 
 Smith in '92 conferred degrees on eighty- 
 one graduates. 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 The Sophomore year at Smith's is 
 known as the matrimonial epoch. Many 
 students at this term abandon college for 
 matrimony. The girl that safely crosses 
 the Rubicon may be relied upon as a can- 
 didate for a degree. 
 
 Bryn Mawr was founded in 1884 by a 
 Quaker and richly endowed. It has prof- 
 ited by the experiences of Vassar, Welles- 
 ley, and Smith, and combines, scholasti- 
 cally and materially, the best that money 
 and taste can secure. It opened in 1885 
 with 44 students. It has now 166, From 
 Johns Hopkins University it borrowed 
 the system of major and minor electives 
 in fixed combination. Bryn Mawr last 
 June conferred the Bachelor degree on 
 sixteen women. A number of the class 
 of '92 are teaching. The marriage ratio 
 of Bryn Mawr is proportionally higher 
 than that of Vassar. 
 
 Latest statistics show that college-bred 
 women are now marrying more rapidly 
 than formerly and at an earlier age, while 
 the exceptional scarcity of divorce among 
 married college women proves that the 
 
 8 
 
Higher Education 
 
 costs of matrimony were fully counted 
 before the responsibility was assumed. 
 
 Miss Emory, of Maine, last year won 
 the European fellowship. This provides 
 $500, sufficient for a year's course at an 
 English or Continental university. Two 
 young women have already profited by 
 Bryn Mawr European fellowships. One 
 is now engaged in philanthropic work in 
 Boston. 
 
 Bryn Mawr girls wear the gown and 
 mortar-board. The gown is of black 
 nun's veiling, alpaca, or serge. They 
 were adopted at first to lessen the expense 
 of graduation toilettes. They add dignity 
 and picturesqueness to college life. The 
 graduates of the Woman's College at 
 Baltimore donned the gown and mortar- 
 board to receive their degrees, and hence- 
 forth it will be their daily costume. 
 
 The adoption of this time-honoured 
 garb of foreign universities is a yearly 
 mooted question in all our woman's col- 
 leges. Wellesley Seniors wear it on Tree 
 Day, but as yet Vassar and Smith cling 
 to the gowns of the traditional " sweet 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 girl graduate." Barnard appears in cap 
 and gown, sustaining the unique type of 
 college woman. The value of a degree 
 to the woman ambitious to teach or enter 
 professional life increases yearly. The 
 ■ scholastic standard of common-school 
 teachers will eventually be elevated to 
 such a point that only the woman with 
 A. B. can hope for position, while the aspi- 
 rants for college professorships will find 
 Ph.D. imperative! 
 
 A. B. (Bachelor of Arts) is conferred 
 by colleges at the successful completion 
 of the prescribed course. 
 
 A. M. (Master of Arts) is conferred on 
 the college graduate who remains a year 
 after graduation to pursue a line of study 
 beyond the prescribed course, while Ph. D. 
 (Doctor of Philosophy) is the reward of 
 extended university study. Fellowships 
 — home and foreign — are multiplying in 
 all the colleges. 
 
 Examinations for admission to the 
 Freshman class of Vassar, Smith, Welles- 
 ley, Mt. Holyoke or Baltimore College 
 include English History and Mathematics 
 
 lO 
 
Higher Education 
 
 in addition to Latin, Greek, German or 
 French. Certificates duly quahfied by 
 the various faculties are generally ac- 
 cepted in lieu of the prescribed examina- 
 tion. 
 
 The Harvard University examination 
 for women held in Cambridge, New York 
 and Cincinnati, is the most rigid. Regu- 
 lar examination under the Board of Ex- 
 aminers of Columbia College, which insists 
 upon Greek as a requirement, admits a 
 girl to Barnard. The equivalent of the 
 Harvard examination, or a certificate of 
 honourable dismissal from some college or 
 university of acknowledged standing, is 
 the passport to Bryn Mawr. All these 
 colleges have three regular courses: clas- 
 sical, scientific and literary. The first 
 leads to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, 
 the second to Master of Arts, the trio 
 to Doctor of Philosophy. Post-graduate 
 and special courses for teachers and ad- 
 vanced students are now provided, and 
 the requirements for entering and passing 
 vary slightly in each. 
 
 Bryn Mawr admits three classes to its 
 
 II 
 
The American Girl at Colle2:e 
 
 lectures and college work : graduate stu- 
 dents, undergraduates and hearers. The 
 idea of hearer is essentially English, and 
 Bryn Mawr is the only woman college 
 that offers this valuable provision. A 
 hearer is excused from passing the ma- 
 triculation or entrance examination. She 
 must be a woman of at least 25 years of 
 age, and furnish proof that she has at 
 some time pursued the studies included in 
 the matriculation examination. Her ad- 
 mission to recitations, examinations and 
 laboratory work depends solely on the 
 consent of the instructor in charge. 
 Hearers, unlike special students, are not 
 recognised by the college and can receive 
 only such certificates of collegiate study 
 as may be given them by the several in- 
 structors. They cannot receive degrees. 
 This is an exceptional opportunity for 
 studious, ambitious women debarred in 
 early youth from higher educational ad- 
 vantages. 
 
 Especially welcome are the hearer's 
 privileges to the bread-winner to whom 
 experience has brought home her defi- 
 
 12 
 
Higher Education 
 
 dency in certain lines where proficiency 
 would enlarge and facilitate her oppor- 
 tunities. Dread or timidity of undergoing 
 a matriculation examination has prevented 
 many mature women from entering our 
 colleges to perfect themselves in a special 
 line of study that would secure them 
 higher results and increased competency 
 in their chosen callings. 
 
 The high standard of scholarship main 
 tained by all our women colleges would 
 seem to debar the dilettante from aspiring 
 to higher education. Should it ever be- 
 come " good form" for families to insist 
 upon the female dullards entering college, 
 the lowering of the average now attained 
 would find compensation, perhaps, in the 
 avenue it would open to poor, industrious 
 girls to pay their way by tutoring the 
 rich man's indifferent daughters. It is 
 hardly possible that frivolous, indifferent 
 girls will ever worry through the higher 
 education, yet it cannot be denied that 
 to be a college-bred woman is a growing 
 ambition. To define the outcome of the 
 higher education of women is as impracti- 
 
 13 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 cable as would be an exhibit of philan- 
 thropic work at the World's Fair. 
 
 " We do not aim to train a woman for 
 a sphere, profession or calling, " insist the 
 presidents of all our women colleges. 
 " We train her simply to be a whole wo- 
 man, a power for highest good in any 
 community in which her lot may be cast, 
 and in no position is her influence so po- 
 tent as in the home. When men complete 
 the college curriculum they rarely have 
 definite ideas of what course they will pur- 
 sue. Why should women be expected to 
 have definite plans? All must await de- 
 velopments, and whatever those develop- 
 ments may be the college-bred woman is 
 better equipped to meet them." This is 
 higher education in a nutshell. 
 
 14 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT- 
 
 ^■p^HE modern college girl, in Turkish 
 1 trousers, crosses swords with a 
 fencing master, vaults bars, climbs ropes, 
 plays ball, rows and swims. Not with 
 german favours or progressive euchre 
 prizes but with the trophies of gymnasium 
 tournaments is her boudoir decorated! 
 
 Eager to grasp all, hold all, our early 
 educational system tended to the develop- 
 ment of the intellect at the sacrifice of the 
 physique. Alarmed at the results, mod- 
 ern educators are seeking in the old world 
 for a remedy — a remedy that might be 
 found at home since our German popula- 
 tion brought Vv^ith them the turnverein, to 
 which continental universities are largely 
 indebted for the preservation of sound 
 minds in sound bodies. This general 
 awakening to the importance of physical 
 
 15 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 in conjunction with mental training 
 happily comes, almost simultaneously, 
 with the objection advanced against the 
 higher education of woman — namely, her 
 physical inability to sustain the mental 
 strain of collegiate education. This 
 charge statistics refute, thanks to the 
 eagerness and thoroughness with which 
 women's colleges are assimilating hygienic 
 and educational physical training. 
 
 Most colleges in the past three years 
 have added to their original buildings that 
 " centre point of Greek life, " a gymnasium. 
 
 Calisthenics or gymnastics, in a de- 
 sultory way, have always been practised 
 in girls' schools, but physical training as 
 now understood was unknown in all our 
 educational institutions until the past 
 three years. Not until college authorities 
 exact as careful a physical as a scholas- 
 tic examination at original entrance will 
 physical development attain its rightful 
 position in modern education. And this 
 will be possible only when its vital impor- 
 tance is scientifically recognised in the 
 common schools. Vassar, in its earliest 
 
 i6 
 
Physical Development 
 
 days, had a riding school, and two foreign 
 masters of horsemanship initiated the 
 fair candidate for a degree into equestrian 
 mysteries. To its alumnae association 
 Vassar is indebted for its present splen- 
 didly equipped gymnasium. It is one of 
 the largest buildings for purposes of phys- 
 ical exercise connected with any college 
 for women. It is controlled by two 
 women — a director and a physical ex- 
 aminer. A certificate of good health in 
 addition to that of good character is now 
 being added to the requisites for admission 
 to some of our women colleges and co- 
 educational institutions. Y- A student will 
 not be permitted to study in the Chicago 
 University four consecutive terms without 
 a physician's certificate, that she may do 
 the work of the fourth quarter without in- 
 jury to her health. 
 
 Wellesley has yet to secure a separate 
 gymnasium building, but one of its 
 spacious halls is equipped with the para- 
 phernalia demanded by the Sargent sys- 
 tem. Smith has a commodious edifice. 
 Before equipping it, President Seelye 
 
 17 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 visited the gymnasiums of Europe, The 
 gymnasium at Bryn Mawr is a beautiful 
 structure, while outside of Harvard Col- 
 lege perhaps no gymnasium surpasses that 
 of the Woman's College at Baltimore. 
 It is equipped with Zander machines at 
 a cost of eight thousand dollars. The 
 Swedish system is closely followed, and 
 Dr. Alice Hall Chapman, the most expert 
 woman expounder of Ling in this country, 
 assisted by two Swedish women, graduates 
 of the royal schools of Stockholm, estab- 
 lished its reputation. 
 
 The students of Harvard Annex avail 
 themselves of Dr. Sargent's women and 
 girls' gymnasium at Cambridge, but are 
 looking forward to the erection of a sepa- 
 rate gymnasium, in addition to their other 
 collegiate building. Most of these gym- 
 nasiums have race tracks and swim.ming 
 tanks. Whether the German, Swedish or 
 American (Dr. Sargent's) method is the 
 more efficient continues to be the bone of 
 contention among physical trainers. The 
 colleges are divided in their allegiance. 
 Dr. Sargent's system, varied by the 
 
Physical Development 
 
 Swedish, prevails at Vassar, Wellesley, 
 Smith, Bryn Mawr and Mt. Holyoke, 
 v/hile the Baltimore college, as has been 
 stated, adheres to the Swedish. 
 
 The development of the heart and lungs 
 by free movements of the body, is the 
 basis of the Swedish system, while muscu- 
 lar strength, developed by machine exer- 
 cise, is the pivot of Dr. Sargent's method. 
 The Germans pay less attention to hygiene 
 than the Americans or Swedes, and the 
 Swedish system is more educational in 
 its tendency. While anatomy, physiology 
 and human nature are the same the world 
 over, the question of nationality must be 
 considered in determining the exercises of 
 physical training. 
 
 Eventually a system compatible with 
 the best development of American phy- 
 sique will be evolved, leading to a race 
 like the Greek prototypes. Where could 
 it begin more effectively than with the 
 mothers of the future? "It is because 
 few persons nowadays have faultless 
 constitutions and few families are al- 
 together free from some tendency to 
 
 IQ 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 disease," says an English physician, " tha- 
 one needs to be more careful of the 
 mothers of the next generation." At 
 some women's colleges systematic physi- 
 cal training is obligatory, while at others 
 it is optional. Not until it becomes 
 obligatory can the student hope to reach 
 her true estate and physical culture its 
 proper recognition. Out of a class of 104 
 young women who graduated at Wellesley 
 in 1891, only two had been in the habit of 
 taking out-door exercise for two hours 
 every day, w^hile eight did not average one 
 hour, or one and a half, daily. Forty-five 
 averaged about one hour a day, and the 
 remaining forty-nine, less than one hour. 
 Since the autumn of 1891, however, physi- 
 cal training at Wellesley has been recog- 
 nised as a full regular department of the 
 college. Three hours' instruction a week 
 in the gymnasium is now required of every 
 member of the freshman class. The re- 
 sults of a year and a half of the experi- 
 ment have been most satisfactory, not 
 only in the development of physique, 
 improvement in the carriage and vigour 
 
 20 
 
Physical Development 
 
 of the young women, but also in the in- 
 creased capacity for mental application. 
 Each student at all the colleges whether 
 the system be that of Ling or of Sargent, 
 is measured, a chart drawn defining physi- 
 cal deviations from accepted normal de- 
 velopment, and exercises are prescribed 
 to counteract existing defects. From time 
 to time measurements are taken, and a 
 record kept showing the progress made. 
 The records of one hundred cases at the 
 Baltimore college last year revealed a 
 chest development of from one to five 
 inches. It was noticeable in women past 
 forty years of age; for so justly cele- 
 brated has this gymnasium become that 
 physicians send patients there for treat- 
 ment. The effect of scientific hygienic 
 training, say the presidents of these col- 
 leges, is strikingly apparent in the con- 
 dition of the girls at the completion of 
 the four years as compared with their 
 condition on entering the college. Illness 
 is rare. All colleges have resident women 
 physicians, who may be consulted daily in 
 their 'offices without charge, or may be 
 
 21 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 summoned to the student's chamber at a 
 nominal cost. The physician also gives 
 familiar lectures on hygiene and instruc- 
 tion in physiology and anatomy. Black 
 Turkish trousers with divided skirt effect, 
 blouse waists with sailor knots of varied 
 hue at the throat, black stockings and 
 heelless Oxford ties complete the gym- 
 nasium costume. A pretty girl in this 
 Oriental garb is very attractive. Much 
 diffidence was manifested in donning the 
 trousers at first, an I the unexpected ap- 
 pearance of Mark Twain in the gym- 
 nasium at Bryn Mawr, when a class was 
 exercising, brought every girl instanta- 
 neously to her knees! 
 
 Work in the gymnasium closes in April, 
 and then the college girl devotes her- 
 self to the swimming tank, rowing and 
 lawn tennis. Vassar has ten lawn tennis 
 courts. Rowing on the Hudson is op- 
 tional. Sketching classes, botanical and 
 geological excursions necessitate much 
 out-door life, while every student is 
 obliged to spend one hour a day in the 
 open air. One-third of the students at 
 
 22 
 
Physical Development 
 
 Harvard Annex avail themselves of the 
 gymnasium. 
 
 Wellesley has extensive tennis courts, 
 and many students spin over th^ lovely 
 countryside on bicycles. Wellesley is the 
 only college with an organised crew. 
 Rowing is scientifically taught by Harvig 
 Nissen, a Swede. Classes in rowing are 
 taught every day, the beautiful lake on 
 the college grounds offering secluded fa- 
 cilities. Float day in June is the most 
 picturesque fete in the college's long 
 calendar. The lake, ensconced in wooded 
 hills, is flecked with boats manned by 
 natty crews in clover and white flannel 
 outing suits. Greek letters are embroid- 
 ered on the white shirt fronts, and the 
 health-glowing faces of the rowers beam 
 under the jaunty clover caps, with nauti- 
 cal bands of white silk, as the boats dart 
 from the moorings amid the cheers of 
 invited guests gathered on the hillside. 
 Chinese lanterns shed soft lights among 
 the trees as twilight deepens and the 
 victors land to receive the trophies — rib- 
 bon banners, gay with college colours. 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Smith has no boating crew but her 
 swimming tank is spacicus. To tennis 
 players, however, Smith adds the first 
 and only ball team. 
 
 "Are you not afraid that ball playing 
 will make the girls masculine?" asked a 
 solicitous citizen of Northampton. 
 
 " Have you ever seen them bat a ball ?" 
 slyly asked the president. 
 
 "No, sir, I never have." 
 
 " Ah, I thought so. If you had, be- 
 lieve me, your fears would be allayed." 
 
 Bryn Mawr has a cricket club. It was 
 the first to establish a tennis tournament. 
 These contests have greatly raised the 
 standard of tennis playing. It offers 
 prizes for feats in the gymnasium, vault- 
 ing, club swinging, etc. The stimulus 
 given by its tournament suggested to 
 Bryn Mawr girls the feasibility of or- 
 ganising women colleges into an In- 
 tercollegiate Athletic Association. An 
 invitation accordingly was sent out last 
 year, and repeated this, but found no en- 
 couraging response. 
 
 Vassar, shrinking from the publicity 
 
 24 
 
Physical Develpoment 
 
 given to all its movements, the penalty of 
 pioneership, dreaded anything that might 
 attract public attention still more, and 
 other colleges, while recognising the 
 value of contest, are not yet ready to give 
 allegiance. But a Woman's Intercolle- 
 giate Athletic Association cannot fail to 
 bring physical training to a high degree 
 of perfection, and its realisation is not far 
 distant. 
 
 To the average college woman the idea 
 as yet is too suggestive of the race course, 
 grand stand, bill posters and exposure to 
 the rabble, from which, let us hope, the 
 American girl will always be defended. 
 
 25 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ESTHETIC CULTURE 
 
 1 NSTRUCTIVE, suggestive and refresh- 
 1 ing is the aesthetic outlet which 
 women's colleges find in dramatic and 
 musical organisations. Unhampered by 
 the professors of elocution or music and 
 mildly approved by the faculty, the 
 students with dramatic or musical taste 
 instinctively combine to give in a recre- 
 ative way free scope to individual taste or 
 talent. The versatility and quality of 
 talent thus revealed are often truly re- 
 markable. Not only in the portrayal of 
 character, in elocutionary effect, in stage 
 setting and costuming are ingenuity and 
 keen dramatic instinct discernible, but the 
 constructive faculty is often strikingly 
 apparent in the cleverness with which 
 students adapt plays, frequently producing 
 original dramas worthy of public ren- 
 
 26 
 
y^sthetic Culture 
 
 dition. It is not improbable that a Vas- 
 sar, Smith, Wellesley, or Bryn Mawr girl 
 may yet produce the long-expected 
 American drama. The wonder is that 
 they have not already entered seriously 
 the field of dramatic writing or histrionic 
 art. It is but a question of time and 
 growth. Did not Clyde Fitch, one of the 
 most promising of our young playwrights, 
 get his first insight into stagecraft at 
 Amherst College? Judging by the ad- 
 vances made in these directions as shown 
 by the dramatic and musical performances 
 of the past year, the time is near at hand 
 when some college-bred girl will produce, 
 let us hope a drama, which will effectively 
 belie Molly Eliot Seawell's assertion, that 
 "Woman has no creative faculty." 
 
 The " social v/e" of the Vassar girl has 
 many sides, and not the least interesting 
 is her adoration of Apollo and Thalia. 
 In the college's tentative days a friend 
 presented the dramatic society with five 
 sets of scenery. With this nucleus the 
 properties have grown until Vassar could 
 take to the road to-day, better equipped 
 
 27 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 than many professional companies. Four 
 plays are given each year. The birth of 
 the drama in college life has been the 
 outcome of the desire of the seniors to 
 improve themselves and to entertain the 
 younger classes. The sophomores wel- 
 come the freshmen by " tearing a passion 
 to tatters," and not to be outdone, the 
 latter return the compliment, each strug- 
 gling to excel the other in setting and 
 rendition as well as the weaving in of col- 
 lege jokes. The students usually make 
 their own costumes. On special occa- 
 sions, when elaborate court trappings are 
 required. New York costumers are sought. 
 Clever scenery is improvised, and great is 
 the fun when special setting which the 
 property-room fails to supply is required ; 
 for then the dramatis personae don huge 
 calico aprons, and, with brush and paint 
 pot, set to work to conjure from the un- 
 suspecting canvas " scenes wonderful to 
 behold." Here the theories inculcated 
 by the recently abolished Vassar School 
 of Painting find practical expression. 
 Professorships are not established in 
 
 28 
 
i^sthetic Culture 
 
 painting and music, but instruction in the 
 history, theory and practice of both arts 
 is given as before. History and theory 
 are however in the regular collegiate 
 course, and count toward a baccalaureate 
 degree. Practice is an extra expense and 
 does not count for a degree. The pur- 
 pose of the change is to give aesthetic 
 culture its true place in higher education. 
 In the art gallery of Vassar the oldest 
 American artist, Watson, is represented, 
 together with the works of Trumbull, 
 Mount, Cole, Durand, Gifford, Kensett, 
 Edwin White and Baker. Later American 
 art is exemplified by Inness, Boughton, 
 Huntington, McEntee, Whittridge, Shat- 
 tuck and Gignou, and foreign art by Diaz, 
 Courbet, L' Enfant de Metz and Duvergne. 
 In water colour the gallery glories in 
 four Turners, two Pivicts, one Copley and 
 Fielding, two Stanfields and others of 
 lesser note. Equally rich is the Hall of 
 Casts. The Art Fund of Vassar provides 
 for annual additions to the Gallery. 
 
 But to return to the drama: Mascu- 
 line costumes are forbidden in Vassar 
 
 29 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 plays; that is, legitimate trousers are es- 
 chewed; coats and vests are permissible, 
 but the divided skirt marks the limit of 
 realism! The plays are given in the 
 gymnasium, equipped with stage, foot- 
 lights and movable scenery. A beautiful 
 blue plush drop curtain is Vassar's pride. 
 It was secured at the cost of many ?. 
 struggle in the way of benefits. The 
 entertainments are generally complimen- 
 tary; occasionally, however, a small ad- 
 mission is asked for the benefit of some 
 particular cause. Men are never ad- 
 mitted to any of these performances, 
 and this restriction prohibits an orchestra. 
 While Vassar has given Shakspearian 
 plays, i't confines itself chiefly to modern 
 comedies. Less adaptation and original 
 work is done here than at other colleges. 
 " She Stoops to Conquer," " Our American 
 Cousin," and "The Rivals" have had 
 clever treatment. 
 
 The Vassar girl does not hesitate to 
 penetrate the sanctum of Messrs. Frohman 
 and Daly in quest of manuscript plays. 
 "Are they refused?" Privileged women! 
 
 30 
 
./Esthetic Culture 
 
 The manuscripts of several of the clever- 
 est comedies of these managers have found 
 their way to Vassar. Last year " The 
 Cricket on the Hearth," "A Scrap of 
 Paper," "Lord Dundreary," and "Lulu" 
 were given with artistic effect. This 
 spring Mr. Crane sent the Vassar girls the 
 manuscript of " On Probation" and it was 
 the regret of the accomplished comedian 
 that he could not see their interpretation 
 of his latest creation. 
 
