Wellesley: the Girl Behind the Teapot

If all the teapots at Wellesley were laid end to end, the results would stagger anyone observing the Waban Wonderland.

The Pourer of Tea symbol in America can be construed to mean the community leader, the chairman of the neighborhood social service organizations--in short, the successful professional man's successful hausfrau. If the young lady is graduated from Wellesley College without this social leadership urge, she has no one to credit or blame but herself.

The urge seems to be produced by a conscious desire to learn, a sub-conscious desire to mature, and an unconscious desire to double-cross the double standard. It leads the Wellesley woman to take herself and her role in life pretty seriously. It led a graduate at a recent New York meeting of alumnae to proclaim that in the troubled world today "Wellesley must take the leadership ..."

Miss Margaret Clapp, the small, soft-spoken, and pleasant lady who has been President of the College since July 1949, is somewhat more restrained in her opinion of the role of Wellesley in the world. Admitting that "the career of a majority of women is homemaking and bringing up children," Miss Clapp is fully aware of the different immediate objectives of a man's and a woman's quest for education.

"But the final objective--the search for success--is the same. A man wants a successful career; for a woman, success is something far more difficult than making money. The woman is, after all, the maker of the family."

The President expresses pride in the "sound common sense" of her girls, and believes that it is the liberal, no-specific-career education of the institution that molds the Wellesley character. But the Wellesley social leader does not crawl out of a general education book. Probably the only words used more frequently than "Harvard" and "hairdo" on the campus are "tradition and honor," "honor and tradition."

"Tradition" dies not necessarily imply the colorful fluttering of Tree Day or the hub-bub of hooprolling, but a certain pattern of conformity that the Wellesley girl, in spite of her acclamation of freedom, slips into until the habit becomes a part of the responsibility.

The aspects of this Wellesleyite personality range from, in most cases, a strictly formalized dating relationship to community social graces practiced among the girls themselves. No young man in his right mind calls an attractive Wellesley girl less than two or three weeks in advance for a weekend date. The days of "running over to see the girl next door" are past, and cut-throat competition between most of the men's colleges of the northeast keep the desirable Wellesleyite--and so many of them are--in a furor of knitting crimson, orange, green, and blue socks.

The Formality Terrifies

The simplest forms of dating have become terrifyingly formal under the Wellesley system. With a few fortunate exceptions, almost any date becomes an occasion, and the gentleman in question often leaves town with a well-scrutinized feeling. Senior Class President Meredith Cushman, writing an advice column in a recent national magazine, said "Guests should remember they are one display. After a prom, the post-weekend discussions may go on for two or three weeks."

Certainly none of this tradition does Wellesley differ from a number of other girl's colleges, although most other schools with an equal degree of formalized social intercourse are located with far less proximity to ready, willing, and relatively able suitors. The "game girl" is not rare, but she is less predominant than in many other schools--the Meadows, in all its antiseptic and costly glory, is still the most popular spot on the Turnpike. In a recent poll a "high-heel night-in-Boston date" actually finished ahead of "a college weekend or fraternity party."

The Wellesley Tea Party

The formal relationship with males, however, only molds a small part of the Wellesley character. A greater part grows out of relationships between student and faculty, student and administration, and between the girls themselves.

Astounding quantities of insipid British blends pour out, of the Wellesley teapots every day. The faculty has teas for students. The students have teas for the faculty. The faculty and administration swap teas. Every dormitory has a weekly tea. Societies bring in new pledges through a system of "open" and "closed" teas. Teas vary in tone from the high-heeled formality of administrative, faculty, and alumnae gatherings to the lower echelon custom of assuming varying degrees of proximity to the floor.

But formal or informal, the sense of community responsibility in this college often makes the student a habitue of social intercourse above and beyond the call of duty.

There is no compulsory chapel, but some dormitory members join in a hymn of thanks before the evening meal. There are few formal house meetings, but girls in many of the dormitories take advantage of pre-dinner gatherings to arise and inquire as to the whereabouts of a strayed black Schaeffer fountain pen.

There are no compulsory classes, but a great majority of students are up at 7:30 a.m. for breakfast.

A similar social consciousness carries through into the undergraduate's every action. An alumna tells the story of this spring's version of a traditional Wellesley rite--theft of the sophomore banner by freshmen. In an unusually spirited retaliation, the sophomores kidnapped the president of the freshman class and held her overnight in ransom for their flag. "Of course," the alumna adds quickly, "they asked the permission of the Dean of Students first."

Wellesley's Honor System only adds to the feeling of social consciousness and community responsibility. A great majority of girls fervently deny ever having observed a classmate cheating during an exam, and most daters are unusually severe with themselves on the exact time of their sign-ins.

All of the above righteousness would be very pleasing to the College's founder of 1875, a Mr. Henry Fowle Durante. Durant, a Harvard man who was born in Hanover, New Hampshire (and who changed his name from Smith because there were far too many Boston lawyers named Smith) had originally planned to call the College the Wellesley Female Seminary.

Almost a Seminary

The one prominent holdover from Mr. Durant's Seminary days is a course in Biblical History required of all sophomores. Aside from this the Wellesley curriculum is very similar to that of Harvard, a system on concentration and distribution of courses having been in effect approximately the same length of time as that of the Cambridge institution. Also the immediate post World War II period saw the rise of certain inter-departmental basic courses, roughly parallel to Harvard's General Education series.

The Wellesleyite concentrates and distributes about 15 hours a week, adds the usual great variance in class preparation time, and does not feel overworked.

The remainder of her time is roughly divisable into social, extracurricular, and athletic categories. Athletic facilities, while extensive, are far from overdone. The annual budgetary expenditure for the Barnswallows theatre group, for example, is equal to that for the upkeep of the entire Athletic Association.

Socialable Societies

Aside from the usual newspaper, radio, dramatic type activities, the College, while frowning upon sororities, sponsors six Societies, founded to work on bi-annual programs in relation to various interests, such as Elizabethan and modern drama, art, and music. A controversy last spring, in which it was claimed that the Societies were becoming too exclusive and sorority-like produced a rapid ruling that any member of the College who wished to do so could join a Society at some time during her school career.

For all this and more the Wellesleyite pays through the nose, to the average tune of some $2500 per year--a large part of this falling in the catch-all category of personal expenses. High tuition, room, and board rates are traceable to the fact that few alumnae die and leave fortunes to Wellesley. The alumnae's husbands die and leave the money to Harvard.

And it is little use to ask the Wellesleyite why she chosen to romp these fertile pastures. An administrative poll conducted last fall showed that a majority chose Wellesley for its high academic standing, while less than one percent sited the proximity to Harvard and M.I.T. A high administrative, official, however, shrugs and says, "I'm, not so naive as to consider this completely accurate." The high administrative official is undoubtedly right.

Most of the girls Wellesley as they find it, but some 25 percent disappear between freshman and senior classes to join coed schools. But for those who remain, no matter how diversified the academic interests, tradition and honor leave their mark. Wellesley will continue, for many generations to come, to be a minor tempest behind the Teapot of American society