Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1893-12-16
what tho Wellesley Girls Are Doing to
Obtain Practical Knowledge.

Obs ain Practical Knowledge.
The fast is not widely known that
every Wellesley college girl has a
chance to learn how to become a prac-
tical statesman or StateSWOman, if she
should so elect
The department of political economy
at Wellesley is in the charge of Miss
katharine Conan, the professor of
history, and an uncommonly wide
awake and progressive professor she
is. She does not believe that the dry
bones of facts and laws in the study
of political economy amount to much
unless the notifications made by hui
man nature in those facts and laws
are also observed and studied.
In other words, she thinks that text
books cannot teach half so much as
practical, real everyday life. She
therefore gives her students the run
of the library, keeping a guiding hand
over them by means of the lecture.
BY far the more practical and more
interesting part of their work is the
personal explorations made by the stu
dent into the great outside world.
heaving and throbbing with the NIGH
ty industrial problems Of the day
I'VE make Boston our laboratory in
our work in this department" remark
ed Prof Conan smilingly.
I'VE can see there all the great in
dustrial experiments being performed
on a very grand scale, and it is none
the less interesting that in the issue
real human lives are concerned, and
that actual human wellbeing and hap
pinesS are at stake"
The Wellesley students take up first
in this branch the industrial history
of England and America, which deals
with the past and then they are ready
to consider what Is called the economic
theory, and study the special phases
of the industrial problem in America
such as the coinage of money, the tar
iff, the land question and the relations
of labor and capital. Under the latter
head they, of course, consider strikes,
trades unions, arbitration, profit-shar-
ing, cooperation, pauperism, the tene-
ment-house problem and the sweating
system. And wherever it is possible
to illuminate the dry facts under these
subjects with living illustration you
may be sure this clever far-seeing pro-
fessor arrangeS it.
She sends her students in to the asso-
ciated charities in Boston, where, with
the Harvard boys, they investigate So
cial problems from that standpoint.
She arranges with some tailoress
who is paid for her time, to go about
to the sweat shops and explain facts
from the inside to the eager young
Wellesley students.
In like manner they investigate the
tenement-houses and learn their hOr-
rors for themselves.
They attend the meetings of the
Central Labor Union.
They visit the Sub-Treasury and the
Clearing House for light on the money
question.
Beside all this, each student is oblig-
ed to choose some one manufa ctory
which she shall make as thorough a
study of as is possible, and then pre-
pare paper upon it. She must learn
about the raw material, the methods
of production, the machinery used, the
annual product, the proportion of
wages to profit, the condition of the
labor and the amount Of wages or wo-
men and children as compared with
that of the men, etc, etc
The object of all this? No, it is not
to fit these young girls to be public
speakers or advocates of woman's
rights. 1t is simply to make of them
women with an intelligent interest in
the great questions Of their day and to
endoc them with educated sympathie
There is a good deal of sympathy
lying around loose in the feminine ma
ture, and when it is well trained and
well directed it may do some good in
the world. Then the warmth of wo-
manly sympathy, together with the
readiness of womanly tact and wit,
may help the more unwieldly mascu-
line brain to solve some of the press
ing industrial problems-Boston Globe.