Girls Help Govern

GIRLS HELP GOVERN.

Straws That Show Which Way Wind Is Setting.

Are women to take part in government in the future? Yeah, they are, if signs mean anything. The beginning of the present year marked in two quite different places a movement that recognizes fully woman's right and power to govern. In one instance the right to govern themselves was conceded to the girls in a girls' school; in the other the coequal right of woman with man to make and administer laws was fully recognized and put into operation.

At Vassar college has existed for years a student's association for the mutual benefit and pleasure of its members, but the organization had until recently little or no voice in the discipline or government of the institution. That was conducted old style--on the one hand, a faculty whose rule was despotic or otherwise, as happened, but in all cases one from which there was no appeal, while the students were automatons, whose only role was to obey.

Now this old-timey regime has been changed. The faculty granted to the students' association a chart of its own, and that charter, like the constitution of the United States, conferred on the young women certain rights that not even the faculty can take away. The rights also involve duties, and among these are the maintenance of order in the college buildings and grounds, quiet during study hours and the establishing of all regulations for open air exercise. The powers that be still claim the right to "boss" the gymnasium, it seems. On the supposition that girls do not know what is good for them the right to enforce attendance on chapel service is reserved to the faculty. Perhaps they thought there could not be power enough in a student's governing board to make the girls go to chapel. The faculty and college trustees still hold a checkrein on the young ladies, but it is a longer, looser one than ever before it was, Vassar distinctly recognizing that even a girl is a responsible creature and that in the main she can behave herself without being watched. This is a very great gain for a girl's school.

In the second instance it is not women or young ladies who take part in government, but just public school girls, in Pennsylvania high school at Williamsport. The principal, Professor W. W. Keichner, to his credit be it spoken, devised the educational republic wherein pupils themselves, and girls as well as boys, are members of the legislature. Despotism in school government, as elsewhere, seems to be passing.

The Williamsport scheme embraces a constitution and bylaws under which the co-sex legislature works. It consists of two bodies, of which the board of education may be called the senate; the other, including pupils and two members of the faculty, is the house of representatives. The preamble to the constitution says among other things:

"Realizing that we can repay the city and the state best by becoming good citizens and believing that self government in school affords the best training for a broader citizenship, we hereby institute a representative government under the following conditions," etc.

This preparation for broad citizenship includes girls as well as boys, mark you. Further, the admirable document governing the deliberations of this enlightened legislature, more enlightened than the congress of the United States, provides that the board of governors shall consist of two members of the faculty and "A boy and girl from each class." Following along the line of perfect sex equality a lady and gentleman from the faculty were chosen to represent that body on the governing board. A boy is president and a girl is secretary and treasurer. One notable feature of this system of government is that not even the board of education itself can pass regulations for the government of the pupils unless their own board concurs in the measure. They themselves help make the rules and help pass sentence on those who break them. Instead of being reported to a teacher, disorderly or improper conduct is reported to the board composed mostly of pupils themselves, and they pass sentence. This excellent arrangement will prevent schoolgirls from acquiring the name of spies and tattlers, which some of them occasionally get.

Eleanor Winkelmann.

Illustration caption: The Governing Board At Work.