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The Mail WOMEN

By Anne R. Thornton president

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

It was with unmitigated horror that I read the article on Wellesley in December 16's CRIMSON: It is compelling evidence, not that Wellesley has a place in education today, as the article purported to prove, but rather that Wellesley and schools like it are a major part of the female problem. In particular I was bothered by the justification that at Wellesley.

1. women do not have to worry about competing with men, and

2. non-career oriented women do not have to specialize, but can become "well-rounded" in the liberal arts.

Both of these concepts point in the same direction-Wellesley is turning out obsolete and useless graduates in a time when we can ill afford to waste educational facilities on training dilettantes. To quote from the article, "in this age of increasingly necessary specialization a women's college may remain the only place where a true liberal arts education can survive." (Emphasis added.) Survive for what reason? The obsolescence of Wellesley's graduates is especially tragic in light of our current misallocation of national resources. Universities-if they do not train the majority of their students to deal directly with the needs of the society-are misallocating resources too. While college doors are still closed to the majority of our population, colleges like Wellesley somehow find it possible to devote their time to teaching women to spend their leisure time more creatively. To be honest, I do not believe that such a picture of Wellesley is fair, but it is certainly the one painted by this article written by three Wellesley girls.

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