Part 17 (2/2)

SARAH DIX HAMLIN

Class of '74, University of Michigan

FOOTNOTES:

[49] See President Angell's testimony in the Appendix

MOUNT HOLYOKE

The Mount Holyoke Fe the thirty-six years ending July 3, 1873, it has graduated one thousand four hundred and fifty-five young women[50] Its founder aimed to provide a peres should be offered at a moderate expense, and whose entire culture should tend to produce, not only thorough students and skilful teachers, but earnest, efficient, Christian woiven prothe ive mental discipline There is no preparatory department In order to enter, pupils are required to pass exaraphy, History of the United States, Mental and Written Arithraphy, Latin Grainally arranged for three years, but since 1862 requires four No pupils are received under sixteen years of age, and none are adhteen, while the raduating averages so over twenty-one years

None are received as day-scholars

The amount of intellectual labor required is about six hours a day; that is, two recitations of forty-five minutes each, and four hours and a half spent in study As a rule, only two studies are pursued at a time

There are but four recitation days in the week, a fifth being devoted to coeneral business The day of recreation is Wednesday, an arrangeht not be convenient for schools composed in part of day-scholars Here, however, the holiday interposed in the er of too protracted application to study, and makes the last two recitation days as easy as the first

The health of the pupils is under the care of the lady physician residing in the family She is assisted by a teacher who superintends the diet and nursing of invalids Besides the frequent suggestions in regard to the care of health, which the Principal addresses to the school, special instructions are given by the physician to her classes in physiology The pupils are particularly cautioned against exposure of health by insufficient protection of the person fro up or down stairs, or by sleeping in unventilated rooms All are required to retire before ten PM, and advised to choose an earlier hour as far as practicable Daily out-door exercise, for at least half an hour, is required, except when incleymnastics are practised by all except individuals who have been permanently excused by the physician All are directed, however, to abstain fro walks, or severe physical exertion of any kind It has not been found that regular and irls in ordinary health The pupil is always excused from lessons if she finds herself unable to study, which of course may often be the case with those of delicate and excitable teenerally known that the ordinary house-work of the se ladies, under the supervision of the teachers and ard to the amount of labor required of each pupil, that it seeiven before

Each young lady spends, upon an average, one hour a day in do to the kind of work; theproportionately shorter than the light and easy ones The time occupied varies thus from forty-five to seventy minutes a day On the Sabbath, only about half an hour's work is required, while on Wednesday an additional half hour is necessary Usually one keeps the same work for a term or more, unless some interference with recitations, or other personal reason, e advisable Pupils are excused from their do temporarily supplied froular places of their own

The benefit to the health, of having a little daily exercise in doing house-work, was one of several considerations in viehich this plan was originally adopted This opinion is supported by long experience, and has also the sanction of high medical authority Dr Nathan Allen of Lowell ree 16; ”No kind of exercise or hatever is so well calculated to improve the constitution and health of fehtness, repetition, and variety, it is peculiarly adapted to call into wholeso an exuberance of health, vigor of frame, power of endurance, and elasticity of spirits; and to all these advantages are to be added the best possible dohest moral and intellectual culture”

Pupils often remark a decided improvement in their health under the combined influences of moderate and systematic mental labor, judicious exercise, both out of doors and within, and regular hours for eating and sleeping It should not be forgotten, however, that aht ailments in the course of a year, if not so at best inexperienced, as well as excitable and iirls are liable to expose their health in a thousand ways, notwithstanding all that careful mothers or teachers can do Mere physical robustness is of far less account in carrying one through an extended course of study than prudence and good sense Many a girl possessing these traits, though naturally delicate, has not only completed the Holyoke course with honor, but has found herself all the better able to meet the duties of more laborious years, on account of the systematic habits and practical efficiency acquired here It is hteen, on account of the greater maturity then to be expected, not only of the physical constitution, but also of the judgely depends

The following statistics show the coraduates froes for young men In each case they include a period of thirty years, closing generally with 1867, or within a year or two of that date They were originally compiled early in 1868, and eraduated at Mount Holyoke The war mortality is excluded in every case where it was separately stated in the college Triennial, as indicated below

GRADUATED DECEASED RATE PER CENT

Mount Holyoke Seminary 1,213 126 1039

Amherst 1,199 [51]135 1126

Bowdoin 1,012 [51]120 1185

Brown 972 120 1234

Dartmouth 1,639 276 1683

Harvard 2,326 [51]268 1152

Williams 1,215 123 1012

Yale 2,883 387 1342