The Columbian Reading Union [pp. 902-904]

THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
ALL COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO READING CIRCLES, LISTS OF BOOKS,
ETC., SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION, NO.
4I5 WEST FIFTY-NINTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
HE Librarian of Congress, Mr. A. R. Spofford, is a reliable authority for the
- statement that in no other period of American literature has there been so
much writing and publishing as at the present time. Formerly authors relied almost wholly upon the book publishers; the modern literary syndicate had no existence. The United States had ten years ago less than half the number of
reviews, magazines, and periodicals now in the market. The total for I893 is
ten hundred and fifty-one, as contrasted with a total of four hundred and twentyeight in the year I883. The best writers are sought-for by the magazines; many
excellent productions of recent years cannot be found in book-form. Among
librarians it is a common experience that the latest and best information on many
subjects is sought for by readers, not in books but in the back numbers of current
periodicals. Our Reading Circles will find ample opportunities for profitable
work in magazine literature. We wish to recommend again the practice of hav,.
ing passages from magazines and newspapers read and discussed at meetings, in
addition to the regular order of exercises.
** *
We are indebted to Helen Raymond Grey for the following notice of a recent book by a Catholic author, which has won high praise from the most competent judges. It is entitled TeA,4merican Girl at College, by Lida Rose McCabe,
and is published by Dodd,qMead & Co., New York. The facts set forth are the
result of a personal visit to each of the colleges under consideration-Vassar,
Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Harvard Annex, Mt. Holyoke, and the Woman's
College. While a vast number of American girls are possessed of the desire of a
college degree, few of them understand how to make the choice of an Alma Mater; also, while many parents are willing enough to let their daughters study to
their hearts' content, objections to and uncomplimentary valuations of the college
girl are so numerous upon all sides that older people are apt to doubt for a while
and ultimately conclude their girls will be better off at home, safe from being
thought "queer" and "masculine" and being christened "cranks." Miss McCabe does not shrink from the points either for or against a college education for
girls; but it would take an exceptionally biassed mind not to realize that, granting some faults which are still to be overcome in some college-bred women, the
advantages more than atone for them. Remember the girl at college is still the
exception rather than the rule, although all the women's colleges are rapidly
growing. The conservatism which used to exist is rapidly disappearing, and
" Progress" is now the motto of those in charge of the higher education of women. Whatever narrowness might have been decried in former times as hampering both the faculty and students of women's colleges is happily a thing of the
past, and if anywhere a vestige of the early condition remains, it will soon be utterly swept away in the energetic effort of all interested in this advanced movement to give girls in every sense a "liberal" education. We should especially
recommend Miss McCabe's book to parents who are prejudiced against women's
colleges.
[.Mar.,
902