© 1997 Lawrence University Press
Daily Life on Campus
Milwaukee-Downer students' day-to-day lives on campus were governed by strict rules and subjected to close supervision. For students who resided in the college's dormitories, daily life conformed to a routine outlined for them in the Student Activities Handbook. Thus, they were awakened by a "rising bell" each morning at 6:30 a.m. (Sundays at 7:30) and were expected to arrive promptly for breakfast at 7:00 a.m. (Sundays at 8:00). Lunch was the only "informal" meal, served at 12:30 p.m., and dinner was served at 6:00 p.m. (Sunday dinner was at 1:30 p.m., and there was "tea" at 6:00). Mail was distributed twice a day in each residence hall, at 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. The schedule for classes in academic subjects, of course, applied to the entire student body, as did the schedule for Chapel. The Handbook outlined these in this way:
There are seven recitation periods a day, fifty minutes in length, with five minutes between periods. Two bells are rung, one at the beginning and one at the close of each period. Academic work begins at 8:30 a.m. . . . Chapel is held every day except Saturday and Sunday in Merrill Hall at 12:05. . . . Vespers are held every Sunday in the chapel at 6:40.
The life of "city" students, those who lived at home and commuted to school, was governed by the schedule of classes. This was true, as well, for the students who lived in residence, but members of the latter group were also obliged, as indicated earlier, to awaken to the residence hall bell and to eat meals strictly by the clock, as well as to be held strictly accountable for their evening activities and for any absence from campus. Yet, the suggestion that under these conditions it might have been more advantageous to be a city student was vigorously disputed by some who lived in residence at the college. One such dormitory student later insisted that living on campus "made all the difference" to whether or not one would experience true college life:
The city students lived on the exterior of what the college gave. But those of us who lived in the dormitories, we had the full college experience. . . . They [the city students] had none of the actual experience of living in a hall. . . .
And there did, indeed, appear to be aspects of dormitory life that fostered a sense of fellowship among the students. A good example of this was in the after-dinner activities described in the Student Handbook:
Every evening there is dancing in the gymnasium until the study-bell rings. Wednesday evenings we have class tables, and this means singing in the dining rooms. Each class vies with other classes to have the very best songs, and all join in the singing of the regular college songs. Occasionally we have college songs in the chapel or out on the campus.
The price dormitory students paid for this esprit de corps was the regimentation inherent in all their activities and the real constraint upon their freedom of action, which they had no choice but to accept. Indeed, the city students might well have argued that they occupied the better of the two possible worlds; for, while they were receiving the same academic background as the college was providing for the dormitory students, they were not obliged to surrender freedom in their personal lives.
Whether or not students thought in terms of the relative advantages or disadvantages of belonging to one or the other group, it is important that there was consciousness that these distinct groups did exist and that they were thought to define the social structure of the student body. This consciousness was reflected in the fact that the Student Government Association had separate chairs of the Residence Halls and of the City Student Organization. That the dormitory students, along with the administration, also assumed that residential life at college was the best -- and that the city students must have been aware that this attitude existed -- was indicated by such advice to city students as appeared in the Student Handbook of 1915. Here, the college urged them to participate actively in the City Student Organization, telling them this was essential ". . . if you would come as near to that experience expressed in the term 'college life' as you possibly can without actually living at the college. . . ."
Still, it cannot be assumed that city students either shared this attitude or would have welcomed all aspects of the "college life" one experienced in living on campus, especially those that placed restrictions upon dormitory students' freedom of action. In matters of personal conduct, dormitory students were subject to constant scrutiny, and there were many instances in which individuals among them were disciplined for violation of the rules.
The story of Thelma Richards provides a good example. A graduate of Huron High School in Huron, South Dakota, Thelma first enrolled at Milwaukee-Downer in 1918 and had what was apparently a successful and uneventful freshman year. Returning as a sophomore in September of 1919, problems associated with Thelma's conduct immediately began to arise, causing Dean Mina Kerr to communicate the following information directly to Thelma's parents in early October:
On Sunday, October 5, your daughter Thelma registered in our Student Government Registration Book to go to Grand Avenue Congregational Church. . . . Instead of going there, she spent the morning attending the movies. This was, of course, dishonor and falsehood in that she went one place when she was registered for another place. Moreover, the college stands for keeping the Sunday, and we do not permit our students to go to theatres on Sunday. She has confessed to this action. The punishment is that she is fined for misregistration and is suspended indefinitely from the Student Government Association for being dishonorable. If we again have similar difficulty with her, she will be in danger of being asked to withdraw from the college.
