The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-05-08

for almost as eagerly as those of
presidential campaign, for there is
scarcely a community that is not rep
resented in some one of them. That
these colleges set the pace for the.
smaller places of learning is of course
one secret of the perennial curiosity
with which they inspire the public. but
possibly the real reason is that their
graduates are looked upon as the best
types of American young womanhood.
The time has gone by when the higher
education was thought to spoil women.
Instead it is becoming each year more
essential to their success in business,
the professions society and the home.
The girl who goes through four years
of democratic college life has had
most of the nonsense taken out of her.
There are no types more abhorred by
the college girl than the snob or the
prig, and there is no system better
adapted to reforming these than the
merciless guying or still more merci-
less boycott which is melted out to
such.
Vassar has the reputation of being
the college of the rich True, the
daughters of Dives have foregathered
there, but SO also have the daughters
of Lazarus, and among the latter, it Is
said, are found some oe the colleges
! mos brilliant and popular students
The fact is that at Vassar, as at
every other woman's college of the
better class, a girl is judged not at all
by what she has, but by what she is.
If the rich girl is stupid or uninter-
esting or, worse still, ostentatious and
overbearing. she will come a cropper.
which she will remember for the rest
of her life, for the college girl is not
| r11x LOT hut cta hoc OF
command a stock of ridicule calculated
to make a brazen image squirrn.
On the other hand, if the poor girl
| is clever and adaptable she is invited
everywhere, is de1uged with invitations
to join this fraternity or that or to
allow herself to be voted into one or
more or all of the delightful clubs and
societies that make college life so
pleasant. DIR. James NJ. Taylor, the
president of Vassar. is himself a man
of manifold tolerances-as what man
wouldn't be who had for so many
years been successfully directing the
minds and manners of over a thousand
American young women of every con-
ceivable shade of temperament. con-
viction and mentality?
! Daisy chain day is one of the most
picturesque events of commencement
week at VGssar. This festivity has its
parallel in the ivy day of. Smith, the
| tree day of Wellesley, the class day
| of Radcliffe and the senior mountain
day of Mount Holyoke. For daisy
chain day the Vcssar seniors are all
arrayed in white and carry daisy
chains which link the long line of SEN
iors as in procession and singing col
lege songs they march across the cam
pus. the admired of hundreds of visit
| ing friends and relatives
There is a very pretty story con-
nected with the origin of daisy chain
day. 1t started many years ago and
grew out of an effort to obliterate
caste in the college. 1t was planned
that each of the gradutes on that farofi
commencement should have a garland
of flowers. The idea was beautiful
but in its practical working out class
distinctions arose. for flowers cost
money even in June. Thus the ricf
girls could blossom out so gorgeously
that all the rest would look like paper
roses. A few of the poorer member:
: could afford no floral outlay at all. an6
thus the day that should have beer
one of the happiest of their live:
promised to be one of the most morti-
flying and saddest- 1t was then tha-
the democratic American. spirit cam.
to the rescue. Touched by its genius
J the rich girls gave up their dreams O
! expensive garlands an1 the whole elias:
adopted the common daisy of the fielC
| as their emblem. A custom started
} with such an inspiring idea could no
do otherwise than live and dais,