The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-09-07
THE COLLEGE GIRL.
An English Girl Compares the Ameri.
can and European Species.


In recent number of THE Out
look" a European university girl"
makes an interesting comparison be-
tween the American college girl and
her European counterpart, which is
not wholly to the disadvantage Of the
former.
According to this critic, the Ameri-
can woman's college is a thing wholly
amazing in European eyes.
No European educational institu-
tion would think OF allowing to it's
inmates such luxuriousness Of sur
roundings as appears in the American
girls college room, the extreme sim.
plicity of the food peing the only
thing common to both types of educa-
tional community.
To the uninitiated beholder the
American college glrI's room, with
flags and posters and sporting souv-
enirs and class symbols, with mems
pictures on desks and dressing tables,
might be a college boys. On the
other side Of the ocean young women
are supposed not to keep young mems
portraits in their rooms, Just as they
terms OF comradeship the subjects OF
the aforesaid pictures. The absence
OF books in the room and the conspcu-
Gus presence Of candy boxes and fruit
baskets might also strike the Euro
pean observer as peculiar
tbi, onrra.nn.l. ,,,,,l ~ .al;aoy
difference in the life of women stu
dents in America and in Europe. The
European girl goes to her university
purely for learning, and in the lower
educational institutions it is the same.
Study is the business of life, and only
those fortunate ones who have friends
and relatives to take them out occa-
sionally and give them good time
ever get any fun.
In America the college is a school
Of life, with all sorts or activities be-
sides study. The European college
girl has to find out arter she leaves
college everything that her American
sister learns while at college, though
| occasionally in old Europe a girl has
a chance of getting out Of her life
perhaps more experience and at least
the same amount of pleasure as the
American girl does, although in a way
entirely different; this is the girl who
attends university for men and en-
| joys in the Old Word, among hun
dreds Of men, the perfect freedom Of
movement and the feeling Of inde-
pendence which characterize the
happy life Of the American college
girl (happy in that she realizes by
herself an ideal Of free and intelli.
| gent life, without the inevitable strain
which comes to the same life when
lived by one girl among a crowd Of
men,
The chief characteristic of the
American woman's college is well de-
fined, the critic proceeds, by the his
torical words, life, liberty and the
| pursuit Of happiness" To the college
girls happiness many elements are
| cooperating, among which, notably.
are papas checks and the advantages
| depending thereon; faculty votes pro-
hibiting a schedule of over so many
hours a week, or more than a certain
number of courses for the semester; ;
constant anxiety on the part Of
"Prex" and IN. d." lest the young
buds of hope break down under the
strain of study, and so forth.
This last appears particularly
strange to the European mind. No
one gives thought there, 1t appears,
to the effect of study on the health
Of the students. I'VE may moan, sigh
or revolt" says the writer; I'VE may
strike, protest or die IN the attempt;
from the Olympus of the faculty the
gods watch with calm, unruffied brow
the struggle Of the nonentities in the
halls Of learning"