_At Vassar College_
My dear niece:--It was a pleasure to receive so long a letter from you
after almost two years of silence. It hardly seems possible that you are
eighteen years old. To have graduated from high school with such honours
that you are able to enter Vassar at so early an age is much to your
credit.
I indulged in a good-natured laugh over your request for my advice
regarding a college course. You say, "I remember that I once heard you
state that you did not believe in higher education for women, and,
therefore, I am anxious to have your opinion of this undertaking of
mine."
Now of course, my dear child, what you wish me to say is, that I am
charmed with your resolution to graduate from Vassar. You have entered
the college fully determined to take a complete course, and you surely
would not like a discouraging or disapproving letter from your auntie.
"Please give me your opinion of my course of action" always means,
"Please approve of what I am doing."
Well I _do_ approve. I always approve when a human being is carrying out
a determination, even if I am confident it is the wrong determination.
The really useful knowledge of life must come through strong
convictions. Strong convictions are usually obtained only on the pathway
of personal experience.
To argue a man out of a certain course of action rarely argues away his
own beliefs and desires in the matter. We may save him some bitter
experience in the contemplated project, but he is almost certain to find
that same bitter experience later, because he has been coerced, not
enlightened.
Had he gained his knowledge in the first instance, he would have escaped
the later disaster.
A college education does not seem to me the most desirable thing for a
woman, unless she intends to enter into educational pursuits as a means
of livelihood. I understand it is your intention to become a teacher,
and, therefore, you are wise to prepare yourself by a thorough
education. _Be the very best_, in whatever line of employment you enter.
Scorn any half-way achievements. Make yourself a brilliantly educated
woman, but look to it that in the effort you do not forget two other
important matters--health and sympathy. My objection to higher education
for women, which you once heard me express, is founded on the fact that
I have met many college women who were anaemic and utterly devoid of
emotion. One beautiful young girl I recall who at fourteen years of age
seemed to embody all the physical and temperamental charms possible for
womankind. Softly rounded features, vivid colouring, voluptuous curves
of form, yet delicacy and refinement in every portion of her anatomy,
she breathed love and radiated sympathy. I thought of her as the ideal
woman in embryo; and the brightness of her intellect was the finishing
touch to a perfect girlhood. I saw her again at twenty-four. She had
graduated from an American college and had taken two years in a foreign
institution of learning. She had carried away all the honours--but,
alas, the higher education had carried away all her charms of person and
of temperament. Attenuated, pallid, sharp-featured, she appeared much
older than her years, and the lovely, confiding and tender qualities of
mind, which made her so attractive to older people, had given place to
cold austerity and hypercriticism.
Men were only objects of amusement, indifference, or ridicule to her.
Sentiment she regarded as an indication of crudity, emotion as an
insignia of vulgarity. The heart was a purely physical organ, she knew
from her studies in anatomy. It was no more the seat of emotion than
the liver or lungs. The brain was the only portion of the human being
which appealed to her, and "educated" people were the only ones who
interested her, because they were capable of argument and discussion of
intellectual problems--her one source of entertainment.
Half an hour in the society of this over-trained young person left one
exhausted and disillusioned with brainy women. I beg you to pay no such
price for an education as this young girl paid. I remember you as a
robust, rosy girl, with charming manners. Your mother was concerned, on
my last visit, because I called you a pretty girl in your hearing. She
said the one effort of her life was to rear a sensible Christian
daughter with no vanity. She could not understand my point of view when
I said I should regret it if a daughter of mine was without vanity, and
that I should strive to awaken it in her. Cultivate enough vanity to
care about your personal appearance and your deportment. No amount of
education can recompense a woman for the loss of complexion, figure,
or charm. And do not let your emotional and affectional nature grow
atrophied.
Control your emotions, but do not crucify them.
Do not mistake frigidity for serenity, nor austerity for self-control.
Be affable, amiable, and sweet, no matter how much you know. And listen
more than you talk.
The woman who knows how to show interest is tenfold more attractive than
the woman who is for ever anxious to instruct. Learn how to call out the
best in other people, and lead them to talk of whatever most interests
them. In this way you will gain a wide knowledge of human nature, which
is the best education possible. Try and keep a little originality of
thought, which is the most difficult of all undertakings while in
college; and, if possible, be as lovable a woman when you go forth into
the world "finished" as when you entered the doors of your Alma Mater:
for to be unlovable is a far greater disaster than to be uneducated.