SEVENTEEN NO LONGER.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1681, 22 February 1913, Page 10

SEVENTEEN NO LONGER.

Miss Constanoo L, Maynard, who for*, thirty-one' years lias been Mistress of . Wcstfield College, University of LoilSon, and whoso educational exporipneo covers; the whole period since Iho movement for tlio higher oduoation of women begun, is, retiring at tho end of tho 6ummor term. "I remember," eho said to a representative of tho "Daily Mail," "my first days ; at Girton, when tho liigher education of girls was considered a great joke. Wo : wore called blno' stockings. Tho idea of a clever girl being able to talk of any-, thine but book knowledge or of her being* a jolly girl was not entertained for pno moment. That prejudice passed with ,the, : years. ■ ; "But the lifo of the averago girl of. forty years ago was a vacuous affair. She passed the years with little opportunity of mental improvement.- Her lifo was un* doubtedly dull in many respects, Mnrriago was, of courso, her ultimata aim l in life. Often, thoro came a Jlmo wTion, through unseen oircum stances! the girl's homo was broken up, and sho lmd suddenly "to face tho realities of lifo. In-, numerablo cases of girls of high birtlv suffering direst poverty wero tho result.' The advent of the higher education changed all this. Instead of education eliding at cJglitoen many girls at'this ago are only beginning to fit themselves for spending a really useful life. And I do not. consider that this should jntcrfero with tho girl's chance of marriage. Tho heroine of seventeen is a romance of tho past. "If a girl marries, tho fact that sho has mastered many subjects tho. very names of which wero unknown, to the pins of forty years eyo is nn asset, for she has a moro serious outlook on life ana her 'responsibilities." ■ ,