Thelma's father's reply to Dean Kerr indicated that he felt that Thelma had not transgressed deliberately but that she had probably had a change of heart about her destination after signing out from school, and based on an upbringing that always had afforded her "her fullest personal liberty," she chose to go to a movie instead of to church. Parenthetically, Mr. Richards opined that a ". . . good Christian portrayal of character in Sunday movies may produce good spiritual and moral results, even better than a sermon. . . ; because our sense of sight is the most reliable and much more so than hearing." He insisted that disciplinary authorities at the college base their punishment for Thelma's behavior upon her intentions, for he firmly believed that "It is the intention and purpose. . . which determines every moral crime, legal or otherwise."
Communications between the college administration and the parents continued during the balance of October 1919 and indicated that all concerned were satisfied that Thelma now understood the need to obey rules. Also, they further agreed that Thelma's "social sense of friendliness and response to the plans of other people [had] led her astray." Thus, Mr. Richards must have been very surprised by the contents of yet another letter to him from Dean Kerr early in November:
Again I must write to you about your daughter. On Saturday evening, November 8, she left the college soon after eight o'clock and several blocks from the campus met two young men in their machine. Thelma and another student had made a previous appointment with these two men. The four of them drove about the city, went to the Badger Room of the Hotel Wisconsin, returned to the college about twelve o'clock, and reentered the hall by a basement passageway. This is the story which these two students now tell us. They had been reported on Sunday morning by the faculty head of one of our halls as having been out during the evening without any permission. On Sunday evening, without being sent for, they came to me with an entirely different statement than what is given above, a false one, and made up for the occasion, as they confessed yesterday.
Dean Kerr further told Mr. Richards that she and President Sabin had conferred about this matter, and they had agreed, because Thelma was still under discipline for her prior infraction when this latest one occurred, that her parents should be asked to withdraw her from the institution. The dean closed with these words: "Will you come to Milwaukee to take her home? We would like to have her leave here as soon as possible, certainly before the end of the week. . . . She needs. . . to be with her family and to have their constant watchfulness and care."
Thelma's father did not accept this with equanimity. Extensive correspondence by letter and telegram during the rest of November saw the development and clash of two very different viewpoints. On the college administration's side was the contention that Thelma's offense had been of such a nature that the school, which conceived of itself as serving in loco parentis, could no longer take responsibility for her. "[It] is a serious thing," President Sabin wrote Mr. Richards, "for a student to absent herself without authority from the college after dark, or, indeed, at any time. It is too serious to be treated leniently. . . ." And, if the first two offenses hadn't been bad enough, Sabin also had to report in this letter that Thelma had absented herself from campus yet a third time, giving as her subsequent explanation that "she supposed she was no longer under college control."
On the other side, Mr. Richards increasingly saw his daughter as the victim of the piece, and his letters reflected his growing hostility. He kept demanding that Sabin answer some specific questions, complaining that her letters had "failed to report if Thelma lead [sic] others astray or if she was lead [sic] astray and if every student told the truth, so that you do not punish the truth and reward the liar as you have passed judgment." His final position was that if Thelma were actually guilty of wrongdoing, the responsible party was clearly the college itself which, he asserted, was suffering from "delinquency in management." In the end, Thelma's mother came to Milwaukee to retrieve her, and President Sabin subsequently wrote Mr. Richards that an understanding had been reached about what had actually transpired in the incidents involving Thelma. In forcing Thelma to withdraw, Sabin must have felt that she had both made her point and adequately safeguarded her own authority, for in this final letter to the father she expressed willingness to readmit Thelma for second semester if he and Mrs. Richards so desired.
The exercise of control over students was not limited to disciplining them for violations of rules that already had been committed. There was also a concerted effort on the part of supervisory personnel, of both administration and faculty, to heighten students' awareness of the rules before any violation had a chance to take place. Thus, for example, the faculty "head of the hall" would be physically present and actively a part of the ritual in which students were called for by their male dates. An alumna who had lived in McLaren Hall as a student recalled such a scene:
The men would come, and the head of the hall, Lena B. [Professor of Latin Lena B. Tomson] would meet them -- they would be dressed up -- and they would be ushered into the drawing room. And then the girls whom they were going to take out were called, and they would come. And then they would say goodbye to Lena B. -- the couple -- and out they would go. And Lena B. never hesitated to say, "You know the curfew is. . ." whatever the curfew was. . . . And, oh heavens!. . . I should say they were chaperoned -- everybody was chaperoned!
