The Story of Wellesley [44]
This does not mean, however, that the graduate work is not on a sound basis. Wellesley has not yet exercised her right to give the Doctor's degree, but expert testimony, outside the college, has declared that some of the Master's theses are of the doctorial grade in quality, if not in quantity; and the work for the Master's degree is said to be more difficult and more severely scrutinized than in some other colleges where the Doctor's degree is made the chief goal of the graduate student.
The college has in its gift the Alice Freeman Palmer Fellowship, founded in 1903 by Mrs. David P. Kimball of Boston, and yielding an income of about one thousand dollars. The holder must be a woman, a graduate of Wellesley or some other American college of approved standing; she must be "not more than twenty-six years of age at the time of her appointment, unmarried throughout the whole of her tenure, and as free as possible from other responsibilities." She may hold the fellowship for one year only, but "within three years from entrance on the fellowship she must present to the faculty a thesis embodying the results of the research carried on during the period of tenure."
Wellesley is proud of her Alice Freeman Palmer Fellows. Of the eleven who have held the Fellowship between 1904 and 1915, four are Wellesley graduates, Helen Dodd Cook, whose subject was Philosophy; Isabelle Stone, working in Greek; Gertrude Schopperle, in Comparative Literature; Laura Alandis Hibbard, in English Literature. Two are from Radcliffe, and one each from Cornell, Vassar, the University of Dakota, Ripon, and Goucher. The Fellow is left free to study abroad, in an American college or university, or to use the income for independent research. The list of universities at which these young women have studied is as impressive as it is long. It includes the American Schools for Classical Studies at Athens and Rome; the universities of Gottingen, Wurzburg, Munich, Paris, and Cambridge, England; and Yale, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Chicago.
This is not the place in which to give a detailed account of the work of each one of Wellesley's academic departments. Any intelligent person who turns the pages of the official calendar may easily discover that the standard of admission and the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts place Wellesley in the first rank among American colleges, whether for men or for women. But every woman's college, besides conforming to the general standard, is making its own contribution to the higher education of women. At Wellesley, the methods in certain departments have gained a deservedly high reputation.
The Department of Art, under Professor Alice V.V. Brown, formerly of the Slater Museum of Norwich, Connecticut, is doing a work in the proper interpretation and history of art as unique as it is valuable. The laboratory method is used, and all students are required to recognize and indicate the characteristic qualities and attributes of the great masters and the different schools of paintings by sketching from photographs of the pictures studied. These five and ten minute sketches by young girls, the majority of whom have had no training in drawing, are remarkable for the vivacity and accuracy with which they reproduce the salient features of the great paintings. The students are of course given the latest results of the modern school of art criticism. In addition to the work with undergraduates, the department offers courses to graduate students who wish to prepare themselves for curatorships, or lectureships in art museums, and Wellesley women occupy positions of trust in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, in the Boston Art Museum, in museums in Chicago, Worcester, and elsewhere. The "Short History of Italian Painting" by Professor Brown and Mr. William Rankin is a standard authority.
The Department of Music, working quite independently of the Department of Art, has also adapted laboratory methods to its own ends with unusual results. Under Professor Hamilton C. Macdougall, the head of the
The college has in its gift the Alice Freeman Palmer Fellowship, founded in 1903 by Mrs. David P. Kimball of Boston, and yielding an income of about one thousand dollars. The holder must be a woman, a graduate of Wellesley or some other American college of approved standing; she must be "not more than twenty-six years of age at the time of her appointment, unmarried throughout the whole of her tenure, and as free as possible from other responsibilities." She may hold the fellowship for one year only, but "within three years from entrance on the fellowship she must present to the faculty a thesis embodying the results of the research carried on during the period of tenure."
Wellesley is proud of her Alice Freeman Palmer Fellows. Of the eleven who have held the Fellowship between 1904 and 1915, four are Wellesley graduates, Helen Dodd Cook, whose subject was Philosophy; Isabelle Stone, working in Greek; Gertrude Schopperle, in Comparative Literature; Laura Alandis Hibbard, in English Literature. Two are from Radcliffe, and one each from Cornell, Vassar, the University of Dakota, Ripon, and Goucher. The Fellow is left free to study abroad, in an American college or university, or to use the income for independent research. The list of universities at which these young women have studied is as impressive as it is long. It includes the American Schools for Classical Studies at Athens and Rome; the universities of Gottingen, Wurzburg, Munich, Paris, and Cambridge, England; and Yale, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Chicago.
This is not the place in which to give a detailed account of the work of each one of Wellesley's academic departments. Any intelligent person who turns the pages of the official calendar may easily discover that the standard of admission and the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts place Wellesley in the first rank among American colleges, whether for men or for women. But every woman's college, besides conforming to the general standard, is making its own contribution to the higher education of women. At Wellesley, the methods in certain departments have gained a deservedly high reputation.
The Department of Art, under Professor Alice V.V. Brown, formerly of the Slater Museum of Norwich, Connecticut, is doing a work in the proper interpretation and history of art as unique as it is valuable. The laboratory method is used, and all students are required to recognize and indicate the characteristic qualities and attributes of the great masters and the different schools of paintings by sketching from photographs of the pictures studied. These five and ten minute sketches by young girls, the majority of whom have had no training in drawing, are remarkable for the vivacity and accuracy with which they reproduce the salient features of the great paintings. The students are of course given the latest results of the modern school of art criticism. In addition to the work with undergraduates, the department offers courses to graduate students who wish to prepare themselves for curatorships, or lectureships in art museums, and Wellesley women occupy positions of trust in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, in the Boston Art Museum, in museums in Chicago, Worcester, and elsewhere. The "Short History of Italian Painting" by Professor Brown and Mr. William Rankin is a standard authority.
The Department of Music, working quite independently of the Department of Art, has also adapted laboratory methods to its own ends with unusual results. Under Professor Hamilton C. Macdougall, the head of the