Page 69 - 1930 October - To Dragma

68 To DRAGMAI

apparent punishment. For instance—to corner someone who you know
has signed out to attend a university play or function and has gone walk-,
ing with her boy friend instead and demand to know the details and fine
points of the performance. The agony and discomfort under such close
scrutiny are painful, and the results are very few repetitions of the same
offense. To insist on giving a dose of salts for a severe head cold when-
you know the tears and hysteria are caused only by the failure of a cer-
tain fraternity man to call at the proper time, and it is feared he might
be out with the rival "co-ed," is quite good.

To insist that it is only logical that the culprit, who has lingered one
moment too long with the "date" and arrived at the front door after
the key has turned the lock, shall report one half hour early each night
for two weeks to get her into good habits, is most effective.

To telephone a "co-ed" who has failed to come home and also failed
to leave a sign-out slip telling where she has gone late at night, and
insist on letting her in after you have waited up for her so long, has
its good points. The culprit must dash home alone, take a taxi or call
the boy friend to bring her, come in breathlessly and hope for as few
words as possible at the front door. This procedure, I admit, is un-
necessarily cruel. When the phone rings at the respective sorority
house, the girl just knows that the call is from the boy friend whom she
has that night entranced by her loveliness. He scarcely has been able
to stand the distance home before telephoning her, just to hear her voice
again. Then your cold and accusing voice, "You didn't sign out."

To advise with the air of assurance and experience in love, friend-
ship, and marriage problems, is a necessary feature. You must at all
times be alert, know others who have suffered as much, and more pos-
sibly, in similar conditions. You must be ready to talk late into the
night when the demand presents itself. Love affairs to college "co-eds":
are like acute appendix cases—they must be handled at once, orl
tragedy will result. You must at all times see the ridiculous in the ap-j
parent gloomy outlook of affairs and be the leavening agent—lighten-
the lump, as it were, until things seem better. You must attempt td
prove the value of a college education to blase people; on the other:
hand, you must make secure a foothold for those having great possin
bilities, who can't afford to go on. There is the sad, the ridiculous, the!
exciting, the discouraging, the gratifying, the ungratifying, the happy]
and the difficult about being a "Mother of Hundreds," but you'd love]
it just the same.

All this, and you know a little of what it is all about—as a bit of ex-i
planation it is my particular hobby or by-product for my nervous en-s
ergy. As a matter of fact, I am primarily a university teacher, professo
of home economics, and head of the department here at DePauw Unfc
versity.

Having secured my first thrill of entering college at D.P.U. in 19l9i
found my crimson ribbons awaiting me, my pledge pin and initiation^
it was no hardship to return here after graduation from Wisconsin in^
1923. As a freshman at D.P.U. and living in Mansfield Hall, I gainedj