On one historic occasion he decides that the entire freshman
schedule shall be changed, for one day, from morning to afternoon,
in order that a convention of Massachusetts school superintendents,
meeting in Boston, may hear the Wellesley students recite their
Greek, Latin, and Mathematics. In vain do the students protest
at being treated like district school children; in vain do the
teachers point out the injury to the college dignity; in vain do
the superintendents evince an unflattering lack of interest in
the scholarship of Wellesley. It must be done. It is done.
The president of the freshman class is called upon to recite her
Greek lesson. She begins. The superintendents chatter and laugh
discourteously among themselves. But the president of the freshman
class has her own ideas of classroom etiquette. She pauses. She
waits, silent, until the room is hushed, then she resumes her
recitation before the properly disciplined superintendents.
In religious matters, Mr. Durant was, of course, especially active.
Like the Christian converts of an earlier day, he would have harried
and hurried souls to Christ. But Victorian girls were less docile
than the medieval Franks and Goths. They seem, many of them,
to have eluded or withstood this forceful shepherding with a
vigilance as determined as Mr. Durant's own.
But some of the letters and diaries give us such a vivid picture
of this early Wellesley that it would be a pity not to let them
speak. The diary quoted is that of Florence Morse Kingsley,
the novelist, who was a student at Wellesley from 1876 to 1879,
but left before she was graduated because of trouble with her eyes.
Already in the daily record of the sixteen-year-old girl we find
the little turns and twinkles of phrase which make Mrs. Kingsley's
books such good reading.
VI.
Wellesley College, September 18th., 1876. I haven't had time
to write in this journal since I came. There is so much to do
here all the time. Besides, I have changed rooms and room-mates.
I am in No. 72 now and I have a funny little octagon-shaped
bedroom all to myself, and two room-mates, I. W. and J.S.
Both of these are in the preparatory department. But I am in
the semi-collegiate class, because I passed all my mathematics.
But I didn't have quite enough of the right Latin to be a full
freshman. We get up at 6.30, have breakfast at 7, then a class
at 7.55, after that comes silent hour, chapel, and section
Bible class. Then hours again till dinner-time at one, and
after dinner till 4.55. We can go outdoors all we want to
and to the library, but we can't go in each other's rooms,
which is a blessing. There are some girls here who would like
to talk every minute, morning, noon and night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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