SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1436 



systems. No adverse financial conditions, no 

 popular clamor and no pressure from outside 

 have led to any sacrifice of quality to quantity, 

 of excellence to numbers, in the maintenance 

 of these ideals. 



Modification of the college curriculum to 

 meet the supposed special intellectual needs of 

 women, which has been urged by men more 

 frequently than by women, while it has from 

 the beginning received the serious consideration 

 of educators in women's colleges, has not found 

 favor here or permanently so in other better 

 colleges for women. The ultimate decision of 

 this question rests entirely with the women. 



Bryn Mawr resists the transformation of the 

 college of liberal arts by the entrance of strictly 

 vocational and professional studies and frowns 

 upon such heresies as the bisection of the col- 

 lege at the belt line into a junior and a senior 

 college, or the telescoping of the last year or 

 two of the college course into the professional 

 schools. In a word she stands with her sister 

 colleges for preservation of the educational 

 standards and the integrity of the American 

 college in essence and in spirit. To the many 

 who cherish the traditions of the older learning 

 and liberal cultui-e as represented in the Amer- 

 ican college of the past it may appear that the 

 ark of the covenant is passing into the keeping 

 of the colleges for wemen. 



President Thomas has expressed in these ad- 

 mirable words her conception of the aims of 

 college education for women : "If fifty per 

 cent, of college women are to marry and nearly 

 forty per cent, are to bear and rear children, 

 such women can not conceivably be given an 

 education too broad, too high or too deep, to 

 fit them to become the educated mothers of the 

 future race of men and women to be born of 

 educated parents. Somehow or other such 

 mothers must be made familiar with the great 

 mass of inherited knowledge which is handed 

 on from generation to generation of civilized 

 educated men. They must think straight, judge 

 wisely and reverence truth ; and they must teach 

 such clear and wise and reverent thinking to 

 their children." This was fifteen years ago. 

 To-day with the assumption by women of all 

 the responsibilities of citizenship and with the 

 vastly increased influence which college women 



will exert upon the life of the community and 

 nation, how supremely important it is that the 

 college should aim to discipline intelligence, to 

 strengthen the ability to observe correctly and 

 to form sound intellectual and ethical judg- 

 ments, and to cultivate for the highest service 

 of the race that fundamental instinct of wom- 

 an's nature which seeks not less than the per- 

 petuation of the species its safety and welfare! 



To this audience it is not necessary to point 

 out that the brilliantly successful efforts of 

 President Thomas to bring to realization at 

 Bryn Mawr certain clear and well defined con- 

 ceptions of the place and functions of the col- 

 lege in education, as distinct from the secondary 

 school on the one hand and graduate, profes- 

 sional and technical schools on the other, imply 

 no lack of interest in providing opportunities 

 for the training of women in practical and 

 vocational subjects in their proper place. 

 Quite the contrary is of course true. 



Full evidence of this is found here at Bryn 

 Mawr in the excellent provisions for the train- 

 ing of teachers and specialists in the graduate 

 courses, particularly in the Graduate Depart- 

 ment of Education, an integral part of which 

 is the Phoebe Anna Thorne model school with 

 its primary, elementary and secondary depart- 

 ments, and in the Carola Woerishoffer Grad- 

 uate Department of Social Economy and 

 Social Research with its admirably conceived 

 theoretical and practical courses which furnish 

 much needed opportunities for training women 

 for ever widening useful and attractive careers 

 in the immense fields of organized social, indus- 

 trial and community activities and welfare, for 

 which women are much better fitted than men. 



What could make stronger appeal to human 

 sympathy and generous support than the novel 

 and interesting experiment, successfully 

 launched here last summer and to be continued 

 this one, of the Summer School for Women 

 Workers in Industry, conceived and initiated 

 by President Thomas? 



Our Medical School at the Johns Hopkins 

 and all women owe an inexpressible debt of 

 gratitude to the vigorous efforts and persuasive 

 arguments of Miss Thomas and the generous 

 donation of Miss Mary Garrett in securing the 

 Women's Endowment Fund which enabled the 



