The question of writing in colleges is now so much discussed that this collection of work published in the college magazine at Mount Holyoke between 1891 and the present, and printed now almost exactly as it first appeared, may have some claim to attention aside from that which a generous alumnae interest will prompt. The book was undertaken to show the best of what Mount Holyoke girls have written, but once the manuscript was got together it proved to be a far more interesting thing, a sort of footnote to college history, alive with the successive interests of the different years and shaped as the college has been shaped. In general, moreover, the book is very fairly representative of the writing that girls do in college, both under compulsion and of their own initiative. The editors are proud to add it to the general celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the college in 1837.
A reminiscence of childhood is usually the first theme required from a girl in college. It is not a bad exercise and is often productive of charming little essays, more or less influenced by Mrs. Burnett, Kenneth Grahame, and Stevenson. They are printed in the college magazines year after year; often they are more interesting to their authors than to any one else, - a characteristic, however, that attaches to most reminiscence. Still, these tales of childhood, half essay, half story, are one of the things the college girl is capable of doing really well. She is near enough her own childhood and interested enough in it from the stand-point of her newly acquired maturity to see in it material for artistic presentment.
The more ambitious stories that college girls write are almost invariably of one of two kinds: little tales of suburban or college society and serious studies of New England country life. The stories of the first sort are everywhere rarer than one would expect. Occasionally some happy soul puts real gaiety into her work, but more often she falls either into flippancy or an accumulation of unessential detail. The other tales are a curious aftermath of the influence of Miss Wilkins, like her work in intent but without the understanding of human nature which she showed especially in her early stories. Work of this sort when written by college girls is serious, carefully elaborated, but sometimes unkind in attitude or so uncomfortably realistic as to be sordid. It is usually, because of lack of experience, far more creditable for the observation than for the insight it displays.
A similar lack of experience has its effect on the essays of undergraduates. Their papers are likely to be youthfully arrogant, with a self-conscious air of authority, or else - at the other extreme - painfully labored, badly overcrowded with conscientious detail, and above all things cautious. The aroma of red ink hangs over even the best of them.
One other kind of prose, however, is by contrast well done in college - hortatory expositions of an almost legal turn, developing and discussing questions of college interest. On these points the authors have their opinions, which they express clearly and decisively. Examples of such writing unfortunately can find no place in such a collection as this, as their subject matter has no permanent value.
When it comes to verse, the college girl is more successful than in any of her prose. She can seize a single moment of emotion or a delicate phase of beauty and put it into a few lines, unfinished sometimes but nevertheless suggestive and sincere. It is fun for her to play with words and verse-forms, and she need do no sustained thinking, as she must in all but the most trifling prose. She grasps the form easily, makes it a handy tool, and enjoys using it.
The truth of these generalizations may be judged fairly enough from the material that follows. It is for the most part indicative of undergraduate work at all women's colleges. Naturally, however, it is more particularly significant of Mount Holyoke virtues and shortcomings. The students there have had and still have, as the book will show, power to write interesting and directly appealing verse, sympathetic sketches of childhood, and serious, well-studied stories. They do not, however, write humorous tales, handled with a touch that is light without being flippant, and keen without being cheaply cynical. Perhaps the reason why is a lingering conviction that it is hardly right to spend real labor on a funny tale. A soul-struggle is apparently thought better worth the attention of the New England student mind.
The elements that are needed are a new and more normal point of view in the more serious stories, a sympathy at once more vital and discerning, more attention to lighter stories and essays, and, above all, more practice in technique. Some of these elements cannot reasonably be looked for. They would require a broader experience than an undergraduate can have. Others might perhaps be fostered if there were in the college community more interest in producing as well as in teaching literature. The work of undergraduates would be tremendously improved if more of the lighter element, in particular, could be added.
Many of the faults of college work are due unquestionably to the conditions of college life. The wonder perhaps is that the girls write at all. They have little time for quiet thinking, and none for thinking that cannot be turned into classroom currency. They are introspective, subjective - as indeed their age and occupation demand - and unfortunately most self-conscious, both as to their emotions and as to their literary aspirations. How much of this is a necessary evil, incident to the American system of theme-writing, now so vigorously attacked, is a question. The irritable, persecuted attitude of the rank and file does have its effect on even those students who "would write under any conditions"; but, on the other hand, many opportunities for work and criticism are not utilized as they might be.
Professional standards are out of place in a consideration of college work. It is bound for the most part to be amateurish and tentative, not to say imitative; but the fact that it is in a distinct class by itself gives it a right to standards of its own, - standards which are the only fair ones by which to judge it. That sort of consideration we hope the book will receive, and we offer it quite frankly for exactly what it is.