October 5, 1931

Speaking at Fall Convocation, Professor of English Winifred Smith ’04 said, “There are still many people who are afraid of letting girls go out into the world alone, afraid of their earning a living, of their getting ideas, of their being highbrows, of their looking or acting like thinking, grown-up individuals. It is your task to convince such people that experiments sincerely made, and new ideas actively held, do not hurt girls any more than they hurt boys, but on the contrary strengthen them; that you are human beings first and well brought up young women second….”

Because of a polio epidemic that had swept the region since July, Vassar opened two weeks late, in strict quarantine.