Show + oo FROM GIRta ic f I I MOTHERHOOD OOCO + 4 A Series of Papers Containing Hints and Helps For the Young Women of Our Day PAPER NO S BY MARY LOWE DICKINSON College and What I the Use of It In days like these it is hardly possible pos-sible to suppose it necessary to waste any words in explaining the advantages advant-ages of college life and college training for girls It would be better to spend I all ones energies in finding a way for those girls to go to college who long to do so and havent the power Girls already it is claimed see the use of college and desire it above all things Well there are girls and girls and desires who we can only answer that she sires it above all things will find away a-way without our help and strange as It may seem it is only a small minority of the girls of the present day who have the genuine desire And these who havenotare those who ask What is the use ot college for a girl In reply wo answer Just the same use to the girl that it is to the boy That doesnt mean that she is to be trained for his profession or his business whatever it may be or that she is to learn to do the same thing in the same way that hfe is to do it but I does mean that the same mental training and discipline that enable him to apply his faculties successfully to whatever he may find to do is of equal advantage advant-age to her In the training of herself for what she may find to do The intellectual In-tellectual weapons of one are the intellectual in-tellectual weapons of the other The keenness of perception the quickness of wit the power of discrimination the sound judgment the practical commonsense common-sense the ability to appropriate and assimilate similate mental stimulant and nutriment nutri-ment these are all common gifts That which develops them in one mind develops them in the other and these weapons should be put through every sharpening and brightening process without regard to their after uses or the work which each may do Let it be settled once for all that the intellectual discipline of the college col-lege is Just as god for a girl as it Is for a boy and we have settled a good many other things besides The fact that a good many boys go through college and come out without the discipline dis-cipline has nothing to do with the question A great many girls will probably do the same thing But we are not speaking of that which for one reason or another they fail to acquire ac-quire We are only sayIng that that which they do acquire is good to have College Isnt good for a man because he is a man or for a woman because she Is a woman bu college and all that it means in the way of Intellectual stimulant and training is good for the human mind Once more There would be infinite use In thecollege life for girls i I did nothing except to diminish the distance that widens between her and her brother when the home association of childhood is broken and the college have come areJchanged days come Thirigs arJehanged a little for the better but we all remember re-member the time when the young lad who went to college entered a mysterious mys-terious and wonderful sphere of life where his mother could only hope to follow him with her tears and prayers and his sisters could never hope to follow fol-low him at all Too many of us remember re-member the lordly and superior youths who replacing the jolly comrades of our childhood duly > Impressed us with the immensity of th lr attainments in learning and their intimate knowledge of a wide world into which we girls could never hope to enter We all have known plenty of instances of adoring ignorance on the part of sisters who worked hard nevertheless to carry their brothers through college in the serene belief that these same brothers were accumulating wisdom altogether inaccessible to themselves Here and there a girl awake to the fact that what was good fa one brain was good for another has worked her own way through college and kept pace with her brother In thought while she has kept instead of lost the old comradeship com-radeship of heart which as long as life lasts never ought to be allowed to depart And I venture to say that every such girl who has gone thus side by side with her brother through this period of his training has proven this companionship to he of as much use to him as to herself Egotism has no nurse like the consciousness con-sciousness that other people do not know how little we know and It has no such check as that which comes from the fact that somebody else does know hoW little we know In more than one Instance the fact that the sister knew and could grapole with the difficult problem scientific mathematic mathe-matic or philosophical as easily ana as successfully as any one of her masculine mas-culine mates has certainly sometimes proved a stimulant to lagging powers and if as is often said to be true one of the chief functions of the sisters life is to help the brother to develop the noblest manhood possible surely the more Intimately she knows the processes pro-cesses of his Intellectual life the better able Is she to appreciate results and to be In the truest sense his friend Aside from the fact that any girl may take as her blrthrifeht the best training for her own powers that the world can offer and that second fact that common knowledge makes common com-mon helpfulness between the sexes there is another and perhaps a better reason than either for urgIng the college col-lege training upon all girls who can possibly take It and that is that the work which the world is placing In the hands of womanhood demands the broadest development of all her intellectual intel-lectual Dowers More and more there Is coming into her hands the creation and care of a new and sweeter and nobler type of home Childhood makes perpetually new ard precious demands r z dt The heart and hands have sprung to answer these demands but heart and hands must learn to be guided by thought and knowledge Love without wisdom has proved the bane Instead of the blessing Of many a household The young mother of this day must know as well as feel and all the best that there is to know Is none tOQ good to be carried intd the complex and ever multiplying mul-tiplying problems of the home and we have vet to learn of a single Instance in whIch the collegebred woman has been less faithful as wife less devoted as mother less capalle as homemaker for the trafninsof her college days And If thishJoher training is needed primarily for the homfr how sure is it ere loner to become a necessity for all those varied Interests that touch the general welfare that err coming as never before IntQ the hands of woman It would seem as if men never did as much to stay the progress of pauperism pauper-ism and ignorance and vice as they are doing today It is true also that there never was a time when women were called so often and so loudly to aid In all this helpful work It Is left to them to originate and carry out methods meth-ods to plan for themselves and to develop de-velop the plans of othersto guide to counsel to lead For all these things you will say not a knowledge of books but practical knowledge of life is needed This is true but in order that they may befitted be-fitted to use wisely the practical knowledge knowl-edge of life they should have the intellectual Intel-lectual faculties so trained that when this knowledge comes they may know how to appropriate and how to apply It Nothing can supply the lack of rigid training and the women representing the noblest types everywhere will not for these reasons oqly desire the high est advantages that she can secure but she will desire them from her own innate consciousness that her rightful heritage is the best and that whether in college or out of I whatever is the best and highest Is hers if only she have the ability to seize upon it to battle with the obstacles against obtaining ob-taining it and to make I her very own a part of her Innermost self We rejoice that the number of girls who are doing this constantly increases and constantly by the results produced pro-duced In 1 their own intellectual and moral character confirms our conviction the best thins that the college life is for the girl who has developed to the point where she wants and is able to appreciate its value and its power I |