The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-06-22

lily resources have been strained to fit them
Tor s~elf-support. For such girls, instant DO
ing Is the natural sequence 10 their college
careers, but the vast army OF girls Tor
whom college has been but an au-around
training for life might well content them
selves with being. and let the doing wait
the occasion.
independence is the CRY of the college
trained girl. In order that she may be in
dependent, needy wage-earners are ell
bowed aside. Because the college girls de-
Velopment requires independence, MONIES
are LETT daughterless. while a tremendous
contingent Of college-trained femlnlnlty
pours into the cities. In the sacred name OF
development, college settlements and eco
nom1c organizations and clubs beyond num-
Der absorb the time and strength and inter-
est of the girl who has been missed in a
home during four years of patient waiting
for her return.
The boy never comes back to his home
after he is launche on a college career,
but a boy il, by all laws of society and
nature, foreordained TO self-support. one
would hesitate to condemn a girls eager
ness TO try her wings and find whether
they will bear her weight. Every girl, col
lege-trained or home-trained, should be
prepared for a contingency demanding SELL
support, but against the average college
girls unwillingness TO put the fruits OF her
training into the simple routine or nome
life even her admirers must protest.
The college girl from the small town finds
II impossible TO settle down at home and
~stagnate.' Something Is wrong with an
education that does not provide a woman
with resources TO defy stagnation. The
oaughte cannot relieve her mother or
long-carried domestic and social response
bilities, because those petty intrusions
upon her time interfere with her self-cul-
ture. That girl doesn't know the meaning
of self-culture. The college girl must carry
the gospel of plaster casts and foreign
photographs TO the great u~nwashed, even
IL the work takes strength and energy and,
consequently, good cheer needed in her
nome. She Is giving away capital that
should go TO pay an honest debt.
And when the college girl is not dis
tressingly in earnest, she is still deSper-
ately self-absorbed. self-confident. impa-
tient OF all contradiction or restraint, ready
to set the world right on any given point.
She is an exhausting young person. Living
In the house with her devitalizes one. She
consumes more than her share of oxygen.
1t Is said that a large majority of college
girls marry. Doubtless that is true. Cupid
bites his thumb at philosophy and econom-
les, and even higher mathematics and BIZ
ology cannot eliminate sex.
College girls marry. They probably make
good wives-but all that comes later. The
husband may give thanks TO an efficient
guardian angel that it does come later,
come after years of contact with the real
world and with real life have taken a fall
out of the young woman who knew II all,
ana knew that she knew it. Time will rub
off the edges of college cutting. The nor
NAL girl will readjuSt herself, as college
fades into the background. Experience will
give her an approximately accurate sense
of values; but is there no way of avoiding
a necessity for such radical readjustment,
no method of keeping the eyes of the col
lege girl upon the world in which she is TO
live her life?
1t was a 1900 college graduate who, dur
ing n recent stay in New York, was invited
to a dinner given in honor of a woman
whose intellect and executive ability have
made her famous.
You will like meeting her." wrote the
hostess, because she's a graduate of your
college"
The x girl was delighted. She went
forth prepared to fall upon the neck of the
guest of honor. They sat beside each 9TH
er. The famous woman was most affable.
Later. the girl expressed her opinion.
Call her an X girl!' she said in
dignantly. She's no x girl. She may
have gone TO school there, but she hasn't
an atom of the college spirit. Why, 1 call
her ideals low-positively low"
Ten years struggle with world facts had
modified the older woman college spirit.
Probably ten years will do as much for her
young critic. Living with the latter will be
less f~atiguing after the adjustment than it
Is now.