CHAPTER VI.
CLARA AT STONYBROOK COLLEGE.
“Stonybrook College” would have been more appropriately, as well as more modestly, termed Stonybrook School at the time Clara entered it, for it was hardly more than a high-school for girls, though it stood well among institutions for the education of young ladies at a time when the equal education of the sexes was deemed an utopian idea among most people. It ranks much higher now that preparatory schools of a nobler order have furnished a more advanced class of students, and so more truly deserves the name, college. It stands upon the summit of a grand swell of land overlooking a large provincial city. The grounds are beautifully wooded, and laid out in handsome lawns, gardens, and groves. It boasts a really promising botanical garden, and the practical instruction of the young ladies in botany has always been well and systematically conducted. Clara, after a short time, took the first place in the botanical class, and in most of her studies.
There was one thing about this school which rendered it unpopular among the superficial of society, who desire only that their daughters shall secure the honor of graduating, quite independent of the fact of the amount of culture that such honor should presuppose. Very many students who entered Stonybrook College never graduated, and there was for a long time a severe struggle between the president and certain of the board of directors on the question of lowering the standard required for graduation. The latter argued that the first requisite was to make the school popular; while the former, a really learned and progressive spirit, maintained that popularity secured by lowering the grade of requirements would simply result in a primary school, by whatever high-sounding name it might be called, and that this was not the object of the founder, and moreover was the sure method to destroy the nobler popularity that should be aimed at. The president and his friends finally carried the day, and it was this fact that determined Dr. Forest to choose this institution for his favorite child. She had now been a student there two years.
It was June, and a Thursday afternoon holiday. Through the groves and lawns the young girls promenaded in twos and threes, conversing with that enthusiasm about nothing which none but girls are capable of. When deeply enough penetrating into the grove to be out of sight of any “stray teacher,” as they would somewhat disrespectfully say, they often familiarly twined their arms about each others’ slender waists, and so continued their walks, joining other groups from time to time. Their conversation was of that lofty and learned order which girls from twelve to seventeen, in female colleges, naturally assume. It may not be amiss to take up a little time with a sample:
Nettie.—“Still two whole months before vacation! I declare, I shall die before the time comes.”
Hattie.—“I don’t think it seems so long. I do wish, Nettie, you had taken geometry this term. You’ve no idea how nice it is.”
Nettie.—“Thank you. Algebra is quite enough to drive me distracted. You are one of the strong-minded, you know. You just cram a few of your sines and cosines into my head, along with the surds and reciprocals already there, if you want to see a raving, incomprehensible ‘idgeot,’ as you call it.”
Hattie.—“I never pronounced it so in my life. You are the one to mispronounce words, and to make mistakes too. Why, you’ve just been talking of sines and cosines of geometry. Those are terms of trigonometry. Don’t you know it?”
Nettie.—“No; and what is more, I don’t care. If I had my way, I’d just burn all the algebras in the college.”
Carrie.—“I’m glad you haven’t your way, then. I think algebra perfectly splendid.”