The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1908-06-28

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Urban colleges for women became
necessity OF city lie few years ago.
Usually they started as "annexes" OF
the larger universities which have
grown up in the industrial centres
and gave young women living in the
immediate vicinity chance to get
the benefit of instruction offered by
world famous teachers, The gradual
transformation OF these colleges into
national institutions have proved the
wisdom OF locating them near the
libraries and laboratories of leading
universities and among the activities
OF busy commercial communities
There are in general, without refer
ence to the co-educational institu-
tons, two types OF colleges for wo-
men. The older ones were usually
placed at some distance from large
city, for when college education Tor,
women was first inaugurated gen
Grafton ago the training was conceiv-
ed primarily to be for the beneht OF
daughters of we'll to do families. At
tractiveness of location was made
FIRST consideration in creating the
college home, so that for obvious
reasons the colleges were founded in
rural or semi-rural communities.
A little later the need of furnishing
facilities for the higher education OF
Young women who for one reason or
another could not leave home led to
the foundation of such institutions as
Barnard College, connected with CO.
lunbia University, Radcliffe, now un-
der the protectorate Of Harvard and
the Women's College of Brown Uni
yersity in Providence. These are pri-
marily city colleges. They all began
with meagre equipment of their own,
although rich in the opportunities
afforded by the apparatus of scholar
ship that heretafore was accessible
only to me nstudents. Although situ-
ated in cities where land is valuable
they have, while growing in numbers
and influence, developed an attractive
ness Of their own, the result OF beau
tiful librar 'es, gymnasiums and dor
mitories, we'll arranged campuses and
facilities for social l'fe.
Each type OF women's college has
its advantages. With the older insti-
tutions, with their social festivities,
their float days and mountain climb
ing parties, the public has become
very familiar through pictures and
descriptions. 1t is probably not gen
orally appreciated, however, to what
an extent the urban schools for the
higher education of girls have. been
developed and made an essential part
of city life
The women's college in village or
in the open country is necessarily
somewhat apart from the great world.
There is an idea in it of Arcadian
simplicity and academic secluslon.
The young women lodged in dormi-
tories which look out over pleasant
prospect of woods and hills go
through a period of study and fun
making in which their life is a little
different from that in most American
families. Poetry, art, pure science,
and the other subjects of the course
they study, oftentimes perhaps with a
feeling that they have reached a plane
of activities somewhat above the sor-
did pursuits at home, where father
comes in tired and cross from wrang,
ling with labor union leader as tc
who shall dominate his factory, anc
where mother regularly gets nervous
prostration during spring house
cleaning. A course at many OF th'
women's colleges in the country
means a season Of preparation for th'
tasks of everyday life through indul
gence n the dreams and romantic
aspirations which to considerable
extent are the natural right OF youth
The city college for women, II
practically every instance, came int
existence because of the conviction
that the accumulated treasures OF
great Eastern university ought not t.
be permanently inaccessible to wo
men. and that staff of renowne'
s!p pue oAH on lou aqSno sI9Voe9
without delivering some message t.
the womanhood around them to
many reasons many girls canno
desert their home duties during tn
period of college education Thes
girls, if they go % college at all, mus
be able to live at home. To make
place for their training was, there
fore, the prime idea in creating tn
colleges now affiliated with several
the eastern universities. AS Mis-
Ida Shaw King, dean of the We
mems College at Brown, wrote in
recent magazine article: "Too gref
emphasis cannot, think, be laid upo
this function, probably the prim
function, of the college situated
the populous district to give co