St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-07-15

In the medieval and modern Ian
EuageS tripOS at Cambridge the men
are Outdone by the women. Not a single
man gained tirSt-claSS honor. whereas
two women were placed i'll that class"
When | read that | laid the paper
down and pOndered. thought of dear
Did lady l once knew and of what she
would say if she could come back to
This changing world in these latter days
Of the nineteenth century. She was a
little bit of a woman with big dark eyes
and soft, snowy curls that just peeped
out from under the lace of her old-fash-
loned cap. These tiny cGHss were
all that were left of most
unusual crop of wildly rebel
lious hair that in the long ago
had given serious offense to the women
of her husbands parish. They would
curl IN spite of all she could do, and that
a minister's wife, and the mother of two
boys, should dare TO look so girlish and
pretty as she undoubtedly did was
scandal to those SeriouS-minded daugh-
tiers of the Puritans, whose meager life
of austerty had sOured all the milk of
human kindness that the bleak New
England winters had allowed TO gather
in their breasts. And so. to please
those censOriouS mothers in Israel, she
had put on caps.
/ used to like to fancy what she
looked like then. We had, to be
sure, dainty little miniature of her,
painted in her girlhood, while she was
resident of Cambridge and lived in the
home of her grandfather, who, for
many years, was president Of scholarly
Harvard. but we could not make the
little aristocratic-lookimg maiden with
the queer old short wasted, lOW-necked
frOck of white cambria, the long lace
mitts and immense bow to her saSh,and
that astonishing big hat with its three
oVerpoWering plumes, match the pict-
ure her words painted for us of this
same dainty girl, with her thoroughbred
look, doing the hardest work for a poor
preachers family, and wearing a big
cap TO please the old women of the
parish. That cap and the damage it
caused 10 the big-browed head had been
the death of that wealth OF curls.
1t was not of the curls intended to
speak, however, but OF what she would
have said if she could have known that
Ter own wiIlful determination TO study
certain things that at that time were
considered peculiarly the possession of
men was one OF The entering wedges to
open the world of study to women.
1t was not surprising that the grand
daughter and great. great. grand daugh-
ter OF presidents of Harvard college
should be fond of study; but that she
should dare to venture INTO fields of
learning purely masculine was a great
shock to the family sense of
decorum. l can fancy too, as l
ln0k at the picture OF her grand
father. President HOlyokc, that he
must have been no little amused at the
CONSERVATION of the rest of the family,
when 1t leaked out that Eliza had been
studying and had mastered Greek, and
that now she was we'll advanced III
Hebrew. Latin, of course, she had
learned first, and French was a neceS-
Sary accomplishment of all well bred
women. Can you fancy the feelings of
the young men of the family who had
been casting admiring eyes at the
pretty little Eliza, though, am free to
say, uat she did not in the least en-
courage them, not having cOquettish
nerve in her tine-spun little body: but
boys we all know are not Indifferent to
the looks of a pretty cousin.
The news must have been told, with
what words of sincere regret YOU may
imagine,ih the endless letters that crept
across the sea to meet and comfort the
officers of our infant navy at the various
parts of the OId world with news months
Old. for this dear little woman used to
repeat part of one from favOrite cousin
sent from the other side with the great
est glee. Il hear, my dear Eliza" the
letter ran, that you have been study
ing Greek and Hebrew, being not con
tent with Latin and French. am sur
prised, and beg Of you, dear cousin, not
TO allow it TO lie known beyond the pre-
ciDctS of your own chamber that sou
are doing so unma denly a thing" And
now, tOrsooth, girls are eXcelling at
Cambridge in medieval as well as mod
ern languages. AUNT POLLY.