The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-02-28
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: FROM GIRLHOOD )
( TO MOTHERHOOD
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A Series of Papers Containing Hints
and Helps For the Young Women
of Our Day.
PAPER NO. s.
BY MARY LOWE DICKINSON.
College and What Is the Use of It.

College and What Is the Use of It
In days like these it is hardly pos
sible TO suppose it necessary to waste
any words in explaining the advant-
ages of college life and college training
for girls. 1t would be better to spend
all ones energies in finding a way for
those girls to go to college VINO long
TO do so and haven't the power Girls
already, it is claimed, see the use OF
college, and desire it above all things
Well, there are girls and girls, and
we can only answer that she who oe-
sires it above all things will ma
way without our help, and, strange as
it may seem, it is only a small minority
of the girls of the present day VINO
have the genuine desire. And these
who have not are those who ask, Nv nat
is the use of college for a girl! In
reply we answer: Just the same use
to the girl that it is to the boy. That
doesn't mean that she is to be trained
for his profession, or his business,
whatever it may be, or that she IS TO
learn to do the same thing in the same
way that he is to do it; hut 1t does
mean that the same mental training
and discipline that enable him to apply
his faculties successfully to Whatever
he may find to do, is of equal adVant-
age to her, in the training of herself Tor
what she may find to do. The in
tellectual weapons of one are the IN
tellectual weapons of the other The
keenness of perception, the quickness OF
wit, the power of discrimination, the
sound judgment, the practical common
sense, the ability to appropriate and as
simulate mental stimulant and nutrl-
ment-these are all common Sl1ts.
That which develops them in one mind
develops them in the other, and these
weapons should be put through every
sharpening and Frightening process
without regard to their after uses or
the work which each may do
Let it be settled once for all that
the intellectual discipline of the col
lege is just as good for a girl as 1t is
for a boy, and we have settled good
many other things besides. The fact
that a good many boys go through
college and come out without the dis
cipline has nothing to do with the
question. A great many girls will
probably do the same thing. But we
are not speaking of that which, for
one reason or another, they fail to &C
quire. We are only saying that that
which they do acquire is good to have.
College isn't good for a man because
he is a man, or for a woman because
she is a woman; but college, and all
that it means in the way of intellectual
stimulant and training, is good for the
human mind.
Once more: There would be infinite
use in the college life for girls if it did
nothing except to diminish the distance
that widens between her and her
brother when the home association of
childhood is broker and the college
days have come. Things are changed
a little for the better, but we all re-
member the time when the young lad
who went to college entered mys-
terious and wonderful sphere of life
where his mother could only hope to
follow him with her tears and prayers,
and his sisters could never hope to fol-
low him at ALL Too many of US re-
member the lordly and superior youths
who. replacing the jolly comrades of
our childhood, duly Impressed US with
the immensely of their attachments in
learning, and their intimate knowledge
of a wide world into which we girls
could never hope to enter We all have
known plenty of instances of adoring
ignorance on the part of sisters who
worked hard, nevertheless, to carry
their brothers through college, in the
serene belief that these same brothers
were accommodating wisdom altogether
inaccessible 10 themselves.
Here and there a girl, awake to the
fact that what was good for one brain
was good for another, has worked her
own way through college and kept pace
with her brother in thought, while she
has kept, instead of lost, the old COM
radeship of heart which,, as long as
life lasts, never ought to be allowed to
depart. And l venture to say that
every such girl who has gone thus side
=, h
period of his training has proven this
companionship to be. of as much use
to him as to herself.
Egotsm has no nurse like the con-
seriousness that other people do not
know how little we know, and it has
no such check as that which comes
from the fact that somebody else does
know how little we know. In more
than one instance the fact that the
sister knew and could grapple with the
difficult problem, scientific. mathe-
matte or philosophical, as easily and
as successfully as any one of her mas
culine mates, has certainly sometimes
proved stimulant to tagging powers;
and if, as is often said to be true, one
of the chief functions of the sister S
life is to help the brother to develop
the noblest manhood possible, surely
the more intimately she knows the pro-
able is she to appreciate results, and to
be, in the truest sense, his friend.
Aside from the fact that any girl
may take as her birthright the best
training for her own powers that the
world can offer, and that second fact,
that common knowledge makes COM
mon helDfulness between the sexes,
there is another and perhaps a better
reason than either for urging the col
lege training upon all girls who can
possibly take it; and that is, that the
work which the world is placing in the
hands of womanhood demands the
broadcast DEVELOPMENT of all her intel
lectual powers. More and more there
is coming into her hands the creation
and care Of a new and sweeter and
nobler type of home. Childhood makes
perpetually new ard precious demands.
The heart and hands have sprung to
answer these demands; but heart and
hands must learn to be guided by
thought and knowledge. Love without
wisdom has proved the bane instead of
the blessing of many household. The
young mothers of this day must know
as well as feel and all the best that
there is to know is none too good to be
carried into the complex and ever null
tiplying problems of the home; and we
have vet TO learn OF a single instance
in which the college-bred woman has
been less faithful as wife, less devoted
as mother. less capable as home-maker
for the training of her college days.
And if this higher training is needed
primarily for the home, how sure is it
ere long TO become q necessity Tor all
those varied interests that touch the
general welfare that are coming, as
never before into the hands of woman