 Vassar has just made her debnt in 
 classic domain and crowned her histrionic 
 efforts by a rendition of " Antigone" in 
 the original Greek. Since the days of 
 Sophocles perhaps the world has not seen 
 a more accurate setting of a Greek play. 
 The master mind of the undertaking was 
 Miss Abbey Leach, Professor of the Greek 
 Department. Discarding traditional ideas 
 of Greek art and drama Vassar present- 
 ed " Antigone" in strict accordance with 
 the discoveries made at Athens in the 
 past five years. Professor Leach, in her 
 heroic effort to be true to the classic 
 purity of Sophocles, sacrificed what is 
 
 31 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 known as the " dramatic essentials. " She 
 summoned to her aid the Greek professors 
 of Harvard, Amherst and various other 
 colleges. One renowned expert drilled 
 the cast in rhythm of the Greek verse; 
 another instructed it in intonation and 
 expression; while another propounded the 
 meaning of Sophocles. Perfect in the 
 lines as erudite Greek professorship could 
 make them, the cast was then turned over 
 to Professor Franklin H. Sargent, of the 
 American Academy of Dramatic Arts. 
 " It was interesting to watch as rehearsals 
 progressed the triumph of mind over 
 matter," said Professor Sargent in speak- 
 ing of the educational benefits to be 
 derived from the training involved in a 
 Greek play, " their finely disciplined 
 minds yielded like plastic clay. They 
 grasped every suggestion and responded 
 effectively." As a scholastic no less than 
 an artistic feat *' Antigone" created an 
 epoch and arrested the attention of the 
 educational and dramatic world, while it 
 demonstrated the strength of the Greek 
 department of the college. 
 
 32 
 
y^sthetic Culture 
 
 The College Alumnae include one pro- 
 fessional actress. 
 
 The Glee Club, under the direction of 
 Miss * Perkins of California, scored a 
 triumph recently in a concert given at 
 Sherry's in New York to found a scholar- 
 ship. It gives a number of recitals during 
 the year, often with the Banjo Club, 
 which numbers eight clever performers. 
 These organisations in all colleges are 
 independent of the schools of music 
 proper. They elect their own leaders, 
 select their music and drill themselves. 
 Each year generally brings a sufficient 
 number of singers or banjo players to 
 make a club quorum. 
 
 Greater attention is given to legitimate 
 drama at Smith, perhaps, than at any 
 college in the country. It has four 
 dramatic societies. Plays were originally 
 given in the parlours of the various cot- 
 tages; but with the growth of talent and 
 interest they sought the Town Hall. 
 The seniors' play at the close of the year 
 is the crowning feature of the commence- 
 ment week. It is the only play to which 
 
 33 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 gentlemen are admitted. , The girls make 
 their own costumes, but masculine attire 
 terminates at the waist line. 
 
 The seniors of '92 gave the " Colombe's 
 Birthday," of Robert Browning. In '91 
 the students dramatised the " Book of 
 Job." A chorus represented the com- 
 forters. The music was written by Prof. 
 Blodgett, who ably conducts the music 
 schools of Smith, Wellesley and Mt. 
 Holyoke. The costumes were historically 
 correct and the whole impressive. A 
 tuneful operetta, set to college jokes, was 
 written by one of the students, who gave 
 promise of doing something meritorious in 
 operatic writing. 
 
 " What has become of her ?" was asked. 
 
 " Oh, she taught school for a while, and 
 now she is keeping house for her brother." 
 
 To successfully keep house for any- 
 body certainly demands the constructive 
 faculty, but as my informant naively 
 remarked: — "It doesn't sound very big." 
 
 The success of " Electra, " ,the Greek 
 play given in the original at Smith three 
 years ago, attracted wide attention and 
 
 34 
 
i^sthetic Culture 
 
 demonstrated the proficiency of its Greek 
 department. Its setting was elaborate. 
 The beautiful Greek costumes were made 
 by a professional costumer. Prof. Tyler 
 trained each girl in her Greek lines. The 
 whole was a classic novelty that arrested 
 the attention of the collegiate world. 
 Harvard and Yale came to Smith 'as 
 guests, and their professors praised highly 
 the perfection and fluency of the girls' 
 Greek lines. It was a revelation. Smith's 
 reputation was established, and succeed- 
 ing classes struggle to maintain or surpass 
 the dramatic laurels then so signally won. 
 
 The glee club gave recently a Thanks- 
 giving concert in New York under the 
 auspices of the college alumnae for the 
 benefit of the gymnasium. 
 
 Minor plays are also presented, in which 
 the students are their own stage managers, 
 electricians, stage carpenters, scenic paint- 
 ers, etc. ; and, from the practical as well 
 as the literary insight and exercise gained, 
 something substantial in the way of origi- 
 nal play-writing ought eventually to result. 
 
 Smith has separate schools of art and 
 
 35 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 music whose gallery, lectures, public con- 
 certs and recitals all regular students of 
 the college may attend without extra 
 charge. Its art gallery has probably the 
 most representative collection of the 
 American School, while more complete 
 copies of antique casts are not to be had 
 in any of the woman's colleges. How 
 the college came to possess Hillyer Art 
 Gallery is not without interest. To the 
 staid villagers of Northampton the tall 
 gaunt figure of Winthrop Hillyer was as 
 familiar as the campus of Smith. A quiet, 
 unobtrusive soul, his humble bachelor 
 quarters comprised one room over the 
 village butcher shop. His outer life was 
 an open book, but the inner was sealed to 
 every one. The President of Smith was 
 surprised to receive a visit in his study 
 several years ago from this village recluse. 
 
 " I hear that you want an art gallery," 
 said the old man. " I have called to say 
 that it would give me pleasure to supply 
 that want." 
 
 The President was inclined to believe 
 the old man daft. His visitor had never 
 
 36 
 
Esthetic Culture 
 
 been suspected of being a man of wealth 
 or a lover of art. That Northampton was 
 deceived, the splendid Hillyer Art Gal- 
 lery, with its studio and exhibition rooms, 
 extensive collection of casts and paintings, 
 and its endowment of fifty thousand dol- 
 lars for the increase of the collection, 
 eloquently attest. The corridors of the 
 Hillyer Art Gallery are hung with artist 
 proofs of Harper's Magazine and the 
 Century Magazine illustrations given to 
 the college by George W. Cable, the novel- 
 ist, who has a home at Northampton. It 
 is singular that the art collections of our 
 woman's colleges are nowhere suggestive 
 of women's skill with brush or chisel. 
 One looks in vain for an Elizabeth Gard- 
 ner, Emma Klumpke, Mary Cassatt or the 
 scores of clever women now aiding the 
 development of American Art. With in- 
 creased endowment, due recognition will 
 doubtless be given them iu; the sesthetic 
 life of all our colleges. 
 
 The musical organisations at Wellesley 
 have a deservedly high reputation. The 
 Beethoven Society, consisting of eighty 
 
 37 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 members, has received the encomiums of 
 the best critics. It gives two concerts a 
 year. Recently it rendered Stuart's can- 
 tata, "King Rene's Daughter." A Glee 
 Club and Banjo Club also give two con- 
 certs annually, and enliven many of the 
 college festivals; Wellesley has no dis- 
 tinctive dramatic society. The oldest 
 society of the college is the Shakspeare, 
 a branch of the London Society. It is 
 devoted to serious study of the plays of 
 the immortal bard. Once a year it ren- 
 ders a play. Two years ago it gave in 
 the open air "As You Like It," last year 
 "Love's Labour's Lost;" and this year 
 " Twelfth Night" was cleverly rendered. 
 These plays are usually given without 
 change of costume or scenery. The stage 
 is a bower of evergreen trees. The idea is 
 to confine attention to the text and char- 
 acterisation and to stimulate the imagina- 
 tion after the manner of the old English 
 drama. 
 
 The natural beauty of the environments 
 of Wellesley, with its outlying hills, un- 
 dulating valley and winding river, lends 
 
 38 
 
i^sthetic Culture 
 
 realistic and picturesque effect to the 
 primitive rendition of Shakspeare's, plays. 
 Last year's seniors gave a Greek pageant, 
 an imitation of the Greek flower festival. 
 The accompanying poem was recited by 
 its author, in a typical Greek robe, while 
 the songs were rendered by sixteen 
 maidens in classic gowns of varied colour. 
 The music was accompanied by rhythmic 
 movements, the players were decorated 
 with wreaths and garlands of flowers, and 
 the whole suggested the Greek festivals, 
 when Doric maidens measured their skill 
 with the Greek lads, although the lads in 
 this instance were conspicuous by their 
 absence. Though the Greek department 
 at Wellesley is highly endorsed by native 
 Greek scholars the college has not yet 
 attempted a classic play in the original. 
 Materially and scholastically the music 
 school at Wellesley is exceptionally strong, 
 while the Farnsworth Art Building, opened 
 in 1889, affords every modern facility for 
 advancement in technical art. 
 
 Dramatic performances are not encour- 
 aged at Bryn Mawr. The drama is an- 
 
 39 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 tagonistic to the Quaker spirit that in- 
 fluences this beautiful institution. Plays 
 are, however, frequently given, one or two 
 girls being the instigator, or one elass 
 complimenting another by a dramatic in- 
 dulgence. Much originality is displayed. 
 " Siegfried up to Date," from the pen of a 
 Bryn Mawr girl, represented the Faculty 
 as gods and afforded much amusement. 
 Hans Andersen's " Fairy Tales" are fre- 
 quently adapted to the stage. Two or 
 three plays are given annually. Girls 
 make their own costumes and wear the 
 masculine dress complete. The plays are 
 given in the gymnasium. No scenery is 
 used. Plays with quick action are sought, 
 and clever devices beguile the audience to 
 forget the absence of scenery. Dramas at 
 Bryn Mawr must be original. Much talent 
 was displayed last year among the juniors. 
 The Batailles des Fleurs^ adapted from the 
 French, was given with much eclat. 
 
 It is singular that no French plays have 
 ever been rendered in the original text at 
 any of the colleges. True, there are few 
 French dramas that admit rendition with- 
 
 40 
 
i^sthetic Culture 
 
 out careful expurgation, yet for the sake 
 of the language it would seem that more 
 attention should be given to that foun- 
 tain spring of dramatic inspiration — the 
 French drama. Nothing would be lost, 
 while much might be gained, and perhaps 
 when alumnae associations of the future 
 entertain distinguished guests of France, 
 as they did recently in New York, more 
 than two college-bred women may be 
 found capable of venturing beyond bon 
 Jour, au revoir, or " Comment vous portez- 
 vous ? " More attention to the speaking 
 of the continental languages is an impera- 
 tive need in American education. There 
 is certainly something radically defective 
 in present methods, otherwise greater re- 
 sults would be secured. 
 
 Thirty-five young women constitute the 
 Bryn Mawr Glee Club, whose reputation, 
 like that of the Banjo Club, is confined to 
 college circles. They have given four of 
 Sullivan's operas. Bryn Mawr has no 
 music school. Beyond lectures on sculp- 
 ture and architecture, art has no place in 
 its curriculum. 
 
 41 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 The "Idlers," at the Harvard Annex, 
 give a drama every three weeks. They 
 wear men's clothes when the play requires 
 it. As mere pleasure is the object of the 
 "Idlers," original travesties prevail and 
 are oftener in the club's programme than 
 legitimate comedy or tragedy. Glee Club 
 and banjo also "drive dull care away," 
 and have their share in all festivals, 
 " wise or merry." 
 
 The Annex also is without a music or 
 art school. Lectures by Professors Moore 
 and Paine of Harvard College impart the 
 principles of both arts. 
 
 The practice as well as the theory of 
 music and of art are recognised at Mt. 
 Holyoke and the Baltimore colleges; but 
 as yet, independently of the regular col- 
 lege course social aesthetics have not de- 
 veloped in either so extensively as at 
 the older colleges. The efficiency of the 
 methods pursued in imparting sesthetic 
 culture in the colleges where it has special 
 recognition, as at Vassar, Wellesley and 
 Smith, finds practical demonstration in the 
 large number of alumnae, who are pursu- 
 
 42 
 
i^sthetic Culture 
 
 ing music and art in the capacity of 
 teachers, painters, public singers or pro- 
 fessional pianists. ^Esthetic culture as 
 expressed in music and art is the aroma 
 of scholastic training. Without it, educa- 
 tion is scarcely complete. Its subtle 
 influence is finding substantial expression 
 on every side, especially in the architec- 
 tural and decorative features of the col- 
 lege buildings. The barren whitewashed 
 school-room, the cheerless parlour with 
 rude prints on walls, dried grasses in 
 homely vases on ungainly mantletrees are 
 now as remote as the masculine stupidity 
 that once denied to woman the possession 
 of an intellect. Witness the library and 
 reception rooms at Vassar; the Browning 
 parlour at Wellesley with its exquisite 
 stained glass windows, commemorating 
 the poets' masterpieces, the inlaid tables, 
 choses de luxe of many climes; or the 
 Faculty chamber with its palatial sweep, 
 richly upholstered furniture, artistic hang- 
 ing and magnificent window commanding 
 a landscape of suggestive beauty ; or the 
 dining rooms of Bryn Mawr with oaken 
 
 43 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 panelled walls, picturesque mantletrees, 
 logs crackling on the mediaeval hearth and 
 quaint chimney corners; not to forget the 
 dainty and inviting boudoirs characteristic 
 of all colleges, manifesting individual love 
 of the beautiful in the concrete life of the 
 students and in the refinement of their 
 surroundings as well as in their abstract 
 theories of the beautiful. 
 
 ^44 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 A STRIKING feature of the collegiate 
 life of American girls is the almost 
 total abolition of dormitories and formal 
 rules of conduct, — which are necessary 
 factors in the young ladies' seminary and 
 fashionable boarding schools. 
 - College authorities wisely concluded in 
 the beginning that a girl with mental 
 calibre sufficient to pass the entrance 
 examination would have sufficient self- 
 respect and knowledge of the proprieties 
 to conduct herself properly without the 
 restriction of prescribed rules. 
 
 This supposition or faith on the part of 
 the faculty has had a most salutary effect 
 upon the students. To be put upon one's 
 honour develops and strengthens an in- 
 dividual self-respect. 
 
 A spontaneous esprit de corps is the out- 
 
 45 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 come, leading to the establfshment at 
 Vassar and Bryn Mawr of a " students' 
 self-government society," The students' 
 society at Vassar has flourished four years, 
 subject to the authority of the president. 
 It decides all questions and has had an 
 admirable effect in adding dignity to stu- 
 dent life. 
 
 Bryn Mawr authorities neither make 
 nor enforce rules. Recognising the effi- 
 cacy of unity of action, especially as 
 regards social liberties, the students of 
 Bryn Mawr established two years ago a 
 self-government society. Each cottage 
 has a proctor, generally a senior, to whom 
 mooted questions of social propriety are 
 referred. As a matter of personal safety, 
 students prefer the chaperonage of an 
 elder, naturally a post-graduate, in their 
 strolls beyond the college campus into the 
 open country or on the railroad, especially 
 at night in going to and returning from 
 entertainments at Philadelphia. " You 
 are ladies; conduct yourself accord- 
 ingly." This is the only law known to 
 Smith and the Harvard Annex. 
 
 46 
 
Social Life 
 
 The severity of the curriculum and the 
 earnest absorption of the students in their 
 work left little time or disposition to cul- 
 tivate social amenities in the colleges' 
 tentative periods. But woman's inherent 
 aesthetic and social instinct soon craved 
 fellowship beyond lecture room and li- 
 brary. Club life consequently sprang up, 
 and in serious or frivolous guise is now a 
 leading feature of all our women colleges. 
 
 The superior social advantages of the 
 students of Harvard Annex are unques- 
 tioned. Two hundred and fifty years the 
 seat of Harvard College, Cambridge, 
 steeped in the best thought of New Eng- 
 land, distills an aroma not to be found 
 elsewhere. There are no dormitories nor 
 cottages. The students are scattered 
 in private homes throughout the city, 
 where they are privileged to test to their 
 liearts' content "plain living and high 
 thinking." 
 
 The Idlers' club, devoted to social en- 
 joyment and good fellowship, meet in the 
 inviting library of Fay House. This and 
 the Emmanuel (named after the college 
 
 47 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 from which John Harvard graduated) 
 bring the students together in an informal 
 way. Glee and musical clubs are sources 
 of varied pleasure, and the concerts of the 
 former for the benefit of the library are 
 Cambridge events. The afternoon teas 
 held on Wednesdays in the parlours of 
 Fay House by Mrs. Agassiz, the widow 
 of Prof. Agassiz of Harvard, and presi- 
 dent of the Society of Collegiate Instruc- 
 tion of Women, bring the students and 
 their friends together, making them ac- 
 quainted with the professors and distin- 
 guished guests at Cambridge. A Gradu- 
 ates' Society has recently been organised. 
 To Cambridge's unwritten social law, 
 however, more conservative in many 
 respects than that of the old world, Annex 
 students instinctively yield, and in this 
 respect their social privileges are unique. 
 Smith College was the first to adopt the 
 cottage plan. Wellesley,Bryn Mawr and 
 the Baltimore college readily followed, 
 and the dormitory, as it was once under- 
 stood, is now the almost exclusive property 
 of preparatory schools. 
 
 48 
 
Social Life 
 
 Vassar still retains its suites of one to 
 three rooms in the main building. It has 
 recently erected, at a cost of one hundred 
 thousand dollars, a commodious new hall 
 embodying the latest architectural and 
 hygienic ideas. It has thirty-six single 
 apartments and thirty-four suites of two 
 sleeping apartments opening into one par- 
 lour or study room, accommodating in all 
 one hundred and four students. On the 
 first floor are spacious reception rooms and 
 parlours, while the dining room, occupy- 
 ing two stories, is effectively lighted by 
 stained glass windows. * Ten high backed 
 oaken chairs lend an air of dignity to 
 each of the eight tables. Wellesley also 
 retains sleeping apartments in the main 
 building, besides having several cottages. 
 So popular is the cottage plan that the list 
 of applicants for admission is always full 
 and large numbers of students are forced 
 to seek quarters in the town of Wellesley, 
 while they impatiently wait their turn to 
 become cottage dwellers. 
 
 The buildings at Wellesley are pictu- 
 resque. Complete in modern conven- 
 
 49 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 iences and prettily decorated, the cottages 
 accommodate from fifty to seventy-five 
 students. Each is in charge of a ma- 
 tron, a woman of culture, appreciative of 
 the social needs of girls, and in ready 
 sympathy with their aspirations. The 
 arrangement of the rooms varies at 
 different colleges. Single chambers with 
 alcoves that conceal behind portieres the 
 bed, leaving the rest of the room a salon 
 or library, or a common parlour with 
 three separate chambers leading from it, 
 are popular. Single and double rooms 
 by clever devices in the way of folding 
 beds, screens and divans, rich in cover- 
 ing and with silk pillows of various hues, 
 are ravishing boudoirs or salons accord- 
 ing to the occupant's caprice. Bryn 
 Mawr is probably the finest equipped col- 
 lege in this respect in the country, if not 
 in the world. No two rooms are archi- 
 tecturally alike. In decoration, every 
 chamber reveals the individual taste and 
 bespeaks the woman, refuting the absurd 
 assertion of Mr. W. D. Howells in "A 
 Woman's Reason," that a girl takes no 
 
 50 
 
Social Life 
 
 real satisfaction in adorning her chamber 
 until she is married. The cottages are 
 nowhere confined to one class of students. 
 Freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, all 
 mingle indiscriminately under one roof. 
 This arrangement prevails at all colleges 
 that maintain the cottage plan. On leav- 
 ing the cottage at Bryn Mawr for an out- 
 ing in the city or elsewhere, the matron is 
 informed in advance ; otherwise the free- 
 dom of the private home prevails. All 
 have a common dining-room. At Wel- 
 lesley and Smith, students wait on the 
 table. At Vassar and Bryn Mawr maids 
 of colour serve the wholesome viands. 
 An indispensable adjunct of every girl's 
 room, especially at Vassar and Bryn 
 Mawr, is the dainty tea-table with swing- 
 ing kettle, snowy dimity, aesthetic china 
 and souvenir spoons. To entertain is the 
 ambition of every girl. Weekly high teas 
 are a frequent indulgence, while the gos- 
 sip distilled nightly over the " cosey" is 
 an ever green episode of higher educa- 
 tion ! . No mean side feature of the mod- 
 ern educational life is the graceful brewing 
 
 51 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 and sipping of the " cup that cheers, but 
 does not inebriate." Powerful is its role 
 in home and society. Practice alone im- 
 parts to woman ease at a tea-table, and 
 this the college girl will find of inestima- 
 ble value when she enters society, how- 
 ever limited its scope may be. Casting 
 lots for the next year's rooms, and the 
 annual senior sale of draperies, bric-a- 
 brac and tea-table paraphernalia are ex- 
 citing events of June. 
 
 Dancing is an occasional indulgence, a 
 handkerchief on the right arm designating 
 the knight of the lancers. On special 
 occasions students invite their men friends 
 to the hops. Gentlemen may call at any 
 time at the cottages at Bryn Mawr, as 
 they would at the young ladies' homes. 
 There is no occasion for the puerile subter- 
 fuge of boarding schools at the announce- 
 ment of a masculine caller, " He is my 
 cousin or my brother. " Monday is Wel- 
 lesley's holiday, and other colleges are 
 adopting that day instead of the tra- 
 ditional Saturday. Unchaperoned, the 
 students may seek on these occasions 
 
 53 
 
Social Life 
 
 Boston, New York, or Philadelphia in 
 quest of the latest in the art, musical or 
 theatrical worlds, keeping thus in touch 
 with the times and " nature which makes 
 us all kin." 
 
