The Belles of Saint Mary’s
The Belles
OF SAINT MARY’S
Published every two weeks by the student body of
Saint Mary’s School
Editor Joyce Powell
Managing Editor . : Helen Ford
Exchange Editor Christine Hatfield
Faculty Adviser Mr. C. A. P. Moore
STAFF
Cornelia Clark Sue Harwood
Becky Barnhill Mary Taylor
Helen Kendrick Virginia Manning
Mary W. Douthat Hortense Miller
Erwin Gant Kathreen Massie
Julia Booker Martha Kight
Page Gannaway Ann Seeley
Nancy McKinley Martha Newell
Mary Elizabeth Nash Marian Jacob
Margaret Swindell
1939 Member 1940
Pssocided CoUe6iate Press
N. C. Collegiate Press Association
I GUESS I’LL HAVE
TO STAND IT
“Well, I didn’t want to go off to school, any
way, but Daddy made me.”
“Well, here I am, and I guess I’ll have to
stand it.”
“Well, why should I go out for things when
I don’t give a darn about school?”
You, as well as I, have probably heard such
comments often enough. Perhaps you agree
with them. And if you do, I feel sorry for you.
Do you know what you are missing ?
Beneath the daily routine of school activity
are deeper realities, not tangible, but neverthe
less existing. They are what give a chapel
service meaning, make an honor system work,
cause the creation of a “Circle.” They are
invisible forces underlying all student organiza
tions. They are what makes one girl stand out
from the crowd. They make a student body
president; they make every school leader. They
make the spirit of the school.
And, in turn, what makes the spirit of the
school is school spirit. So, if you will, call
these hidden forces school spirit; but they are
more than that. They are the harmonious re
lationship of your personality with the school
and the people in it.
Like life itself, school life can be either living
or existing. Living it comes through interest
in it and participation and cooperation. Living
it brings the most lasting friendships and the
formation of the most attractive and popular
personalities.
School has much to offer. If you wish, it
can give you a lot. But remember it can give
only in proportion to what you give it.
WHAT DO YOU
THINK?
Since exams, a rather hazy discussion has
been going on about a two-semester year or a
three-quarter year here at Saint Mary’s. Quite
a few good points which have been brought up
in favor of the year as we have it now are the
following: Exams are such a strain that the
less we have of them the better. The quarter
terms would mean that we have exams before
Christmas. A lot of the best activities, ones in
which we show most school spirit, would have
to be cut out. An extra week would have to be
added to make up for the exam week, if we use
the quarter term. Quarter term would necessi
tate a change in credits, and the outline for the
courses would be revised.
But for three quarter terms: although this
year is not a fair example, we come back from
Christmas vacation tired, with a low resistance,
which makes us susceptible to flu and colds.
We probably would miss reviews or exams,
maybe both. Whereas, if we had exams before
the vacation, it wouldn’t matter quite so much
if we were absent. Some of the girls say it is
much easier to study for the little work covered
in the quarter system than it is for the large
amount in the semester one. When home for
Christmas or Spring vacations, exams already
taken, we wouldn’t have to worry so much as
if we still had them before us.
There is much to be said on both sides. What
do YOU think!
CASTLES AND BROOCKS ARE FINAL
CONTESTANTS IN HOT BATTLE FOR
SAINT MARY’S MAY QUEEN
(Continued from page 1)
and colorful peacocks. Neptune refuses to
marry any of these girls and continues to wait
until the most beautiful of all women shall
come before his dais. The second ship hails
from Spain and it too has three girls with rich
dowries, jewels, cinnamon, and gold coins.
Neptnne again refuses to take any as his queen.
The third ship is a dirty tramp steamer that
accidentally comes upon King Neptune’s court.
Its crew knows nothing about the age-old custom
of presenting the most beautiful girls to King
Neptune in the hope that he will choose one as
his bride. When King Neptune hails them and
asks to see their girls and their cargo the sailors
reply that they have only a skullery maiden—a
dirty little stowaway. King Neptune recognizes
the beauty that he had long been searching for.
This stowaway discards her rags and emerges
the beautiful bride of Neptune, the Queen of
May.
The May Day Festival is entirely a student
project. Miss Jones and Miss Harris have
worked with committees of interested students
to prepare the literary sequences of the pageant,
and to design appropriate costumes for the
Court. Miss Scott has helped Miss Goss select
music which will exemplify the various charac
ters, scenes, and situations. Upon Miss Goss
rests the task of training and selecting one hun
dred and twenty-five girls to take part in the
dances, and the assembly of all these varied
stages into one unified festival. She is assisted
by the following committees :
Pageant Committee—Mary Boylan, Erwin
Gant, Mallie Ramsey, Mary Taylor, Joyce
Powell, Laura Gordon, Lucie Meade, Mary
Frances Wilson, and Virginia Manning.
