WHY GO TO COLLEGE? an Address

BY ALICE FREEMAN PALMER
Formerly President of Wellesley College




To a largely increasing number of young girls college doors are
opening every year. Every year adds to the number of men who
feel as a friend of mine, a successful lawyer in a great city, felt
when in talking of the future of his four little children he said,
"For the two boys it is not so serious, but I lie down at night
afraid to die and leave my daughters only a bank account." Year
by year, too, the experiences of life are teaching mothers that
happiness does not necessarily come to their daughters when
accounts are large and banks are sound, but that on the contrary
they take grave risks when they trust everything to accumulated
wealth and the chance of a happy marriage. Our American girls
themselves are becoming aware that they need the stimulus, the
discipline, the knowledge, the interests of the college in addition
to the school, if they are to prepare themselves for the most
serviceable lives.

But there are still parents who say, "There is no need that my
daughter should teach; then why should she go to college?" I will
not reply that college training is a life insurance for a girl,
a pledge that she possesses the disciplined ability to earn a
living for herself and others in case of need, for I prefer to
insist on the importance of giving every girl, no matter what her