The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1912-05-03
COMMENCEMENT EXTaAvA-
GANCE

question which is gaining more atten-
tion and creating more debate every
year. 1t is the problem of the ex-
pense of graduation on the families
of girls who can i'll afford it. Girls
of Radcliffe College have taken the
matter in hand themselves and made
rule that all graduates must ap-
pear in simple white shirt-waists and
white linen skirts, without any
adornment in the way of jewelry or
even barettes.
Superintendents Martin G.. Brum-
baugh, of the Philadelphia schools,
has taken the subject up in one of
the newspapers of that city, and in
part his conclusions are as follows;
Certainly, if any system of edu-
cation fail to teach people that it is
a worthy and laudable ambition to
live within their means, it must be
confessed that the system is fail
ure. Anything that smacks of es-
tentation, anything that obtrudes the
possession of money on accasions
when plain moral excellence and
purely intellectual accomplishment
are the essence and the proper pride
of those who participate, argues un-
avoidably that the best purpose, the
finest intent, of the whole course of
training has been frustrated. More
over. it is absolutely hostile to our
democratic ideals. 1t is unAmeri-
can.
Il regretfully say this of Phila-
delphia, where it has been our deep
est satisfaction that when We have
graduated students from our high
schools we have set the seal of COM
pleteness on a public education which
few other cities can equal and, /
have hoped, none can surpass.
" But with hundreds of our girls
compelled, from moral timidity or
from envious vanity, to place upon
their parents graduation expenses
that run from $40 to S136, with
probable average, when all is count
ed, of S75 l must admit that some
thing is wrong, either with the COM
munity which endures the evil or
with the education which has failed
to rectify it. 1t may be, in a meas
ure, the fault of the people gener-
ally; it may be largely the fault of
the students; but the schools and the
educational organizations which
have not succeeded in intoxicating in
those girl students the principles of
right thinking and right living, are
they censurable when they allow
highly endowed highly trained young
women, the flower of our city, to en-
ter upon life with handicaps of eX-
travaganCe and. waste that must en-
dure for their harm so long as they
live?
Among the questions | have put
to? One answered: we have not
to how many students have not TAX
en- diplomas because they could not
afford to. One answered: we have
not, to my knowledge, had a pupil
drop out in order to avoid the ex-
pense. We had one girl, last Feb
ruary, who did not pay into the class
dues and refused to appear, either at
graduating exercises or at class day.
because she could not afford the ex-
pense. She was, however, gradual
ed.
Another observed: L would say
that no pupil has ever assigned as a
cause for withdrawal from school the
expense of graduation. This is a
matter on which girls of high school
age are quite sensitive, and if a
question of expense be the real rea-
son for withdrawal they would
hardly say so to school authorities
Correct, and very just, no doubt
both views as expressed. But the
first presents to us the picture of one
poor girl denied, by the common
eagerness for needless display, the
occasion which is, and should be,
the sweetest pleasure of a school
girls career. The other makes clear
how misleading as to real cause the
figures Of high school Withdrawals
may be. l have no doubt that in
numerous instances where the cir
cumstances of a family have urged
a daughters abandonment of her
course before its completion, this one
item of excessive expense, deemed in
eVitable should she go on to gradu-
alton, mas proved the determining
factor in her decision to quit.
Il am afraid that we can never
find, in the high schools, the full ex-
tent to which this persistent indul-
gence in ostentation affects the stu
dent body at large. The strain, in
point of fact, comes on home re-
sources not while the girl is taking
her high school course, but earlier.
when she is eligible for it.
" The truth seems to be that when
the daughter reaches the age and the
school standing that qualify her for
high school, a home council is held
and the situation is canvassed in ad-
vance for the whole period up to the
time of her graduation. | have no
doubt there are hundreds of families
in which the maintenance of the
daughter at home, under such a
stress of expense as is entailed by
the modest demands of a growing
girl, is regarded as entirely feasible:
and | believe there are few of those
homes in which the sincere desire is
lacking to have the daughter enjoy
every advantage of education that
the city offers. But when her par
ents debate the future, when they
consider the item Of S75 or 500
which must come, crushngly, at the
close of four years of unusual ex-
pense in letting her keep up ap-
pearances" conformable to so costly
a climax, they decide that the en-
terprise is beyond their means. And
the daughter is compelled to accept
the situation and abandon the cher
ished ideals of her elementary school
years.
How are we to trace these losses
in applications for admission to the