4
THE SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
5
1.
How One Girl Worked Her Way Through College
The opinions and experiences of a Wellesley girl who worked her way through College, as told by herself in the New York Times.:
It has always caused me muei amusement to hear sober, sensible people of this modern age exclaim at the thought of a girl's working her way through college, apparently thinking it either a quixotic undertaking or one fraught with hard labor, struggles against snobbishness, and bitter self-denial. *"* Personally, I think that a girl who has worked her way through college, as a rule, comes out a hundred richer for her experience.
It is advisable for a girl to meet her own expenses and study, at the same time.
My instructor in high school engl-
lish, a Smith College graduate, once
gave me a very different answer to these
questions. I had asked her if it would
be wise to go to college with the little
student that I should have at my dismal
"No," she said, "unless there is a solutely no other way, it wouldn't
"No," she said, "unless there is absolutely no other way, it wouldn't." "But," replied I, fresh from one of these very articles about the college girl such as I am writing, "there are plenty of ways for a girl to earn money while at college. Many girls pay all their own expenses."
"That is not what you asked," replied my instructor. "Of course, you can do it. Is it wise? That is another matter."
I have since thought of her explanation, but at the time it was the possibility of earning my way through college which I considered. There are many girls just out of high school looking at the question as I looked at it.
Is it possible, they ask, for a girl to raise $500—the average amount required in a girl's college to meet reasonable expense—and study at the same time? With the hope of throwing light on the far more important consideration—is it wise?—I am going to the college experiences of my college chum and myself viewed in the light of the dollar sirn.
We came to Wellesley College, Eleanor and I, with $300 and the brisk resolution to "work our way through." We had the assurance of some help from home to supplement the $300, but by no means enough to meet even the bare $450 required by the college for tuition, board and room.
Our first help was our most substantial. We were admitted to the table of one of Wellesley's two co-operative dormitories, where by one hour's domestic work a day $100 was deducted from our bill for board. The co-operators and the students most practical ways in which a college can help girls to earn money.
The work is not heavy—Eleanor washed glasses and silver and swept the reception room; I washed dishes and later prepared vegetables. All the work of the house except the heavy cleaning, the furnace work, and some of the cooking is done by the girls. The house pays for itself, and considering the amateur nature of most of the service, it is run very smoothly. You earn the same amount of money by earning any of the regular dormitories or boarding houses would have taken about double the time.
Our first payment apiece to the college, then, was—
Tuition ... $175
Board ... 25
$200
Our second payment in February for board would be $50. There was thus $50 of our original $300 unaccounted for, and there were many expenses to
for $4 a week—about $60 a year apiece. There were cheaper rooms without running water, without light, without heat, without space to turn in—about $25 apiece. There was cheapness, but they had been snapped up by enterprising early birds.
We sat down on our unpacked trunks and figured up a round number account for the year like this::
We secured a double room, furnished
Tuition, board and room $310
Traveling expenses 25
Books 15
Fees and organization fees 10
Incidentals 20
Clothes 20
This left about $100 to be earned between October and June. And the next year presented no prospect of a start of $300. There would be $400 to earn instead of $100. It appalled us to see that and we could hardly wait to get work.
First we saved. There was a large laundry connected with our dormitory for the girls' use. Eleanor did all her chores in the laundry bill for the new looked like this:
Soap .40
Starch .10
Bluing .20
70
I sent my laundry home once a month my express at a cost of 70 cents for the round trip, making my laundry expenses for the year a little over five dollars. Books were bought second hand at a saving of about one-half. My first English theme was a sorry哭 because I had spent two weeks in Paris trying to hit it, hunting down bargains in Walter Pater and solid geometry. But I saved.
When it came to earning money Eleanor and I did what almost all impeccable newcomers do—the sweatshop work of the Odd Job at the rate of $14 a day. But of the "jobs" posted on the Christian association bulletins for one week.
Pressing suits, fine launderning, mending clothes, cleaning refrigerator, addressing envelope, washing the piano in the kitchen, dressing costumes for a dance, and typewriting.
