WHY GO TO COLLEGE? an Address
BY
ALICE FREEMAN PALMER
Formerly President of Wellesley College
To a largely increasing number of young girls college doors are openingevery year. Every year adds to the number of men who feel as a friendof mine, a successful lawyer in a great city, felt when in talking ofthe future of his four little children he said, "For the two boys it isnot so serious, but I lie down at night afraid to die and leave mydaughters only a bank account." Year by year, too, the experiences oflife are teaching mothers that happiness does not necessarily come totheir daughters when accounts are large and banks are sound, but thaton the contrary they take grave risks when they trust everything toaccumulated wealth and the chance of a happy marriage. Our Americangirls themselves are becoming aware that they need the stimulus, thediscipline, the knowledge, the interests of the college in addition tothe school, if they are to prepare themselves for the most serviceablelives.
But there are still parents who say, "There is no need that my daughtershould teach; then why should she go to college?" I will not replythat college training is a life insurance for a girl, a pledge that shepossesses the disciplined ability to earn a living for herself andothers in case of need, for I prefer to insist on the importance ofgiving every girl, no matter what her present circumstances, a specialtraining in some one thing by which she can render society service, notamateur but of an expert sort, and service too for which it will bewilling to pay a price. The number of families will surely increase whowill follow the example of an eminent banker whose daughters have beengiven each her specialty. One has chosen music, and has gone far withthe best masters in this country and in Europe, so far that she nowholds a high rank among musicians at home and abroad. Another hastaken art, and has not been content to paint pretty gifts for herfriends, but in the studios of New York, Munich, and Paris, she has wonthe right to be called an artist, and in her studio at home to paintportraits which have a market value. A third has proved that she canearn her living, if need be, by her exquisite jellies, preserves, andsweetmeats. Yet the house in the mountains, the house by the sea, andthe friends in the city are not neglected, nor are these young womenfound less attractive because of their special accomplishments.
While it is not true that all girls should go to college any more thanthat all boys should go, it is nevertheless true that they should go ingreater numbers than at present. They fail to go because they, theirparents and their teachers, do not see clearly the personal benefitsdistinct from the commercial value of a college training. I wish hereto discuss these benefits, these larger gifts of the collegelife,—what they may be, and for whom they are waiting.
It is undoubtedly true that many girls are totally unfitted by home andschool life for a valuable college course. These joys and successes,these high interests and friendships, are not for the self-consciousand nervous invalid, nor for her who in the exuberance of youthrecklessly ignores the laws of a healthy life. The good society ofscholars and of libraries and laboratories has no place and noattraction for her who finds no message in Plato, no beauty inmathematical order, and who never longs to know the meaning of thestars over her head or the flowers under her feet. Neither will the