 Aside from the impromptu dramatic and 
 musical diversions and the fete days of 
 which all colleges have more or less, and 
 despite the proverbial belief that a woman 
 cannot keep a secret, Greek letter societies 
 with finely equipped fraternity rooms are 
 found at many of the colleges. Of six 
 thousand five hundred girls enrolled as 
 members of Greek letter societies no 
 small portion are students or alumnae of 
 woman colleges, although the co-educa- 
 tional institutions are naturally more fully 
 represented. Smith College alone has no 
 secret societies. The three graces of the 
 fraternity girl are scholarship, character 
 and manners. The oldest of these frater- 
 nities is the Phi Beta Phi, organised in 
 1867. It has twenty-nine chapters and a 
 membership of eighteen hundred. Alice 
 Freeman Palmer, Anna Dickinson and 
 Helen Watterson Moody belong to the 
 
 53 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Kappa Alpha Theta, one of the largest of 
 these societies, having members scattered 
 over the states. The Alpha Phi was the 
 first woman's fraternity to build a chapter 
 house. Not the least distinguished of its 
 members are Frances Willard, Martha 
 Foote Crow and Jane Bancroft Robinson. 
 The Kappa Kappa Gamma girls wear a 
 key set with jewels, and their official organ 
 The Key claims to be the first periodical 
 published by a woman's fraternity. Delta 
 Gamma, Gamma Phi Beta, and Delta, 
 Delta, Delta or Tri Delta, are growing 
 fraternities which find allegiance in many 
 of the woman's colleges. Vassar and 
 Wellesley have also their Young Women's 
 Christian Association, and, in keeping 
 with the vital interest which sociology is 
 awakening throughout the civilised world, 
 this science is now a part of each college 
 curriculum. And all are active partici- 
 pants in the college settlement movement, 
 now a practical feature in Rivington 
 Street, New York, and in Philadelphia 
 and Boston. All these organisations 
 afford outlet for various philanthropic 
 
 54 
 
Social Life 
 
 activities, while they tend to initiate the 
 members into parliamentary usage, com- 
 mand of vocal expression, ease of manner 
 and the exercise of social graces by reason 
 of the teas, " socials " and banquets that 
 vary the more serious activities and in- 
 terests in these centres of progressive 
 growth. Club life in our women colleges, 
 however, threatens abnormal develop- 
 ment, to the detriment of the fundamen- 
 tal purpose of collegiate training. Some 
 authorities, recognising the possibility of 
 its abuse, restrict a student from joining 
 more than two societies. This example 
 cannot be too speedily imitated. The 
 temptation to the ambitious or popular 
 girl to accept a number of official posi- 
 tions in various clubs or societies is often 
 irresistible. Comparatively few students, 
 unless restricted by the college authorities, 
 can rise above the pressure of popular ap- 
 peal. The father of a Vassar girl com- 
 plained recently that when his daughter 
 came home one Friday night to remain 
 until Monday, she was unable to eat or 
 sleep or entertain her family or even con- 
 
 55 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 suit the dressmaker, so disturbed was she 
 by the pressing duties imposed by official 
 positions in seven distinct college societies. 
 
 This eagerness to grasp all is an out- 
 come of new conditions. It is not confined 
 to the college girl alone, but embraces 
 nearly all classes of modern, progress- 
 ive women. Moderation in this respect 
 could nowhere be more fittingly inaugu- 
 rated than in the woman's college. The 
 social privileges of the college girl, how- 
 ever considered, are simply the privileges 
 of the well-bred woman in any well-bred 
 community. 
 
 A common charge of worldly women 
 against their collegiate sisters is the lat- 
 ters' want of social grace and conversa- 
 tional power, or rather lack of small talk 
 and spontaneity. Indeed not a few dis- 
 tinguished observers do not hesitate to 
 assert that the average college woman has 
 bad manners, when not utterly manner- 
 less. Sweeping as these criticisms may 
 seem, they are not wholly unshared by 
 thoughtful, liberal college women, as this 
 letter will show. 
 
 56 
 
Social Life 
 
 " I attended a breakfast of the class of 
 1887," writes this gifted master of arts of 
 a famous seat of learning, " and I have 
 not been able yet to divest myself of the 
 appalling heaviness of the affair. Why is 
 it that college women have such poor 
 conversational ability, so little spon- 
 taneity — ' touch and go ' — those seeming 
 inherent .qualities of the typical Ameri- 
 can, met in general society ? Does higher 
 education cripple the natural or fail to 
 develop the latent social graces?" 
 
 Social grace and small talk are gifts of 
 nature no less than talent for the sciences, 
 languages or the arts. Wheii not naturally 
 possessed, however, they may be acquired 
 by the exercise of that eternal vigilance 
 which is the price of good dressing. 
 
 Varied and extensive social opportunity 
 however is another necessary supplement 
 to the acquisition of these coveted and 
 indispensable gifts of the rounded wo- 
 man. Now let it not be forgotten that 
 our women colleges are in their infancy ; 
 that they were founded and to the present 
 have been almost wholly sustained by 
 
 57 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 serious, earnest workers, — women, drawn 
 by pecuniary necessity, no less than 
 natural desire, to store their minds in as 
 short a time as possible with marketable 
 knowledge. Under this pressure there 
 has been little or no leisure or inclination 
 to cultivate social amenities outside the 
 intercourse inseparable from communities 
 of identical interests or aims. Then the 
 conventional idea that when a girl goes to 
 school hers must be solely the life of 
 books, and must cut her off mentally as 
 well as bodily from the world of action, 
 has until quite recently permeated the 
 college no less than the preparatory 
 school, or Young Ladies' Academy. Slow 
 but subtle change is at work, and whether 
 the social lapses charged against early col- 
 lege women are just or unjust, suspicion 
 of such charges can hardly be possible to 
 the future college woman. The rapid in- 
 troduction of influential and fashionable 
 women of liberal culture upon the Board 
 of Managers of our women colleges is 
 sweeping away the old barriers and bring- 
 ing about a new order of things. Women 
 
 58 
 
Social Life 
 
 of the world for the most part, they are 
 awake to the needs of college girls, — needs 
 which they are happily equipped to sup- 
 ply. For example no distinguished guest 
 now graces Boston's most exclusive or 
 fashionable circles who does not find his 
 or her way to Wellesley College, entailing 
 a reception or tea on the part of the 
 students. Such visits are made possible 
 by two members of the Board of Man- 
 agers, Mrs. ex-Gov. Claflin and Mrs. 
 Richard Gardner, leaders respectively of 
 Boston's most cultured or ultra-fashion- 
 able circles. In their splendid homes 
 these women give entertainments to which 
 Wellesley girls are welcomed, and brought 
 in social contact with the flower of Boston 
 courtesy. 
 
 Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer has always 
 advocated the cultivation of the social 
 side of college women, and is herself no 
 less a practical than refreshing example 
 of its possibilities. Since her marriage to 
 Professor Palmer her artistic home at 
 Cambridge welcomes the college girl to 
 meet the brightest of Harvard men. 
 
 59 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Women of similar social culture are to be 
 found on the Board of Bryn Mawr, who 
 give the students an occasional vital touch 
 with Philadelphia's most exclusive social 
 life. As these opportunities broaden, fewer 
 bookworms will infest our colleges and 
 careless or indifferently dressed able wo- 
 men will be numbered among the tradi- 
 tions of the past. 
 
 Another innovation that cannot fail to 
 enlarge the conversational resources of 
 the college girl, putting her in touch with 
 the every-day world, is the Bulletin of the 
 news of the universe daily hung in the col- 
 lege hall, while questions of state at home 
 and abroad are vigorously discussed in 
 class. Newspapers and current periodi- 
 cals are now accessible to every student. 
 Interest in politics is stimulated and en- 
 couraged by the formation of political 
 parties with caucuses, conventions and 
 mock elections. " Nothing would give me 
 greater pleasure or satisfaction," said an 
 eminent scholar and phenomenal editor, 
 who can absorb in a masterly manner and 
 in an incredibly short time the gist of the 
 
 60 
 
Social Life. 
 
 daily news of the world, " than to step in 
 daily on my way to the office at a woman's 
 college and give a twenty-minutes' resume 
 of the news of the world as revealed by 
 the morning newspapers." 
 
 The modern college awaits the estab- 
 lishment of a chair of home and foreign 
 news, and the realisation of this dream 
 is imminent. Increase pertinent conver- 
 sational coin, broaden social opportunity 
 during student days, and what possibilities 
 may not await the college-bred woman of 
 the next decade! 
 
 61 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS 
 
 IN keeping with their numerical growth, 
 and the raising of scholastic stand- 
 ards, our woman's colleges are now in- 
 creasing scholarships and fellowships. 
 What is a scholarship ? What are fellow- 
 ships ? 
 
 Scholarships are endowments for the 
 assistance of meritorious students unable 
 to meet the expenses of a college course. 
 Various sums are bequeathed or donated 
 for this purpose. In all educational in- 
 stitutions, tuition fees are fixed expenses; 
 no economy can reduce them and no extra 
 work pay for them. A. determinate and 
 obstinate quantity, term bills are beyond 
 the control of the student. Formerly the 
 endowment of scholarships was confined 
 almost exclusively to wealthy philanthro- 
 pists; but with the growth of college 
 alumnae students' aid societies have sprung 
 
 62 
 
Scholarships and Fellowships 
 
 up in all parts of the United States. A 
 constantly increasing power, cognizant of 
 the obstacles and the needs of worthy 
 women, these organisations are establish- 
 ing scholarships in the seats of higher 
 education. In most cases they loan 
 money to students without interest, in the 
 expectation that whenever these women 
 are able they will repay the society. 
 Assistance is often given, partly in gifts, 
 partly in loans. Vassar has twenty-five 
 scholarships, which represent the income 
 of one hundred and sixty-six thousand 
 dollars. The applicant for a scholarship 
 there must become a regular class member, 
 furnish evidence of need and maintain a 
 creditable rank as a student. Last year 
 Vassar expended in gifts and loans ten 
 thousand six hundred and ten dollars. 
 Smith has five scholarships of fifty and 
 one hundred dollars each. These are 
 awarded when satisfactory written state- 
 ments are presented from persons not rel- 
 atives, that such aid is necessary. These 
 awards last year amounted to ten thou- 
 sand five hundred dollars. 
 
 63 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Wellesley has twenty-five scholarships, 
 each the interest of five thousand dollars, 
 vested in the name of the college. Each 
 scholarship includes free tuition and 
 board. The income accruing from these 
 scholarships is appropriated by the Stu- 
 dents' Aid Society, an organisation com- 
 posed of friends of the college. It 
 disbursed the past year in gifts and 
 loans eleven thousand eight hundred and 
 eleven dollars and is unable to meet the 
 demands. 
 
 Its scholarships are awarded on recom- 
 mendation of the faculty, and it is only in 
 unusual cases that money is promised a 
 student before she enters college. In 
 addition to the scholarships vested in the 
 name of the college, Wellesley has twelve 
 other free scholarships representing an 
 annual income of four thousand one hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars; which makes the 
 amount of money appropriated in this 
 way twelve thousand nine hundred dol- 
 lars. Harvard Annex has two scholar- 
 ships supported by its Students' Aid 
 Society and is working to establish a Eu- 
 
 64 
 
Scholarships and Fellowships 
 
 ropean Fellowship. Friends from time to 
 time have supported at the Annex one or 
 more students year by year, and thus have 
 virtually established annual scholarships. 
 These have been of great service and 
 some of the students who have received 
 help in this way have become graduates 
 of distinction. 
 
 Students' aid societies are a growth of 
 the past two or three years. The first 
 scholarship of the General Aid Society of 
 Vassar was opened for competition in 
 1890. It differs from similar associations 
 in that it offers scholarships on competi- 
 tive entrance examinations. Branches of 
 this organisation are stationed in New 
 York, Brooklyn, Boston, Louisville, 
 Poughkeepsie, and Pittsburgh. Each 
 offers a two-hundred-dollar scholarship 
 to girls living within a defined radius 
 of the respective cities. Many of these 
 scholarships are tenable for four years. 
 Any deserving girl may compete on appli- 
 cation prior to the annual entrance exami- 
 nation in June. These examinations are 
 held in the leading cities. 
 
 65 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Smith has no students' aid society. It 
 has five scholarships. 
 
 Bryn Mawr offers two scholarships of 
 two hundred dollars each, " open to mem- 
 bers of the Society of Friends that are 
 unable to pay the full tuition." When 
 there are more than two applicants, the 
 candidates are selected by competitive 
 examination. 
 
 Besides the four colleges here con- 
 sidered there are eleven co-educational 
 institutions represented in the Association 
 of Collegiate Alumnae, with scholarships 
 open to women on conditions varying 
 slightly from those imposed by Vassar, 
 Wellesley, Smith or Bryn Mawr. The 
 aggregate amount expended by these 
 co-educational institutions last year in 
 scholarships to women was about fifteen 
 thousand nine hundred and nineteen dol- 
 lars and fifty cents. This money, with 
 three exceptions, was in the form of out- 
 right gifts. In the exceptional cases the 
 money was loaned at interest and promis- 
 sory notes were required. More than fifty 
 thousand dollars were expended last year 
 
 66 
 
Scholarships and Fellowships 
 
 in gifts and loans by the fifteen colleges 
 of the Association. Besides this number, 
 the United States has two hundred and 
 twenty-two co-educational institutions of 
 whose resources in the way of scholarships 
 and loans no data have been gathered. 
 Whether the annual expenditure of so much 
 money is warranted without definite and 
 material return is much discussed by col- 
 lege authorities. The only means by 
 which it may safely escape abuse, it would 
 seem, is to make all financial aid assume 
 the nature of loans, the same to be paid 
 within a stipulated time after graduation, 
 at a reasonable rate of interest. This is 
 the method satisfactorily pursued at Cor- 
 nell, Vassar and Wesleyan University. 
 The president of the latter asserts that in 
 every case the women who have drawn 
 from this fund have repaid the loan with 
 reasonable promptness. Richly suggestive 
 is the method pursued by the Woman's 
 Educational Aid Association formed in 
 Evanston, 111., in 1872, to give financial 
 help to women studying at Northwestern 
 University. This association has had 
 
 67 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 twenty years in which to prove the practi- 
 cality of its theory. The association has 
 a fund from which sums not exceeding 
 one hundred dollars are loaned to students 
 at four per cent, interest. It has never 
 lost a dollar by its loans. A strict busi- 
 ness basis alone will preserve the dignity 
 of the scholarship and insure the inde- 
 pendence of the holder. The record of 
 the men and women who have been finan- 
 cially aided by our educational institutions 
 would be interesting indeed. 
 
 Bryn Mawr enjoys the distinction of 
 being the only woman's college that sup- 
 ports home and foreign fellowships. As 
 promoters of the higher education of 
 women, its faculty consider fellowships of 
 paramount importance. ^Bryn Mawr offers 
 at present six annual fellowships; one in 
 Greek, Latin, English, mathematics, his- 
 tory, politics, and biology respectively. 
 No one can compete for a fellowship who 
 has not a college degree or a certificate of 
 prolonged study under well-known instruc- 
 tors. The competition is open to college 
 post-graduates throughout the country. 
 
 68 
 
Scholarships and Fellowships 
 
 A Bryn Mawr fellowship entitles the 
 holder to free tuition and a furnished 
 room in the college building, and the sum 
 of three hundred dollars. It is awarded 
 as a recognition of previous attainment 
 and is a coveted honor. Generally fel- 
 lowships are awarded to the candidate 
 who had studied the longest, provided her 
 work gives promise of future success. 
 All fellows of Bryn Mawr may study for 
 the degree of doctor of philosophy, a 
 fellowship being counted equivalent to 
 the degree of bachelor of arts, 
 
 A fellow by courtesy is one who con- 
 tinues, by courtesy of the faculty, to 
 study at a college after the expiration of 
 her fellowship. 
 
 At Bryn Mawr a European fellowship 
 is conferred annually on a member of the 
 graduating class attaining the highest 
 scholarship. The holder receives five 
 hundred dollars, sufficient for one year's 
 study and residence at some foreign uni- 
 versity, English or continental. 
 
 Three European fellowships have 
 already been conferred: Miss Emily 
 
 69 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Greene Balch of Boston, the first holder, 
 studied at the College de France and the 
 Sorbonne. Her specialty was political 
 economy. She is now engaged in philan- 
 thropic work in Boston. An Ohio girl. 
 Miss Katherine M.Shipley, was the second 
 winner. A year at the university at Leip- 
 sic and a second year at the College de 
 France and the Sorbonne have equipped 
 this bright woman for advanced work. 
 Miss Emory of Maine, last year's holder, 
 will remain at Bryn Mawr a year as post- 
 graduate before going abroad. Her spe- 
 cial line is Greek and Latin. 
 
 What value have fellowships for wo- 
 men ? It is only twenty years since it 
 was possible for her to go to college. 
 Why cannot she be content with B. A. and 
 A. M. ? 
 
 The Association of Collegiate Alumnae, 
 organised eleven years, and comprising 
 one thousand four hundred and fifty-eight 
 college-bred women representing fifteen 
 institutions, has effectively answered the 
 query by establishing in the past two 
 years one home and two European fellow- 
 
 70 
 
Scholarships and Fellowships 
 
 ships. Recently a scholarship in modern 
 languages has been added. This is the 
 gift of Mrs. Mary Bannister Willard, prin- 
 cipal of the American Home School in 
 Berlin. The scholarship, which includes 
 board and tuition for one year in the Ameri- 
 can Home School in Berlin, is awarded by 
 a joint committee consisting of the Com- 
 mittee on Fellowships of the Association 
 of Collegiate Alumnse and a committee 
 composed of Miss Frances Willard and 
 Mrs. Mary Huse Wilder. The candidate 
 must be a graduate of not more than one 
 year's standing of some college belonging 
 to the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. 
 She must also have studied French or 
 German at least one year under compe- 
 tent professors. Miss Helen Babcock 
 now holds this scholarship. To open to 
 women college professorships in all col- 
 leges irrespective of sex, says this for- 
 midable body of intellectual women, will 
 raise woman's dignity as an educational 
 factor, broaden her field, and improve 
 the status of women in the lower grades 
 of teaching. Since two-thirds of the 
 
 71 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 lower grade teachers of the United States 
 are women, the status cannot be too 
 quickly raised. 
 
 How can the coveted college professor- 
 ships be opened to women in all colleges? 
 Only by bringing forward women of at- 
 tainments so distinguished, that not to 
 offer them college work will reflect on 
 man's critical acumen. 
 
 The Swedish University's offer of the 
 professorship of mathematics to Madame 
 Kovalewsky was a natural result of ex- 
 traordinary attainments; and European 
 fellowship will put the American woman 
 in the way to acquire exceptional scho- 
 lastic power and distinction. 
 
 Three women are already holding 
 fellowships founded in 1890 by the Col- 
 legiate Association. Miss Gentry is study- 
 ing mathematics at the University of 
 Berlin; Miss Snow is at work at botany 
 at the Zurich University, and Miss Carter 
 is specialising at botany at Cornell Univer- 
 sity. The first two, probably, will remain 
 abroad a second year in order to take the 
 doctor's degree. 
 
 72 
 
Scholarships and Fellowships 
 
 A graduate of Smith and Cornell Uni- 
 versity, Miss Alice Walton, holds the 
 European fellowship of 1893, while a 
 graduate of Bryn Mawr, Miss Susan B. 
 Franklin, holds the American fellowship. 
 
 A fellowship of the Collegiate Associa- 
 tion is awarded only to the candidate who 
 gives promise of actual distinction in the 
 field to which she is devoting herself. No 
 competitive examination is required. The 
 bestowal is based upon evidence of the 
 candidate's ability, original gifts, previ- 
 ous training, energy, power of endurance, 
 health, and her prospects of success in her 
 chosen line of study. The holder receives 
 five hundred dollars, which, in unusually 
 promising cases, may be increased. One 
 such case is now recorded. The foreign 
 fellowship offered this year by the Wo- 
 man's Education Association of Boston is 
 important. Five hundred dollars is the 
 sum provided and it is open upon the 
 same conditions offered by the Associa- 
 tion of Collegiate Alumnse, with the ex- 
 ception that graduates of Harvard Annex 
 are eligible. 
 
 73 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 This fellowship may be granted upon 
 equal terms to anyone who is intending to 
 take up the practice of any of the three 
 learned professions, or who is looking for- 
 ward to a position as teacher, professor 
 or investigator, or to any other literary 
 and scientific vocation. Miss Mary Buck- 
 ingham, a Harvard Annex graduate, cap- 
 tured the fellowship and is now studying 
 the classics at Cambridge University, 
 England. 
 
 The advance of the present over the 
 past is nowhere more convincingly evi- 
 denced perhaps than in the wide-spread 
 and prompt response to the constantly 
 increasing ambition of the college girl. 
 
 74 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 AMERICA TO JAPAN 
 
 "'"T^HE naughty girl! How can she 
 1 do it ? Spoil those dear little an- 
 gelic creatures!" remonstrated the witty 
 essayist, Agnes Repplier, when told that 
 Miss Urae Tsuda, Bryn Mawr's special 
 Japanese student, contemplated an Amer- 
 ican scholarship for the women of her 
 native land. Doubtless Miss Repplier's 
 remonstrance against the higher education 
 of Japanese women finds warm supporters 
 in the readers of " Japonica" and Lafcadio 
 Hearn. In the prose no less than the 
 poetry of her native land, Miss Tsuda is 
 probably as well versed as Sir Edwin 
 Arnold and as worthy of a hearing. 
 
 Born in Tokio, Miss Tsuda was sent to 
 this country at the age of seven by the 
 government of Japan to be educated. 
 Under the patronage of the Japanese 
 
 75 
 
The American Girl at Colle'ge 
 
 minister at Washington she was placed in 
 a private family in that city, and on the 
 completion of her education at the age of 
 eighteen she returned to Tokio and taught 
 in the Peeresses' school. Ambitious to 
 pursue her studies further she returned 
 three years ago and entered Bryn Mawr 
 for a special course in biology. The 
 course completed, she sailed last June for 
 Japan to resume a higher position in the 
 government schools. 
 
 Bright, intelligent and charming is this 
 young Japanese. She speaks English 
 without an accent, and wears the Ameri- 
 can costume which does not become her 
 as does her native dress. She is small of 
 stature, with the graceful swaying move- 
 ments always so captivating to the 
 foreigner within the Flowery Kingdom. 
 Her small, soft brown hands evidence the 
 manicure art in which Japan achieved per- 
 fection centuries ago. 
 
 Miss Tsuda numbers among her friends 
 the most influential and cultivated women 
 of Philadelphia, and to these she appealed 
 some months ago, unfolding her plan of 
 
 76 
 
America to Japan 
 
 an American scholarship for Japanese 
 women. As a result, an' organisation 
 known as " The Committee of the Wo- 
 men's Scholarship for Japanese Women," 
 was formed, and Miss Tsuda delivered an 
 address at the Drexel Institute on the 
 " Education of Japanese Women. " Much 
 interest was elicited, and a scholarship 
 fund of ten thousand dollars was subse- 
 quently raised. 
 
 The scholarship will be controlled by 
 a permanent board of Philadelphia women. 
 The successful candidate will be under 
 their personal care. 
 
 "Japan as a whole," says Miss Tsuda, 
 " is well known to many Americans. One 
 side of Japanese life, however, the needs 
 of its women, has attracted little atten- 
 tion. It has been kept in the back- 
 ground." 
 
