Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 117, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1911 — GIRL STUDENT BEST [ARTICLE]

GIRL STUDENT BEST

Brighter and More industrious Than Men. Dr. James M. Taylor, President of Vassar College, Explains Why Young Ladies Are Superior— Women’s Motives Serious. Chicago.—Girl students are smarter than men. For instance, take a thousand girls and a thousand men from the same homes, put them In college and when diploma day comes around yon will find that a considerably greater percentage of the girls carry away the sheepskins than the men. Why? “I’ll tell you,” said Dr. James M. Taylor, president of Vassal’'college, the famous girls’ Institution of learning, who was in Chicago recently. “The women,” he explained, “go to college to study and learn. The men are lacking In that spirit. While a good many men do really strive and succeed, there are many more who are more interested in college sport, and even those who. do study and try to keep up do not .take any special pride In letting the others'know that they are working. , Girls, though, are different They are conscientious about their work. They are vastly more humiliated by failure than a man. I grant that there are physiological reasons. A girl develops younger and she naturally should be keener. But it’B the woman of it, you know, to be more conscientious.” "But, doctor,” was suggested, "how

about their frivolities? Are they conscientious tin social matters and gossiping and>h®r ambitions?" “Now, that’s out of the question of intellect,” replied President Taylor. “I’m not dismissing that phase of it. I’m speaking of the girl In college, her mind and her ambitions.” “Spbaktng of ambitions, doctor," came another interruption, "how do the Vassar girls stand on suffrage?” “Again, I mast ask you to excuse me. That is something I prefer not to talk about But take our graduates, our college, our girls, compare us with any other college In the world, and 1 tell you we take oil our hats to none!" “Vassar 1$ considered a good finlshlhg school, Is It not?” was suggested. “Please do not confuse us that way. Vassar Is a college—a regular college with the best talent we can get on onr faculty." “Are Chicago girls ever reported for misbehavior?’’ “Oh, tut! tut!” President .Taylor laughed. “I'm not telling tales out of school,” he remarked. "I wouldn’t tell you if they were. It doesn’t happen very often, though, I can assure you. Chicago girls are nice girls and they hare been a great credit to the collage.” “Do you find any difference In the social breeding of the girl of the east and the girl of the west?” “There is a distinction, but it is rapidly* disappearing. As it Is, however, 1 would not set the culture of one over that of the other. The 18hour train between Chicago and New England is a great leveler. The ultra-

conservatism of the east is being tempered by the breeziness of the west, and soop there will be no distinction between the east and the west at all. I’ve lived in New England most of my life, and I think you were all easterners not long ago anyway.”