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The Sidney Books #4
Sidney at College
In this story Sidney is a freshman at Smith College, and a rather enjoyable picture is given of college life. Miss Ray does this thing well, and the half-grown girl finds no little enjoyment in her story.
289 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1909
12 people want to read
About the author
Anna Chapin Ray
153 books2 followersAnna Chapin Ray was an American author. In 1881 she was one of the first three women to take the Yale University entrance exam. She studied at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts where she received a B.A. in 1885 and an M.A. in modern European history in 1888.
Beginning in 1889, Anna became a prolific author; her works included many children's books, but she also published adult novels. She wrote during the summer in New Haven, Connecticut, then spent the winter in Quebec. Most of her works were written using the pseudonym Sidney Howard.
Photo courtesy of Smith College Special Collections.
Beginning in 1889, Anna became a prolific author; her works included many children's books, but she also published adult novels. She wrote during the summer in New Haven, Connecticut, then spent the winter in Quebec. Most of her works were written using the pseudonym Sidney Howard.
Photo courtesy of Smith College Special Collections.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 17, 2023
Volume 4 in a vintage series which is taking me rather a long time to finish.
At the book's opening, Sidney, Day, and Janet are at last starting their freshman year at Smith, author Anna Chapin Ray's own alma mater (unlike most women's college graduates of this era who are mining their own experience, Ray doesn't attempt the disguise of a fictitious name). The three board together with many other freshmen in a comfortable house in town presided over by Janet's mother, Mrs. Leslie (a set up giving the still impoverished Leslies much needed financial security that Day's wealthy and influential father has pulled strings to arrange).
I was looking forward to this volume in the series from the get go - Sidney going to college is the only reason I embarked on it - and to some extent it did reward the frequently heavy-going slog of the first three books. I liked this passage from the opening of a chapter about a third of the way through the book:
The little of September which had remained to them on their arrival had been a season of unpacking, of getting settled, of learning the names of unfamiliar things and people. October, beginning with the Freshman Frolic which was supposed to be by way of welcome to the new-come class, had passed from that to Mountain Day, when everybody was supposed to take to the woods and be happy, followed by a succession of mountain days which, impromptu and lacking all capitalization, were so much more enjoyable on that account, days when people who were supposed to stay at home and study really did take to the woods and revel in the glory of the dropping leaves.
Then the leaves dropped, the days had shortened, and the outer world had lost somewhat of its lure. And, in proportion as the call of the wild grew lower, less insistent, the lure and charm of the college grew apace...
To many and many of the girls [here I pause to wonder why do we need the word "many" repeated, and conclude that Ray as a writer is sometimes a little extra], the mere life of the place, organized, diverse, and full of change and motion as any old-fashioned kaleidoscope, suffices for weeks on end. Classes and athletics, walks and drives, teas in the rooms and at the Allan field, chaffing dish suppers and occasional trips to Boyden's, these, with the college societies, the house plays and the endless interchange of girlish hospitality make up an existence, which, albeit simple, is the very reverse of monotonous or narrow.
In this chapter, each of the three girls starts to learn what she'll get out of college, and what she'll give, and this sort of thing is the essence of why vintage college girl fiction appeals to me. At this time, the newly opened women's colleges provided a safe enclosed world where young women could develop their minds and characters in a way that wasn't really available to most of them outside of the campus, and this is something I love reading and learning about. The fact that we're seeing the college through the lens of popular (at least that was the idea) juvenile fiction just adds another level of nuance.
Day makes her mark in class politics. Rich and charming, and also quite capable, she is easily elected freshman class president (arousing jealousy in certain factions, of course). Sidney plunges into everything, but is most enthralled by basketball. I note that in the earlier books, there was no mention whatsoever of Sidney playing that sport, but it turns out she was the captain of her prep school's team (of course she was), and at Smith she is mentored by the Junior class Captain, Irene, whom Sidney describes as "a goddess." They quickly become fast friends, but Ray makes sure to let us know they're not "sentimental."
