Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-06-14
THE COLLEGE GIRL
Her Freshman Year is Time
Of Temptation and Danger.
PICTURES DARK SIDE
OVER sTRENUoUsNEss IS ONE
PHASE OF IT.
Willingness to Submit to Discipline
is Sometimes Hard to
Acquire.

/ The freshman who has come to college
| directly from life of close supervision in
| home or boarding school is first of all i'm
! pressed by the self-reliance of the upper
| olassmen. Their exemption, in the choices
and actions of every day. from parental
| control, from faculty control, from any con-
| troll save that of their own joyous youth,
| dazzes the girl who has as yet been hardly
| aware that childhood was left behind.
What felicity can fall to creature
Than to enjoy delight with liberty?''
! She proceeds, in many cases rashly and
| foolishly, to apply the law of freedom to
| her own conduct. She may, If she has not
been bred to respect her digestion, eat
| fudge before luncheon and give chaffng-dish
parties at the. witching hour of midnight.
She may neglect her work for weeks or
months and then have a period when the
"midyears' threaten, of desperate study
deep into the small hours with a wet towel
tied around her head and a coffee pot
steaming over the alcohol lamp. Eager to
get into the college atmosphere" she
makes lavish expenditure of nervous en-
ergy in haunting the most thronged and
tumultuous centers of student resort. She
becomes fevered with the excitement of
numbers, rude with the new sense of indie
pendence, irregular in all her habits OF
eating, sleeping, exercising, studying. All
the while she is under the Argus-eyed
dom is not curtailed, but helping hands
are reaching out to her. Members of the
faculty. upper-class students, classmates
to whom, for one reason or another. self
government Is no new experience, are doing
their best to steady and direct the little
craft, spashing its first way in these
strange waters.
The freshman year is the danger year
Health may be so impaired that the stu
dent is sent home, there to be most errone-
ously pointed out as the victim of over
study. Conditions may be incurred that
will hamper all the subsequent course of
the ever-worred, ever-shamefaced girl who
must take time and strength from the work
of her sophomore year to make good her
freshman failures and hence ncurs new
conditions in the new subjects, dragging
at each remove frightening chain A
misconducted freshman year. too, may fix
a reputation for fightness, loud manners
or the like upon one who. when the first
intOXication of her liberty has passed, could
have lived up to a good name, but is led
by pride and piQue as she sees the better
dement's in the student world withdra wing
from her. to cast in her lot with the widest
and most feather-brained companionship of
the place.
This is the dark side of the picture Many
fr shmen have been prepared by judicous
training at home or in school for under
taking the direction of their daily lives
Others quick to profit by the hints OF
comrades or by their own observation. Re
quired lectures hygiene, frequent tests
III CLASS "OTk, fortunate Irlen0SnlDS often
counteract the perils of ineXperience. And
the student who come successfully through
her freshman year has all the chances in
her favor for a glad and honorable college
course. She has learned that freedom lies
within the circle of law, not without it.
Is Already Active.
The typical college girl, before her sophie
more year is over, has her own affairs in
hand and brings a fund of superfluous energy
H.
executive ability developed in American col
lege life is a continual surprise to the on
locker To the timid entering student many
things, within the next four years, become
possible. She may be found running a
magazine, dealing shrewdly with printer and
advertiser reading proof, writing items,
leaders, reviews. She may practice a wide
range of activities on class committees from
conducting campaign in undergraduate
politics to planning and carrying through
the social functions of gala days, where
guests are numbered by hundreds or by
thousands. The athletic association may
intruSt her with grave responsibilities in
the selection and laying out of go.f grounds
or in arranging for an intercollegiate tour
nament. If her Greek letter society is build
ing its chapter house, it may fall to her
lot to confer with architects and decorators
buy rugs, divans and other furnishings, or
engineer the finance of the whole enter
prise. The sense of distance between senior
and freshman is not altogether fictitious
On the practical side of life alone the four
years count for more than arithmetic con-
fesses.
The college girl Of the period is not only
eminently executive. but she IS trained to
corporate action. She must continually
subordinate herself to her society, her
class, her college. This is a much-needed
discipline for the American girl. who has
too often been the autocrat of the home
from which she came. In this larger life
she learns that value rests service. If
she would be leader in her class she must
work for 1t as she never yet dreamed of
working for her home. And in working for
it she comes to love it so We'll that she
gladly discovers and supports a better
leader, remaining herself content to serve
She falls into her place in the system. she
accepts her color in the pattern, she learns
the bond of a common purpose, she ceases
to gauge her yokefellows by the test of
personal likes or dislikes. she welcomes any
strength whatsoever that pulls with her
toward the goal She is inevitably more of
a democrat on graduation than on matricu-
lation. In the union of workers she has
again and again found her prejudices dis
proved. The length and breadth of the land
have been liberaliZing her through their
girliSh representatives. The grace of the
south the vigor of the west, the earneStneSs
of New England-she has learned to hold
them each and all in honor.
Is Over-Strenuous
This executive energy of our college girls
affords plenty of ground for criticism. The
growing ability to deal swiftly. strongly
and generously with social problems does
not count for so much, to many observers
as the maintenance of the quiet charm of
wcmanhood. The typical college girl is
oVer-StrenuouS.
Il will not have Good Fortune, or Gods Blessing
Let in while am busy.
Year by year, however, the creative impulse
is awakening in the womens colleges
More and more the desire is felt to mold
this new environment of college customs
and traditions into something fresh and
beautiful. The mass meetings still clamor
to have a college life as closely initiative
Of mems college life as possible. A red In
dian whoop in tenor is answered by a still
more monstrous yelp in treble. But women
are the artists of life. and here and there
one finds the college girl who has seen a
vislon-a vision Of tranquil country, set
apart for four enchanted years from the
ugliness and the wrangle of a commercial
age. Here all nature shall be fair. all
buildings noble, all figures young-graceful
with the grace of perfect health and dainty
\, ,,o1, ,V,I