Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1901-09-25


CATCHING FROGS FOR THE LABoRA-
TORY.
fancy articles which seem the pastime
of an idle hour. In reality, each one
represents the serious investment of
girl who is working her way. The
Smith college calendar hanging in a
corner took one girl half through the
term. The picture-frame opposite
paid the incidental expenses of an
other for a year, while the jolly pair
of football players, constructed out of
'tissue-paper and-pecans, sitting on the
window-sin made the temporary for
tune of their inventor. A day after she
had slipped in and put them there
they became the college fad, and for
weeks she could not turn them out
fast enough to fill her orders. Then
suddenly their popularity waned; no !
one wanted them; and now, faded and
covered with dust, the two favorites of
a past hour sit neglected in their cor
ner, a pathetic warning of the incon-
stancy of college demand.
Like Smith students, college girls
everywhere try these picturesque
methods of making money. The pref
ty trifes which they sell might seem
to a poet the spontaneous expression
of the feminine instinct for grace and
beauty, but they illustrate rather
poverty of financial opportunities. A
college man in his effort to support
himself is limited only by his capacity.
He can break stones in the road or
publish a paper, as his talent pro-
Vides. He is free to enter any trade
or business in the town, or invent a
new one if he pleases. He may wander
where he will along economic high
ways and byways. No one thinks of
putting an obstacle in his way.
But when a girl, out of the fullness
of her desire, determines to work her
way through college, she must first rid
herself of the notion that she can copy
her college brother. Otherwise she
will meet with disappointment, for
long ago Mrs. Grundy set distinction
between labor fitting for men and for
women, and our colleges for girls still
respect it. During undergraduate
days, at least, they believe in an en-
phasis of the woman womanly. The
self-supporting girl, therefore, finds
before many an industry open to her
college brother a sign on which Gus
tom or the college president has writ
ten the uncompromising words: mo
Admittance." She can neither weed
lawns nor dig gardens, clean furnaces
nor shovel snow. The girl who should
turn grocery clerk or who became a
component part of a bakers or butch
er's or hotel-keeper's staff in her col
lege town would be a focus for the
puzzled attention of the whole faculty,
while a student dairymaid, fruiterer,
or butter-merchant within the con-
fines of the college would raise a
storm of protest from Maine to Cali
fornia. Yet college men in similar po-
sitions meet only praise and COM
mendatiOn.
Doubtless some of the occupations
In the diminished list for girls de-
clared official by college censors will
seem trivial enough to the masculine
student-merchant who sells milk by
the thousand quarts and butter by
countless pounds. Nevertheless, the
college girl invests as much energy
and strength and originality in her
tasks as the college man in his. If she
earns as much money as he, her effort
must be almost doubled. Few girls,
under the circumstances, have the
physical eXuberance necessary to
meet the strain of entire self-support.
They must stop short at self-help.
But the attitude of a woman's college
is strongly paternal. Though restric-
tions are laid on the student who
works her way. scholarships and loans,
as far as they go, are the cOmpensa-
tions, and, when these are exhausted,
a protective care and watchfuIness
which seldom fall to the lot of the col
lege man.