New Spence

When Manhattan top-hatted and bustled into the 90's the late Clara B. Spence founded a school for girls. Extremely correct, it was on 48th street, just off Fifth Avenue--a school for gentlewomen. Even Manhattan's late Social Arbiter Ward McAllister approved. Last week in Manhattan's soon-to-be-destroyed Hotel Waldorf Astoria of which Arbiter McAllister also approved, 500 Spence alumnae and their parents gathered for dinner. Yale University's President James Rowland Angell and Steelman Charles M. Schwab were speakers. The news was that the Spence School, now no longer privately owned, has a new headmistress: Miss Helen Clarkson Miller, onetime associate principal and History of Art teacher. She served during the War as director of Training School for canteen workers, and is now on many educational committees, among them the International Relations Committee of World Federation of Educational Association. She is successor to Miss Charlotte. S. Baker, now president of the Board of Trustees, onetime principal. Spence is deserting its old buildings to move into nine Georgian floors farther uptown--still just off Fifth Avenue. Money must be raised. Barnard's Dean Gildersleeve was called in to make (gratis) a stirring campaign speech and alumnae last week received a rousing, well-printed money-appeal. Needed is $1,000,000 and: "Naturally . . . there must be a few gifts of $25,000, $50,000, and $100,000 and many of $5,000 and upwards. . . . To enable the school's friends to make such gifts a program has been worked out so that subscriptions may be made payable over a period of five years. . . ." Such big-figured talk dismayed most young alumnae-solicitors with modest-salaried brothers and husbands. But they set bravely to work for the cause of genteel education. To elicit contributions they prepared an inventory of Spence's educational assets in terms of the teachers who helped make Spence famous. Miss Grace A. McElroy, who used to be Miss Spence's secretary and later (with Miss Miller) an associate principal, was resigning and had been elected Associate Principal Emeritus by the Board of Trustees who wish to consult her on educational policy. Three of the old regime teachers will not go with the school to its new quarters: Miss Laura V. Tanner, of the English Department, and History Teachers Kate B. Reynolds and Theodora Bartlett. Oldtimers who will not depart, and whom alumnae classify variously as "meanies" and "peaches," are the Misses Emily Crawford (Latin), Edith Marsden (Geography), Emily Bennett (English), Elizabeth Allen (Mathematics), Josie Herbert (English), Fedora Edgar and Alice C. Hubbard (Art), Annie M. (Latin) and Mary L. (Literature) Brinckerhoff.

Particularly pleasing to careful mothers throughout the country is Spence. Since its founding it has remained Manhattan's strictest, most fashionable boarding school. Preparatory School youths who telephone Spence inamoratas find they may not speak to them. The pupils who take their exercise on Fifth Avenue or through Central Park are chaperoned with utmost vigilance. Whether teaching Shakespeare or speaking to her Chinese butler, Thomas, or playing with her two Pekinese, Miss Spence always used to insist upon "tone." Her purpose was "to develop a perfect gentlewoman, intellectually firm, and having, poise, simplicity and graciousness." The new trustees, and the revitalized alumnae were fully prepared to ensure that the new Spence should not fall short of the old.

In Manhattan other famed girls' schools are the intellectually alive Brearley's; aristocratic, simple Miss Chapin's, lenient Finch. Famed private school principals throughout the country are Miss Marion Coats of the Sarah Lawrence Junior College, The Bronx; progressive Miss Elizabeth Johnson of the Baldwin School, Bryn Mawr, Pa.; Miss Eliza Kellas of well-equipped Emma Willard School in Troy, N. Y.; sound, slightly reactionary Miss Mira Hall of Miss Hall's in Pittsfield. Mass.; Miss Helen Tempte Cooke ("Dean of Girls' Schools"') of Dana Hall, Wellesley, Mass.

Outstanding in the Midwest is Tudor Hall, Indianapolis, established by the late Miss Fredonia Allen "who brought Eastern culture to-the Midwest." Connecticut neighbors are Farmington, fashionable and not strict, and the Ethel Walker School where girls are seldom allowed to walk outside the gates. Virginia's Foxcroft stresses manners and sports, as does the more intellectual Rosemary in Greenwich, Conn. Westover in Middlebury, Conn., insists upon its selectivity. The Masters School at Dobbs Ferry, N. Y., is proud of its social standing and religious training. Castilleja School in California is the most famed of Western girls' schools.