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of preparation will be over and the college Freshman of today will be one of the thousands of college women trying to find the place in the world which her training has prepared her to occupy. The world today receives her graciously. As she had no difficulty in gaining admittance to the higher institution of learning which she chose to attend, so she will find many positions of honor and trust open to her. In the economic world of today women have come into their own. Whether or not this state will continue depends to a great extent on the type of graduate the colleges and universities send out. The mere fact that a young woman possesses a strip of parchment with the seal of a recognized institution of learning, as evidence of four years of work successfully performed, will not be sufficient unless she is able to do the task as well, yes, a bit better than her friend or competitor. She must have learned how to live, how to choose her food, her rest, her recreation, how to keep her body fit for the performance of her tasks. She must carry with her to her life-work the lesson that she learned the first day in her little dormitory room - how to adjust her own wishes to the rights of others, how to take the hard things, the inconveniences, perhaps in equipment, or whatever they may be, as part of the job. In short, she must prove control over herself - her mind, her body, her spirit so that she can most successfully perform the duties she has undertaken to do, or she will be of little value to her employer, be he business manager or college president. Important as these things are, they are not the only elements necessary to her success. She must prove first of all that she has really mastered the under

lying principle upon which her task rests; she must show open-mindedness in the study of the tasks before her, accuracy, steadiness, even to plodding devotion - in short, the same elements which made for success in the classroom are essential here. If she bring all these elements to her work she will surely succeed in a measure; but she will succeed better if she bring two more things; namely, an enthusiastic devotion which will call forth happy participation, and a talent for seeing beyond the present task. This ability of forming a synthesis between the details of the task in hand and the entire undertaking, a synthesis fused by the imagination, should differentiate the college graduate from the untrained citizen.

I have thus far spoken of success in terms of material value. But I would not have the young women who read these pages stop here. "Education," said Milton, "is that training which prepares a man best for the performance of all the duties of peace and of war." The young woman who comes to college for an education should prepare herself for more than the ability to earn money. She must be ready to perform the duties of the ideal citizen whether these bring material reward or not. She must know how to live and work for the satisfaction of a task well done.

The real value to our civilization today and tomorrow will come from the new point of view that women will bring to the solution of its problems. The old-fashioned virtues sympathy, kindliness, interest in the health and happiness of her fellow men, high moral standards all these will make her really valuable. The woman

who prepares to enter the economic or professional world on the same basis as men will only add to the number of workers. The one who brings to her task those qualities which have in the past been termed feminine- the qualities of womanliness-will be really contributing a new factor to the solution of the world's problems. Whether this new point of view will solve many or any of the riddles cannot be foretold. Your task it is to make the best use of your opportunity and enter the race with the joyousness of one who has been permitted to gaze into a new realm filled with unbounded opportunities. Give the best strength of your youth and training to the task, and, whether you succeed or not, justify as far as it lies in your power to do so, the great privilege that has been yours of enjoying with your brothers the advantage of a broad college education.

THE COLLEGE GIRL'S MIND1

PROFESSOR VIDA D. SCUDDER

Wellesley College

It is normal for elderly folk to be disconcerted by the rising generation; but since the War, the outcry of shocked distress, especially about our girls, has been a little louder than usual. Perhaps a brief glance at the other side of the shield may be cheering. For bobbed hair, made-up faces, a taste for jazz and a distaste for chaperons, lightspoken familiarity with much that grandmother never knew, and a general attitude of fevered defiance are very far from the whole story.

A college teacher of many years' standing likes to bear witness that she never enjoyed youth more than now. In the last century, when women students were still a picked lot, and earnest sentimentality plus lingering trouble over the Darwinian theory was an ordinary pose, one never encountered more keen and serious thinking than one does in the young women of today. Manners have changed; but not so much, after all. Even if girls no longer move with ankles entangled in their skirts, even if their emancipated feet are several sizes larger than of old, essentials remain. The freed legs and ankles imply

1 Reprinted from The New Republic of October 1, 1924, by special permission of the author and the publishers.

more freedom in the attack on life; but the gentleness, dignity, and gayety which mark the well-bred woman are not hard to find; simplicity and modesty are still native to girlhood.

It would be dull and untrue to paint a rose-colored picture. Girls with strained faces and piteous, sullen ways (these come, one often finds, from homes ravaged by divorce), noisy girls, vulgar girls, girls clever and unpleasant, do sometimes force themselves on the attention. Yet, by and large, the "granddaughters" whom the colleges begin to receive, are much like their mothers. The years around twenty have always been for women a difficult period of adjustment in family relations. In some ways the problem grows easier, in some harder, as the rational feminine demand for economic independence and satisfying occupation gains more recognition. But a great many college girls appear really to love their fathers and mothers; and a reasonable per cent of them make fairly intelligent choice when it comes to getting married, and establish fairly satisfactory homes of their

own.

As for their intellectual activities ah, now we are at the angle from which this article contemplates the student. A teacher moving through the buzzing corridors of her institution between classes may murmur to herself the Wordsworthian line:

"The face of every one

Who passes by me is a mystery."

What are they thinking about, these young people? Oh for a cross-section of the ideas of youth in 1924! Now

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