Clara Syvret

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, in which few young women attended college, interesting young women in Wilson College was a challenge. Although the college had been founded in 1869, it was still unknown to many. A person who had the task of acquainting young women and their parents about the college had to be intrepid, persuasive, and persistent. In 1913 and 1914 Miss Clara Maud Syvret, who was "in the field," as it was called, recruiting students and frequently meeting their parents, had all these characteristics. 

 

Miss Syvret, who went by Maud, came to Wilson as a teacher of French in the autumn of 1912 after having taught French at Western College in Oxford, Ohio. After some deliberation on her part and negotiations about her salary which was settled on nine hundred dollars a year and home, which consisted of "room, board, and laundry."
After having taught at Wilson for one semester, she was appointed to the Committee on Classification and Review and was notified that she had been reappointed for the 1913-1914 academic year to her present position as teacher of French with the same salary that she was receiving in her first year. She also with a stipend of one hundred dollars in June and July of 1913 took on the responsibility of recruiting students from Western Pennsylvania and thus began her traveling for Wilson and her voluminous correspondence with the president of Wilson, Dr. Anna J. McKeag. 

This correspondence with Dr. McKeag illuminates Miss Syvret's four tasks. First she had to receive permission to enter the high schools and then to meet prospective students. Then she had to talk with the students about their plans and any way in which Wilson could fit into their plans and often had to meet with their parents. Frequently she found that she had to correct any misunderstandings about Wilson. Most importantly, however, she had to meet Dr. McKeag's exacting standards. 

Traveling by bus or train, she had to fit her itinerary into the set schedules of the bus company or the railroad and had to find a hotel that fit into this itinerary set by these schedules. In the evenings she wrote her letters. The correspondence between Miss Syvret and Dr. McKeag, "My dear Miss Syvret" and "My dear Dr. McKeag," with formal salutations reveals their personalities. Miss Syvret, who signed her letters C. Maud Syvret, wrote in a sprawling handwriting often without a date or place name that indicated her haste or fatigue and at times with emotion; on the other hand, Dr. McKeag's unsigned letters, dictated to a typist, were businesslike, concise, and grammatically correct. 

On her first recruitment tour for Wilson in June and July 1913 she stayed overnight in Pittsburgh, Uniontown, and Greensburg and in other towns that she does not name in her letters. On this tour she visited prospective students in Altoona, Mount Pleasant, Ebensburg, Altoona, Latrobe, Mifflintown, Sewickley, Hollidaysburg, Scottdale, Johnstown, and Huntingdon. Since the communication between Miss Syvret and Dr. McKeag was by mail, at times Dr. McKeag's letters naming specific students she should meet and Wilson catalogues that she had sent did not catch up with the peripatetic recruiter. Dr. McKeag also recommended Presbyterian ministers and other people whom she wanted to see interested in Wilson. In a letter written on June 23 Dr. McKeag especially wanted her to visit Mifflintown "from which we have had students"... in order to dispell the misapprehensions" created by a family whose daughter had left Wilson "abruptly." In a letter written on the next day she asked Miss Syvret to go to Johnstown because the father of a daughter who had been at Wilson for three years was "extremely unfriendly to the College because his daughter was not allowed to enter the senior class...as her academic record was extremely poor." Since Miss Syvret was traveling during the summer vacation for students, she needed to reach them by telephone and at times needed help from local alumnae or other friends. She called and called upon students, but both she and Dr. McKeag realized the competition Wilson was having with Normal Schools, now universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Her calls to prospective students were instructive as she encountered girls of varying abilities and interests. On one occasion, for instance, she wrote, "I called on two young ladies whom I heard of as graduates of the High School, but they are not what we want - for one has to return to school for another year to finish the subjects she 'missed' and the other is to study arts and crafts!" Upon one occasion at the end of the summer she noted that the principal "had no girls to recommend whose parents were able to send them to college. I did look up one but the surroundings were very humble, and I feel sure the parents could hardly afford a college education. It hurts to see the earnest girls who are longing for the opportunity - and then those who are abundantly able to have the education, but who seem quite indifferent." Frequently the families of the girls could not send them to college. Despite her often being discouraged she did meet girls who she thought would do well at Wilson, had some successes in teaching students and at times their parents about Wilson, and was persistent in sending information about those students to Dr. McKeag's office. 

In the same letter at the end of the summer she stated: " In regard to my plans, I have thought over carefully the continuing of this work for the college, but I feel sincerely that I am too tired to continue. Perhaps, most likely, as a novice I have put too much over-zeal in the matter, and longer experience would teach me better Miss Syvret's heart, though, was in her teaching of French. On vacation in August with friends in Spencer, Massachusetts, she wrote to Dr. McKeag and asked her to purchase for her use in classes "a set of sound charts," a set of nine for three dollars as she had become interested in "phonetics for the teaching of a foreign language." Dr. McKeag responded that she would send for the charts and added encouragingly that "I am advising my niece to drop Greek for a year for the sake of having the privilege of studying French with you." 

Miss Syvret must have represented the college well as in the entire spring semester in 1914 she again was "in the field" with her French classes being taught by a young man hired expressly for teaching her schedule. Therefore, Miss Syvret spent February, March, and April in traveling again by bus and train throughout Pennsylvania and May and June in traveling in New Jersey and Ohio. 

