e Constitution of the United States; for woman's dress
obeys always the higher law. Masculine opinion is of no value on this
point, and the Drawer is aware of the fact that if it thinks the cap and
gown becoming, it may imperil the cap-and-gown cause to say so; but the
cold truth is that the habit gives a plain girl distinction, and a
handsome girl gives the habit distinction. So that, aside from the
mysterious working of feminine motive, which makes woman a law unto
herself, there should be practical unanimity in regard to this habit.
There is in the cap and gown a subtle suggestion of the union of learning
with womanly charm that is very captivating to the imagination. On the
other hand, all this may go for nothing with the girl herself, who is
conscious of the possession of quite other powers and attractions in a
varied and constantly changing toilet, which can reflect her moods from
hour to hour. So that if it is admitted that this habit is almost
universally becoming today, it might, in the inscrutable depths of the
feminine nature--the something that education never can and never should
change--be irksome tomorrow, and we can hardly imagine what a blight to a
young spirit there might be in three hundred and sixty-five days of
uniformity.

The devotees of the higher education will perhaps need to approach the
subject from another point of view--namely, what they are willing to
surrender in order to come into a distinctly scholastic influence. The
cap and gown are scholastic emblems. Primarily they marked the student,
and not alliance with any creed or vows to any religious order. They
belong to the universities of learning, and today they have no more
ecclesiastic meaning than do the gorgeous robes of the Oxford chancellor
and vice-chancellor and the scarlet hood. From the scholarly side, then,
if not from the dress side, there is much to be said for the cap and
gown. They are badges of devotion, for the time being, to an intellectual
life.

They help the mind in its effort to set itself apart to unworldly
pursuits; they are indications of separateness from the prevailing
fashions and frivolities. The girl who puts on the cap and gown devotes
herself to the society which is avowedly in pursuit of a larger
intellectual sympathy and a wider intellectual 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