Regimentation, Advantages of

The president of Wellesley College was an old sea dog now, and full of new tricks. Technically, Mildred Helen ("Captain Mac") McAfee Horton was still top officer of the WAVES. But, with the Navy's special permission, she was back (for the fourth month) at Wellesley.

Last week, wearing a bright yellow sweater and a sky-blue dress (by special permission of the Navy), Captain Mac gave a newsman a glimpse of the postwar course she plans to steer. She was full of what the WAVES had taught her. Said she: "I am more enthusiastic than ever about liberal education. I found that those people who were best able to adjust themselves to the difficulties of life in the service were those who had a broad educational background. This may not be true of men in combat. I don't know anything about that. But it was true of the people who were in dull, uninspiring work on unglamorous shore duty. A person who is liberally educated--one who has a good many resources and is able to adapt himself--is in a much stronger position to stand the gaff.

"I was convinced too that there are certain advantages in regimentation--of the keep-off-the-grass variety. Most of us lead a cluttered life and it seems to me that if some of the unimportant things could be decided for us it would give us more freedom to develop as individuals. I never want to impose on the Wellesley girls a uniform and one locker . . . but I found that even under such a discipline, a girl could express her individuality in the very way that she wore her cap.

"Once I came back to Wellesley to find students and faculty members involved in a long discussion as to whether town girls riding bicycles should use a certain path. The path ended on a main road where there was a great deal of traffic and it was dangerous. I sat for what seemed hours listening to the discussion and simply writhing. I thought to myself, 'Why not simply announce: No more bicycling on this path'?"

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