Her travels and work in Pennsylvania this time were extensive as she stayed in Pottstown, Morristown, Easton, Hazelton, Scranton, Tunkhannock, Towanda, Williamsport, Tyrone, Altoona, Uniontown, Sewickley, Pittsburgh, Oil City, Titusville, Erie, and Dubois with multiple stays in some locations and single night stays in others. In early February Miss Syvret received a letter stating that the Board of Trustees had voted that she "should receive $5.00 per student secured through your influence, this commission to be paid September 18, on the basis of the number of new students actually at this time in College, with whom you have had conferences. We shall use for this purpose your reports of conferences as sent to us from time to time." Since the schools were in session, she had to obtain permission from the principals to meet the students. Some were hospitable; others, however, were unfriendly and uncooperative. Miss Syvret encountered some girls whom she considered good students and others who were interested in Wilson but felt that they could not afford to attend. Some she met were deficient in Latin or unqualified in other ways. Miss Syvret did meet, however, some girls who she thought would be good Wilson students and did her best to persuade them to be interested in Wilson College. Some whom Miss Syvret saw were girls who interested Dr. McKeag who saw in them the possibility of securing other students whose families could benefit the college. She also encountered misinformation and misunderstandings about Wilson that prompted this response from Dr. McKeag: "I am not surprised at what you say of the impression that Wilson is a worldly place....1 have found also the impression in many places that a student must spend a great deal of money in order to have proper standing here. This is an impression which we can most conscientiously correct, as many of our most highly respected students live in $235.00 rooms and spend very little." After Miss Syvret noted that she had interviewed a young Jewish girl, Dr. McKeag responded, "... I should not feel it wise to offer her a scholarship or to urge her strongly to come" as one of the two Jewish girls who had attended Wilson during Dr. McKeag's tenure had insisted upon observing holidays of her faith. 

From the last day of April until the end of June in 1914 she concentrated her efforts upon New Jersey with overnight stays of two or three nights each in Camden, Newark, Trenton, Mt. Holly, New Bridgton, and Atlantic City, upon Eastern Ohio with overnight stays in Newark, Youngstown and Granville, and finally upon Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. Again she encountered varying attitudes of the principals and the varying abilities and skills of the girls she met. After having spent about a week in New Jersey, she wrote: "The principals generally refuse to let me speak to the students and say quite often that all the girls in the senior class have made their arrangements for college in case they are going" and considered one man "most bigoted." Others were amenable to her speaking to students, and one, she said "was most pleasant indeed. He evidently takes a great interest in advising his students in regard to college." Her quest for students was difficult. She wrote to Dr. McKeag: "...in the small towns practically none of the girls go to college, while in the larger towns they are booked for the big colleges." She especially noted that some of the girls who would be good Wilson students were interested in or who had been accepted at Goucher, Wellesley, or Swarthmore. However, again she did find some girls who impressed her and sent information about them to Dr. McKeag's office. Again Miss Syvret had to correct one additional misunderstanding, this time the belief that Wilson and Penn Hall were one, inseparable institution. 

Although Dr. McKeag was encouraging, concerned about Miss Syvret's well-being, and at times praised her efforts, during this extended tour friendly, polite, and controlled tensions developed between them. About halfway through the tour Dr. McKeag indirectly chided Miss Syvret by writing to her that someone "who had had a good deal of experience urged the importance of enthusiasm and cheerfulness in talking with the girls themselves. He said that while parents were more impressed by the more serious side of college life, that the girls themselves were more impressed by a cheerful and enthusiastic account of college life." The most serious tensions, however, were prompted by Miss Syvret's method of record keeping and continued until after the end of Miss Syvret's recruiting tours. In mid-February Dr. McKeag reminded Miss Syvret that she should write all information about a girl whom she had met on a slip of paper, that if she wanted the college to send a catalogue, she should include that request and that, if the college needed to send a letter, that request should also be written on the slip of paper. When Dr. McKeag reminded her of her carelessness in preparing and sending the slips to the office, Miss Syvret defended her procedure. Tensions also grew over the interpretation of the criteria for Miss Syvret's receiving the five dollar stipend for each student she interviewed. As late as September and October 1914 she and Dr. McKeag politely but firmly asserted their differing views about which students had been influenced to come to Wilson by Miss Syvret and which ones had been influenced by other people. In September Dr. McKeag, detailing her reasons for denying Miss Syvret's claims for five students, informed her that fifteen students had been enrolled in Wilson through her efforts and that she would receive $75.00. 

Sometime early in this semester she applied to Mt. Holyoke, her alma mater, for a Fellowship. She wrote to Dr. McKeag stating that she had received the Fellowship and added: "I am still dazed by the wonder of it all, for I had not dared to believe I should have this coveted privilege." Dr. McKeag was cooperative and recommended to the Board of Trustees that Miss Syvret for the purpose of academic study be granted with a stipend of $200 a leave of absence for the academic year 1914-1915 "with the understanding that you on your part stand pledged...to return to [your] Wilson position for the year 1915-1916." 

The last letter in the series Dr. McKeag wrote in October 1914 to Miss Syvret, who was studying at the University of Chicago. She sent a typed note: "I have your letter of October ninth and I am glad to know that you are settled comfortably at the University of Chicago. I hope that your year will be very happy. Most cordially yours." Always courteous to each other, these two women with their love of Wilson in their individual ways worked hard for the college and taught many people about it.