Why Go To College(为什么上大学)

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WHY GO TO COLLEGE?

WHY GO TO

COLLEGE?

ALICE FREEMAN PALMER

Formerly President of Wellesley College

WHY GO TO COLLEGE?

To a largely increasing number of young girls college doors are

opening every year. Every year adds to the number of men who feel as a

friend of mine, a successful lawyer in a great city, felt when in talking of

the future of his four little children he said, "For the two boys it is not so

serious, but I lie down at night afraid to die and leave my daughters only a

bank account." Year by year, too, the experiences of life are teaching

mothers that happiness does not necessarily come to their daughters when

accounts are large and banks are sound, but that on the contrary they take

grave risks when they trust everything to accumulated wealth and the

chance of a happy marriage. Our American girls themselves are becoming

aware that they need the stimulus, the discipline, the knowledge, the

interests of the college in addition to the school, if they are to prepare

themselves for the most serviceable lives.

But there are still parents who say, "There is no need that my daughter

should teach; then why should she go to college?" I will not reply that

college training is a life insurance for a girl, a pledge that she possesses

the disciplined ability to earn a living for herself and others in case of need,

for I prefer to insist on the importance of giving every girl, no matter what

her present circumstances, a special training in some one thing by which

she can render society service, not amateur but of an expert sort, and

service too for which it will be willing to pay a price. The number of

families will surely increase who will follow the example of an eminent

banker whose daughters have been given each her specialty. One has

chosen music, and has gone far with the best masters in this country and in

Europe, so far that she now holds a high rank among musicians at home

and abroad. Another has taken art, and has not been content to paint pretty

gifts for her friends, but in the studios of New York, Munich, and Paris,

she has won the right to be called an artist, and in her studio at home to

paint portraits which have a market value. A third has proved that she can

earn her living, if need be, by her exquisite jellies, preserves, and

sweetmeats. Yet the house in the mountains, the house by the sea, and the

friends in the city are not neglected, nor are these young women found less

attractive because of their special accomplishments.

While it is not true that all girls should go to college any more than

WHY GO TO COLLEGE?

that all boys should go, it is nevertheless true that they should go in greater

numbers than at present. They fail to go because they, their parents and

their teachers, do not see clearly the personal benefits distinct from the

commercial value of a college training. I wish here to discuss these

benefits, these larger gifts of the college life,--what they may be, and for

whom they are waiting.

It is undoubtedly true that many girls are totally unfitted by home and

school life for a valuable college course. These joys and successes, these

high interests and friendships, are not for the self-conscious and nervous

invalid, nor for her who in the exuberance of youth recklessly ignores the

laws of a healthy life. The good society of scholars and of libraries and

laboratories has no place and no attraction for her who finds no message in

Plato, no beauty in mathematical order, and who never longs to know the

meaning of the stars over her head or the flowers under her feet. Neither

will the finer opportunities of college life appeal to one who, until she is

eighteen (is there such a girl in this country?), has felt no passion for the

service of others, no desire to know if through history or philosophy, or

any study of the laws of society, she can learn why the world is so sad, so

hard, so selfish as she finds it, even when she looks upon it from the most

sheltered life. No, the college cannot be, should not try to be, a substitute

for the hospital, reformatory or kindergarten. To do its best work it should

be organized for the strong, not for the weak; for the high-minded, self-

controlled, generous, and courageous spirits, not for the indifferent, the

dull, the idle, or those who are already forming their characters on the

amusement theory of life. All these perverted young people may, and often

do, get large benefit and invigoration, new ideals, and unselfish purposes

from their four years' companionship with teachers and comrades of a

higher physical, mental, and moral stature than their own. I have seen girls

change so much in college that I have wondered if their friends at home

would know them,--the voice, the carriage, the unconscious manner, all

telling a story of new tastes and habits and loves and interests, that had

wrought out in very truth a new creature. Yet in spite of this I have

sometimes thought that in college more than elsewhere the old law holds,

"To him that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance, but from

WHY GO TO COLLEGE?

him who hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to

have." For it is the young life which is open and prepared to receive which

obtains the gracious and uplifting influences of college days. What, then,

for such persons are the rich and abiding rewards of study in college or

university?

Pre-eminently the college is a place of education. That is the ground of

its being. We go to college to know, assured that knowledge is sweet and

powerful, that a good education emancipates the mind and makes us

citizens of the world. No college which does not thoroughly educate can

be called good, no matter what else it does. No student who fails to get a

little knowledge on many subjects, and much knowledge on some, can be

said to have succeeded, whatever other advantages she may have found by

the way. It is a beautiful and significant fact that in all times the years of

learning have been also the years of romance. Those who love girls and

boys pray that our colleges may be homes of sound learning, for

knowledge is the condition of every college blessing. "Let no man

incapable of mathematics enter here," Plato is reported to have inscribed

over his Academy door. "Let no one to whom hard study is repulsive hope

for anything from us," American colleges might paraphrase. Accordingly

in my talk today I shall say little of the direct benefits of knowledge which

the college affords. These may be assumed. It is on their account that one

knocks at the college door. But seeking this first, a good many other things

are added. I want to point out some of these collateral advantages of going

to college, or rather to draw attention to some of the many forms in which

the winning of knowledge presents itself.

The first of these is happiness. Everybody wants "a good time,"

especially every girl in her teens. A good time, it is true, does not always

in these years mean what it will mean by and by, any more than the girl of

eighteen plays with the doll which entranced the child of eight. It takes

some time to discover that work is the best sort of play, and some people

never discover it at all. But when mothers ask such questions as these:

"How can I make my daughter happy?" "How can I give her the best

society?" "How can she have a good time?" the answer in most cases is

simple. Send her to college,--to almost any college. Send her because there

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WHYGOTOCOLLEGE?1WHYGOTOCOLLEGE?ALICEFREEMANPALMERFormerlyPresidentofWellesleyCollegeWHYGOTOCOLLEGE?2Toalargelyincreasingnumberofyounggirlscollegedoorsareopeningeveryyear.Everyyearaddstothenumberofmenwhofeelasafriendofmine,asuccessfullawyerinagreatcity,feltwhenintalkingofthefutureofhisfourlittlechild...

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