Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

[277] name, but possibly a colloquial abbreviation of Daniel. Among the special students Francis and Frank balance each other, one of each, while Henry is found twice and Harry once. To sum up: in the whole undergraduate department Henry is to Harry as forty-eight to thirteen,while Frank is to Francis as twenty-three to nineteen; and there are four Freds, besides Harrie and Bertie. There are thus in these official Harvard lists nearly forty of these familiar nicknames, which are thought so preposterous at a woman's college. Of course they are not the same nicknames, because they belong to a different sex; but can it be maintained that Harrier and Bertie are essentially noble, heroic, masculine, while Georgie and Freddie are hopelessly feminine, and therefore weak?

Whether the numerical proportion of pet names is greater at women's colleges is not to the purpose; very likely it may be, but forty of them at Harvard are quite enough to destroy all feminine monopoly. The whole discussion is therefore reduced to the question whether there is such a difference between the terminations y and ie as to make it a fine thing to be called Harry and a thing of degradation to be called Jennie. Now with every disposition to be conservative in this matter of terminations-to stand with the y's, if I may say so without suspicion of a pun — I must declare this to be simply a matter