The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1900-04-07
THE COLLEGE WOMAN.


-Ameyican Re5rezO, Charles F. Thwing,
L. L. D., president of the Western
Reserve University and Adelbert Col
lege, discussed with interet the ques-
ton, "What becomes of college wo-
men?" We are told that 55 per cent.
of the graduates of our woman col
1eges marry, thus showing that the
fear that college women would pre-
fer public to a domestic career has
no foundation in fact. The unmar-
ried graduates are engaged in almost
every employment, doing work of the
highest educational, ethical and civil
value. The most popular field of
work is in the school room, and in the
hundreds of high schools throughout
the country the college graduate is
found bringing to her routine work
s'the richness of culture and the
breadth of sympathy which produce
results far more precious than the or
binary routine of educational ser
vice" Not alone in the high schools
is she found, however, for, according
to the census of 1890, there are 735
women, the majority of whom are
graduates, who are professors in col
leges and universities. These women
are giving to the cause of education,
of culture and of higher civilization,
says Dr. Thwing, the same contribu-
ton which men in similar positions
in the colleges for men are giving.
Evidently, however, the women grad
yates do not care much for the pro-
fessions. Out of a 900 women ply
sicians, not more than 200 have had
college training. Very few college
women are found among the 1926
preachers and 2o8 lawyers, and the
law, the ministry and journalism ap-
parently have no charms for those
fortunate representative of the gen
tier sex who had the advantages OF
the higher education" for women.
The college graduate, according to
DIR. Thwing, is not distinguished in
the field of literature, and, in fact,
the number of books written by col
lege women is very few. Since the
time the first college was opened to
women no graduate has yet arisen
whose work is at all comparable to
that of Miss Murfree, of Miss Wilkins,
or of Miss Phelps. One or two grad
yates have achieved some measure of
distinction as essayists, but the wo-
man college has thus far given us no
great novelist. This, says DR..
Thwing, is in the nature of start
ling induction, and ''it is certainly
true that the colleges for women have
not made the contribution to litera-
ture that they have made to scholar
ship, or to teaching, or to admins
tration." OF 633 women named in
Appleton Cyeiopedia, the distin-
guished women who alS ~. saado-
ates afenoted e;th her for their writings,
as si,,oere or acSAresses. as sc1,jptors or
painters, as educators, as philanthro-
pists, as missionaries and as doctors.
The distinguished class, in fact, ac-
cording the cyclopedia, are found
outside of the graduate class, thus
leading DR.. Thwing to remark that
the college woman has not become
famous. But the college woman has
been a possibility for comparatively
short time only, and in the years to
come she may earn distinction in
every branch of the arts. That mar
riage does not reduce her chances of
winning fame is to be deduced from
the fact that of the 633 distinguished
women whose names are handed
down to posterity in the pages of the
cyclopedia, fully one-haif were mar
ried. DR.. Thwing's conclusion is
that the American college has helped
American women to get strength
without becoming priggish, vigor of
heart without becoming cold, to be-
come broad in sympathy without
wanting a public career, and large
minded without neglecting humble
duties. This will be the ideal wo-
man, not the caricatured new wo-
man. ."--PHiladelbhia Ledger.