 During her stay in this country the 
 young Japanese was particularly impressed 
 by the position American women hold, 
 the great influence they exercise for good, 
 the power given them by education and 
 training, the congenial intercourse be- 
 
 77 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 tween men and women, and the sympathy 
 in the homes between brothers and sisters, 
 husbands and wives. " Why cannot such 
 things exist in my own country ?" queried 
 the foreigner. " Unlike many eastern 
 countries Japan has never had any great 
 prejudice against women. W':-men under 
 Japan's ancient regime enjoyed much 
 liberty, and were given an education 
 almost equal to that of men. Customs of 
 ages, long-protracted wars, the old feudal 
 system, the introduction of the doctrines 
 of Confucius from China, and the religion 
 of Buddha from India, have all had their 
 blighting influence. Yet the life of a 
 Japanese woman is often a happy one," 
 asserts Ume Tsuda. " Men are kind to 
 their wives, and in many cases allow them 
 much liberty. Nevertheless, neither law 
 nor custom puts them on an equality with 
 men of their own class. Then, a religion 
 that tends to degrade rather than elevate 
 can scarcely afford much consolation to a 
 woman. Happily, the men are learning 
 to look down on the superstitions and 
 customs that once bound them. The last 
 
 78 
 
America to Japan 
 
 twenty years have witnessed great 
 changes. Universities, colleges and 
 schools have sprung up. The wonderful 
 inventions of America have been studied 
 and introduced. 
 
 " Despite the advances of the nation 
 and much progress among the men, no cor- 
 responding opportunities have been given 
 to the women. Until six or seven years 
 ago little had been done for their liberal 
 education or toward helping them to meet 
 the new conditions of life that new Japan 
 brought with it. Real progress is impos- 
 sible to Japan so long as her growth is all 
 on one side: one half of the people are 
 pushed forward, while the other half are 
 kept back. 
 
 "I feel," said Miss Tsuda, her almond 
 eyes sparkling, " that not until the women 
 are elevated and educated can Japan 
 really take a high stand. I long for good 
 women to arise at this critical period in 
 Japan's history to be helpers, co-workers 
 with men. Two great things are needed, 
 Christianity and education. 
 
 " Particularly is there need of educa- 
 
 79 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 tion for the women of the upper classes. 
 Theirs is the greatest influence. Yet they 
 are the most backward in the present 
 progressive movement. Living in se- 
 cluded homes, they are the hardest to 
 reach by Christian missionaries or the 
 advocates of new education like myself, 
 who believe that a woman has a more 
 serious part in the world than to be a 
 mere ornament for the home or plaything 
 for men. Unlike the women of the 
 poorer classes, who work side by side 
 with their husbands on terms of equality, 
 the women of the higher classes live in 
 the world of old Japan — in an atmosphere 
 foreign to that of their husbands. 
 
 " To-day the men are out in the busy 
 life of new Japan, the women are shut up 
 at home, and the gap between them 
 widens with the years. As it is they are 
 not fit to be the companions of educated 
 men, and there is danger that, unless 
 some change takes place, modern Japan 
 will be, if anything, worse off than under 
 the old regime when men were less ad- 
 vanced than they are to-day. 
 
 80 
 
America to Japan 
 
 " Among the poorest classes alone is 
 there absolute equality." 
 
 When Ume Tsuda returned home 
 after her first visit to America, and before 
 any real movement had been made for the 
 education of women, she was especially 
 impressed with the difference between the 
 sexes and the power men held in their 
 hands. Women were often entirely de- 
 pendent, having no means of self-support, 
 since few honourable occupations were 
 open to them except teaching, and for that 
 they were not trained. 
 
 " The present witnesses many social 
 and moral evils unknown to ancient Japan. 
 Men have broken down the old barriers. 
 They no longer feel the same restraint. 
 With the new freedom and the throwing 
 away of old standards of morality, will a 
 better order of things prevail ? Is it not 
 time for the women of Japan to realise 
 what their husbands and sons are doing?" 
 asks this daughter of the West. 
 
 Indifference to the position and educa- 
 tion of women began to disappear some 
 six or seven years ago. Christian men 
 
 8i 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 and men who had been abroad wished to 
 marry cultivated women. They desired 
 their daughters as well as their sons to be 
 well educated. Education of women be- 
 came a favourite theme, and arguments for 
 and against it were constantly brought 
 forward. Some truly noble movements 
 were taken up, in one of which Ume 
 Tsuda was especially interested, — the es- 
 tablishment of a school for the daughters 
 of nobles by the Empress herself, who 
 felt that something should be done for 
 women of the aristocracy who were so dif- 
 ficult to reach. 
 
 Where are the teachers to train and 
 help these eager students? is now the 
 vital question. There are at present 
 Japanese women anxious to prepare for 
 the work of educating the girls of Japan. 
 They are willing to devote their lives to 
 it, if only they can have suitable prepa- 
 ration. Few of them have opportunities 
 of study, such as men have ; for none of 
 the higher institutions are open to women, 
 and they have not the means to go abroad 
 for study. Yet they are better fitted 
 
 82 
 
America to Japan 
 
 already than any foreigner could be to 
 take up the work among the women, 
 especially among those of the higher class 
 who in their impenetrable reserve cannot 
 be reached by a foreign woman. 
 
 Such are the facts that inspired Miss 
 Tsuda to secure a permanent scholarship 
 fund, the interest of which will enable a 
 Japanese woman to take a four years* 
 course of study in one of our institutions. 
 The scholarship will be open to all Japan- 
 ese women, as an incentive to advanced 
 study ; a free gift from American women, 
 evidencing their interest in the condition 
 of Japanese women, and the high value 
 they attach to education. 
 
 The fellowship will be offered directly 
 to the women of Japan by a competitive 
 examination held in the different cities 
 throughout the kingdom. The candidate 
 will be examined not only in English, in 
 such branches as would lead to a college 
 course, but in Japanese language and lit- 
 erature. 
 
 Examinations for the scholarships are 
 now progressing in the principal cities of 
 
 83 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Japan, and Bryn Mawr expects the suc- 
 cessful candidate in October. 
 
 The great need is the need of teach- 
 ers of the higher education, of Japanese 
 women fitted to enter at once into the 
 government and private schools, to edu- 
 cate Japanese girls according to American 
 methods, to teach them by example and 
 precept the benefits of a Christian civili- 
 sation. 
 
 "I regard," said Miss Tsuda, "the 
 intimate association with American girls 
 and women, the glimpses obtained of 
 woman's position in American homes and 
 woman's work in the world, as one of the 
 most important points of this higher edu- 
 cation, and I hope that the ladies of the 
 committee will endeavour to supply this 
 need during the years of study." 
 
 In a preparatory school in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Bryn Mawr a beautiful Ja- 
 panese girl, the daughter of a wealthy 
 noble, is now preparing for college. She 
 clings to the native costume, and revels in 
 sandal-wood chests and exquisite gowns, 
 each designed to be worn during the blos- 
 
 84 
 
America to Japan 
 
 soming of special flowers. She can scarce- 
 ly speak English. She came to this coun- 
 try at the solicitation of a wealthy Qua- 
 keress, who visited her father's house in 
 Japan. 
 
 Ume Tsuda is not the first Japanese 
 maiden to avail herself of the higher edu- 
 cational advantages of the United States. 
 Less than ten years ago, two dainty 
 " Yum Yums " were enrolled at Vassar. 
 
 85 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 HIGHER SPECIALISED WORK 
 
 AN erroneous impression prevails that 
 the literary or the classical course 
 leads in popularity in women's colleges. 
 While able educators and many laymen 
 would eliminate the scientific course en- 
 tirely from these colleges' educational cur- 
 riculum, facts substantiate the assertion 
 that no study has gained there a stronger 
 foothold in the past few years than biol- 
 ogy. Our colleges for the most part are 
 well equipped to pursue this specialty, both 
 as regards instructors, laboratories, aqua- 
 riums and libraries. So thorough is this 
 course, that its successful completion is 
 accepted at the Woman's Medical Schools 
 of Philadelphia and New York and at 
 various colleges and schools of medi- 
 cine, as equal to one year's study in these 
 institutions. The popularity of biology 
 
 86 
 
Higher Specialised Work 
 
 adds largely to the number of post-grad- 
 uate students yearly seeking the medi- 
 cal profession. The fascinating study of 
 lower organic life will doubtless encour- 
 age many college-bred women to seek 
 occupation in scientific horticulture and 
 vegetable farming. 
 
 The demand for higher specialised 
 work among women increases. More and 
 more women are devoting themselves to 
 study and research in special lines; in the 
 cultivation of the literary faculty, in the 
 thorough investigation of historic records 
 and in various fields of science. 
 
 Few are the opportunities for work that 
 these advanced lines offer men in this 
 country. Rarer still are the openings for 
 women. Higher specialised work is con- 
 sequently largely confined at present to 
 women of scholarly leisure and liberal 
 income. 
 
 The best facilities for pursuing these 
 specialised studies, perhaps, are to be 
 found at Cambridge, Johns Hopkins, Cor- 
 nell or Bryn Mawr. In the department of 
 zoology under direction of Professor Mark 
 
 87 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 of Harvard, an Annex student, Miss Flor- 
 ence Mayo of Rockland, Maine, prepared 
 a study of " The Superior Incisors and 
 Canine Teeth of Sheep," which was pub- 
 lished, with lithographic illustrations by 
 Professor Agassiz, in the Bulletin of the 
 Museum of Comparative Zoology cf 
 Harvard College, vol. xiii., No. 9. Miss 
 Mayo has since graduated from the 
 Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia. 
 
 In the same department Miss Julia B. 
 Piatt produced, under the direction of Dr. 
 H. Ayers, a paper entitled, " Studies on 
 the Primitive Axial Segmentation of the 
 Chick," which was published as No. 4, of 
 vol. xvii., of the Bulletin. Miss Piatt 
 has published also a paper in the Zoo- 
 lozischer Anzeiger on " The Anterior Head 
 Cavities of Acanthias." 
 
 Miss Annie Parker Henchman, another 
 Annex girl, prepared a paper on " The 
 Origin and Development of the Central 
 Nervous System in Limax Maximus, " 
 which is to be found in the Bulletin of the 
 Museum of Comparative Zoology. 
 
 A more important monograph on 
 
Higher Specialised Work 
 
 American history tharn that recently pre- 
 pared by Miss Marion Harwood Gleason 
 (now Mrs. H. C. McDougall) has not 
 been published in years. It treats of 
 "Fugitive Slaves" (1619-1865). The au- 
 thor gives an account of the legislation 
 respecting fugitives from service or labour, 
 and of the principal fugitive slave cases, 
 from early colonial times to the abolition 
 of slavery in 1865. The work is based 
 upon the literature of slavery contained in 
 the collections of Harvard College and the 
 great Boston libraries, and upon an exam- 
 ination of the colonial, state and national 
 legislation on the subject. Mrs. McDou- 
 gall spent much time in the libraries at 
 Washington, where every facility was at 
 her hand. In the judgment of the pro- 
 fessor under whose direction the investi- 
 gation was made, this monograph is " a 
 careful and probably a final discussion of 
 an interesting phase of the slavery ques- 
 tion, heretofore little studied, and will be 
 a storehouse for future historians. " The 
 more important cases are described in 
 detail and others are grouped in an appen- 
 
 89 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 dix. There is also a valuable appendix 
 of legislation, and another of bibliography. 
 No efforts have been spared to make the 
 work complete, and to treat the subject 
 in a scientific manner. This invaluable 
 work has occupied parts of three succes- 
 sive years. 
 
 Historical monographs of the same 
 grade are being prepared by other women, 
 and in several cases the instructor proposes 
 recommending them for publication. No- 
 table in this line of research is the mono- 
 graph by an Annex girl. Miss Follet, on 
 " The Speaker of the House." Valuable 
 also is that historical study on the " Veto- 
 ing Power of the President," which estab- 
 lished the reputation of Lucy -Maynard 
 Salmon, the able Professor of History 
 in her alma mater, Vassar. All special 
 works of the Annex in these lines are like 
 the "Harvard Historical Monographs," 
 and are to be carefully edited by Prof. 
 Albert Bushnell Hart, who regards them as 
 permanent contributions to the literature 
 of American history. 
 
 The Publication Fund of Harvard An- 
 
 90 
 
Higher Specialised Work 
 
 nex preserved the prize essay by Lucy 
 Allen Paton, on the " Personal Character 
 of Dante as revealed in his Writing." In 
 regard to Miss Paton 's work, Prof. 
 Charles Eliot Norton, upon whose judg- 
 ment the award was made, wrote: "It is 
 the essay of a thoughtful and accom- 
 plished student, excellent alike in design 
 and execution. It is full of sympathy 
 and knowledge. It shows maturity of 
 mind and gives evidence of more than 
 youthful experience of feeling. It has 
 the quietness and modesty of strength." 
 
 In scientific research two Vassar gradu- 
 ates, Mrs. Elizabeth Gifford Peckham 
 and Anna Isabella Mulford, have gained 
 honourable distinction. The former is 
 the author of numerous papers contributed 
 to higher specialised periodicals. Her 
 work on the " Protective Resemblances 
 in Spiders" is an authority. Mrs. Mul- 
 ford is a professor of botany and the 
 author of " A Study of Bacteria." 
 
 New results of considerable value in 
 biology have been reached in the labora- 
 tory of Bryn Mawr by the investigations 
 
 91 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 of Harriet Randolph, a fellow in biology 
 of that college. They were published 
 in the Zoolozischer Anzeiger of Leipsic. 
 Equally interesting is " The Parallelisms 
 of the Anglo-Saxon Genesis," by Kathar- 
 ine Merrill, A.B. and a fellow in English 
 at Bryn Mawr. This study appeared in 
 the Modern Language Notes. 
 
 The highest honour in the gift of that 
 conservative institution, Johns Hopkins 
 University, the degree of Doctor of Phi- 
 losophy, has been bestowed upon Miss 
 Florence Bascora. When her case was 
 presented to the board, there was not a 
 dissenting voice in the faculty, which had 
 at first strenuously opposed her admission 
 to the University. Four degrees from 
 the University of Wisconsin, of which her 
 father was formerly president, preceded 
 Miss Bascom's entrance to Johns Hop- 
 kins. Petrology, a comparatively new 
 branch of geological science, is the 
 specialty to which Miss Bascom will de- 
 vote her energies. This is the subject of 
 her thesis. Petrology is the only means 
 of discovering by microscopic examina- 
 
 92 
 
Higher Specialised Work 
 
 tion the past history of rocks that have 
 been changed by heat. One of the finest 
 pieces of field work ever accompHshed in 
 this country was done by Miss Bascom 
 last summer in the South Mountain Dis- 
 trict of Pennsylvania. She made her 
 headquarters alone at the only tavern in 
 the district, and daily with hammer and 
 chisel went forth to explore the neighbour- 
 ing mountains. She made a map of the 
 complicated mountain district. The re- 
 sult of her field-work was made the subject 
 of an extended paper by Professor Wil- 
 liams in a recent number of the Ameri- 
 can Journal of Science. Miss Bascom 's 
 study in petrology began at the Wis- 
 consin University under Professor Ir- 
 ving, a nephew of Washington Irving. A 
 professorship at Bryn Mawr has been 
 offered Miss Bascom on the condition 
 that she devote two years more to study 
 abroad. Although not yet thirty years 
 old, she has decided to put her knowledge 
 to a bread-winning test. To this end she 
 has accepted the chair of petrology in 
 connection with the geological department 
 
 93 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 of the Ohio State University, under the 
 direction of the conscientious geologist 
 and accomplished gentleman, Prof. Edwin 
 Orton. All women colleges are in close 
 communication with the meteorological 
 bureaus and contribute largely to home 
 and foreign astronomical journals. As 
 has been stated elsewhere, college-bred 
 women are employed as computers in the 
 observatories at Harvard and Yale. 
 
 The facts that led to Professor Pick- 
 ering's recent theory as to double stars 
 were discovered by Miss Murray of Har- 
 vard. The sociological problems of the 
 day are evoking specialised research in 
 sanitation, domestic science and domes- 
 tic service, the results of which belong- 
 more properly perhaps to the practical 
 outcome of scientific training. 
 
 94 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PRESIDENTIAL SILHOUETTES 
 
 THE colleges for women in America 
 are the inspiration and the fruition 
 of the herculean struggles of a hardy band 
 of New England women v/ho pined, in the 
 sterile atmosphere of narrow traditions 
 for a taste of the Tree of Knowledge. 
 Poor in purse, rich in faith, they longed to 
 widen their horizon by the cultivation of 
 their minds, expecting to find in this larger 
 culture broader opportunity for the devel- 
 opment of the spiritual and for the inde- 
 pendence of the material life. None knew 
 better than Mary Lyon, the heroic founder 
 of Mt. Holyoke, the struggles of the early 
 women of New England to better their 
 material condition by intellectual means. 
 School teaching in the humblest way was 
 then the only avenue open to women. 
 Seventy-five cents a week and " board 
 around" was the salary of the accepted 
 
 95 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 New England schoolmarm, when Mary 
 Lyon resolved to found a school for " the 
 middle class who have moderate means 
 and large aspirations." Despite the fact 
 that the higher education of to-day is 
 solely the offspring of womanly longings 
 and endeavours, two qnly of the foremost 
 colleges are at present under the exclu- 
 sive control of women. 
 
 Excepting Mt. Holyoke and Smith, all 
 were founded and endowed chiefly by 
 men. The faculty of Smith, Vassar and 
 Bryn Mawr is composed about equally of 
 men and women professors, while Mt. 
 Holyoke and Wellesley still cling to 
 women professors, although struggling 
 to reach the healthier condition insep- 
 arable from a mixed faculty. Harvard 
 Annex, basking in the wisdom, of seventy- 
 five Harvard professors, is not desirous of 
 change. 
 
 The presidents of Vassar, Smith, Bryn 
 Mawr and the Baltimore College are min- 
 isters, while the daughters of ministers 
 control the fortunes of Mt. Holyoke and 
 Wellesley. Unique again is Harvard An- 
 
 96 
 
Presidential Silhouettes 
 
 nex, in having for its able director an 
 ex-banker and man of letters, the de- 
 scendant of a long and illustrious line of 
 educators. 
 
 Five ministers have presided at Vassar 
 since its foundation. The present popu- 
 lar incumbent, Dr. James Monroe Taylor, 
 has occupied the chair for five years. 
 Descendant of a prolific family of Baptist 
 ministers and educators, Dr. Taylor was 
 born in Brooklyn in 1848. In the Uni- 
 versity and Seminary of Rochester, and 
 by travel abroad, he equipped himself for 
 practical ministerial work, and for the 
 position he now holds. 
 
 Dr. Taylor is a frequent contributor to 
 religious reviews, and active membership 
 in the school boards of Connecticut and 
 Rhode Island lends breadth to his present 
 administration. A young man of attrac- 
 tive presence and magnetic manner, he is 
 popular with faculty and students, and 
 his judicious and politic measures have 
 preserved the dignity of Vassar, once 
 threatened by the not ill-natured carica- 
 turing of the popular press. 
 
 97 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 The happy mediator between the presi- 
 dent and the "fair Vassar girl," is the 
 lady principal, Mrs. Kendrick, widow of 
 a former president. 
 
 The presiding genius of Smith is its 
 organiser, Dr. L. Clark Seelye, one of the 
 ablest educators of America, as well as the 
 most urbane and cautious if not progres- 
 sive of men. Dr. Seelye is refreshingly 
 simple and suggestive. The growth of 
 Smith from fourteen to six hundred and 
 fifty students in sixteen years is no less a 
 marvel to its president than to the advo- 
 cates of higher education. 
 
 Dr. Seelye is a brother of the former 
 president of Amherst College. He was 
 born in Connecticut in 1837, and educated 
 at Union College, Andover Seminary, and 
 the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg. 
 Ordained to the Congregational ministry 
 he subsequently filled for eight years the 
 chair of English and oratory at Amherst 
 College, from which he resigned in 1875, 
 to organise Smith College on the lines 
 indicated by its donor, Sophia Smith, a 
 spinster at Hatfield, Massachusetts. 
 
 98 
 
Presidential Silhouettes 
 
 Dr. Seelye is thoroughly in sympathy 
 with woman's advancement on conserva- 
 tive lines and keenly alive and appreci- 
 ative of her opportunities, and, while 
 cautious as to establishing a precedent, 
 he is ever ready to respond to healthy 
 progress. 
 
 Personally he is the typical New Eng- 
 land clergyman, with kindly eyes and a 
 well-defined beardless mouth responsive 
 to humour, and hair and whiskers of 
 auburn hue. To a gentle voice is added 
 an inviting manner. 
 
 "I have frequently been asked," said 
 Dr. Seelye, " if higher education would 
 not eventually engender in women a dis- 
 like or repugnance to marriage. One of 
 my greatest difficulties has been to post- 
 pone marriage among our women faculty. 
 No sooner do we get an exceptionally 
 clever woman professor and congratulate 
 ourseives on the possession, than she 
 marries and leaves us. I recollect once 
 citing this fact to an inquiring gentleman, 
 and quoting the career of Miss Alice 
 Freeman, then Wellesley's brilliant presi- 
 
 99 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 dent, as a possible case where a woman 
 might become so absorbed in her work 
 as to be incapable of disloyalty in this 
 respect. Returning from Europe a couple 
 of months after this declaration I met the 
 same gentleman. ' Have you heard the 
 news?' he asked. ' Miss Freeman has 
 married Professor Palmer of Harvard!' " 
 This marriage of its president in 1888 
 was a loss to Wellesley, for she was a 
 woman who united to broad scholarship 
 and progressive views marked executive 
 a-bility and a singularly attractive person- 
 ality. But in the organiser of the mathe- 
 matical department of Wellesley a fit- 
 ting successor was found. Daughter of 
 a minister, Miss Helen A. Shafer early 
 distinguished herself at Oberlin College, 
 from which she graduated in 1863. It 
 is interesting to note that both of Wel- 
 lesley's presidents were educated at 
 co-educational institutions, Mrs. Palmer 
 being a graduate of Michigan University. 
 Miss Shafer taught in the high school of 
 St. Louis a number of years before going 
 to Wellesley, where she brought the un- 
 
 100 
 
Presidential Silhouettes 
 
 popular department of mathematics to a 
 high level— no easy task, since feminine 
 minds have always been suspected of a 
 disjtaste for mathematics. This aversion 
 is largely attributable to the ineffective 
 teaching in the preparatory schools, and 
 it pursues the girl into college. Under Miss 
 Shafer's professorship, mathematics be- 
 came the most popular study at Wellesley. 
 Many brilliant girls elected it throughout 
 their course and did exceptionally good 
 work. As president Miss Shafer has done 
 much to strengthen the internal organisa- 
 tion of the college. Strong in the respect 
 and loyalty of her constituency, her high 
 standards, fairness, breadth, and progres- 
 sive ideas have stimulated Wellesley's 
 later growth. Her administration is most 
 democratic. Her policy with the students 
 is liberal, for She believes that in this way 
 alone can character be developed. Under 
 her administration the cottage system has 
 been extended, the graduate work of 
 the college greatly developed, and the 
 courses of study have become more elastic 
 by the extension of the elective system. 
 
 lOI 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 " I am encouraging our art students to 
 follow architecture as a profession," said 
 Miss Shafer. " Many take to it kindly. 
 The success of women employed to design 
 for the World's Fair building has awak- 
 ened interest, and we have now three 
 young women who, I hope, will become 
 architects." 
 
