The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1888-03-17
AFTER LEAVING COLLEGE.
what tho Dear Girls do After They Have
Secured "A Dsgres.

what tho Dear Girl. DO After They Have
Secured Degree.
Very interesting statistics rs to the
occupations of the women graduates
of twelve American colleges havo been
gathered by tho Association of Col
legiate Alumny
IL seems that OF 2.6l9 graduates 99S
are married and housewives. $40 are
teachers. 1873 are in other occupations,
and $50 are not engaged in remunor-
ativo work. About 80 per cent, there
fore, are married and about 62 per
cent are single, while more than one
fifth are without any gainful occupa-
ton whatever. All these women have
passed the marriageable age, and the
age al which the vast majority Of
women actually marry, and yet two
thirds of them are still spinstcrs, and
many Of them well along in life. for
the statistics cover period reaching
back many years.
We infer, too, from the circumstance
that the proportionatc' number of the
married is largest in the case of the col
lcge from which women are the longest
graduated, that college-brcd women
marry later, on the average, than
their sisters who did not obtain schol-
astic degrees. Obcrln College. for
instance, admitted women rs early as
1888. and has graduated S2S, of whom
479, or more than one-half. have mar
ried. and of the 675 graduates OF
Vassar, founded in 1865, over one
third, or 239, have become wives; while
Of the 55i from Smith and Wellesley
Colleges. founded in 1875. the married
are only II, or less than one-scvcnth.
Yet il seems that Wellesley takes par
ticular pains io encourage happy mar
riaccs, and to set good example be-
fore its spinster graduates by welcom-
ing its "sons-in-law" TO its festivals
Perhaps the poor results of its labors in
this direction are due To the lack of
matrimonial opportunities in Massa-
chusetts, for of the 81 graduates from
Syracuse University. founded only four
years earlier, as many rs GO are among
the married.
OF all the graduates engaged in re
munerativc work. il will have been
seen. scven-cighths are teachers. So that
il may said generally that, So far rs
preparing them for sclf-support is con-
cerncd, college training for women Is
almost wholly 90 tit them for teaching
A college diploma may be of use rs n
accommodation for woman seeking a
situation us teacher but it can hardly
be scrviccablc to her in any other en-.
ployment
The occupations other than teaching
pursued by the 1888 graduates out of II
total of 2,6l9 are many and various. OF
nine from California University, the
majority are engaged in fruitrasing
and farming. for which their college
training was perhaps hardly necessary.
Some of the seven from Kansas Univcr.
sity are classcd as ranch-owncrs. Cor.
nell's ten are chiefly in the medical
profession and in literature. The
other professions and occu-
pations OF the graduates are
law, journalism. music. pictorial art,
architecture. clocution. printing. type
writing and trade. while Vassar has
added 10 the force OF professional phi.
lanthropists. dangerous body, and
Wellesley TO the number of religious
missionaries.
More than one-iith of the 2.6lS
graduates. rs we have shown. arc earn.
ing nothing at all. They are probably
more or less hopeful candidates for
marriage. About opsthird of the grad
yates of Vassar. Smith and Wellesley.
all distinctively womcn's colleges. are
thus unemployed, while the proportion
from Oberln. where the sexes are
educated together. Is only little moro
than onc-tcuth. The inference Is that
large part Of the girls who GO 10 the
colleges for women especially have no
other intention than that Of getting
what they suppose will be desirable
education. without regard to any prac-
,ical advantages to be secured from t.