Costume Committee—Mary W. Douthat, Ger
trude Carter, Helen Kendrick, Mary Stanley
Bernard, Peggy Parsley, Louise Coleman, Caro
Bayley, and Laura Boykin.
Publicity—Virginia Lee Wooten, Keith Lane.
Election—Becky Barnhill, Hortense Miller,
and Bettie Jane Casey.
Business Manager—Barbara Rainey, Honey
Peck, and Bettie Vann.
AN IMAGINARY LETTER FROM AN
ALUMNiE
The other day I visited my Alma Mater,
where I was a student some twenty years ago.
The campus looked lovely. The buildings were
well kept, cleanly painted. The girls were
lovely. All were stylishly and neatly dressed,
happy, and unusually alert. I hadn’t realized
how much the welfare of the school interested
me.
But I was to be sadly surprised. The girls
didn’t know that I was sitting in the back of the
beautiful little chapel where they were assem
bled for morning worship. I wonder, however,
if their behavior would have been any better
had they known. Here, I thought, is one of the
finest groups of young girls I have ever seen.
They are at the age when the spiritual part of
their lives should be most significant. They are
earnest, vigorous, clear-sighted, independent.
And yet they come here and are casual. They
ambled in late; they wear any sort of cap or
scarf; they slam prayer books into racks before
the psalm is ended; they whisper between pray
ers. And the singing! Here were two hundred
girlish voices, beautiful hymns, an organist who
played with skill and fervor. I thought of my
home town, the twin of many of these girls’
homes, where our pews are pitifully empty at
compared with these full ones. Our congrega
tion is made, up of the town’s feeblest citizens.:
Our organist is slow, dull of eyesight, and very
monotonous. So, here, I had anticipated heai'}
ing my favorite hymns sung as they shouh
be sung. I had imagined the beauty of a ful'
chorus and student body singing wholeheartedlj
together. But very few sang.
Are the girls merely neglectful, or do the;
really not care ? It is just youthful thoughtless
ness ? Somehow I was very glad that I had nc
brought the friend to whom for years I hav
bragged of my school. ’
Can this, I said, be Saint Mary’s?
PROGRESSIVE STEPS TOWARD EDUCA
TION OF WOMEN THROUGH
THE AGES
Well, it’s a long time, millions of years, thai
we females of the species have spent in this old
world. Our system of education, much as wf
criticize it, has lifted us far above the static!
of Eve and her earlier grandchildren, too.
Let us suppose that there were no colleges;
suppose we step back to the time of the prinii
tive ladies, whose education consisted of learn
ing to catch up fires by rubbing rocks togethei
and of making clothes for their numerous chil
dren by curing wild animal skins. TheJ
wouldn’t have shrugged their sun-tanned shoul
ders at education as girls of today occasionallj
do. They’d have been proud to be considered-
by themselves at least, the equals intellectuall.t •
of men. They’d consider it wonderful to
granted enough sense to pick out their Imsbaiicb
themselves.
“No matter how much improved, educatio!
for women is still not considered as importaiij
as education for men,” Honey Peck was heart
to remark at dinner the other night. “And i
is obvious that women have a harder time be
coming acclaimed in the professions.”
This is true, as far as scholastic educatio!
and business careers go. Nevertheless, in all
forms of learning, we have come a long way auJ
are still on the road of progress.
In ancient Greece, education was the privi'
lege of only the male children of citizens. D
Rome the father had the power of life au*^
death over his wife and children. The wiff
couldn’t converse with the gods or prepare sacri'
fices to them, though she did hold a high plac
in the home and in the training of her childreU
With the coming of Christianity to the Il«
brew race, a combination of religious and house
hold instructional home for all girls was re
quired. Christianity stood for not only equalitj
of all men, but equality of both sexes, and mauj
of the Roman converts were women. Early i"
the Roman Empire, nunneries for women wef^
established. Indeed, little provision was mai*
for the education of girls who did not wish
join convents. Convents were opened to thos^
■w'ho did not intend to take the vows much eat
Her than monasteries were, so it became coia'
mon to send girls to convents for training—
manners and religion, reading, writing, copyii’^
Latin, music, weaving, spinning and needle
work.
With the coming of the age of Chivalrf;
Nuns as well as Monks were the preservers
learning; and, after the invention of the pria*
ing press in 1450, many of the greatest authof*
wore skirts, too.
Martin Luther, leader of the German Revoh-
of the Protestant Reformation said: “The wotr
has need of educated men and women, that
may govern the countries properly; and tb«
women properly may bring up their childre’’:
care for their domestics, and direct affairs \
their households.” In this statement is eV’'
denced his desire for women to be given
advantages of learning; but at the same tin*^
he wants governing to be left up to men.
After the Revolutionary War in America,
Dame School arose in England that poor wom®^
might earn a pittance by teaching their scrap’’