 President James E. Rhoads of Bryn 
 Mawr comes of a distinguished family of 
 Philadelphia. Conservative, yet progres- 
 sive, within the pale of the Friends' pre- 
 cepts, he enters heartily into all questions 
 of the day, and the spirit of Bryn Mawr 
 is delightfully unrestrained. The lever 
 of the institution, however, is Miss M. 
 Carey Thomas, the Dean. Bryn Mawr 
 is the only woman's college that has a 
 dean, and she is a Ph. D. At Cornell 
 University, Johns Hopkins, Leipsic, Zu- 
 rich and the Sorbonne, Miss Thomas took 
 degrees before assuming her position at 
 Bryn Mawr. She is of medium size, a 
 dark-haired, dark-eyed, handsome woman, 
 in whom every student has a counsellor 
 and friend. At the opening of the Uni- 
 
 I02 
 
Presidential Silhouettes 
 
 varsity of Pennsylvania to women, Miss 
 Thomas made the address; an exceptional 
 honour to an exceptional woman. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Oilman, the originator and 
 active promoter of the Harvard Annex, 
 and his wife, formerly principal of Brad- 
 ford Academy, which was established in 
 1803 and is the oldest institution for wo- 
 men in Massachusetts, embody the spirit 
 of this remarkable seat of learning. The 
 Annex is under the control of a board of 
 women managers, of which Mrs. Professor 
 Agassiz is the distinguished president. 
 
 Professor Oilman was born in Illinois 
 and educated at St. Louis and New York. 
 Impaired health compelled him to turn 
 from banking to philanthropic and edu- 
 cational work. Removing to Cambridge 
 in 1870, he connected himself with the 
 Riverside Press, and six years later, with 
 his wife, devised the plan of Harvard 
 Annex. From the most primitive begin- 
 ning this dream of their life has developed 
 with a success unparalleled in its way. 
 Professor Oilman retains the enthusiasm 
 of his earliest days. His special line of 
 
 103 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 study is literature and history, and his 
 contributions to the periodic press and 
 the bookmaking world are extensive. 
 His best-known works are a " History of 
 the American People," "Shakespeare's 
 Morals," "The Poetical Works of Geoffry 
 Chaucer," and contributions to "The 
 Story of the Nations" series. Many 
 members of the Gilman family have been 
 identified with Harvard College, and in 
 Fay House, the seat of the Annex, hangs 
 the original copy of the song " Fair Har- 
 vard," composed by the Rev. Samuel Gil- 
 man on the two hundredth anniversary 
 of the founding of Harvard University. 
 Professor Gilman is low-voiced, dark- 
 eyed, graceful, and an able educator. No 
 less interesting are the seven ladies who 
 assist him in the direction of the Annex, 
 Mrs. Louise Agassiz, Mrs. E.W. Gurney, 
 Mrs. J. P. Cooke, Mrs. J. B. Green, Mrs. 
 Arthur Gilman, Miss Alice M. Longfellow 
 (daughter of the poet) and Miss Lillian 
 Horsford. 
 
 Last but not least is the accomplished 
 president of Mt. Holyoke, Mrs. Elizabeth 
 
 104 
 
Presidential Silhouettes 
 
 Storrs Meade, who presided last year at 
 the first commencement since this pioneer 
 seminary obtained its charter of collegiate 
 dignity. She is the daughter of a min- 
 ister and the widow of a minister, and for 
 four years was a successful professor at 
 Oberlin College. All her earliest sur- 
 roundings were marked by culture and 
 refinement, and extended visits abroad 
 gave her the air of the well-bred woman 
 of the world. She is quick to sympathise, 
 and ready to mould the character of the 
 young women in her charge. Woman's 
 higher advancement is near to her heart. 
 A dark-eyed, dark-haired woman she 
 has the savoir-faire that lends superior 
 charm to superior character. In her keep- 
 ing Mt. Holyoke as a college can scarcely 
 fail to increase the influence of its fifty 
 years, which made possible the birth of 
 Vassar, Smith, Wellesley and Bryn Mawr. 
 
 105 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 CO-EDUCATION 
 
 WHILE the higher education for the 
 American girl is a recognised 
 demand, the best means to its attainment 
 remains a mooted question. The solution 
 it would seem lies chiefly in the temper- 
 ament and environment of the individual 
 seeking collegiate training. 
 
 Advanced educators at home and abroad 
 recognise as a radical defect in our whole 
 educational system the tendency to over- 
 charge the mind, at the expense of train- 
 ing it to think and act for itself. The 
 corner-stone of the structure being de- 
 fective, it behooves the cautious girl 
 to consider well her individual wants, be- 
 fore assuming collegiate dignity. If a 
 girl has a college bent it is a serious 
 question, whether she should seek higher 
 intellectual development in a woman's 
 college or at a co-educational institution. 
 
 io6 
 
Co-education 
 
 A strictly feminine atmosphere is irre- 
 futably a vital essential to the best physical 
 and mental development of many girls. In 
 the close companionship of their kind they 
 find the stimulus to work out the best that 
 is in them to their individual satisfaction 
 and happiness. Especially indispensable 
 is this feminine atmosphere to girls to 
 whom public-school association is un- 
 known. To all such temperaments, and 
 they are by no means rare or unhealthy, 
 a woman's college is indispensable. On 
 the other hand, it is thought that the 
 vigour and the competition of co-educa- 
 tional training meet the inner wants and 
 the outer demands of a large number 
 of American girls, as the attendance at 
 these institutions seems to attest. The 
 United States has three hundred and fifty- 
 seven colleges of liberal arts.. Of these 
 two hundred and seventeen admit women, 
 while of thirty-two independent colleges 
 endowed with national land grants, twenty 
 report students of both sexes, thus giving 
 a total of two hundred and thirty-seven co- 
 educational colleges. The grand total of 
 
 107 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 women students enrolled in all institutions 
 in the United States affording a higher 
 education to women is, according to the 
 latest unpublished statistics, thirty-six 
 thousand three hundred and twenty-nine. 
 Our State universities are but the higher 
 extension of the public-school system. 
 Despite their close relation to the State, 
 they have developed a distinct organ- 
 ism as well as a distinct character. The 
 whole policy originated in the ordinance 
 of 1787 which gave to the Ohio Com- 
 pany large land grants as a public edu- 
 cational trust. It remained, however, 
 for the Morrill Act of 1862, which gave 
 thirty thousand acres of land to each State, 
 for the purpose of endowing at least one 
 college, to precipitate the present unpar- 
 alleled educational activity. This mag- 
 nificent gift not only aided fifty colleges 
 and universities but gave birth to at least 
 thirty-three. The State universities are 
 the inevitable channels through which a 
 large number of women strive to attain a 
 higher education. Later statistics show 
 that there are eleven thousand seven 
 
 108 
 
Co-education 
 
 hundred and eighteen women students en- 
 rolled in the co-educational universities 
 and colleges in the United ^States. The 
 most conservative institutions — ^Yale, 
 Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, 
 Johns Hopkins, etc., have opened their 
 degrees to women on equal footing with 
 men, as quickly as the girls developed the 
 disposition and proved the capacity to 
 meet the requirements of the university 
 curriculum. 
 
 The reasons advanced at home and 
 abroad for and against co-educational in- 
 stitutions are numerous, and many of 
 them unreasonable and absurd. Time 
 will doubtless develop for America the 
 best means to the desired end. Mean- 
 while, it is well to consider facts at 
 hand. Two educational methods pre- 
 vail in our co-educational institutions. 
 Collegiate co-education was first intro- 
 duced in the United States at Oberlin 
 College in 1833. It had not its origin in 
 any radically new idea of the sphere and 
 work of women. The movement in this 
 direction is a later development. The 
 
 109 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 work at Oberlin, however, has been more 
 or less modified since by the general 
 change of view upon this subject. The 
 original idea was to bring young men and 
 young women together in the college after 
 the fashion of the New England Academy. 
 It began with a female department under 
 the supervision of a lady principal. Pre- 
 paratory classes composed of boys and 
 girls continued, to quote the president, 
 " because it was more economical and in- 
 teresting. " The basis of woman's crea- 
 tion was economy. Every advance since 
 made by her has been, if history and 
 observation are to be trusted, the result 
 of economic measures. Simultaneous 
 with the establishment of preparatory 
 classes, a" Ladies' Course" was introduced 
 to give young women the privilege of 
 higher education. 
 
 Inevitably they found their way as 
 early as 1837 to regular college classes. 
 Without definite intention the system of 
 co-education was thus established at 
 Oberlin. There was no flourish of trum- 
 pets over the achievement. In 1875 
 
 no 
 
Co-education 
 
 " Female" and " Ladies' Department" dis- 
 appeared from the college catalogues. 
 The identity of the Ladies' Department 
 was lost in the Literary Course opened to 
 young men, which tended to dispel from 
 the public mind the idea that Oberlin had 
 a young ladies' seminary more or less 
 connected with the college. Oberlin as- 
 serts that it has not and never had a 
 special ladies' department as far as classes 
 and courses of study are concerned. It 
 still retains, hdwever, what it has always 
 had, a special department for the govern- 
 ment of the young ladies. Since 1836, 
 this department has been under the 
 charge of a lady principal and a lady 
 board of managers. No woman student 
 is ever summoned before the general 
 faculty in matters of discipline. No 
 appeal from the lady board to the faculty 
 has ever been made nor has there ever 
 been a conflict of authority. While 
 Oberlin has influenced the extension of 
 this system of instruction, co-education 
 as now pursued in many of the large 
 schools, especially the State universities, is 
 
 III 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 not identical with that which Oberlin has 
 maintained for more than a half-century. 
 
 Oberlin has never maintained, as have, 
 some latter co-educational institutions, 
 that men and women were just alike and 
 have the same outlook or duties in life, or 
 that consequently they should be trained 
 for the same careers. 
 
 It assumes, however, that the same book 
 knowledge is good for both sexes, and 
 that it is good for them to receive it in 
 the same classes, on the principle that 
 the sexes at home and abroad receive 
 bread in common from a common table. 
 On the other hand, it imposes limitations 
 upon the associations of young men and 
 women not found in many co-educational 
 schools. For instance, students are never 
 permitted to meet in literary societies or 
 other voluntary associations without the 
 presence of a teacher. Competition is 
 never stimulated by publishing students' 
 marks. Young women are not permitted 
 to receive social calls from young men, 
 students or non-students, after eight 
 o'clock. Women students must retire not 
 
 112 
 
Co-education 
 
 later than nine, wliile men may stay up 
 until ten p.m. Some seven hundred and 
 fifty women students have quarters in the 
 college hall or among families of the 
 town, between whom and the lady princi- 
 pal there is hearty sympathy and co-oper- 
 ation. Primitive as these restrictions 
 appear on the face, the type of men and 
 women Oberlin has equipped, a large pro- 
 portion of whom are distinguished in the 
 industries and the arts, and the high 
 moral tone of the community it has gen- 
 erated and still fosters in the town of 
 Oberlin, together with the large number 
 of successful educational institutions for 
 which it has served as a model, eloquently 
 demonstrate the efficacy of its policy. 
 
 The second system of co-education is 
 embodied in the State university. It 
 seems to recognise no difference in the 
 needs of men and women. The doors 
 are open alike to all. Ann Arbor makes 
 a distinction solely in its medical school. 
 In anatomy, lectures and the dissecting 
 room there is a separation of the sexes. 
 Opened in 1870 to women, Ann Arbor is 
 
 113 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 largely credited with the liberalising of 
 the higher education in the United States, 
 since it was first to accredit high schools 
 by accepting their diplomas as sufficient 
 for admission. 
 
 Women like men prefer those colleges 
 which supply their special needs most 
 agreeably and at the least expense. That 
 thousands find this in co-educational col- 
 leges, the constantly increasing number 
 of women attending these institutions 
 proves. Women's colleges thrive most 
 in the East, where co-educational institu- 
 tions of equal merit, until a quite recent 
 date, did not exist. 
 
 It is a curious fact, that of the five 
 foremost women colleges only two have 
 women presidents, and these, Mt. Hol- 
 yoke and Wellesley, have always been 
 under the authority of women — women in 
 both instances who received their training 
 at co-educational colleges. Men are now 
 being added rapidly to the faculties of 
 women's colleges. The wisdom of the 
 movement is already discernible. It can- 
 not fail to produce a healthier, more nat- 
 
 114 
 
Co-education 
 
 ural and independent tone, and to broaden 
 the mental horizon, enabling the B. A. 
 and M. A. of the future to counteract 
 many unfavourable impressions made 
 by earlier college-bred women upon the 
 observant and the thoughtful. To ac- 
 cept or discuss a fact or observation 
 advanced or deduced from a natural or 
 ethical standpoint not in strict accordance 
 with the teaching of their respective 
 colleges was exceptional if not impossible 
 to some of the earliest graduates of our 
 women's schools. Large and liberal cul- 
 ture, the best corrective perhaps of the 
 tendency to take petty views of things, 
 — a culture especially to be desired for 
 women on whom it devolves to give the 
 tone to society, — was not characteristic 
 of our early exponents of higher edu- 
 cation. 
 
 " Since in the conventional manner of 
 the transmission of science, in its pre- 
 paratory studies in the entire range of 
 universities," wisely argues Miss E. 
 Davis, advocating the higher education 
 of women in England, " there are, accord- 
 
 115 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 ing to a common judgment, so many 
 points in which reforms are needed, it is 
 pitiable to think that women will have to 
 walk the old, wornout, roundabout roads 
 when shorter and much better paved 
 roads might pleasantly lead them to their 
 goal." To America the old world looks 
 to-day for the discovery of the short cut 
 to this desired Mecca. The most health- 
 ful and prophetic stimulus, in this great 
 transitory period through which we are 
 passing, dimly conscious of its import to 
 the future, is the eagerness and the liber- 
 ality with which all our educational insti- 
 tutions consider and test new methods 
 and ideas. 
 
 Present indications point to Vassar, 
 Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr or the Uni- 
 versity of Chicago, as the possible site 
 of the perfect fruition of woman's higher 
 education. A veritable modern Jupiter 
 is this latest and most stupendous expres- 
 sion of the educational impulse of the day, 
 — the Chicago University. It is the only 
 university in the history of the world that 
 included in its very conception the equal 
 
 ii6 
 
Co-education 
 
 educational rights and privileges of wo- 
 man. 
 
 Unhampered by tradition or precedent, 
 with a wealth unknown to classic times, 
 and an enterprise, energy, and catholicity 
 inseparable from the age and the locality, 
 it embraces in its faculty savants gathered 
 from many countries, and it is confidently 
 expected to cut the modern educational 
 Gordian knot. The University is organ- 
 ised into four distinct divisions, the Uni- 
 versity Proper, the University Extension 
 Division, the University Libraries and 
 Museums, and the University Press. 
 
 The University Proper includes schools, 
 academies and colleges. 
 
 It is the first university to call to its 
 regular faculty a woman professor, with 
 the equal duties and rights of a man pro- 
 fessor. Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, the 
 ex-president of Wellesley College, a wo- 
 man of varied and unique power, holds 
 the chair of history and is Dean of women 
 in the graduate schools and colleges. 
 Professor Palmer resides at the University 
 twelve weeks of the year, and in her ab- 
 
 117 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 sence retains an active share in the ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 Three women hold assistant professor- 
 ships: Julia E. Buckley, Assistant Pro- 
 fessor of Pedagogy, and Dean (of women) 
 in the academic colleges (ordinarily 
 known as Freshman and Sophomore), 
 Martha Foote Crow, Ph. D., Assistant 
 Professor of English Literature, and 
 Marion Talbot, A. M., Professor of Sani- 
 tary Science and Dean (of women) in the 
 university colleges, which embrace the 
 Junior and Senior classes. Two women 
 as tutors in German and in Physical Cul- 
 ture, one University Extension reader in 
 Latin, a cataloguer and a librarian com- 
 plete the women instructors and officers. 
 In the Deans, students find directors and 
 counsellors identical with the Lady Princi- 
 pal or President. Two dormitory halls 
 presided over by ladies provide respec- 
 tively a home for two hundred women. 
 One of these structures enjoys the distinc- 
 tion of being the only institution of this 
 kind in the world erected by women for 
 women. It is the gift of the women of 
 
 ii8 
 
Co-education 
 
 Chicago and was erected at a cost of two 
 hundred thousand dollars. Public inter- 
 est was incited and the fund raised through 
 the editorial efforts of Mrs. Margaret F. 
 Sullivan of the staff of the Chicago Her- 
 ald. Her vigorous, scholarly editorials, 
 showing the large sums of money be- 
 queathed to men's colleges in all ages by 
 women, while institutions for their own 
 sex languished i^i the want of financial 
 aid, appealed to that aggressive and pro- 
 gressive body, the Woman's Club. Head- 
 ing the subscription list with one thousand 
 dollars, its president, with Margaret Sulli- 
 van's hearty co-operation, raised in less 
 than two weeks the funds required for the 
 erection and equipment of the splendid 
 structure which will ever be a substantial 
 refutation of the charge that women never 
 do anything practical for their own insti- 
 tutions. Of forty-three fellows enrolled 
 at the University, in this the second year 
 of its existence, for extended University 
 study, five are women, graduates of Vas- 
 sar, Wellesley, Smith and two co-educa- 
 tional institutions. Among fifteen hono- 
 
 IIQ 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 rary fellows are four women, students of 
 Harvard Annex, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, 
 Antioch College and the University of 
 Wisconsin. Greater than the interest, is 
 the responsibility that rests on the women 
 associated either as professors or students 
 with this unique educational institution. 
 Fully equipped by the age which made ' 
 possible the conception and execution of 
 such an institution as the University of 
 Chicago, Alice Freeman Palmer, Martha 
 Foote Crow and Marion Talbot,— will not 
 fail to rise to the opportunity so signally 
 extended to them to help the American 
 girl achieve by the simplest and most ef- 
 fective means the higher development of 
 her higher self. 
 
 1 20 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 RELATIVE COST 
 
 THE moral and financial responsibility 
 involved in the education of a 
 family of modern girls cannot be over- 
 estimated. " Educate a woman and you 
 educate a nation." More conscientious, 
 indulgent parents do not exist, perhaps, 
 than those in the average American home. 
 Conscience prompts the education of their 
 children at all hazards, while pride and 
 love urge them to secure such training 
 under the most favourable circumstances. 
 Despite liberal or modest income, how- 
 ever, prudence gives the matter of expense 
 precedence over the course of studies in 
 selecting a college for the modern daugh- 
 ter. Deplorable as this materialism may 
 be, the fact is irrefutable. Facts are stub- 
 born things and in this instance demand 
 stubborn handling if practical value is to 
 
 121 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 be derived from a consideration of the 
 relative cost of higher education. The 
 girl ambitious of college training gener- 
 ally has, when the time arrives to decide 
 on a college, some definite idea of the 
 course she wishes to pursue. Naturally 
 courses of study in women colleges and 
 co-educational institutions vary in breadth 
 and merit. A careful study of college 
 catalogues gives a tolerably clear idea of 
 the extent and strength of each depart- 
 ment. Expenses as foretold in the cata- 
 logues, however, are scarcely less delusive 
 than similar estimates in Guides to Europe. 
 Not unhide the latter they delight in 
 round numbers. 
 
 Extras unhappily swell the outlay of a 
 college year no less than the cost of a 
 Continental outing. The sincerity of col- 
 lege catalogues is not questioned. All 
 aim to give information within their 
 official power, but such power has its limi- 
 tations. It falls short this side of extras, 
 So various are individual tastes, desires 
 and limitations, that experience alone can 
 give the exact cost of a college course; 
 
 122 
 
Relative Cost 
 
 for only experience can initiate a student 
 into the possibilities of extras — the rock 
 upon which more than one allowance has 
 met shipwreck. Each college has a dis- 
 tinctive tone, sustained more or less in a 
 distinctive manner. This can only be 
 learned by contact. So much depends 
 upon the taste, wants, exigencies of the 
 student as well as the independence of 
 will and absorption of aim, that it is im- 
 possible to state fairly or definitely the 
 relative cost of a college year at any par- 
 ticular institution. From a comparative 
 study of the catalogues of Vassar, Welles- 
 ley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Harvard Annex, 
 Mt. Holyoke and The Woman's College, 
 personal interviews with college authori- 
 ties, chats with students and graduates 
 and peeps into their account books, the 
 facts here stated have been collected. 
 
 The term bill of the colleges cited aver- 
 ages about the same per annum. Only in 
 a comparison of the extras and the inci- 
 dentals is there a perceptible difference. 
 Mt. Holyoke, sustaining the economic 
 basis upon which it was founded, offers the 
 
 123 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 lowest annual tuition, seventy-five dollars. 
 Smith, Bryn Mawrand The Woman's Col- 
 legje each charge one hundred dollars, Vas- 
 sar one hundred and fifteen dollars, Wel- 
 lesley one hundred and fifty dollars, 
 while the Annex charges two hundred 
 dollars. Co-educational tuition averages 
 from nothing to two hundred dollars, 
 reaching the highest point at the Massa- 
 chusetts Institution of Technology and 
 the lowest at the State Universities of 
 California, Kansas and Wisconsin. Re- 
 ductions are made for special students 
 at Vassar, Mt. Holyoke, the Woman's 
 College and Bryn Mawr. It is in board, 
 lodging, and laundry, and the use of 
 laboratory and library that the greatest 
 variation of expenses is noted. Vassar 
 aims to avoid all extra charges in its 
 regular work. With that purpose in view, 
 the charge to all students, who reside in 
 the college, is four hundred dollars. This 
 includes tuition in all college studies, 
 board and the washing of one dozen plain 
 pieces weekly. This sum also provides 
 board during the vacations, which at 
 
 124 
 
Relative Cost 
 
 Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr and the 
 Woman's College involves an additional 
 expense at the rate of from six to eight 
 and a half dollars per week. This item, to a 
 student who comes a long distance and is 
 obliged to remain at the college during va- 
 cations, is not without importance. Use 
 of chemicals, breakage in the laboratory, 
 the use of the library and admission to all 
 concerts and lectures are also included in 
 the four hundred dollars, while chemicals 
 and laboratory breakages are extras at 
 Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr and the 
 Woman's College. An extra nominal 
 charge is made at Vassar for medical 
 attendance, both for office and private 
 consultation. Office consultation is free 
 at all other colleges. A student in the 
 Infirmary at Vassar is charged at the 
 extra rate of a dollar and a half per day, 
 which includes regular medical attendance, 
 medicine, the services of nurse, and meals. 
 Every meal taken to a student's room for 
 whatever cause is charged extra. This 
 rule prevails at all colleges except at 
 Bryn Mawr, where the order of physician 
 
 125 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 or mistress exempts the student from fur- 
 ther indebtedness. Vassar students sup- 
 ply their own towels and napkins for the 
 table, and this is required by all other col- 
 leges except Bryn Mawr and the Harvard 
 Annex. Text-books, stationery, drawing 
 utensils, etc. , are to be had at current rates 
 here as elsewhere. Music and painting 
 and the use of instruments are the luxu- 
 ries of all colleges, and involve an aver- 
 age additional cost of one hundred dol- 
 lars per year. Having neither music nor 
 painting schools these extras do not exist 
 in Bryn Mawr or the Harvard Annex. 
 