Eleanor and I pressed skirts. It was a slow business. I once earned $240 in one week, but it was a week when academic work went to the wall. My preparation for college, like that of many another girl, had been very uneven, and I had all I could do to keep my academic work away from the firing room. I was unable to prepare their twenty plaice aplies, waiting in my closet to be pressed at the week end, were no very great help to my Monday's theme.
As the weeks went on I began to question the Odd Job method of earning a hundred dollars. I realized that there was very little money to be made by selling these clothes myself. In a man's college it is different. Our brothers have more money to spend than we do—they spend less for clothes and more for the things which will contribute to their personal comfort. Girls are more careful and on the lookout for things that they may even if they are in a hurry they pay; at the same rate—20 cents an hour.
I made up my mind as to what was the best way of solving the college expense problem, and resolved to stick to it if possible. I decided to earn only in the direction where I gained either money or income, and to borrow as much as possible.
I had received a loan of $150 from the College Women's Club of New York, and had been reserving that for my sophomore year. Now, however, I resolved to use it for the rest of the year's expenses.
Eleman kept on. She darned stockings, she shampooed hair, she pressed and mended, she wheeled old ladies about the village at the old familiar house. He gave them gifts they gave its annual fair, she sold candy and fancy work and made $11.
I returned to college and put awa
When June came she had met her expenses squarely and was about $50 ahead. I owed $100.
That summer Eleanor sold books. She worked until the middle of August and made $70. She spent the rest of the summer making her clothes. I taught in a vacation school for children and made $60. My academic work had been jerked up sufficiently to enrol me at college, then moved to the college. With work at the co-operative dormitory lifting $100 off, my sophomore year was fairly easy.
the ironing board. I brushed the dust from my German grammar, put more time on my English work, and made some friends.
I obtained the position of principal of the vacation school where I had taught the year before and in the summer preceding my junior year, earned a master's degree. The second scholarship of $150 and remained with the co-operative dormitory for the entire four years. The summer before my senior year I did not try to earn any money. What I was not able to earn in the first four years was summed up by a sum builped by my family.
At the end of all it I had earned at $1,500 of the $2,000 which my college education had cost and had littered the campus with newspapers and newspaper work to my credit.
Eleanor had met her problem differently. She had practically no help from home and had borrowed nothing. She was very ingenious. She could make good salads and soon came to be in demand at the little parties given at the society houses. She often played in the kitchen, table, cooked and served and cleaned up afterward. She rarely received more than $2 for the evening's work.
She took care of two children in the evening when their parents wished to go out, she waited on the table at the College Inn, she prepared laboratory themes and did old jobs as corrected themes, and did old jobs of clerical work.
She learned to dress hair — that paid a little better — 75 cents for a coifure that required but three-quarters of an hour and was guaranteed to stand the strongest wind that ever blew across the Hair stadium on the day of the football game.
On the other hand she cut down her expenses to $400 a year; for instance, $25 for clothes, $12 for books. She gave up her place in the running squad. She joined very few organizations that took time or money; a Greek letter essay was one of their demand of at least $25 and one evening a week was out of the question.
During three years I earned, counting scholarships, about $300 a year. I was taken on the staff of the College News as a result of my improved work in English. That brought in $30 for the first year, and about $140 for my junior year, when I was editor-in-chief. I reorganized the newspaper, besides doing a little miscellaneous newspaper work, making about $100 a year.
Statistics show that ten per cent of the girls of Wellesley college are supporting themselves, wholly or in part, and I should say that three-fourths of them are the same way that Eleanor did with the same expenditure of time and energy.
There is no limit to the clever ways in which girls are meeting their bills. One girl that I knew got up at seven o'clock every winter morning, closed the windows and turned on the heat in from ten to twenty-five rooms of her dormitory. For each privilege of sleeping a minute longer and getting up in a warm room the girls paid five cents.
CONDENSED OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF
The above statement is correct.
The Lawrence National Bank LAWRENCE, KANSAS
RESOURCES
LIABILITIES
At the close of business June 14, 1912
Total
Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . $100,000.00
Surplus and Profits . . . . . . . . . . . 52,888.69
Circulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100,000.00
Deposits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772,822.00
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81,025,710.78
Loans and Discounts
U. S. Bonds and Premiums
Other Bonds and Stocks
Real Estate, Furniture and Fixtures
Cash, Due from Banks and U. S. Treasurer
The above statement is correct.
