In every art whereto they give their care.
On closer inspection, I found this to be a quotation from Ariosto. Beside it was an inscription from Herbert Spencer which read: ‘If women comprehended all that is contained in the domestic sphere, they would ask no other.’ That the club realized the humorous as well as the serious suggestion of such juxtaposition was proved by one of the mantelpieces, where rested side by side an effigy of Egypt’s great queen Hatasu, and a fragment of a Roman matron’s epitaph, reading, ‘She stayed at home and span.’
“When I asked Portia to what conclusions, if any, her club life had led her, she confessed to only a few, and those very tentative. As compared with the married women of her acquaintance whose cultivation was equal to that of her fellow club members, most of the latter appeared over-serious, self-distrustful, or inconsistent. A few seemed to find full activity and satisfaction in careers for which they obviously possessed decided gifts. But the majority, after a certain eagerness for experience and self-realization had become satisfied, seemed to be but half-heartedly filling in their time while anticipating or desiring something else. This attitude, together with the census statistics, appeared to indicate that the chief career for the great majority of women was still through marriage. Whether it was becoming less so for the kind of women the club comprised, and if this were the case, what was the alternative—these were among the questions upon which the organization held itself open to conviction.
“For herself, Portia was happy still to be in the mood of acquisition: there were many things that she was eager to learn and to experience before it became time to inquire what she was going to be. As yet she had got no further than realizing that, while being a bachelor woman seemed to have obvious limitations, it was surely extremely pleasant to be a bachelor maid.
“I very honestly replied that, considering her youth and her opportunities, I would not have her feel differently—certainly not at present.”
XX
A Small College
PROFESSOR Maturin has always questioned the somewhat popular belief that the small college, once so important, is about to disappear between the portentously rumbling upper and nether millstones of the universities and the public schools. He was therefore more than glad to accept, in the form of an invitation to visit a professorial friend at a country college, an opportunity to see for himself.
During two hundred express-train miles away from the metropolis, and twenty more deliberate ones away from the main line, he thought a good deal about the matter, not without regret that the German ideal of specialized scholarship should completely overcome the English ideal of general culture. After the professor’s cordial greetings, conversation at once turned to this topic. The professor, however, was so unapprehensive that he claimed attention rather for the attractive situation of his town, after remarking that, as a matter of fact, the small colleges were increasing in attendance and resources much more rapidly, in proportion, than the great universities. His own college, in the last five years, had enlarged its endowment from three hundred thousand to nearly a million dollars, and its attendance from two to nearly four hundred students. Five hundred was to be the limit, the president and his faculty being unanimous in believing that no college should be too large to give attention to every student every day in every class. “This was sufficiently reassuring,” said Professor Maturin, as he told me about it, “to permit my attending comfortably to my surroundings, which were indeed charming.” I continue the account in his own words.
“The college campus stretched along the main street, at the southern end of the town—a large rectangle of wonderful greensward, resulting from the English recipe of watering for a hundred years, and guarded by a small army of enormous elms that must have been already in occupation when the tract was bought from the provincial proprietors, in the early years of the republic. Here stood the two buildings that accommodated all the academic and domestic life of the college during its first half century. Both of native limestone, with softer brownstone trimmings, the older was a notable example of the best American public architecture of an hundred years ago. The dozen other buildings nearby were similarly landmarks in the later history of the institution.
“The brownstone and dark brick chapel gave its lower floor to the libraries of the college and the literary societies, which made a total of about forty thousand volumes, some of them purchased and imported in bulk by the founders of the college. For student use the collection seemed quite adequate, not indeed for specialization, but certainly for the fundamental, general training for which the college stood. The work of the freshman and sophomore years consisted largely of required subjects, the junior and senior years largely of electives. This system, long in vogue, proved most acceptable, particularly to such graduates as my friend the professor, who had taken in college, Latin, Greek, French, and German; much English, some history, and a little economics; geology, physics, chemistry, physiology, and hygiene; mathematics up to and including calculus and astronomy; logic, psychology, ethics, and an introduction to philosophy—surely a broad foundation for his subsequent specialization in history. Later experience made him wish that he had studied also biology, sociology, and something of music and the fine arts. The first two of these were now provided by the institution.