The dormitory students were well policed. In fact, it might be argued that one reason the administration felt college life was "better" for residential than for city students may have been that the college could exercise more control over the lives of the former group outside of classes. This would surely improve the school's prospects for achieving its major goal, producing well-rounded Christian women who would both value and contribute service to society.
Indeed, it was always with this goal in mind that the college did its best to exert influence over the lives of all the students, residents and commuters alike. This was the purpose of Chapel, which was held daily from 12:05 to 12:30 p.m., and at which attendance was required. President Sabin used these sessions to provide guidance for students on subjects ranging from their physical appearance to how much credence they should give to fortunetellers, mediums, and psychics. Sabin was interested in everything that affected student behavior, which is why she even took very seriously a parent's upset over the fact that the college allowed the students to dance the Tango. This mother wrote:
It is almost criminal to let young girls dance these dances because the men are bad about it and while many behave properly others take advantage of the opportunity and not only [handle] the girls immodestly but take liberties which would not otherwise be tolerated.
In her reply, Sabin justified allowing the "new dances" by telling this parent that, had they been prohibited, "The result would have been loss of training in character that results from permission to dance them, united with the responsibility to use the privilege with perfect propriety." Character-building evidently remained an important goal at Milwaukee-Downer.
Sabin recognized that part of a student's character would be shaped by the sort of relationships she engaged in with other students. This was the reason, for example, that Sabin staunchly opposed having chapters of national sororities on the Milwaukee-Downer campus, believing that they led to "separations and exclusions" among students and that they were therefore "unchristian." It was on these same grounds that she also resisted admitting students of racial minorities to Milwaukee-Downer. When a black student sought entry into the college, Sabin asked her to think about what her situation as a student there would be like:
I wonder, Miss Thomas, whether you have imagined the situation sufficiently to realize that it might be very hard for you to be a student in a college where you were the only one of your race. There are prejudices that exist against the entrance of those of another race. You can hardly realize perhaps that this might be a very uncomfortable situation. It might make you unhappy to feel a distinction. It would require a great deal of force of character for you to carry yourself with poise and keep from bitterness of feeling.
While she deplored situations that set up artificial barriers among students, Sabin objected equally to conditions that brought students unnaturally close. She was aware that "crushes" existed between some students and did not hesitate to make known that she considered "friendships of this sort harmful, no matter with whom they exist." An alumna recalled that Sabin made this the subject of one of her Chapel talks:
I do remember this. . . . I remember Ellen Sabin talking about having crushes on each other. . . . It seems to me that, in Chapel one day, she talked about the importance of knowing and being friends with a great many, and not focusing on just one.
It may have been the influence of Sabin's attitude that caused some students to express discomfort about the whole matter of "crushes." One former student defined a crush and told about her feelings while witnessing one:
[When someone had a crush] the person admired the other person so much, and they wanted to know all about them, and they'd think about them. I used to sit in one of the classes, and the desks usually were for two people. This girl had a crush on one of the older students, and she just suffered -- I mean it was like a man being in love, I guess. And I didn't like that sort of thing at all. I liked to have good friends and intimate friends, . . . but I didn't realize. . . [at first that this] was kind of unnatural, but I think it probably was.
Of the two students just quoted, the former resided at the college and the latter lived at home. Both acknowledged that having many friends was the alternative to indulging in crushes, reflecting the probability that, especially in matters considered important to character development, Sabin was equally successful in getting her message across to dormitory and city students alike.
While President Sabin had no compunctions about establishing and enforcing rules for acceptable behavior, both she and the rest of the faculty nevertheless appeared to hope that students would develop the ability and will to police themselves. Sabin's rhetoric seemed to make this explicit:
To secure right conduct by the inner determination of each person, uninfluenced by fear and unconstrained by outer influence, is the aim of all training from the first to the last effort in education. The end sought by home, school, and society is self-government. We think all restriction and control futile. . . that does not. . . make the individual wish to do right. . . . Control by external authority, by the imposition of another's will, is repugnant.