GEO. W. KUHNE. Cashier.
8512,832.75
127,000.00
34,619.89
35,500.00
315,738.14
81,025,710.78
For many girls, the earning of $1,000 on the strength of their high school education is an absolute impossibility. The girl who lives in the small town is almost helpless. Villagers do not spend a great deal of money; the girl's circle of influential acquaintance is not large; there is practically nothing that she can do without leaving home, and then her living expenses would take about all that she could earn.
I should say to every girl who consulted my opinion: "Earn $1,000 before you go to college. When you get there, do not sap your strength and energy by the sweat work of the old lad."
I have come to a conclusion that tallies with my high school instructor's advice for the girl who contemplates earning her vay through college. Do it only if there is no other way.
Another girl worked three hours a day in the college book store, and afterward in the library for twenty-five cents an hour. The girl who conducted the furniture exchange sold off two hand furniture at a profit of $20 a year. She also made two second hand typewriter, learned to run it, and made $25 besides paying for the noisy nuisance. I remember one entering freshman from the south who did not go home for vacations and packed trunks at an enormous profit. All these things and scores of others any girl can do—but let her not forget the fact that she gets an average of twenty an hour and does them all the time.
To this I should say, borrow all you can and start for college resolved to spend as much intelligence but as money as you can earning money when you get there.
And to that advice must always be added. "if possible."
The very essence of a college education—of any ducation—is, I believe, leisure. Not a luxuriousness that implies doing as you choose, working desultorily, playing much, but a fine leisure of thought which lays deep foundations and builds methods. Because our colleges must reflect the tendencies of the day that leisure is becoming impossible. We are deploring the many activities that are crowding in upon the college curriculum to create self-enrichment with too many subjects. A college student has a great confusion, a hurry, and a multiply of interests to meet at the very start.
When we were graduated from college then, Eleanor had truly worked her way through college; she owed nothing. I had a debt of $250. We both had kept up a good academic standing, graduating on the honor roll.
Consider the actual time at a student's disposal. A girl at Wellesley carries sixteen hours of academic work a week; two hours preparation for each hour of her classroom work makes an average of seven hours a day and is included. To enable a day she works two hours every day.
Does the business man who puts in an eight-hour day for six days out of the seven think he has much time left? The girl, still growing, still untrained in the ways of systematizing her time and her work, is working nine hours a day. She has left to her little life. And she has left to her family closely bound community in which she lives, to look out for her health and her amusement, to save her would-be education from being swamped in the process.
Education cannot mean this freezed fitting of moment into moment, this absurd making of making a picture puzzle of the hours of the day. The very word means a slow process and a growth.
The question which I had considered four years before, Is it possible to earn my way through college, was answered. How thought many times since, Was it wise?
Take Eleanor. She never lived in one of the campus dormitories where she lived with her parents.
And, what is more, now that she is out and at work, she finds that she has a very small stock of energy with which to make use of her four years of training. She has learned very little from her work of meeting expenses, and proficiency in pressing skirts and mending clothes will probably not be of very material value to her in years to come. I do not think that she has acquired any moral virtues nor strength of character from pressing skirts. If anything, Eleanor has become a little bitter.
dropped out of most class affairs, out of most organizations, out of athletics—losing a great deal of that much-discussed "college life."
That, perhaps, is not so important. She had a high standing on the college books, but she never, during her entire college course at Wellesley, did any work not required by her instructors, and the catalogue. She never had the time to read around an assigned subject, to consider one that was not assigned, to spend a leisurely hour in the library.
It is an impossibility for our colleges to let us be shot through four years of confusion at forty knots an hour and call the result education.
The girl who goes to college has to fight against a hordre of tendencies that disorganize, and scatter her work and, unless it is absolutely necessary, it is unspeakably unwise for her to add another factor that will consume time and energy and fight against 'the multiplicity of faults'四 years at college means in most cases her efficiency after she has been graduated.
It is for this reason, then, that I, for one, would say to the girl who is contemplating a heavier investment in culture and lacks the necessary
"Go to college! But, as for earning your way through, do it only if there is no other way."
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