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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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“bull sessions” of today's students hardly existed in those days. We had a 10 o'clock lights out bell and silence - when we talked, we talked about “problems,” personal ones, and jokes. We didn't talk about that. I don't have any recollection of ever having talked about this moderately popular course at college. The course interested me enough so that it was at least an introduction to the literature.

I taught chemistry, physics, mathematics and biology in a school called Ferry Hall-Lake Forrest for about two years after graduation. However, I think that a woman in college touched us with a social sense of what ought to be done and I heard about the Charity Organizations Society in New York. Mr. Edward T. Devine was the director. Before I had left college I had heard from Miss Soule about this organization and how they went around trying to relieve the poverty of the poor - very naive.

I went down to New York right from college - I remember my father protested - and went to the Charity Organizations Society, demanding to see Mr. Devine whose name I knew. Everybody else lower down the line tried to interview me, but I insisted on seeing Mr. Devine. I sometimes laugh when I think of how fresh and naive I was really. I was quite young as I graduated from college a little under the average age. I was young in years, but I looked





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