Lexington gazette. [volume] (Lexington, Va.) 1871-1962, 1910-03-02
VIRGINIA FAITHLESS
TO HER DAUGHTERS?
Great Universities for Her Sons,
None for Her Daughters
MANY UNGRATIFED AMBITIONS
Numerous Virginia Girls Attending
Northern Schools

The following appeal from the pen
OF Miss Mary Johnston. the distin-
guished Virginia authoress, in be-
half of the proposed establishment
at the University of Virginia of a
College for women, appeared few
days ago in the Richmond News
Leader, and will be received with
interest by our readers:
1t is stated upon good authority.
that the high schools of Virginia
are turning out two girls to one boy.
and that. moreover. the girls are the
better students. 1t is also said that
the normal schools for women at
Farmviile and at Harrisonburg are
full to overlooking that applicants for
admission are turned away. Sweet
briar, Rollins. the Staunton schools,
Randolph Macon Woman's College
at Lynchburg, all are we'll filed.
At Wellesley this year there are
three Virginia girls. At Radcliffe
two. AT the Woman's College of
Baltimore three. At Johns Hopkins
four. At Cornell five. At Vassar
there are seven. At Columbia there
are fourteen. In all there are thirty
eight at the above-named colleges
and universities, and other great
northern schools are yet to be heard
from. 1t is known that between the
years 1906 and 1910 there we're 1O1
Virginia girls educated at colleges
and universities out OF the State.
The tlition and the general ex-
penses of giIl at Wellesley, Bryn
Mawr or Radcliffe approximate $3.50
a year. Thirty eight times seven
hundred and fifty equals twenty
eight thousand five hundred dollars.
That sum was spent this year for
the higher education of Virginia
girls. A hundred and one students
IN four yearS-any one interested
may make the calculation! 1t would
seem that good deal of money is
spent for the higher education of
our women-but it is not spent in
Virginia. nor by the State of Vir-
ginia. 1t is spent in the North, and
it is spent by parents who often
strain their resources to raise the
amount. Why do they do it? Be
cause they are enlightened people;
they know the value of education.
and they want it for their nestlings.
Not infrequently the money is raised
by the girl herself: She takes her
little all-her patrimony, a legacy,
her earnings, perhaps, as a teacher
and with it she goes upon her ad-
venture, brave and new.
But what of the parents who can
not strain their resources so far?
After all, there are not many moth
ers and fathers in Virginia who can
afford seven hundred and fifty dol
lars year for the education of their
daughters. There are not many who
can afford FIVE hundred dollars there
are very great number who can
not afford three hundred dollars.
The daughters OF these last may be
of just as fine metal, just as MALE
able into all beautiful and service
able forms, just as eager for know
ledge, just as ambitious, just as
aware of the fields which that de-
gree would open to them-but they
cannot take a pleasantly full purse
and go away to the expensive North.
They cannot take even five hundred
dollars, they cannot take four hun
ired and fifty dollars and go to Hol-
Inns or to Sweetbriar Moreover.
admirable as these schools are, much
as Virginia women owe to them,
they do not offer the equivalent of a
University degree. What of the
girl who cannot herself raise so
large a sum even as three hundred
dollars? She may want a college
education just as intensely as a boy
wants one-indeed, nowadays, she
wants it more intensely. But she
goes hungry.
think, oh, l think Virginia
might give her young daughters a
thing which is their due. ] think
she might give them a department