 No college makes deduction for absence 
 during the year except in the case of ill- 
 ness which renders a student's departure 
 imperative. In such cases charges for 
 board, varying from six to eight dollars a 
 week, are made at all colleges until formal 
 notice is given by parent or guardian that 
 the student has relinquished her room. 
 
 No difference is made in the charge for 
 rooms at Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Mt. 
 Holyoke or the Woman's College. The 
 cottage plan prevails at Smith and Welles- 
 
 126 
 
Relative Cost 
 
 ley, and owing to its popularity and the 
 insufficient number of cottages to accom- 
 modate all, students are permitted to seek 
 lodgings in the towns of Northampton and 
 Wellesley. Bryn Mawr and the Woman's 
 College also allow students to live outside 
 the college halls. Whether residence out- 
 side the college campus deprives a student 
 of the college spirit or atmosphere is dis- 
 puted. Certain it is, that outside resi- 
 dents impatiently wait a vacancy in the 
 cottages. The cost of board and fur- 
 nished room in the cottages at Smith and 
 Wellesley is two hundred and fifty dollars 
 per annum. Board and lodging may be 
 had in private families at Northampton at 
 rates varying from four to nine dollars a 
 week. In special cases lower rates may 
 be secured. Six dollars is the average 
 price paid by students who live in private 
 families. Board and lodging outside the 
 dormitories and cottages at Wellesley 
 varies from" five to seven dollars a week. 
 Prices vary at Bryn Mawr according to lo- 
 cation. The lowest amount for board and 
 residence in the college halls is two hun^ 
 
 127 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 dred and seventy-five dollars, the highest 
 four hundred dollars. Residence, exclu- 
 sive of board in the college halls, which 
 n'^mber three, is from one hundred and 
 twenty-five to two hundred and fifty dol- 
 lars a year according to location. Bryn 
 Mawr does not allow its students to 
 share rooms. The cost of board alone 
 is one hundred and fifty dollars. 
 
 The Annex has no dormitory nor cot- 
 tages. The unrestrained privilege of co- 
 educational colleges reigns there, leaving 
 the student to seek at pleasure " high 
 thinking and plain living" at rates rang- 
 ing from six to twelve and fifteen dollars 
 a week. 
 
 At the Woman's College two hundred 
 dollars covers board, furnished room, 
 light, service and laundry. Quarters may 
 be had in private families of Baltimore at 
 prices varying from three to seven dollars 
 per week. 
 
 While a student is perfectly independ- 
 ent everywhere in the matter of special 
 decoration for her room, and the sum 
 spent in this way need not be large, 
 
 128 
 
Relative Cost 
 
 woman's innate aesthetic sense stimu- 
 lated by the inevitable rivalry makes the 
 average student's room a source of ex- 
 pense rarel)^, if ever, considered by a girl 
 contemplating a college course. The 
 outlay in room decoration runs from five 
 to one hundred 'dollars in the four years. 
 It depends entirely upon the student's 
 allowance. In these days of draperies, 
 cushions, divans and the indispensable tea- 
 table there is no limit to the possibilities 
 in this direction. The account book of a 
 Vassar graduate of 1893 discloses the fact 
 that the decoration of her room outside 
 of pictures cost seventy-five dollars, but 
 she adds that many of her class have scarce- 
 ly expended ten dollars throughout the 
 course. This same account book reveals, 
 under the head of sundries, ninety-seven 
 dollars and seventy-five cents for one 
 year's extra laundry, stationery and books. 
 The expense in room decoration has 
 greatly decreased at Vassar since the re- 
 furnishing of the house last year. The 
 new hall opened in January is so com- 
 pletely furnished by the college that a 
 
 129 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 student needs only a desk and hangings 
 to make her " den" complete. The rooms 
 at Bryn Mawr are complete in the com- 
 forts and the luxuries of the most fastid- 
 ious taste. No lamp, desk, table, arm- 
 chair, nor supplies of any kind need be 
 brought by the student. While all the 
 rooms are sufficiently heated by steam, an 
 open fire-place, with which all high-priced 
 rooms are provided, may impart a home 
 glow at an additional cost. 
 
 No service is required from students at 
 Vassar or Bryn Mawr. Coloured maids 
 are at the students' command. Smith 
 exacts from each student the care of her 
 room. Students wait on the tables at 
 Wellesley and assist in various clerical 
 and household duties not to exceed forty 
 minutes per day. Division of service at 
 Wellesley tends to lower the expenses of 
 students who reside in the cottages. 
 
 Another unexpected extra is class and 
 society fees. The average sum expended 
 at most colleges is fifteen dollars. The 
 amount depends altogether upon how 
 deeply a girl goes into- this modern devel- 
 
 130 
 
Relative Cost 
 
 opment of college life, for there is no limit 
 to the number of societies. Society organi- 
 sations at Smith, however, are restricted in 
 number, and to one only is a student per- 
 mitted membership. The initiation fee is 
 one dollar; the yearly tax an additional 
 dollar. The cost of entertainments given 
 by the different classes which make up the 
 social life is defrayed by the class taxes. 
 These vary from Freshman to Senior year. 
 From twelve to fifteen dollars is the esti- 
 mated amount expended during the four 
 years. The parties given by the various 
 cottages throughout the year are simple 
 affairs involving a trifling expense. In- 
 dividual taxes for house dramatic per- 
 formances and tennis courts scarcely 
 exceed two dollars a year. While there 
 are a number of lectures and concerts 
 throughout the course free to students, 
 there are as many more to which admis- 
 sion is charged. Fewer temptations in 
 this respect prevail at Smith, perhaps, 
 than at Vassar or Wellesley. 
 
 Occasional concerts, lectures and plays 
 are irresistible temptations to Vassar, 
 
 131 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Wellesley or Bryn Mawr girls, whose close 
 proximity to New York, Boston and Phil- 
 adelphia renders this indulgence easy 
 while it has no tendency to decrease the 
 extras. Railroad fares enter largely into 
 a student's expense, especially if the dis- 
 tance is great and vacations find her 
 homeward bound. A Vassar girl living 
 within seven hundred miles of Pough- 
 keepsie, who spends the Christmas holi- 
 days at home, estimates her travelling 
 expenses at one hundred dollars a year. 
 
 The total charge at Mt. Holyoke is two 
 hundred dollars. This college leads in 
 economy of outlay, followed closely by the 
 Woman's College. Bryn Mawr and the 
 Harvard Annex are the most expensive, 
 with Vassar in close proximity. An 
 Annex girl confesses that by the most 
 rigid economy she pulled through one 
 year on eight hundred dollars. Wellesley 
 and Smith are about equal, with economic 
 margin, if any, in favour of the latter. 
 A Wellesley student states that five hun- 
 dred dollars covered her entire expenses 
 last year. Eight hundred dollars is the 
 
 132 
 
Relative Cost 
 
 average at Vassar, while from eight hun- 
 dred to one thousand dollars and often 
 fifteen hundred dollars make life delight- 
 ful at Bryn Mawr. 
 
 Debarring extras and incidentals this is 
 the ratio at the women's colleges in round 
 numbers: 
 
 Mt. Holyoke $200.00 
 
 Woman's College 300.00 
 
 Wellesle)/ 380.00 
 
 Smith 350.00 
 
 Vassar 400.00 
 
 Bryn Mawr 475.00 
 
 Co-educational. 
 
 Tuition. 
 
 Boston University $100.00 
 
 Cornell 100.00 
 
 University of Michigan 20.00 
 
 Northwestern University 40.00 
 
 Oberlin College 45.00 
 
 Syracuse , . . 60.00 
 
 Wesleyan 75-00 
 
 A subject which often confronts the 
 student with embarrassment is the toilet. 
 
 At Bryn Mawr and the Woman's Col- 
 lege, the gown and mortar board are obli- 
 gatory, while at the other colleges, with 
 
 133 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 the exception of the Seniors who wear 
 them on special occasions, as Tree Day at 
 Wellesley, or Commencement at Harvard 
 Annex, the greatest independence prevails 
 in dress. This very independence is mis- 
 leading to a Freshman. College authori- 
 ties and graduates are wont to reiterate 
 that a girl requires no more or less dress 
 at college than at home. No less sweep- 
 ing than unsatisfactory is this assertion, 
 since students come now from fashionable 
 homes as frequently as country firesides. 
 Elaborate dressing is not encouraged, and 
 as the tendency up to date has not been 
 in that direction, a happy medium prevails 
 in most colleges. The girl who leaves a 
 luxuriant home and fashionable social 
 circles will do well to judiciously weed 
 out of her college wardrobe all gowns of 
 ceremony or pronounced ball-room type. 
 On the other hand, the country or city 
 bred girl to whom a ball or party is a 
 memory or an anticipation, and an " at 
 home" in other than the plainest street 
 gowns is an unknown indulgence, will not 
 fail to provide herself at the outset with at 
 
 134 
 
Relative Cost 
 
 least two light-tinted gala robes. Remem- 
 bering that taste rather than purse gives 
 the charm to a toilet, the prevalence of in- 
 expensive pretty stuffs now makes a gala 
 gown possible to the most modest allow- 
 ance. Consider the social occasions of 
 college life, then trust to common sense 
 and individual taste in preparing the 
 Freshman wardrobe. One year's assimi- 
 lation of the college atmosphere will be 
 a safe guide in matters of dress for the 
 remaining college course. 
 
 Vassar gives two annual balls which re- 
 quire full dress. Whether a girl wears 
 the same gown to both balls depends upon 
 her purse. Friday, Saturday and Sunday 
 evenings generally find the students in 
 pretty dinner or reception gowns. " Three 
 gowns for recitation will last me a year," 
 writes a Vassar girl of liberal income. 
 " One needs also a good winter street suit, 
 and in the spring a similar gown of lighter 
 weight. I have besides these three or 
 four dinner gowns that vary the evening 
 'at home ' and serve for club entertain- 
 ments or concert outings in the town." 
 
 135 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Light dresses are worn a great deal at 
 Wellesley. More variety of toilet prevails 
 there than elsewhere. The greater num- 
 ber in attendance emphasises perhaps 
 this refreshing feature of the college en- 
 semble. The chapel and concert hall 
 being under the same roof that shelters a 
 large portion of the community, mid-win- 
 ter permits students, especially on Sunday 
 and Monday evenings, to assume pretty 
 festive gowns. Numerous are the occa- 
 sions when the college blossoms like a 
 huge flower-garden. Elaborate society 
 costumes are rarely seen. Esthetic in- 
 dividual gowns predominate, often of the 
 wearer's own design and fabrication, 
 representing but a modest expenditure of 
 money. The Junior Promenade or Garden 
 Party is Wellesley's great dress occasion. 
 The first fete of college life here as at 
 Smith is the Sophomores' reception to the 
 Freshmen. Later the Juniors entertain 
 their younger sisters. " Tree Day" is an- 
 other gala occasion of the Freshman year 
 that calls forth pretty toilets. The Fresh- 
 men are initiated into college social tactics 
 
 136 
 
Relative Cost 
 
 by serving as ushers, etc., at upper class 
 receptions. With the Sophomore year 
 college life begins to take on a distinctive 
 social aroma. On Saturday evenings, 
 class-room dresses are discarded for pretty 
 house robes in which students attend the 
 meetings of Greek letter, literary, politi- 
 cal economy or sociological clubs held in 
 the rooms allotted to them. Commence- 
 ment week at all colleges involves more 
 or less additional expense of toilet. A 
 gymnasium suit is now imperative at all 
 colleges, while tennis suits are indispen- 
 sable. A Wellesley senior, whose gowns 
 always bespoke the lady, says that fifty 
 dollars represented the cost of her last 
 year's college wardrobe. While economy 
 in the toilet has little or no tendency to 
 detract from the student's popularity or 
 esteem, expenditure in dress will naturally 
 increase in proportion as daughters of 
 wealth aspire to the collegiate training now 
 so auspiciously opened to them by the 
 pioneer efforts of the daughters of the poor. 
 The first dress affair at Smith occurs in 
 October when the Sophomores tender the 
 
 137 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Freshmen a reception. The latter are 
 escorted by the former in carriages, del- 
 uged with flowers and bestow and receive 
 the flattering attentions so long the privi- 
 lege of the masculine gallant. The great 
 full-dress affair, the only one to which men 
 are invited, is reserved for Washington's 
 birthday. Numerous informal entertain- 
 ments in the cottages have popularised at 
 Smith light-tinted, inexpensive gowns. 
 
 Cap and gown at Bryn Mawr and the 
 Woman's College make unnecessary the 
 special dress for commencement and all 
 formal class gatherings. Most of the 
 occasions that receive special toilet con- 
 sideration at Bryn Mawr are independent 
 of college life proper. The proximity of 
 Philadelphia and the freedom with which 
 gentlemen are permitted to call at the 
 cottages give a larger and more varied 
 scope to social life, if a student be socially 
 inclined. No girl can afford to neglect 
 her toilet in or out of college. It is not 
 only a personal but a public duty to pre- 
 sent at all times the most pleasing and 
 attractive appearance. 
 
 138 
 
Relative Cost 
 
 When nature has not given a woman 
 taste in dress it is the duty of education 
 to supply it. The college that overlooks 
 it does not discharge its whole duty. Now 
 that higher education is turning tardy at- 
 tention to the development of the physique 
 let not its decoration be neglected. Brain- 
 workers are proverbially inclined to run 
 down at the heels. Intellect and artistic 
 dressing have rarely if ever been synony- 
 mous. A well-dressed woman, however, is 
 always an art-educator. Boston possesses, 
 and New York agitates for a committee 
 to sit in judgment with the municipal 
 authorities on the art works proposed for 
 the decoration of the respective cities, 
 trusting in this manner to preserve the 
 city from bad architecture, painting or 
 statuary and consequently to cultivate the 
 public taste. Might not a similar com- 
 mittee in our women colleges to direct the 
 toilet indulgences of students, in whom 
 the aesthetic sense as regards their own 
 personality is dead or dormant, serve as 
 good purpose as the self-governing socie- 
 ties of Vassar and Bryn Mawr ? Does the 
 
 139 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 American girl live who would yield to a 
 surveillance of dress ? American women 
 are said to be the best-dressed women in 
 the world. 
 
 A glance at a gathering of college-bred 
 women, however, rarely fails to reveal how 
 little higher education has contributed to 
 this international repute. 
 
 140 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 SELF-HELP 
 
 WANT of energy, ambition or health 
 may now deprive the American 
 girl of a collegiate training; but not want 
 of means to defray the expense involved. 
 Not unlike that of Yale, Harvard and 
 kindred universities, the history of our 
 woman colleges is inseparable from the 
 struggles and sacrifices of increasing num- 
 bers of students seeking higher educa- 
 tion, despite the lack of means on their 
 part or that of their families. Compara- 
 tively little has been said and less is known 
 of this phase of the development, owing 
 largely to woman's inherent delicacy and 
 pride. Long discipline as a dependent 
 has given her experience in personal sac- 
 rifices and petty economies unknown to 
 man, and taught her the value of secretive- 
 ness. That a half-century has quickened 
 and broadened the spirit that animated 
 
 141 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Mary Lyon and her sturdy followers, the 
 correspondence files of all our women col- 
 leges attest. 
 
 The eagerness of these aspirants to 
 learn how they may earn their way to col- 
 lege and through it, and their readiness to 
 borrow the necessary funds and assume a 
 debt which they know they will be years 
 in paying, are convincing proof of the high 
 value put upon education by the modern 
 woman. Aside from scholarships and 
 fellowships which are multiplying on every 
 side, and yet are inadequate to meet the 
 demands or wholly defray the cost of a 
 course, colleges offer various opportunities 
 to the industrious, deserving student to 
 reduce her expenses; while the clever, 
 ingenious girl is always devising original 
 schemes to accomplish the desired end. 
 Almost tragic and always pathetic are the 
 secret deprivations endured by many stu- 
 dents who enter college and persevere to 
 the end, dependent solely upon their own 
 exertions to defray the necessary ex- 
 pense. Such efforts are possible only to 
 the enthusiast. 
 
 142 
 
Self-Help 
 
 The physical and mental strain upon 
 the student who undertakes to earn half 
 the cost of a college course frequently en- 
 tails evils which all the scientific train- 
 ing acquired is powerless to compensate. 
 The wisdom or the folly of these self-im- 
 posed sacrifices in the pursuit of knowl- 
 edge will always be debatable, though 
 they are the means by which many have 
 achieved distinction. The fact remains, 
 tliat the number of women without means, 
 determined to avail themselves of a col- 
 lege training, increases each year. 
 
 " Time cannot wither nor custom stale" 
 woman's first marketable talent, the fac- 
 ulty for teaching. It remains the com- 
 monest resource of those who are striving 
 to save a little money to enter college. 
 Teaching, in the highest sense, is one of 
 the least remunerative of the professions. 
 As higher education spreads, the standard 
 of teaching will advance until desirable 
 positions will be open only to women 
 holding a degree. 
 
 Happily at this crisis stenography and 
 typewriting open a new and promising 
 
 143 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 field, enabling many women not only to 
 enter college but to largely defray the 
 expenses of a course. 
 
 Not unlike other pursuits, however, they 
 require great economy if anything is to 
 be saved. Less onerous than teaching, 
 they offer greater opportunity and afford 
 more leisure for study, while the compen- 
 sation is better. Interesting in this line 
 is the success of a clergyman's daughter 
 from the interior of New York State. 
 When financial reverses overtook the fam- 
 ily great was the solicitude as to the future 
 of this daughter, the least competent and 
 most dependent member of the household, 
 and the only one for whose education no 
 provision had been made. Reading in the 
 Century magazine the advertisement of 
 a firm offering to teach stenography by 
 correspondence, the minister's daughter 
 applied for instruction. In less than three 
 months the firm wrote that their pupil's 
 skill had outrun their own, and that if she 
 would come to New York they would se- 
 cure her a lucrative position. The propo- 
 sition was eagerly accepted and the happy 
 
 144 
 
Self-Help 
 
 girl was installed as secretary to a clergy- 
 man, and her collegiate training was sub- 
 sequently secured entirely by her own 
 exertions. 
 
 Canvassing for subscriptions for papers 
 and periodicals which offer prizes, in some 
 cases money and in others the direct offer 
 of an education at some college for a part 
 or the whole of a course, is a recent novel 
 method eagerly grasped by a number of 
 young women. The vantage-ground of 
 the present over the past is conclusively 
 shown in the biography of Mary Lyon: 
 
 " With two blue and white coverlets 
 spun, dyed and woven by her own hands, 
 she paid a winter's board while at Ashfield 
 Academy, and the blue fulled cloth habit 
 she wore while in Ipswich and Derry was 
 the product of her own spinning-wheel and 
 loom." 
 
 Invention has long since silenced spin- 
 ning-wheel and loom to quicken woman's 
 skill in more aesthetic crafts, artistic nee- 
 dle-work, china painting, the decoration of 
 menu cards, german favours and kindred 
 arts. A market for such handiwork is read- 
 
 145 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 ily found through the "Woman's Ex- 
 change, "established now in all our leading 
 cities. In this manner many industrious 
 girls not only earn enough above living ex- 
 penses to pursue the preparatory course for 
 college, but largely defray their expenses, 
 by the direct sale of their work to fellow- 
 students. There is always a sufficient num- 
 ber of wealthy and liberal students ready 
 to invest in the skill of a classmate. Com- 
 paratively few girls, if living at home, are 
 unable to obtain even a full preparation for 
 our best colleges without cost to them- 
 selves. 
 
 The means of self-help cited refer par- 
 ticularly to the exceptional young woman 
 who has no home, or whose lot is cast in 
 a town which possesses no extended school 
 facilities. Once in college the problem of 
 self-help assumes a graver aspect. Not 
 only is the expense of tuition to be met, 
 but provision must be made for board, 
 travelling expenses and incidental things, 
 inseparable from a large community and 
 rarely if ever mentioned in college cata- 
 logues. It is to enable students to meet 
 
 146 
 
Self-Help 
 
 these imperative demands, that scholar- 
 ships have been and continue to be sup- 
 ported, but, as has been stated, they are 
 insufficient in number and amount of 
 money, to supply the demand. 
 
 Vassar, Wellesley and other colleges 
 have societies of alumnse and friends who 
 offer scholarships in the form of loans. 
 .These loans as a rule draw no interest 
 and are awarded on examination to the 
 successful competing candidate. In 
 amount they vary in different localities 
 from one hundred to four hundred dollars. 
 
 A most independent, if not congenial 
 means of self-help, which brings a fair 
 monetary return, is now offered by many 
 colleges for certain services performed. 
 The distribution of mail through a large 
 college is work easily committed to a stu- 
 dent. It absorbs a comparatively small 
 portion of her time, and the money thus 
 earned is a substantial aid. 
 
 Another fruitful service is found in the 
 line of messenger work : the doing of 
 errands between the various departments 
 of the college or between them and the 
 
 147 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 officers of the administration. Personal 
 remuneration is also offered students will- 
 ing to copy lists, do other writing and 
 various minor duties, inseparable from the 
 business of a large college. 
 