Class politics and basketball (which had just been invented a decade or so previously, in nearby Springfield, Mass) are regularly recurring themes in classic college girl stories. Academics, not so much. Janet, who has an ambition to turn her dead father's research on revolutionary era battles in Quebec into a book, has specifically chosen an American college to see "the other side" of the history she's learned from a British point of view, and confides in her compatriot Jack Blanchard who comes to visit, that there's no college for girls in Canada of the same caliber as Smith (was that actually the case? She dismisses McGill with an impatient gesture). So Janet devotes herself only to her studies, and peevishly rebuffs all overtures of friendship from the other freshmen. She feels that being Canadian sets her apart from the more frivolous American girls, and seems determined to be unpopular, which gets tiresome to read about, especially since all the other characters spend so much time fruitlessly wondering what should be done about her (happily, Day's brother Rob gives her a banjo for Christmas -- in a scene with two pages of painfully racist "playful" dialog -- and a new ambition to join the college banjo club sets her on the right path to becoming a more well-rounded social creature). I can't help wondering if Anna Chapin Ray actually knew any Canadians at college, and if their experiences were anything like Janet's. Mostly, I think Ray just likes plots in which a girl makes herself socially isolated out of sheer perversity -- this is third book in a row in this series in which that's the central "problem," and since in two of the cases, Janet was the girl in question, I'm a little uneasy about reading the fifth volume which is ominously titled Janet at Odds.
So that's one reason why, despite the lovely college setting, I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as I hoped. A second is yet another near deathbed scene (perhaps the seventh in the series), which Ray seems to feel no book is complete without. Still another reason is that the girls are constantly being visited by their boring male friends and relatives, and these interactions (perhaps reassuring us that college girls needn't turn into spinsterish blue stockings?) get far too much page time, and interfere with the college atmosphere.
On that note, here's an update on the matrimonial sweepstakes as they start to approach the final stetch.
Sidney: in this book, she meets Janet's brother Ronald again for the first time since the first book, and they sure have some kind of special bond. But wait, at one point Day's brother Rob (who's not as handsome but is livelier and much richer) complacently contemplates a future with Sidney. Thirty-something Cousin Wade who has orbited teenage Sidney for most of the series, even moving in with her family for her sake, has rather stunningly dropped out of the race for Sidney's hand, being definitively paired off with Irene, the basketball goddess. (I hasten to assure my gentle readers that Sidney, all this time, is far too wholesome and free of "sentiment" to ever think of marrying anyone ever!)
Day: things have been looking good her and Jack, ever since this upright man of humble origins became her father's right hand man in the office. But she keeps saying he's like a brother, and then there's....
Janet, who as a Canadian, feels that Jack, being also Canadian is the only one who can possibly understand her.
In case we were wondering all this time about prim cousin Judy last seen in the first book (Wade's sister, and a debutante, decidedly not a college girl), she comes to visit Smith and bags Ronald's employer the doltish English Lord. Who has also come to visit Smith, as Lords do.
And what about Phyllis, the unloved unattractive younger sister, who it seems, isn't going to get to go to college at all? And she's not going to marry Wade either, even though that was strongly hinted in the previous book -- I guess his "reward" for reforming her, which we were told he would get will be in heaven?
Tune in next month...
At the book's opening, Sidney, Day, and Janet are at last starting their freshman year at Smith, author Anna Chapin Ray's own alma mater (unlike most women's college graduates of this era who are mining their own experience, Ray doesn't attempt the disguise of a fictitious name). The three board together with many other freshmen in a comfortable house in town presided over by Janet's mother, Mrs. Leslie (a set up giving the still impoverished Leslies much needed financial security that Day's wealthy and influential father has pulled strings to arrange).
I was looking forward to this volume in the series from the get go - Sidney going to college is the only reason I embarked on it - and to some extent it did reward the frequently heavy-going slog of the first three books. I liked this passage from the opening of a chapter about a third of the way through the book:
The little of September which had remained to them on their arrival had been a season of unpacking, of getting settled, of learning the names of unfamiliar things and people. October, beginning with the Freshman Frolic which was supposed to be by way of welcome to the new-come class, had passed from that to Mountain Day, when everybody was supposed to take to the woods and be happy, followed by a succession of mountain days which, impromptu and lacking all capitalization, were so much more enjoyable on that account, days when people who were supposed to stay at home and study really did take to the woods and revel in the glory of the dropping leaves.
Then the leaves dropped, the days had shortened, and the outer world had lost somewhat of its lure. And, in proportion as the call of the wild grew lower, less insistent, the lure and charm of the college grew apace...
To many and many of the girls [here I pause to wonder why do we need the word "many" repeated, and conclude that Ray as a writer is sometimes a little extra], the mere life of the place, organized, diverse, and full of change and motion as any old-fashioned kaleidoscope, suffices for weeks on end. Classes and athletics, walks and drives, teas in the rooms and at the Allan field, chaffing dish suppers and occasional trips to Boyden's, these, with the college societies, the house plays and the endless interchange of girlish hospitality make up an existence, which, albeit simple, is the very reverse of monotonous or narrow.
