l life. The enduring of this
habit will have a confirming influence on her purposes, and help to keep
her up to them. It is like the uniform to the soldier or the veil to the
nun--a sign of separation and devotion. It is difficult in this age to
keep any historic consciousness, any proper relations to the past. In the
cap and gown the girl will at least feel that she is in the line of the
traditions of pure learning. And there is also something of order and
discipline in the uniforming of a community set apart for an unworldly
purpose. Is it believed that three or four years of the kind of
separateness marked by this habit in the life of a girl will rob her of
any desirable womanly quality?

The cap and gown are only an emphasis of the purpose to devote a certain
period to the higher life, and if they cannot be defended, then we may
begin to be skeptical about the seriousness of the intention of a higher
education. If the school is merely a method of passing the time until a
certain event in the girl's life, she had better dress as if that event
were the only one worth considering. But if she wishes to fit herself for
the best married life, she may not disdain the help of the cap and gown
in devoting herself to the highest culture. Of course education has its
dangers, and the regalia of scholarship may increase them. While our
cap-and-gown divinity is walking in the groves of Academia, apart from
the ways of men, her sisters outside may be dancing and dressing into the
affections of the marriageable men. But this is not the worst of it. The
university girl may be educating herself out of sympathy with the
ordinary possible husband. But this will carry its own cure. The educated
girl will be so much more attractive in the long-run, will have so many
more resources for making a life companionship agreeable, that she will
be more and more in demand. And the young men, even those not expecting
to take up a learned profession, will see the advantage of educating
themselves up to the cap-and-gown level. We know that it is the office of
the university to raise the standard of the college, and of the college
to raise the standard of the high school. It will be the inevitable
result that these young ladies, setting themselves apart for a period to
the intellectual life, will raise the standard of the young men, and of
married life generally. And there is nothing supercilious in the
invitation of the cap-and-gown brigade to the yo