title: College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Co-eds, Then and Now
author:  Lynn Peril 
description: Will her B.A. ruin her chances for an M-r-s.? Will too much study endanger her procreative organs? And if higher education is truly safe for a young woman, what sort of curriculum is appropriate? Greek and Latin? Home economics? According to Peril (<i>Pink Think</i>), in this history of women in colleges, ever since the first young ladies went off to their "dame schools" in early America, people have been debating such questions. Underlying these mentionable fears was one more worrisome: who would protect a girl's virtue when she lived away from home, surrounded by hormonal young men? As Peril makes clear, throughout history "[a]dults inevitably get their granny-sized panties in a bunch when it comes to the sexcapades of the younger generation." True, she's focused on prescriptive material more than the actual experiences of co-eds in various eras, but it's eye-opening to see how consistently advice-givers and advertisers have played on the same few anxieties regarding the female student. The material that Peril has included on student experiencesparticularly the stories of women at historically black collegeshelps balance the text. Peril's witty, irreverent style, her generous use of old advertisements and photos and her careful footnotes make this text unusually user-friendly. <i>(Aug.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  # Myra Meets His Family
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### F. Scott Fitzgerald
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  I
  
  
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  III
  
  
  IV
  
  
  V
  
  
  
  
  
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  ### I
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Probably every boy who has attended an Eastern college in the last
  
  
  ten years has met Myra half a dozen times, for the Myras live on the
  
  
  Eastern colleges, as kittens live on warm milk. When Myra is young,
  
  
  seventeen or so, they call her a "wonderful kid"; in her prime—say,
  
  
  at nineteen—she is tendered the subtle compliment of being referred
  
  
  to by her name alone; and after that she is a "prom trotter" or "the
  
  
  famous coast-to-coast Myra."
  
  
    
  You can see her practically any winter afternoon if you stroll
  
  
  through the Biltmore lobby. She will be standing in a group of
  
  
  sophomores just in from Princeton or New Haven, trying to decide
  
  
  whether to dance away the mellow hours at the Club de Vingt or the
  
  
  Plaza Red Room. Afterward one of the sophomores wi