The times., 1897-05-30
COLLEGE GIRLS.
The Comparative Cost of a tniver-
sity Education.

The Comparative Cost of Univer-
sity Education.
An article on girls colleges has been
floating around in The papers, and the sum
total OF it is that girls ought not TO try
to work their way through college: and
that il costs more for a girl TO 20 through
college than it does for a young man The
statement is also made that girls cannot
work their way because they are unfit
for It, physically and by temperament,
and because girls are not trained to
do many things
Exception might be taken to every
one Of these statements, and supported
by facts To deal with the last one first,
the girl who wants to do so can save money
in lust as many ways as a boy can. She
can, and sometimes does, do herown W ash
ing, ironing dresSmaking, mendiEg and
carpenter work, tn say nothing OF cooking
her own meals. There are hundreds OF
zaris who have gone through country
academies, aud then through college in
Just this way They are the exception;
the vaung man who works his way Is the
exception: but in these sturdy fresh
water communities, where the young men
turn their hands to anything that will
bring u money the girls do the same thing,
md they don break down under IL: either,
as rule.
AS to the statement that girls are not
strong enough to do extra work in ad:li-
tion to their college work, there is this
to be said: The girl who works her way
through college is, perhaps, farmer
daughter She loves books better than any
thing else in the world She has been lsed
TO cock, wash, iron, sew and perhaps
rake hay from O'Clock in the morning
until after supper, and snatch a little time
out of this round OF duty for her scho;,l
work, or her music, or her painting This
being so, she will open her eyes in amaze
mcnt VIXEN you suggest that she is work
ing too lard at college. 1t is work she
loves. she stands well in her classes, too
because she knows how to save tine and
to systematic her work. or Course, she
would like to have all her time for Books
without incumbrance, but she infinitely
prefers getting an education under diff
culties 10 dispensing with It altogether.
Girls do various things to help themselves
at every one of the girls colleges now
established. This has been true OF Mount
Holyoke and Wellesley to "a greater extent,
perhaps than of any Others among the
older colleges
Al Mount Holyoke, for twenty-five OF
thirty years after its founding, at least
i.;,it the girls did their own laundry work.
and the tuition was brought down TO
very low figure by the domestic work
system, which has since been so modified
that il is practically no tax on the girls
time 1t takes only half or three guar
ters of an hour a day, which is spent at
sCme light work. like setting tables, DUST
ing, or washing glass and silver, aud
the student is not supposed to be learning
to keep house during her course. This
would be impossible without special de-
partment. The only advantages that have
ever been claimed for the domestic work
system at Holyoke and at Wellesley are
that it saves money, inculcates ideas of
order and system, and causes the work TO
be better done than il would be by serv-
ants No girl is ever set to a task which
she does not already know how to do.
SrlitL College is said to be the inust
democratic place on earth so far caste
distinctions are concerned. One of the
Smith graduates says that girl may go
To another to get her clean her room or
do some ulending for her, and at the same
time extend an invitation to a very ex-
elusive supper: and some of the poorest
girls there have been the most popular.
This is a. it should be, for if the girl who
has no money is condemned to social os-
tracisrn she loses half the good of her
college life.
There are people vino say that colleges
both for girls and boys, should be reflec-
tions of the outer world, with it's politics,
it's social distinctions, and petty jeal-
ousies and rivalries. There are two or
three reasons why this should not be So
In the first place, if social distinctions are
allowed to seem at all important IN q
college, they easily grow TO be all-impor-
tant. Girls especially, are much more eX-
treme in their eXclusiveness than women
are if they ence become convinced that
that is the proper thing. Another reason
Is that the clique system is bad for both
parties. The rich can learn from the
poor, the petted and shielded young people
can exchange many gifts with the inde-
pendent, hard-fighting rising genera
tion," and there is no better place for this
exchange of commodities than college. II
viii not hurt girl of wealth and social
traditions TO become the intimate frienI of
q humble little nobody without a penny
to her name, if the two happen to like
each other, and ii win hurt both of them
If this intimacy is prevented or broken
UP by the opinions OF others Let the girls
work their way through college, If they
have tile pluck and strength and anibi-
tion to do it, and let them lie received
on whatever footing their personal char
acter seems to demand.
Many of them will give the college more
than they gain from it, aud as to the
others-well, they VIII take with them
Into the outer world something that they
would never have had without the college;
and If they can treasure among their MEM
cries of college life the kindly words and
ways of some girl who has been more
carefully brought up than they, who is,
perhaps. of finer and gentler nature, there
is no knowing what good that memory will
do. aud how it may bridge over the gulf
between the rich and the poor in thisland
An Epgiishman once came to one OF our
girls colleges. and, after looking abnat