 True, these resources are somewhat pre- 
 carious, but in the end they amount to 
 a very important contribution toward a 
 student's expenses. Many young women 
 have been known to earn as much as a 
 hundred dollars from such occasional ser- 
 vices. Private tutoring, however, offers 
 to the capable student the most natural 
 and congenial means of money-making. 
 There are always students who are behind 
 in their work and who need outside the 
 class room an assistance which the col- 
 lege does not provide. The competent 
 student has here plenty of congenial work, 
 paid for at the rate of fifty cents an hour. 
 If the present indications that it will be 
 fashionable for stupid daughters of wealth 
 to seek higher education, are to be trust- 
 ed, tutoring as a means of self-help is 
 likely to become as remunerative if not as 
 dignified as a professorship itself. 
 
 148 
 
Self-Help 
 
 Notwithstanding the popularity of tutor- 
 ing, it is a time consumer, and this fact 
 should not be overlooked by the student 
 who contemplates depending largely upon 
 it as a help, for not only is time sacrificed 
 in teaching but in preparing for the work. 
 The student who intends to support her- 
 self should prepare to give more than four 
 years to her college study, for more or 
 less time is consumed by any scheme 
 devised as a help to the end. While all 
 college libraries are in charge of a skilful 
 officer, many opportunities arise necessi- 
 tating the employment of aids in copying 
 lists, putting up books and taking care of 
 the library during certain hours of the 
 day. 
 
 These congenial duties are definite in 
 time and nature, and the compensation 
 offered is sufficient in most colleges to help 
 several young women to meet their inci- 
 dental expenses. 
 
 More successful than the heroine of 
 "A Woman's Reason," was the Vassar 
 girl who paid her way to the end by mak- 
 ing bonnets. So rapidly did her custom 
 
 149 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 increase, that she was only able to devote 
 half a year at a time to her studies. 
 Blessed with the requisite courage and 
 persistence, however, she captured the 
 coveted degree. 
 
 A lucrative field, yet unopened, lies be- 
 fore the girl clever in mending and touch- 
 ing up the odds and ends of a toilet. 
 Students' wardrobes are always requiring 
 mending and remodelling, and they are 
 always ready to employ the assistance of 
 the skilful needlewoman. 
 
 Where health and strength suffice for 
 continued labour, the summer vacation 
 offers varied money-making opportunities. 
 The summer hotel invites clerks and 
 waitresses. It is questionable whether 
 such positions are desirable for a college 
 student. It depends largely upon the 
 choice of hotel and the temperament of 
 the woman. The position of waitress is 
 an old crutch to the collegiate aspirant. 
 Among women it originated at Mount 
 Holyoke, where, coupled with other house- 
 hold duties, it was the chief means by 
 which pioneer students reduced their ex- 
 
 150 
 
Self-Help 
 
 penses. So extensively was it pursued 
 that Mount Holyoke became known as a 
 school where household arts were practi- 
 cally taught, and to the present day this 
 erroneous impression prevails in many 
 localities. 
 
 The role of waitress has long been 
 popular at Wellesley. 
 
 Several young women have successfully 
 facilitated their way through college by 
 having their lives insured. Many capital- 
 ists lend largely on insurance policies, a 
 life insurance policy being accepted as se- 
 curity for certain sums loaned, until such 
 a time as the insured can repay the loan. 
 
 Struggles and sacrifices in the course of 
 higher education are not confined solely 
 to the children of the poor. 
 
 Daughters frequently come, from 
 wealthy homes, who have not their fam- 
 ilies' sympathy, and who are forced to re- 
 sort to work to supply the money withheld 
 by their parents. Instances are known 
 of such girls who have taught music, 
 worked embroidery, canned fruits, made 
 jellies and sold them directly or through 
 
 151 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 agencies, until the desired funds were se- 
 cured. 
 
 A favourite device of the romancer 
 finds practical illustration in the college 
 girl who work&d her way through the 
 course to find at the eleventh hour 
 that she had not the wherewithal to pay 
 her graduation fees ; off went her splendid 
 head of hair, and the coiffeur's ducats sent 
 her into the world an independent bachelor 
 of science. A college training is worth 
 a struggle. It is an investment above 
 fluctuating fortune, and in its possession 
 one can never be poor. 
 
 Nevertheless it behooves the practical, 
 no less than the enthusiastic and the in- 
 experienced girl to count well the cost in 
 advance. Few things in life vex the spirit, 
 or eat into the very warp and woof of 
 one's being, so mercilessly as the petty 
 anxieties inseparable from an empty purse 
 or a precarious way of replenishing it. 
 
 152 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 PRACTICAL OUTCOME 
 
 PROBABLY the college-bred woman 
 is the most observed woman of the 
 present day. After twenty years of intel- 
 lectual gestation she begins to impress her 
 individuality on the community. Discus- 
 sions of eminent men as to women's mental 
 ability, moral and physical status, predi- 
 lection for matrimony or fitness for voting 
 have been going on for a quarter of a 
 century. 
 
 Meanwhile maiden Bachelors of Arts 
 and Science have multiplied, until now 
 there are some three thousand mature 
 women who have had college training, 
 and as many more in the heyday of youth, 
 all of whom fall under the surveillance of 
 a public that ceases not to question the 
 practical outcome of this modern innova- 
 tion. One by one objections raised from 
 
 153 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 the intellectual, moral, physical or matri- 
 monial standpoint, have disappeared in the 
 light of statistics. To one tangible phase, 
 however, the masses cling with a covert 
 desire to find in it sufficient evidence to 
 outweigh the favourable testimony al- 
 ready adduced. 
 
 Of what avail to woman is scientific 
 training i What is the practical outcome 
 of higher education ? These are questions 
 whose reiteration invites deeper investi- 
 gation. The marriage ratio, health statis- 
 tics, number and physique of the offspring 
 of college-bred women attest that, if 
 scientific training does not facilitate, it 
 certainly does not interfere with the radi- 
 cal function of her being. That higher 
 education enlarges her opportunities as a 
 bread-winner is irrefutable. 
 
 In proportion as the price of skilled 
 labour advances, the college-bred woman's 
 earnings will undoubtedly increase. Un- 
 happily nothing short of an audited 
 account in dollars and cents of the earn- 
 ings of every college woman in the bread- 
 winning world, — earnings the direct out- 
 
 154 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 come of knowledge garnered within the 
 walls of their alma matei'^ — ^will satisfy a 
 large portion of the community that higher 
 education has a raison d' etre. 
 
 Coming as it does at an epoch when 
 women are largely a factor in the indus- 
 trial prosperity of the country, the desire 
 to know the practical end to which the 
 college-bred woman is able to put her 
 superior training, when .thrown upon her 
 own resources for a livelihood, is under 
 the circumstances natural and conse- 
 quently wholesome. 
 
 Results alone justify innovations. To 
 define at present the practical outcome 
 of higher education, is nevertheless as 
 impossible as would be an exhibit of 
 philanthropy or religion. To estimate 
 the work of the present demands the eyes 
 of a future age. As women colleges are 
 said to have been founded on the Hellenic 
 idea of "culture for culture's sake," — 
 authorities have not found it incumbent 
 to follow the material fortunes of the 
 alumnae. Masculine colleges or universi- 
 ties do not anticipate or define the careers 
 
 155 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 of the young men they annually set adrift. 
 Why then should women be required to 
 render an account of their stewardship ? 
 logically argue the official heads. But 
 public interest in tangible results is per- 
 sistent and insatiable. Colleges are now 
 beginning to gather data to satisfy this 
 prevalent desire. The Vassar and Welles- 
 ley Calendars of 1891 and the Souvenir 
 of the Mt. Holyoke Semi-Centennial throw 
 interesting light upon the varied pursuits 
 in which their alumnae have found practi- 
 cal activity. Smith, Harvard Annex, and 
 Bryn Mawr have no record, nor has any 
 been kept by the co-educational institu- 
 tions. Nevertheless, all are more or less 
 rich in individual recollection of excep- 
 tional careers. The evidence that higher 
 education has elevated and broadened the 
 opportunity and raised the monetary value 
 of women in the first field in which she 
 found a marketable outlet for her intellect 
 is conclusive. Teaching with increasing 
 equipment and ripening sense of responsi- 
 bility retains its hold on college women. 
 One-fourth of the women who go to col- 
 
 156 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 lege go with teaching as the end in view. 
 In keeping with the growth of colleges, 
 preparatory schools have multipUed, until 
 now there is scarcely a town of importance 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, that has 
 not a preparatory school in the keeping 
 of a B. A, or an A. M. of Vassar, Welles- 
 ley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, the Annex or 
 some co-educational university. The in- 
 sufficient preparation of students who 
 applied for admission retarded the growth 
 of women's colleges. So few in num- 
 ber and incompetent in faculty were girls' 
 preparatory schools, that Vassar and 
 Wellesley were forced for some years to 
 sustain academic or preparatory depart- 
 ments. This is now obviated, thanks to 
 the number of skilled women sent forth 
 yearly by the colleges to successfully con- 
 duct private enterprises, the certificates 
 of many of which are recognised by Har- 
 vard and other leading colleges. In higher 
 and special fields of instruction, in many 
 conservative seats of learning, the college 
 woman now stands on equal footing men- 
 tally and financially with the-men profes- 
 
 157 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 sors. It was not so much intolerance of 
 sex as want of higher training that de- 
 barred her formerly. Previous to the, 
 spread of higher education would such rec- 
 ognition have been possible as has been 
 given to Miss Abby Leach, Vassar's 
 Greek professor, recently invited to a 
 chair in the Leland Stanford, Jr. Uni- 
 versity; to Miss Thomas, Dean of the Fac- 
 ulty and Professor of English at Bryn 
 Mawr; or to the brilliant Mrs. Palmer, 
 Dean and Professor of English History in 
 the University of Chicago ? 
 
 Teaching is to woman what the practice 
 of law is to man,— a stepping-stone to 
 broadening opportunity. Hardly a wo- 
 man, regardless of the source or the man- 
 ner of her intellectual training, has made 
 a distinctive place for herself in the world 
 of thought or action without a previous 
 apprenticeship in the pedagogic chair. 
 Most of the women experts in the United 
 States Government service, and their 
 number grows apace, came from the 
 teacher's desk. Current literature and 
 the book-making world are constantly 
 
 158 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 enriched by college women, especially in 
 educational matters within their line of 
 work. So advanced is much of this re- 
 search that it comes more properly under 
 higher specialised work. Consider for 
 instance the literary contributions of Mrs. 
 Ellen Richards, a Vassar M. A., whose 
 effective work in the Woman's Laboratory 
 of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology tends to revolutionise modern 
 housekeeping by familiarising women 
 with nature's law. In 1875 her first work 
 appeared, "The Analysis of Samarskite," 
 followed by " The Occurrence of Boracic 
 Acid in Mineral Waters," "Chemical 
 Composition of some Mineral Species from 
 Newburyport Lead Ore;" (with M. S. 
 Cheney) " A New and Ready Method for 
 the Estimation of Nickel in Pyrrotites and 
 Mattes;" (with Alice F. Palmer) "Notes on 
 Antimony Tannate," "Naphtha Process 
 for Cleaning Wool," " On the Adulteration 
 of Groceries," "The Chemistry of Cook- 
 ing and Cleaning," " A Manual for House- 
 keepers," " Lessons on Minerals," " Notes 
 on Some Reactions of Titanium, " " Science 
 
 159 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 in Common Schools," "Notes on the De- 
 termination of Carbon Monoxide," " Food 
 Materials and their Adulteration;" (with 
 Marion Talbot) "Home Sanitation." 
 
 Not less noticeable are the contributions 
 of Mrs. Christian Ladd Franklin: "The 
 Pascal Hexagram," "On De Morgan's 
 Extension of the Algebraic Processes," 
 " Note on Segments Made on Lines by 
 Curves," " A Method for the Experimental 
 Determination of the Horopter," "On 
 Some Characteristics of Symbolic Logic," 
 " Some Proposed Reforms in Common 
 Logic," "On Natural Kinds," "On the 
 Algebra of Logic" by Members of the 
 Johns Hopkins University, 1883; articles 
 and reviews in the Nation^ the Critic and 
 Science. 
 
 "Birds through an Opera Glass," by 
 Florence Marion, " The Philosophical 
 Studies" of Julia Gulliver, and the ad- 
 mirable translations of Henrietta Lilly, 
 enrich Smith's literary contributions. 
 Much of the philosophical work issued by 
 Johns Hopkins University was the trans- 
 lation of Miss Lilly. The contributions 
 
 160 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 to fiction are large and varied. Mrs. J. 
 Wells Champney's "Three Vassar Girls 
 Abroad" leads in popularity, followed by 
 several novels, eighteen children's stories 
 and some seventy magazine articles. Miss 
 Katherine Bates and Miss Vida Scudder 
 of Wellesley are familiar to readers of 
 current periodicals. Journalism opens a 
 profitable field which college women are 
 rapidly cultivating. The business mana- 
 ger and sub-editor of Kate Field's " Wash- 
 ington" are Vassar girls. From Vassar 
 also came Miss Caroline Gray Tingle and 
 Miss Leonard, who previously conducted a 
 country weekly in a little New Jersey town 
 for five years and made money ; the editor 
 of the " Ohio W. C. T. U. Messenger" and 
 the assistant editors on the work of the 
 Century and Webster revised dictionaries. 
 Wellesley and Harvard Annex girls are 
 active as editors, proof-readers and trans- 
 lators in leading publishing houses of New 
 York, Boston and Philadelphia. As yet, 
 however, journalism more strongly attracts 
 women of co-educational training. Not 
 the least successful are Eliza Archard 
 
 i6i 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 Conner, of Antioch College, scientific and 
 agricultural editor of the American Press 
 Association; Eliza Putnam Heaton of the 
 Boston University, editor of the Sunday 
 Recoi'der; Elizabeth Jordan of the Wiscon- 
 sin University, editor of "The Woman's 
 Page" of the New York World^ or Helen 
 Watterson Moody of Wooster University, 
 who as the " Woman About Town" made 
 in the New York Evejiijig Sun., less than 
 three years ago, a distinctive journal- 
 istic innovation. Foreign missionary 
 work continues to draw largely upon col- 
 lege women. Vassar and Wellesley send 
 equipped women every year to obscure 
 regions. The first profession to attract 
 the early college women was medicine, 
 which grows yearly in popularity. The 
 God-given art to soothe and heal is es- 
 sentially woman's birthright. It was in 
 the natural order of things that the first 
 taste of scientific training should send, as 
 it continues to do, increasing numbers 
 into medicine. As early as 1868 a Vassar 
 graduate is found in the medical school, 
 and more than twenty of its alumnae are 
 
 162 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 now practising physicians in receipt of 
 comfortable incomes. Next to teaching, 
 medicine receives a large number of Smith 
 graduates. The most distinguished, per- 
 haps, is Dr. Caroline Hamilton, whose 
 skill in surgery is recognised in New 
 York, where she was the resident physician 
 of the College Settlement until called to 
 the practice of surgery in Turkey. Wel- 
 lesley also contributes largely to the 
 medical profession. One of its graduates 
 is a practising physician in charge of a leper 
 hospital in India. Ann Arbor and Johns 
 Hopkins, together with the Woman's 
 Medical Colleges of Philadelphia and New 
 York, are constantly being recruited by 
 students who have previously won college 
 degrees. 
 
 Wellesley sends the first contribution to 
 the legal profession in the person of Miss 
 Sophia Breckinridge, the daughter of Ken- 
 tucky's silver-tongued orator. Miss Breck- 
 inridge has been admitted to practise at the 
 bar and purposes pursuing the profession. 
 Of ten thousand three hundred and ninety 
 women students enrolled at present in 
 
 163 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 co-educational universities and colleges, 
 five hundred and thirty students are in the 
 professional departments of these institu- 
 tions. To these latter may be added 
 seven hundred and ninety-eight women 
 students enrolled in the colleges en- 
 dowed by the Land Grant of 1862, 
 making a total of eleven thousand seven 
 hundred and eighteen students enrolled in 
 the co-educational universities and col- 
 leges in the United States. Training 
 schools for nurses, schools of cooking and 
 physical culture are attracting later college 
 graduates. Being as yet uncrowded fields, 
 they afford sure and substantial return 
 and wide active scope. Aside from rec- 
 ognised professions, various other bread- 
 winning avenues welcome the college wo- 
 man. Vassar has a dairy farmer, and a 
 former editor is now proprietor of King- 
 wood Herd of Jersey and preparer of ster- 
 ilised milk. Wellesley glories in a B. A. 
 who pre-empted and received a patent for a 
 quarter-section of land in Florida, while 
 another graduate is a bank cashier. 
 
 But not to all is given a profession, 
 
 164 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 nor are all called to the wage earning 
 world. Of what avail is this superior 
 training to the vast numbers destined 
 to be "breeders of sinners," or who in un- 
 married bliss are content to put B. A. or 
 M. A. after their names? 
 
 Among the young women who sought 
 Harvard's classic shades in the embryo 
 days of the Annex was a Knickerbocker, 
 the prospective heiress of half a million. 
 As her purpose in seeking higher educa- 
 tion, unlike that of her companions, could 
 scarcely be objectively practical, and as 
 fashionable life and superior mental train- 
 ing were not then on as familiar terms as 
 they are likely to be, the motive of this 
 apparently frivolous girl was variously 
 conjectured. Without developing any 
 special predilection for study, she was a 
 conscientious student, whose maid and 
 coupe always waited her command and 
 whose toilets were the marvel and the envy 
 of her poor, plodding and often threadbare 
 companions. Her eccentricities as they 
 were termed culminated one day in her 
 quitting the Annex with a Harvard certifi- 
 
 165 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 cate. The young M. A. then returned to 
 society, for a couple of seasons. Subse- 
 quently her disciplined mind discovered 
 financial breakers ahead, threatening the 
 demolition of her prospective fortune. 
 Then her higher education became of use. 
 If the worst came to the worse could she 
 not earn her own living ? Was there no 
 market for her exceptional knowledge of 
 the classics? Shadows darkened. Without 
 a family consultation, she sought several 
 publishing houses in quest of employment. 
 None were eager to utilise her superior 
 knowledge. Finally a well-known firm 
 dismissed her with the equivocal request 
 for her address in case there was a 
 vacancy. Spring came. The summer 
 home on the Hudson filled up with the 
 usual quota of guests. In the midst of 
 the summer gayety, six months after her 
 application was filed, she received a letter 
 from the publisher requesting her to call. 
 She went to the city to learn that she could 
 have a position at a salary of fifty dollars 
 a month. In a dingy office on lower 
 Broadway the monotonous grind of the 
 
 1 66 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 working- woman's world opened up to this 
 daughter of luxury. On a high stool from 
 eight o'clock in the morning until five in 
 the evening she sat dissecting Greek and 
 Latin roots, to have the door opened on 
 her return home by a butler in livery and 
 her toilet prepared by a maid. Foolish 
 mother-pride concealed from servants and 
 friends the cause of her daily absence, 
 until, irritated by the duality of the farce, 
 she explained herself that she had joined 
 the labouring class. Shortly the crisis 
 came: her father died, bank failures en- 
 sued, and the heiress of half a million had 
 but ten thousand dollars in government 
 bonds. Brown-stone house, footman, 
 maid and livery vanished, and the fifty- 
 dollar drudge was relegated to a board- 
 ing-house, rejoicing in the wisdom that 
 had directed her to garner that which is 
 above fluctuating fortune, a solid rounded 
 education. She advanced steadily until 
 to-day she is sub-editor of a classical 
 dictionary, with an enviable salary and 
 a reputation for clear-headed, con- 
 scientious, irreproachable work. Grate- 
 
 167 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 ful to a parent who made possible the 
 intellectual advantages she enjoyed in 
 her girlhood, she is educating his son at 
 college, trusting to give him through her 
 own earnings the education that would 
 have been his, had his father's life and 
 fortune been spared. To achieve this . 
 noble end, a lover has been sacrificed by 
 this eccentric maiden Master of Arts. 
 
 That that " which in woman is noble 
 and tender can never be injured by genu- 
 ine true education and its resultant, the 
 highest culture known" — finds subtle, in- 
 tangible confirmation in the influence of 
 the home-keeping, college-bred woman. 
 "The chief educational influence of the 
 family is nurture. The fact that the 
 special vocation of woman, in so far as 
 determined by sex, involves this special 
 feature of nurture, furnishes a significant 
 point to be considered in the discussion 
 of her higher education," says Dr. W. T. 
 Harris in a vigorous preface. " It indi- 
 cates that as governments come to be lesss 
 a matter of abstract justice and more a I 
 matter of providing for the people that \ 
 
 i6S \ 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 which will enhance their capacity for self- 
 activity, woman's aid will be more and 
 more needed in political affairs. Woman 
 is by nature adapted to provide nurture 
 for the weaklings of a community in the 
 shape of educational and other restraining 
 and directing influence, and there awaits 
 her a very important field of activity in 
 the phase of municipal government." 
 
 " The trend of the present social evolu- 
 tion proclaims," concludes this same emi- 
 nent and far-seeing educator, " that the 
 equal education of woman with man is 
 certain to prevail in the future. " Respon- 
 sive to the social problems confronting the 
 age, political economy, domestic science, 
 sanitation — sociology in all its phases as 
 theorised at colleges begins already to 
 find a practical outlet in the individual no 
 less than in the concerted action of college 
 women irrespective of their positions as 
 bread-winners, v/ives, mothers or property 
 holders. The interest fostered in sani- 
 tary, and sociological science and political 
 economy by local college clubs culminated 
 four years ago in a philanthropic experi- 
 
 169 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 ment in New York City, known as the 
 College Settlement. The movement orig- 
 inated with three Smith girls, Miss Vida 
 Scudder, Miss Jean Fine, and Miss Helen 
 Rand, whose interest and enthusiasm were 
 roused by a visit to Toynbee Hall in Lon- 
 don. Believing that only by the contact of 
 one human life with another can perma- 
 nent and satisfactory influence be exerted, 
 the college alumnae rented a house in the 
 most densely populated tenement quar- 
 ter of the metropolis. Assisted by four 
 other college girls, the original trio made 
 there such a home as is possible to seven 
 refined and active women inspired by sym- 
 pathy and kindness. Into their family life 
 they invited their neighbours and friends, 
 bidding them enjoy what years of opportu- 
 nity for study and culture had given these 
 women and made them capable of impart- 
 ing to starved, stunted minds. The land- 
 lord of a vacant roomy old-fashioned man- 
 sion in Rivington Street responded to the 
 college women's enthusiasm and put the 
 quarters into thorough sanitary and habi- 
 table condition, making it possible for 
 
 170 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 them in the midst of dirt and squalor to 
 establish a home healthy and pleasant, de- 
 spite unfavourable surroundings. Here 
 resident college women live their lives as 
 elsewhere and show by their activity how 
 high a value they place on industry. The 
 settlement is so ordered that it can accom- 
 modate itself to permanent and transient 
 residents. A certain number of its inmates, 
 sufficient to insure the stability of whatever 
 scheme may be undertaken, pledge them- 
 selves to become boarders for at least a 
 year; others may come for a few weeks 
 only. The most practical means of secur- 
 ing a hold on their neighbours so far, has 
 been the organisation of clubs for the girls 
 and boys. The aim of this work is to exert 
 a quiet but wholesome influence upon the 
 neighbourhood that will raise the moral 
 and social standard and bring about true 
 practical social democracy. There is no 
 charitable work in the sense of almsgiving, 
 nor a suggestion of the '-'Mission," yet 
 the action of the settlement in establish- 
 ing free libraries, clubs for children and 
 young people in which instruction is given 
 
 171 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 to help them to opportunities for increased 
 wages, social reunions for the mothers, 
 saving banks, and guilds for self-improve- 
 ment exerts a valuable influence for good. 
 The whole work is quietly conducted. 
 The clever educated women and the neigh- 
 bours alike shun publicity. Indeed the 
 only serious drawback the movement has 
 met was the injudicious publicity given to 
 it by the daily and periodic press, which 
 thoughtlessly revealed names and inci- 
 dents in the lives of many who had learned 
 to give the settlement women their confi- 
 dence, recognising in them no disparity of 
 social condition but fellow-workers in the 
 daily struggle for better living. The 
 College Settlement is largely sustained by 
 an Association made up of chapters from 
 various colleges. Mrs. Frances Folsom 
 Cleveland, wife of the President of the 
 United States, is president of the chapter 
 established at Wells College. So progres- 
 sive is the work in Rivington Street that 
 a second house has been rented this year 
 and eighty college women have filed appli- 
 cations to become resident workers in the 
 
 172 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 Settlement. The men of the neighbour- 
 hood, mostly husbands of the women who 
 belong to the Home Improvement Club, 
 have requested that they be permitted to 
 organise a club, while older boys now 
 delight to assist the young women in at- 
 tracting their younger companions to the 
 library and clubs of the Settlement. 
 