It may well have seemed that self-government was the end the faculty had in mind when, in 1908, it granted a charter to the Student Government Association. Under the terms of the charter, officers of the Association took part in supervising students so as to maintain proper decorum in the residence halls and to monitor the destinations of students who left the campus. When infractions of the rules occurred, it was the executive board of the Student Government Association that was given authority to investigate the cases and recommend penalties. But, although there was a desire to make it appear that student government could act independently, the reality was that genuine power was exercised only by the college administration in general and by President Sabin in particular. Part of an account of Milwaukee-Downer student government, titled, "Co-operation with Faculty," made this clear:
Student Government does not really indicate pure student government, but rather a co-operative government of faculty and students. Every residence hall has a member of the faculty presiding over it, guiding, counseling, and supporting the forces of student government. A weekly meeting of faculty heads and student chairmen of halls is held to gain full co-operation and uniform procedure in all halls, and to plan for the welfare of the whole community. The penalties recommended by the executive board are never imposed without consultation with the president or dean. Student government means not less but rather more care and direction on the part of college authorities. It is a means of quietly, patiently, unassertively teaching students to govern themselves.
President Sabin stressed the point that the existence and operation of student government at Milwaukee-Downer was not, and should never be, "a device to relieve president and faculty of their responsibility." She in fact felt that there were real dangers in allowing student government to go unsupervised, not the least of which was the potential for that body to impose inappropriate penalties upon offenders and, even worse, the potential for student opinion to become the dominant authority in the institution. In connection with the latter point, she sometimes quoted a colleague who had had long experience dealing with student government:
. . . the most mischievous influence [of student government], as it was the most subtle and the most prevalent, was the idea which grew into even an arrogant and imperious force, that the dominant authority, ruling and controlling the institution in all its aspects, existed rightfully and necessarily in the public opinion of the students. The result came to be such as might be illustrated by a magnificent ocean steamer, not guided by its officers, but navigated according to the will of a committee representing the public opinion of the passengers.
The critical thing, in Sabin's mind, was that the institution not compromise its control over the students. And, in order for it to exert maximum control, it was highly desirable that the college govern as much of the students' lives as possible. As has been pointed out, this may have been the motive behind the official rhetoric that had it that dormitory students enjoyed the "better" of college life, for in the case of residential students, the college could monitor not only academic performance but personal habits and activities as well. It was thus not unusual for President Sabin to write to parents, criticizing the "attitude" of a daughter. "I am sorry to add," she wrote Mr. M. H. Raymond, "that Ruth has not in all respects supported good discipline and been a cordial cooperative student." Replying to Mr. Raymond's concern that his daughter not be severely penalized for an infraction, so she might graduate with "pleasant recollections" of college, Sabin said:
I need not say that we would like to have a student have only happy recollections of her college days, and I do not know any way in which such memories may be established that are equal to the loyal and cordial cooperation of the student with the aims and methods of the institution.
Sabin went on to enlist the Raymonds' support for "such an attitude of mind as Ruth ought to have," declaring that this would even prove beneficial to their daughter's health:
The right attitude of mind also has a very happy effect upon one's health. If Ruth does the right thing in the right way and entertains the right sentiments, she will go home after commencement, unless some unforeseen difficulty such as sickness or accident arises, in good physical condition [emphasis added].
The students, however, were not to be the judges of what was "right," for they had insufficient experience upon which to make such a determination. It was, instead, the responsibility of the college to communicate what was "right" directly and indirectly, verbally and by example. Thus, where the actual rules and regulations of the institution were concerned, the college explicitly instructed students about them at Chapel but enforced them through the indirect agency of student government.
Rules and regulations, however, did not constitute the totality of "what was right," because they alone could not engender the sort of fellowship, the sort of concern for humanity, that the college sought to instill. This was where relationships with teachers and with other students and faithful observance of college traditions served their greatest purpose. It was within these relationships and observances that patterns of "acceptable" behavior were learned and "proper" attitudes about "right" living were cultivated. In a sense, these relationships may be seen as going beyond the teachers and the students of Milwaukee-Downer, per se, to a way of understanding the process by which Milwaukee-Downer participated in shaping women's attitudes and lives.
The Role of Milwaukee-Downer Traditions