The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-10-16

your snare OF attention. Every new girl
Is watched, and perhaps judged from
the most unco nsidered trif1es. If we do
not Know anything about her we have to
guess by the eXternalties Of dress, voice,
table manners and the ether little things
that show good breeding or lack of it.
We haven't the time or the inclination
to know the heart and soul of every one
We don't mean to gossip, but we tell
each other what we see, and form a
kind of court to pronounce judgment on
the accumulation of evidence that comes
before us. One girl is mentioned Some
one exclaims, oh, that is the girl who
called Miss Townsend Ellen the second
time she met her. She is too familiar.
You don't went to know her. Another
girl is mentioned, and say, She dressed
as darkey at the masquerade That
ends her in my opinion. One of my
friends adds, She has some rather coarse
pictures IN her ROOM tramps and women
smoking cigarettes. She thinks they are
funny. l am sure we don't want to know
her And we don't know her,
But SUI posing she is very clever girl
and stands high In all her classes?"
THAT will not make q particle of DIFF
ference. Scholarship alone will not give
a girl any social position. Scholarship
must be united with other qualities A
girl who sacrifices to It care for her per-
tercourse with others makes an ire
trievable mistake. She may know more
than all the rest of us put together, but
she will not have any friends, and she
will not get the best of college life"
Il am confused at what you are tell
ing me-"
Let me make you a map of college
society. First we have an inner set,
made up of the incest girls, some <sch,
some Of good family, some clever, some
just attractive. These are the most
popular girls in college, but some Of
them have not the qualities that would
have made them popular If they had
stood on their own merits. They are
merely negative and have nothing OBJ
jectionable about them. They entered
under favorable circumstances, as YOU
are entering. Sometimes the fact that
a girl comes from popular preparatory
school, bringing friends with her and
finding friends awaiting her, is enough
to carry her into the set. But after all,
as l said, these advantages are little
more than introductions.- If you do not
have them you must show reason for
entering the set. You must be partic-
ularly clever or particularly attractive.
Then you will be taken In but if, at
any time, after you are in, you run
counter to public opinion you will be
dropped. Punishment in college is
swift and certain. Neither money nor
birth nor brains will save girl who has
been pronounced vulgar
And what is the punishment"
Social ostracism. You cannot imagine
anything harder than the extreme cases
of it, No one calls on the girl who is
ostracised. If you meet her in the hall
you bow without speaking. If she comes
to your room you do not ask her to sit
N yuo1l yS oil 10 oil thn
college parties alone, spends her whole
life alone. The worst Of the Whole thing
is that the punishment is sometimes I'M
deserved. One of the worst cases 1
have ever known had no tangible cause
except a general feeling that the girl
was untidy and unclean. Her nails were
often dirty and her hair looked I'M
combed and greasy, and it was reported
that she bathed only once a week.
II think it was cruel
$50 did some of the rest of US. But
we could not do anything. If we had
taken the girl up We would have been
dropped ourselves. That -is one thing
I want to warn you about. Don't get
entangled in any of these ostracism
cases. You will feel them soon enough
There are all degrees Of them, running
from the extreme cases to the lightest
ones, where the ostracism is little more
ings. No one talks about these things,
but public opinion makes itself fe.t. In
most cases there is some reason back
Of it. Nearly every time If you inter-
fere instead of helping the girl you will
harm yourself"
please go back to your map"
''Well, as I said, there is the inner set;
starts from outside social conditions but
weeds itself out and enlarges itself on
Of mol oarit there :
the crowd of the commonplace girls who
help make up public opinion and who
are all nice enough if you find them In
teresting And finally there are the
girls who are ostracised. Then, al Gut
these last you must imagine as broken
into little cliques, and as the year goes
on the cliques get stronger. After they
are once formed they are seldom chang
ed. A girl almost never belongs to two
cliques at once. She has acquaintance
outside Of her own clique, but not init
mate friends
But I thought colleges had no cliques.
I have often been told So
There is some thing disagreeable in the
sound of the word, so people often deny
THE existence of them. But isn't it per-
fectly reasonable that a large body should
break up into small bodies in which a
greater intimacy is impossible. There is
only trouble is that the intimacies are
usually the result Of accident and are not
founded on any likeness in taste or tenn
permanent. Now you are going to have
chance to pick and choose your friends.
But girl who comes here as a stranger
Is apt to fall in at first with the girl who
sits next to her at table or rooms near
her or works with her in the laboratory.
Or worse still, one of the girls who has
f,.i1 how nlo
will call on her and overwhelm her with
attentions Rather than walk alone, she
goes to walk with one of these girls.
Others who see them together will couple
their names in speaking of them until
suddenly they are committed to an init
macy.
These sudden intimacies often prove
very uncongenial, but if they are broken
up, the new girl finds that the other
clioues are formed and there IS no room
for her Besides, girl is judged by the
company she keeps, SO that one of these
unfortunate friendships may delay, or
even prevent altogether, the formation of
desirable ones. You can't exaggerate the
importance of this matter. / sometimes
think that more depends on your friend
ships In college than on all your study
ing 1 wish l could have card printed
and put in every freshman's room:
Ion ne III hulIy 10 Hithe Aiieluo'
"'Choose friends who have something
in common with YOU
Don't let propinquity alone cause in
timacies. -
There was a little pause. The fresh
man sat with her eyes fixed on the senior,
questioning, disappearing, doubling. The
senior was restless and changed the po-
sition of the silver writing set on her
table two or three times before she began
once more.
There are two suggestions 1 want to
make for the sake of completeness, al
though they do not apply to you all. One