 Many people of the neighbourhood 
 have become shareholders in a co-oper- 
 ative dairy about to be opened in the 
 vicinity at the instigation of the Univer- 
 sity Settlement in charge of university 
 men. This movement grew out of a 
 young men's guild in the neighbourhood 
 and was suggested by the success of the 
 College Settlement. Both movements are 
 in harmonious and active sympathy. Col- 
 lege Settlements are now established at 
 Philadelphia and Boston. Hull House, 
 in Chicago, an independent social settle- 
 ment carrying out the same broad human- 
 itarian scheme of work, is largely aided 
 in its activities by college women, although 
 in no way a college outgrowth. 
 
 The first effort to bring the domestic 
 
 173 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 problem, mistress versus maid, to the 
 scrutiny of statistics is the work of post- 
 graduates of Vassar under the supervision 
 of Prof. Lucy M. Salmon of the Historical 
 Department. Untried in the mysteries of 
 domestic management, these young wo- 
 men are endeavouring to secure evidence 
 in order to discover where the root of 
 the evil lies. Three sets of schedules 
 containing direct, practical questions 
 were distributed. The first, addressed 
 to housekeepers, gives that class an op- 
 portunity to state their grievances from 
 the standpoint of employers, the second 
 furnished the servants a similar outlet 
 for their experiences and opinions, while 
 the third paper aimed to give full in- 
 formation as to how widely and success- 
 fully co-operative experiments in house- 
 keeping have been attempted. One of 
 the most striking conditions of the domes- 
 tic service, as revealed by the statistics 
 thus collected, in view of the unwilling- 
 ness of many to enter it, is the fact that 
 the wages received are relatively and 
 sometimes absolutely higher than the 
 174 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 average wages received in other occupa- 
 tions open to women. 
 
 Many attempts have been made by 
 sanitary cranks to induce people to eat 
 what was good for them ; there have been 
 many schemes on the part of business men 
 to utilise some hygienic theory for their 
 own profit; but to strive to educate the 
 people to like what is good and nutritious 
 by serving it day by day was unknown 
 until college women undertook the work 
 in Boston. 
 
 A veritable scientific College Settlement 
 is the New England Kitchen. The cook- 
 ing is done on scientific principles, and in 
 sight of the customers, as an object-lesson 
 in methods and cleanliness. It is also a 
 sort of household experiment station, 
 where new apparatus may be tested and 
 frank opinions expressed ; a place to 
 which many perplexed housekeepers bring 
 their problems, to find comfort in their 
 despair if not relief in their trouble. The 
 Kitchen was started primarily in order to 
 learn how the people really live, and to dis- 
 cover their peculiar tastes and prejudices. 
 
 175 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 As a means to this end it was determined to 
 study the methods of cooking two things 
 ■ — the cheaper cuts of beef and cereals — 
 and to offer for sale the results of the ex- 
 periments, the proof of this pudding being 
 the selling. The successful issue was not 
 brought about without the expenditure 
 of time and labour. Each dish was per- 
 fected only by the co-operation of the 
 whole neighbourhood, after repeated tast- 
 ing and commenting, so that finally what 
 might be called a cosmopolitan flavour 
 was obtained. For eight months, at the 
 noon hour, processions of pitchers, pails 
 and cans brought by men, women and 
 children of varied nationalities for pea 
 soup or beef stew demonstrated that really 
 good food is appreciated and will be pur- 
 chased. May not the college woman have 
 discovered at last a possible rival to the 
 saloon? When food can be as easily ob- 
 tained as drink, may not men take food 
 in preference ? The training of the college 
 women is discernible in this experiment. 
 No mere enthusiasm could have sustained 
 the patience required to persevere until 
 
 176 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 success was attained. The ease with 
 which these ladies disseminate practical 
 knowledge over the business counter, the 
 readiness of the people to learn when once 
 they are convinced that business and not 
 charity rules the establishment, prove that 
 this is one way at least to reach the 
 masses. The people of our cities best 
 worth helping are the most self-respecting 
 and least willing to receive anything in the 
 way of charity. A duplicate of the New 
 England Kitchen has been established 
 during the past year in New York City. 
 
 Miss K. B. Davis, a Vassar girl of '92, 
 under the supervision of Mr. John Boyd 
 Thatcher of the State Board of New 
 York, exhibits at the World's Fair the 
 possibilities of domestic economy as a 
 science rather than a trade, in the shape of 
 a workingman's cottage equipped with 
 home comforts- in keeping with the wages 
 •of the average labourer or mechanic who 
 has a wife and two children to support. Do- 
 mestic science as taught by Mrs. Ellen H. 
 Richards at the Massachusetts Institute 
 of Technology and embodied in the New 
 
 177 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 England Kitchen movement was intro- 
 duced at Wellesley College two years ago 
 under the instruction of Miss Marion Tal- 
 bot. So effective was the work, that 
 Miss Talbot was summoned to an assist- 
 ant professorship of sanitation at the Uni- 
 versity of Chicago. Domestic science has 
 also been introduced into the State Uni- 
 versity of Nebraska. Not until its place 
 in the college curriculum is on a level with 
 the other sciences, summing up as it does 
 all the science teaching of the course — 
 chemistry, p'ftysics, physiology, biology 
 and bacteriology — will the graduate be ful- 
 ly equipped to effectively grasp the variety 
 of practical work opening up so auspici- 
 ously under the present social conditions. 
 The difference between domestic work as a 
 trade and domestic work as a science finds 
 conclusive demonstration in the sched- 
 ule of study, which provides four hours' 
 practical work and two lectures weekly on 
 the following subjects: 
 
 I. The house and its foundations and 
 surroundings from a sanitary as well as 
 from an architectural standpoint. 
 
 178 
 
Practical Outcome 
 
 2. The mechanical apparatus of the 
 house, heating, lighting, ventilation, 
 drainage, etc., including methods of test- 
 ing their efficiency. 
 
 3. Furnishing and general care of a 
 house, including what might be called 
 applied physiology, chemistry of food, 
 nutrition, and the chemistry of clean- 
 ing. 
 
 4. Food and clothing of a family. 
 
 ■ 5. Relation of domestic service to the 
 general question of labour, with a discus- 
 sion of present conditions and proposed 
 reforms. 
 
 The practical work includes: — 
 
 1. Visits of inspection, accompanied by 
 the instructor, to houses in process of 
 construction, of good and bad types, both 
 old and new. 
 
 2. Visits to homes where the house- 
 keeper has put in practice some or all of 
 the theories of modern sanitary and 
 economic living. 
 
 3. Conferences with successful and 
 progressive housekeepers. 
 
 4. Practical work and original inves- 
 
 179 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 tigation in the laboratory of sanitary 
 chemistry. 
 
 Classes are divided into sections. Each 
 section has a topic assigned, on which a 
 report is presented monthly, and a thesis 
 written at the end of the year, based on 
 the results of observation, investigation, 
 and the reading of current scientific liter- 
 ature. From time to time the best of 
 these are given to the general body of 
 students through society chapters or the 
 college papers. 
 
 " Think you," asks Mrs. Ellen H. Rich- 
 ards, one of the most advanced woman 
 scientists of America, " that young women 
 after a year of this study will be less fitted 
 to manage a modern household than one 
 who has made beds, washed dishes, or 
 learned darning all through her college 
 course?" 
 
 i8o 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGIATE 
 
 ' ALUMNA 
 
 NO more vital working force has 
 been evolved from the educational 
 movement of the last decade than the 
 Association of Collegiate Alumnae. It 
 embodies much of the varied, suggestive 
 and practical results of higher education. 
 Organised in 1882 to unite alumnae of 
 different institutions for practical educa- 
 tional work, this earnest, progressive band 
 of women has succeeded not only in 
 broadening the scope and raising the 
 scholastic standard of colleges, but has 
 consolidated and vitalised the aim and the 
 influence of college-bred women at home 
 and abroad. 
 
 The idea originated in the brain of a 
 clever non-collegiate woman, Mrs. Dr. 
 
 181 
 
The American Girl at Collesfe 
 
 Talbot of Boston, whose interest in educa- 
 tional matters was then stimulated by her 
 daughter, Miss Marion Talbot, who had 
 just taken a degree at the Boston Univer- 
 sity. Responsive to the suggestion that 
 great advantages would accrue to higher 
 education through personal sympathy and 
 identity of aim among women imbued with 
 the true college spirit, representatives of 
 nine colleges joined in devising the ini- 
 tial plan of organisation. At the outset 
 there was a division of sentiment as to 
 whether the association should embrace 
 all women's colleges or limit its member- 
 ship to a definite scholastic standard. 
 Though the conservative element was in 
 the minority at first, the association at 
 length unanimously yielded to the wisdom 
 of a restricted standard of admission ; and 
 to this is largely due the recognition it 
 has received as a strong progressive yet 
 conservative organisation with high aims 
 and unselfish devotion to the best interests 
 of women. The prejudice against the 
 advanced education of women prevalent 
 when Vassar opened its doors in 1865 had 
 
 I«2 
 
The Association of Collegiate Alumnai 
 
 given way, and the time was ripe for the 
 eonsolidation of the women who had de- 
 stroyed it. 
 
 Convinced by the official reports of the 
 National Bureau of Education of the 
 impossibility, for political and other rea- 
 sons, to discriminate between the claims 
 of universities and colleges properly 
 so called, the association early resolved 
 to state the precise terms of its member- 
 ship. This step was necessary because a 
 strong motive toward striving for the best 
 education was lacking, owing to the fact 
 that a degree won by patient and persistent 
 study at one of the better colleges had 
 then no more publicly recognised worth 
 than one conferred with a flourish by some 
 self-dubbed university of questionable 
 grade. 
 
 Briefly the terms of membership are: 
 
 1. The Faculty of a college applying 
 for admission to the association must not 
 be called upon to give instruction in pre- 
 paratory studies. 
 
 2. The requirements for admission to 
 such colleges must be equal to those 
 
 183 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 adopted by the colleges already bqjonging 
 to the association. (It is assumed that 
 the colleges admitted require in their 
 entrance examinations an equivalent to 
 the English studies agreed upon by the 
 commission of colleges in New England. 
 The classical and mathematical require- 
 ments are similar to those adopted by the 
 men's colleges of the better grade.) 
 
 3. The college must have conferred de- 
 grees in arts, philosophy, science or liter- 
 ature on twenty-five women prior to its 
 application for admission. 
 
 The Harvard Annex conferring no de- 
 grees but only a certified statement of 
 studies, equivalent to a Harvard College 
 degree, is debarred from membership, but 
 as it is now only a question of finance 
 that retards its consolidation with Har- 
 vard College proper, the time is near at 
 hand when the Annex will be eligible. 
 Mount Holyoke dispenses this year with 
 its preparatory department, as do other 
 colleges solicitous to be recognised by 
 the association. Any woman holding a 
 degree in arts, philosophy, literature or 
 
 184 
 
The Association of Collegiate Alumnae 
 
 science conferred by any college or scien- 
 tific school belonging to the association 
 is entitled to individual membership. 
 Fifteen institutions are enrolled at pres- 
 ent : Boston University, Bryn Mawr Col- 
 lege, University of California, Cornell 
 University, University of Kansas, Insti- 
 tute of Technology, University of Michi- 
 gan, Northwestern University, Oberlin 
 College, Smith College, Syracuse Univer- 
 sity, Vassar College, Wellesley College, 
 Wesleyan University and the University 
 of Wisconsin. The membership includes 
 fourteen hundred and fifty-eight women 
 representing thirty-seven of the United 
 States and seven foreign countries. This 
 number by no means includes all the 
 alumna of the constituent colleges en- 
 rolled in the association. One hundred 
 and seventy-five of the present mem- 
 bership, fifty-five of whom are married, 
 have received Master's or Doctor's de- 
 grees, while thirty-one have held fellow- 
 ships. 
 
 The organisation of the association, 
 crystallising as it now does so many forms 
 
 185 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 of work, is no less refreshing than sug- 
 gestive. 
 
 The officers of the association, subject 
 to yearly change, are representatives of 
 the various colleges enrolled. The regu- 
 lar meetings are held each autumn in 
 various centres of local and educational 
 activity. Thirteen branch associations 
 subject to their own by-laws have been 
 established in New York, Boston, Wash- 
 ington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, 
 Minnesota, Indiana, California, and cen- 
 tral and western New York. The 
 branches meet four times a year. Each 
 State has its Director, who convenes its 
 forces from time to time. The efficiency 
 of the association was early demonstrated 
 by the vigorous and comprehensive man- 
 ner in which it set out to investigate the 
 most vital matter raised in relation to the 
 higher education of women : Does such 
 education tend to injure their health ? 
 The medical profession from the outset of 
 the experiment had constantly sounded a 
 note of warning and alarm, which awak- 
 ened fears in the minds of prudent parents 
 
 i86 
 
The Association of Collegiate Alumnse 
 
 and restrained the college movement 
 among women to narrower limits than 
 natural inclination prompted. Facts had 
 not been gathered in sufficient numbers 
 to warrant positive statements, yet some 
 of the most influential of the profession 
 did not hesitate to base an adverse 
 argument upon the limited testimony of 
 their individual note-books. The associ- 
 ation recognised its opportunity to bring 
 ampler testimony than could be secured 
 otherwise, counting as it did among its 
 members representatives of so many in- 
 stitutions. The usual programme of 
 committee work was adopted, and an in- 
 vestigation begun which resulted in 
 securing detailed evidence from nearly 
 seven hundred and fifty college women, 
 graduates of at least two years' standing, 
 a number which at the time represented 
 more than one-half of the women who had 
 received degrees from the higher colleges. 
 To guard against the charge of unfair- 
 ness, the association placed its accumula- 
 tion of facts in charge of the Massachu- 
 setts Bureau of Labour Statistics which 
 
 187 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 through the courtesy of its chief, Colonel 
 Carroll D. Wright, agreed to do the work 
 of compilation. So strong was the evi- 
 dence in favour of the beneficial results of 
 a college life that it settled completely the 
 doubts of those investigating, and led them 
 to continue their advocacy of a higher 
 education without misgivings as to its 
 physical consequences. This admirable 
 work, which elicited the praise of the chief 
 of the Bureau of Labour Statistics, was 
 largely due to the executive force and 
 liberal scholarship of Mrs. Annie Howes 
 Barns, who has been prominently identi- 
 fied with the association since its organi- 
 sation. This investigation with regard to 
 the health of college women naturally led 
 to the introduction of the scientific phys- 
 ical training, conducted now in all our 
 colleges. The chief means adopted to 
 bring members at large into closer union 
 are the publication and distribution of 
 papers prepared by members of the vari- 
 ous committees, which embrace Bureau of 
 Collegiate Information, Endowment of 
 Colleges, Withdrawals from College, Ad- 
 
The Association of Collegiate Alumnae 
 
 mission of Colleges, Educational Progress, 
 Collegiate Administration, Study of the 
 Wage Question, Study of the Develop- 
 ment of Children and a Bureau of Occu- 
 pations. 
 
 Last year seven papers covering one 
 hundred and thirty-nine pages and coming 
 under these various heads were issued to 
 the number of eleven thousand four hun- 
 dred copies. Branches also co-operated 
 to secure publication in the current press 
 of items relating to higher education of 
 women. 
 
 To the establishment of home and for- 
 eign fellowships the association has given 
 an impetus which has resulted in the in- 
 crease of fellowships in various colleges 
 of the association. The movement in 
 this direction was stimulated by the fact 
 that in recent years the opponents of 
 higher education, having reluctantly yield- 
 ed the right to undergraduate instruction, 
 have concentrated their forces against the 
 opportunity for advanced study. The for- 
 eign fellowship offered by the Women's 
 Education Association of Boston and the 
 
 i8g 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 scholarship of Modern Languages in the 
 American Home School in Berlin both 
 stipulate that the applicant must be a 
 graduate of colleges enrolled in the colle- 
 giate association. Similar recognition of 
 the efficacy of its standard is given b)'' 
 Oxford, which opens its honour examina- 
 tions without further conditions to Qfrad- 
 uates of colleges included in the Associa- 
 tion of Collegiate Alumnae. 
 
 Interesting are the methods and results 
 of the Bureau of Occupations. To make 
 known to as many people as possible that 
 a Bureau exists, through which may be 
 found college women who are prepared to 
 act as teachers, librarians, laboratory as- 
 sistants, etc., fourteen hundred circulars 
 were sent out to principals of schools 
 which employed women as teachers, and 
 whose general standing made it probable 
 that fair salaries would be assured. Li- 
 brarians and art schools were also notified. 
 The greatest demand, in response, was 
 for teachers, especially for private schools 
 in the vicinity of Philadelphia, while ap- 
 plications have been received from Bal- 
 
 190 
 
The Association of Collegiate Alumnae 
 
 timore, Scranton, Reading, Brooklyn, 
 Rochester, Minneapolis, Kalamazoo, New 
 York, St. Louis, California, Iowa and 
 Nebraska. Various salaries were offered 
 and specific requirements often empha- 
 sised. A flourishing academy offered 
 sixty dollars a school month for a lady 
 principal who must be a college graduate, 
 experienced teacher, thoroughly prepared 
 to conduct classes in German and higher 
 English branches! 
 
 A well-known Teachers' Bureau applied 
 for a college woman to take a position in 
 an educational publishing house. The 
 best position in point of salary, two 
 thousand dollars per annum, was offered 
 by an insurance company for a private 
 secretary of high attainments in stenog- 
 raphy and higher mathematics. One 
 hundred applications for positions are now 
 on the roll of the Bureau. Not the least 
 important work undertaken by the associ- 
 ation is the wage question as it affects 
 educated women as factors in industrial 
 competition. The sentiment and the ef- 
 forts of the Association in this direction 
 
 191 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 are comprehensively expressed in Dr. 
 Walker's chapter on "Woman's Wages": 
 
 " Let gifted women continue, as in the 
 past, to appeal for public respect and 
 sympathy for their sisters in their work ; 
 let the schools teach that public opinion 
 may powerfully affect wages and that 
 nothing which depends on human volition 
 is ' inexorable' : let the statistics of wo- 
 men's wages be carefully gathered and 
 persistently held up to view. Efforts like 
 these will not fail to strengthen and sup- 
 port woman in her resort to the market, 
 thus enabling her the better to realise the 
 highest wages the existing state of indus- 
 try will allow." 
 
 The expenditures involved in the direct 
 work of the association are small in pro- 
 portion to its scope. A nominal yearly 
 fee paid by each member defrays the cost 
 of printing and postage ; the expenses of 
 meetings are reduced to the minimum 
 through the energy of local committees, 
 and the voluntary contributions of time 
 and money have thus far met other needs 
 Nearly every member is also a contributor 
 
 192 
 
The Association of Collegiate Alumnae 
 
 to special alumnae work for her own col- 
 lege ; and various branches raise and dis- 
 burse funds according to plans of their 
 own devising. Boston and New York have 
 given much aid to the college settlement, 
 and the publication by the former of the 
 treatise on " Home Sanitation" opened 
 up a new line of work. The Woman's 
 University Club of the metropolis owes its 
 origin to members of the New York 
 Branch ; Philadelphia has organised a 
 Teachers' Bureau, and Washington main- 
 tains courses of lectures, while other 
 branches have engaged in social and phil- 
 anthropic work. The business routine of 
 all meetings finds happy diversion in a 
 round of teas, lunches, receptions and 
 excursion parties, which promote personal 
 acquaintance among the members and 
 their friends. Including as it does much 
 of the grace as well as the intellect of 
 the best American womanhood, the so- 
 cial affairs of the Association have a 
 distinctive and delightful atmosphere. 
 Names familiar to many American house- 
 holds are found in its Register. Much of 
 
 193 
 
The American Girl at College 
 
 its prosperity is due to the broad and lib- 
 eral counsel of Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, 
 Miss Florence M. Gushing, Mrs. Annie 
 Howes Barns, Mrs. Alice Freeman Pal- 
 mer, Miss Lucy M. Salmon and Mrs. Helen 
 Hiscock Backus, supplemented by such 
 progressive educators and active workers 
 as Miss Marion Talbot, the able secretary, 
 Miss Martha Garey Thomas, Ghristine 
 Ladd Franklin, Jane Bancroft, Frances E. 
 Willard, Sarah Dix Hamlin, Heloise E. 
 Hersey, May Wright Sewall, Vida D. 
 Scudder, Helen Dawes Brown, Martha 
 Foote Grow, Eleanor Louise Lord, and 
 Elizabeth Deering Hanscom. 
 
 " To see near things as comprehen- 
 sively as if afar they took their point of 
 sight," is the gift of the poet. Yet in the 
 light of the facts presented in these pages, 
 it requires no poet's vision to perceive or 
 comprehend, that the steps already taken 
 will never be retraced by the American 
 girl at college, 
 
 194 
 
 THE END