In this chapter, each of the three girls starts to learn what she'll get out of college, and what she'll give, and this sort of thing is the essence of why vintage college girl fiction appeals to me. At this time, the newly opened women's colleges provided a safe enclosed world where young women could develop their minds and characters in a way that wasn't really available to most of them outside of the campus, and this is something I love reading and learning about. The fact that we're seeing the college through the lens of popular (at least that was the idea) juvenile fiction just adds another level of nuance.
Day makes her mark in class politics. Rich and charming, and also quite capable, she is easily elected freshman class president (arousing jealousy in certain factions, of course). Sidney plunges into everything, but is most enthralled by basketball. I note that in the earlier books, there was no mention whatsoever of Sidney playing that sport, but it turns out she was the captain of her prep school's team (of course she was), and at Smith she is mentored by the Junior class Captain, Irene, whom Sidney describes as "a goddess." They quickly become fast friends, but Ray makes sure to let us know they're not "sentimental."
Class politics and basketball (which had just been invented a decade or so previously, in nearby Springfield, Mass) are regularly recurring themes in classic college girl stories. Academics, not so much. Janet, who has an ambition to turn her dead father's research on revolutionary era battles in Quebec into a book, has specifically chosen an American college to see "the other side" of the history she's learned from a British point of view, and confides in her compatriot Jack Blanchard who comes to visit, that there's no college for girls in Canada of the same caliber as Smith (was that actually the case? She dismisses McGill with an impatient gesture). So Janet devotes herself only to her studies, and peevishly rebuffs all overtures of friendship from the other freshmen. She feels that being Canadian sets her apart from the more frivolous American girls, and seems determined to be unpopular, which gets tiresome to read about, especially since all the other characters spend so much time fruitlessly wondering what should be done about her (happily, Day's brother Rob gives her a banjo for Christmas -- in a scene with two pages of painfully racist "playful" dialog -- and a new ambition to join the college banjo club sets her on the right path to becoming a more well-rounded social creature). I can't help wondering if Anna Chapin Ray actually knew any Canadians at college, and if their experiences were anything like Janet's. Mostly, I think Ray just likes plots in which a girl makes herself socially isolated out of sheer perversity -- this is third book in a row in this series in which that's the central "problem," and since in two of the cases, Janet was the girl in question, I'm a little uneasy about reading the fifth volume which is ominously titled Janet at Odds.
So that's one reason why, despite the lovely college setting, I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as I hoped. A second is yet another near deathbed scene (perhaps the seventh in the series), which Ray seems to feel no book is complete without. Still another reason is that the girls are constantly being visited by their boring male friends and relatives, and these interactions (perhaps reassuring us that college girls needn't turn into spinsterish blue stockings?) get far too much page time, and interfere with the college atmosphere.
On that note, here's an update on the matrimonial sweepstakes as they start to approach the final stetch.
Sidney: in this book, she meets Janet's brother Ronald again for the first time since the first book, and they sure have some kind of special bond. But wait, at one point Day's brother Rob (who's not as handsome but is livelier and much richer) complacently contemplates a future with Sidney. Thirty-something Cousin Wade who has orbited teenage Sidney for most of the series, even moving in with her family for her sake, has rather stunningly dropped out of the race for Sidney's hand, being definitively paired off with Irene, the basketball goddess. (I hasten to assure my gentle readers that Sidney, all this time, is far too wholesome and free of "sentiment" to ever think of marrying anyone ever!)
Day: things have been looking good her and Jack, ever since this upright man of humble origins became her father's right hand man in the office. But she keeps saying he's like a brother, and then there's....
Janet, who as a Canadian, feels that Jack, being also Canadian is the only one who can possibly understand her.
In case we were wondering all this time about prim cousin Judy last seen in the first book (Wade's sister, and a debutante, decidedly not a college girl), she comes to visit Smith and bags Ronald's employer the doltish English Lord. Who has also come to visit Smith, as Lords do.
And what about Phyllis, the unloved unattractive younger sister, who it seems, isn't going to get to go to college at all? And she's not going to marry Wade either, even though that was strongly hinted in the previous book -- I guess his "reward" for reforming her, which we were told he would get will be in heaven?
Tune in next month...
February 5, 2020
1.5
Dull, with two pages of pretty vile racist language. That being said, pretty fascinating from both the standpoint of someone interested in the history of women’s colleges and someone who’s interested primarily in the British school story genre. It’s kinda interesting to see the differences between British boarding school books of the same time period and this American college story.
Dull, with two pages of pretty vile racist language. That being said, pretty fascinating from both the standpoint of someone interested in the history of women’s colleges and someone who’s interested primarily in the British school story genre. It’s kinda interesting to see the differences between British boarding school books of the same time period and this American college story.
Read
December 27, 2015Collected these for awhile, now giving them away. College in 1908 info is great.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews