Springfield Weekly Republican

THE SMITH COLLEGE EXPERIMENT
Its Quiet Perfect Success as Reported by President L. Clark Seelye.

The college opened three years ago for the reception of students, four years having been taken to mature the plans and to allow the funds to accumulate. The large academic building was then erected and one dwelling-house for students. By postponing the opening, the college has been able to pay for all its buildings and its working expenses out of the income of its original endowment. For the sake of securing a more harmonious organization, the trustees decided to admit at the opening only those who were prepared to enter the first or freshman class, and to form each succeeding year a new class until the four classes were complete. There were a large number of applicants, but of all the candidates only 15 could be found who were qualified to enter. The next year we had a similar experience, but succeeded in forming another class of 18. The next year the beneficial effects of a rigid adherence to the original standard became apparent in attracting a far greater number of thoroughly prepared students, and 45 were admitted. This year 40 have already entered at the June examination, and a number more are waiting for the second examination in September. Two new dwelling-houses have been added for the new classes, and others will be erected according to the original design as the classes increase. The plan is so elastic that the accommodations can be increased to almost any extent without disturbing in the least the quiet social life in the separate families in which the students are grouped.

Our history has thus already demonstrated that a female college, no more than a male, is obliged to do both preparatory and collegiate work. Secondary schools will be established when the colleges render them desirable or necessary. The demand will create the supply. When Smith College opened, comparatively few knew of its plans or requirements. Secondary schools were, however, soon organized to prepare for it. Many of those already established modified their courses to meet its requirements, so that now young girls in different parts of the country are pursuing systematic study with the design of entering college. We do not think preparatory and collegiate classes can be united in one institution without injury to both. The regulations which are beneficial and necessary for younger students are apt to become irksome and injurious to older. Surely the terms secondary and higher as applied to schools indicate a logical rather than an honorary sequence. Why then should it be so much more difficult in girls' schools than in boys' to confine instruction to those branches which the students are best qualified to receive and the schools to give? Female education sadly needs the co-operative system. Secondary schools cannot flourish if colleges with superior endowments usurp their province. The colleges will fail to realize their true ideal if incumbered with a preparatory department.

Our history gives additional evidence, if evidence on that point be needed, of woman's capacity for the highest intellectual culture. For three years young ladies have been taking a course of study as varied, as thorough, and of as high a grade as young men have taken in our best colleges, and have accomplished their work as successfully. We have had frequently professors from male institutions to give instruction, and their testimony is to the effect that the girls study better than the boys, and that the average scholarship is higher. It would certainly be difficult to find anywhere greater enthusiasm in the search for knowledge or greater success in its acquisition. There is the same variety in intellectual preferences and capacities which young men manifest. In no one department of study has there been found marked deficiency. We were told that it was absurd to arrange for the study of the higher mathematics, for the feminine mind was deficient in mathematical capacity; but we have thus far had a larger proportion of fine mathematicians than can be found in corresponding classes of young men. Greek, which has been so often eliminated from female education as too great a strain on the feminine intellect, has from the first been a favorite study, and there are Greek scholars that would honor any institution. Indeed, I think it may be truly said that there has been greater uniformity in study, greater interest in all departments, than is usually the case in college classes. This may perhaps be attributed to the select character of the students. It is, at least, evidence that women are not wanting in any capacity essential to master a college curriculum.

Our experience has also demonstrated the fact that women can be highly educated not only without injury, but with benefit to health. Some of our best scholars have steadily improved in health since entering college. Some who came so feeble that it was doubtful whether they could remain a term, have become entirely well and strong. Not a single disease has been contracted during the three years by any inmate of our dwelling-houses. Not a single student, as far as I am aware, has been physically injured by study during her connection with the institution. Why should they not be healthy? There is greater regularity in their life, greater attention given to health, greater sanitary precautions than can be found in ordinary homes. Said a distinguished professional gentleman: "My daughter, strange as it seems, is in better health at Smith College than she is at home. She is apt to grow thin and nervous in vacation, and steadily improves during term time." There seems good reason for attributing the almost unparalleled health of the students to the plan of arranging them in small families as well as to special sanitary regulations. The college is not a sanitarium. It does not undertake to cure chronic diseases: to restore enfeebled constitutions: or to secure exemption from the ordinary ills of human life. It simply claims that by reducing nervous excitement to a minimum, and adopting those regulations which intelligent experience naturally suggests, there need be no greater injury to the health of woman than to the health of man in a collegiate education. On the contrary, the intelligence thus acquired becomes a physical no less than an intellectual benefit. It ensures better care for the body as well as for the mind and soul.

But what about the womanhood? Has the woman been sacrificed to learning? Has she lost in feminine delicacy, modesty and refinement as she has attained greater intellectual strength? These are questions most frequently and anxiously asked; and, if they must be answered in the affirmative, I admit a college education for women has been a lamentable failure. If learning and intelligence are to make more common that type of woman, which Louisiana politics have so conspicuously produced, then the sooner colleges are closed to women the better. Happily we have as yet seen in the culture we advocate no tendency to produce such monstrosities. On the contrary, I have been glad to notice among the students themselves a growing disinclination to imitate the distinctively masculine traits of male colleges. They are very jealous about being deprived of intellectual privileges, they are no less jealous of their womanly attributes, and show little disposition to introduce those customs in which the coarser fiber of the masculine mind is most clearly manifest. Instead of hazing new comers, the second or sophomore class will give them a reception in the art-gallery, introduce them to the older students with the courteous hospitality which good breeding dictates. Social receptions are also frequently given in the social hall of the college to the students and their friends, and every effort is made in the different homes with which they are connected to create an atmosphere which shall stimulate every womanly grace. The young ladies are from good families where they have been well trained. Very few of them have any other aim than to be cultivated women in their own homes. They have come to college not for the sake of a livelihood, but for intelligence. No effort has been made to attract any one class. The rich and poor are alike welcome, are on an equal footing, and are equally represented. Nor is the college intended in any sense to be a normal or professional school. Its social and intellectual advantages are far greater than if it were. Through its characteristic idea and composition, it is able to avoid those defects of manner and narrowness of thought which are almost unavoidable where either a specialty is early chosen or society is confined to those of exactly the same social condition.