Academically, we instituted honor work, whereby an individual student may have time from her ordinary recitation periods to follow the subject of her choice, and specialize in it more fully than if her time were taken up entirely following a set schedule. But individualism can also go to extremes. In the matter of sports there has been a steady decline of team endeavor, more individual games taking their places, such as tennis, golf, and outdoor winter sports. In line with postwar thinking, the rights, privileges and development of the individual student, as opposed to those of the group, seemed paramount. And just as the individual had to be saved from being lost in the group, so now does the group have to be saved by breaking up more selfish aspects of too highly individualized units within the community.
All colleges have the same problems.
We are working, of course, for a happy medium where the individual will find her proper relationship to the group, while at the same time realizing her own development. Mount Holyoke is tackling an individual problem with a world slant. But this delicate balancing in the individual student of the responsibility to self and community, is not the only aspect of life at Mount Holyoke which is interesting. That brings us back to the founder herself, whose story seemed so valiant, and so deathless. Some say that she still exerts such a power influence on Mount Holyoke because she lived and died at the school, is buried on the campus, and because there is a room given over to the few belongings which were gathered together after her death.