THE term "college" rather than "university" curriculum has been used advisedly, in order to exclude from consideration purely graduate and university work; but it must be borne in mind that all American colleges of the higher grade give some graduate courses, while most American universities give at least three years of college work. This discussion is not, then, upon whether the college course should be shortened, leaving all graduate or special courses to the university, but upon whether the courses now provided by the better colleges shall be modified to suit a particular class. The undergraduate may obtain a glimpse of specialist training in independent research in some one subject, but it will be assumed in this paper that the average good American college aims to do little more than to provide a foundation of general knowledge, to which must be added from two to four years' additional training in order to develop the professional and the specialist. It will be assumed, as well, that college training is a necessity and not a luxury for the average woman as well as for the average man. Dean Smith, of Barnard College, in an address at the opening of Pembroke Hall, Brown University, clearly defines the stages of women's education in this country. She says: "In the early days it was only the exceptional woman who survived the rigors of her experience; in the second stage, as a rule, those women only were attracted to study who were prepared to leave all other interests behind... It is no longer the mature woman who would fain leave all for the quiet air of delightful studies. . . The average girl has come to college . . . the girl who cares for many things 'This, and the following six papers were read in a discussion upon College Curricula for Women, held at the seventeenth annual meeting of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, October 29, 1898. 279954 |