There is no compulsory chapel, but some dormitory members join in a hymn of thanks before the evening meal. There are few formal house meetings, but girls in many of the dormitories take advantage of pre-dinner gatherings to arise and inquire as to the whereabouts of a strayed black Schaeffer fountain pen.

There are no compulsory classes, but a great majority of students are up at 7:30 a.m. for breakfast.

A similar social consciousness carries through into the undergraduate's every action. An alumna tells the story of this spring's version of a traditional Wellesley rite--theft of the sophomore banner by freshmen. In an unusually spirited retaliation, the sophomores kidnapped the president of the freshman class and held her overnight in ransom for their flag. "Of course," the alumna adds quickly, "they asked the permission of the Dean of Students first."

Wellesley's Honor System only adds to the feeling of social consciousness and community responsibility. A great majority of girls fervently deny ever having observed a classmate cheating during an exam, and most daters are unusually severe with themselves on the exact time of their sign-ins.

All of the above righteousness would be very pleasing to the College's founder of 1875, a Mr. Henry Fowle Durante. Durant, a Harvard man who was born in Hanover, New Hampshire (and who changed his name from Smith because there were far too many Boston lawyers named Smith) had originally planned to call the College the Wellesley Female Seminary.

Almost a Seminary

The one prominent holdover from Mr. Durant's Seminary days is a course in Biblical History required of all sophomores. Aside from this the Wellesley curriculum is very similar to that of Harvard, a system on concentration and distribution of courses having been in effect approximately the same length of time as that of the Cambridge institution. Also the immediate post World War II period saw the rise of certain inter-departmental basic courses, roughly parallel to Harvard's General Education series.

The Wellesleyite concentrates and distributes about 15 hours a week, adds the usual great variance in class preparation time, and does not feel overworked.

The remainder of her time is roughly divisable into social, extracurricular, and athletic categories. Athletic facilities, while extensive, are far from overdone. The annual budgetary expenditure for the Barnswallows theatre group, for example, is equal to that for the upkeep of the entire Athletic Association.

Socialable Societies

Aside from the usual newspaper, radio, dramatic type activities, the College, while frowning upon sororities, sponsors six Societies, founded to work on bi-annual programs in relation to various interests, such as Elizabethan and modern drama, art, and music. A controversy last spring, in which it was claimed that the Societies were becoming too exclusive and sorority-like produced a rapid ruling that any member of the College who wished to do so could join a Society at some time during her school career.

For all this and more the Wellesleyite pays through the nose, to the average tune of some $2500 per year--a large part of this falling in the catch-all category of personal expenses. High tuition, room, and board rates are traceable to the fact that few alumnae die and leave fortunes to Wellesley. The alumnae's husbands die and leave the money to Harvard.

And it is little use to ask the Wellesleyite why she chosen to romp these fertile pastures. An administrative poll conducted last fall showed that a majority chose Wellesley for its high academic standing, while less than one percent sited the proximity to Harvard and M.I.T. A high administrative, official, however, shrugs and says, "I'm, not so naive as to consider this completely accurate." The high administrative official is undoubtedly right.

Most of the girls Wellesley as they find it, but some 25 percent disappear between freshman and senior classes to join coed schools. But for those who remain, no matter how diversified the academic interests, tradition and honor leave their mark. Wellesley will continue, for many generations to come, to be a minor tempest behind the Teapot of American society