Gold Coast on the campus or in the village; money carries no
social prestige. More money is spent, and more frivolously, than
in the early days; there are more girls, and more rich girls, to
spend it; yet the indifference to it except as a mechanical
convenience, a medium of exchange and an opportunity for service,
continues to be naively Utopian.

But money is not the only touchstone of democratic sensitiveness.
At Wellesley there has always been uneasiness at the hint of
unequal opportunity. When the college grew so large that membership
in the six societies took on the aspect of special privilege,
restiveness was as marked among the privileged as among the
unprivileged, and more outspoken. The first result was the Barn
Swallows, a social and dramatic society to which every student
in college might belong if she wished. The second was the
reorganization of the six societies on a more democratic and
intellectual basis, to prevent "rushing", favoritism, cliques, and
all the ills that mutually exclusive clubs are heir to. The
agitation for these reforms came from the societies themselves,
and they endured with Spartan determination the months of transitional
misery and readjustment which their generous idealism brought upon
their heads.

Enthusiasm for equality also enters into the students' attitude
toward "the academic", and like most enthusiasts, from the French
Revolution down, they are capable of confusing the issue. In the
early days, they were not allowed to know their marks, lest the
knowledge should rouse an unworthy spirit of competition; and of
all the rules instituted by the founder, this is the one which
they have been most unwilling to see abolished. Silent Time they