Brenda's Cousin at Radcliffe: a Story for Girls
Copyright© 2024 by Helen Leah Reed
Chapter 8: The Mid-Years
“It’s comical, isn’t it, to see those woe-begone faces erstwhile so gay and cheerful?” said Clarissa, meeting Julia one morning in January at the foot of the main stairs of Fay House. “Let us stand here and watch the martyrs pass.”
“Laughing at your fellow sufferers!” responded Julia; “surely you are not out of misery yourself.”
“No, indeed, I have two more; but I’d rather die with my boots on, as the miners say, than be killed by inches. Now just look there!”
As Clarissa spoke two girls approached, one stumbling along with her eyes fixed on a book, the other wearing dark green glasses that made her pale face look almost ghostly.
“You can’t pass without speaking!” Clarissa’s voice compelled attention, and the girl with the book looked up, showing the usually bright face of Elspeth Gray, while the girl in glasses responded in the accents of Polly Porson.
“I’m nearly dead, I really am, with one examination to-day and another to-morrow! I had a perfectly lovely time the first week, for not one of my mid-years came early. I went to two matinées and a Symphony Concert, had a girl from New York over to spend the week with me; but the next week when I began to study I found I’d lost the taste for cramming, and I’ve sat up nights since. It was three A.M. when I went to bed last night, or this morning—which was it?—and my eyes are nearly wrecked.”
Polly from a seat on the stairs looked up at Clarissa, who was standing in front of her.
“I’m glad that I can’t see very well,” she continued. “I should hate to discover that you were laughing at me, Clarissa.”
“Well, I do think that you are very silly.” Clarissa drew herself up. “Look at me! I’ve gained two pounds since the first of January.”
“Why! haven’t you had to work? You are an exception, and this is only your first year, too.”
“Certainly I have been working,” responded Clarissa, “but I haven’t been worrying. There’s little difference to me ‘twixt ‘A’ and ‘B’ and ‘C’ and ‘D.’”
“Very well,” said a Junior, overhearing, “we shall see. I felt that way myself when I was a Freshman. But a change came over the spirit of my dream when I received my marks. I’d always thought myself a pretty bright person before that, but when I found that I had nothing higher than a ‘B,’ and that in only one course, while ‘C’s’ were alarmingly prevalent on my record, I made up my mind after that to take examinations seriously. I did better in June—I really did.”
“Yes, indeed,” interposed Polly. “I mean to do better in June myself.”
“According to your own account, you did not plan well for these mid-years. Wouldn’t it have been better to have spent an hour or two earlier in the year in study instead of cramming it into a week? Wouldn’t that have been more consistent?” asked Julia.
“It might have been more consistent,” responded Polly, “but it wouldn’t have been half as pleasant. I never did believe that consistency was a diamond of the first water. Besides, it’s much more exciting to leave most of your work to the last. If I were running a race I’d always make my greatest effort on the last round. To be sure, I’d feel a little better now if my eyes weren’t so troublesome. But I must go on. Elspeth and I have some German to attack—just a trifle, you know: ‘Minna von Barnhelm,’ ‘Wilhelm Tell,’ ‘Iphigenia,’ and one or two other little things of that kind,” and she made a gesture of affected carelessness. “Well, good-bye! Elspeth furnishes eyes for me at present, and looks up all the words in the dictionary, while I provide the free translations. Free enough,” she concluded with a laugh, as she disappeared up the stairs.
“There,” cried Clarissa, “I can see that Polly is worried. She’s been summoned to the office once or twice for cutting, I hear. She told of it herself,” she added, lest Julia should wonder how Clarissa had learned this.
Many Radcliffe girls, undoubtedly, took their examinations too severely. They withdrew to their rooms at the beginning of the mid-years, and came out only to get books from the library or for examinations. Yet though cramming is a bad habit, it is so firmly fixed on all students that until examinations themselves are abolished it will last. Poor students, who have wasted the lecture hours and neglected the prescribed reading, cram because otherwise they might fail outright, and so bring their college course to an untimely end. Good students, who have neglected nothing through the term, cram to assure themselves that they have done the very best by their chosen subjects. Between the men and the women students of Cambridge, however, there is one marked point of difference. With the growth of Harvard the profession of tutor is of increasing importance. Young men of small money and large ability after their Freshman year often defray the greater part of their expenses by tutoring. Many, indeed, of the youths who seek the aid of tutors have never even tried to keep up with the regular lectures. By some occult reasoning they calculate that it requires less mental effort to wait until the approach of the examinations for their great spurt. The gist of the courses they desire is then given them by an expert who in a few hours covers the work of the half-year. Lazy men, athletic men, and men lacking the mental momentum to carry them through college are the mainstay of numbers of impecunious students. Radcliffe as yet has had no attractions for girls disinclined to study. The majority have had high standing in the preparatory schools, and they go to college intending to do their best. If the Polly Porsons have been inattentive to some lectures, or if they have neglected part of their reading, they work with a will in the weeks just before examinations. But they scorn the help of tutors, or of printed notes. At the worst they borrow the note-books of some other girl, or they meet in little groups of two or three to put one another to the test with difficult questions. Informal meetings of this kind are the nearest thing that Radcliffe can show to the Seminars (disapproved by the Faculty), devised for the smoothing of the way for Harvard students.
Clarissa was one of those who liked to study in company.
“I am twice as sure of myself when I have done a little thinking aloud. Come on, Polly, one more hour will make us perfect in English. I need you to hear me say the ‘Canons,’ and exercise me a little on ‘shall’ and ‘will,’ and then I shall know whole pages of the English Literature Primer. It’s too bad that we haven’t had more courses together, for we work together splendidly; don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” said Polly, “especially as you have eyes and I haven’t. I am going to make up questions out of my head to test you, for I mustn’t look much on my book.”
“Oh, that will be all right,” responded Clarissa. “Besides, I have some examination papers—those of the past two or three years—and I am going to use them for your especial torment. It will strengthen your mind to answer the questions.”
“Thank you, but if my mind required strengthening I don’t believe that cramming would help. A cup of good strong coffee would be more to the point.”
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