No Smoking

Into Manhattan's Hotel Belmont last week walked five uneasy little girls, under the guidance of one of the principals of their school. They were being taken home in disgrace. On their way home from Northampton (Mass.) School, at the beginning of the Christmas vacation, they had smoked cigarets. Intelligence of their misconduct had finally reached the school, where they and 62 other educables were being prepared for Smith College. What would mother and father say?

To meet them their parents had gathered in a room on the second floor, the mothers vexed or worried, the fathers vexed, amused or embarrassed. Co-Principal Sarah B. Whitaker delivered the smoke-stained young ladies, waited anxiously for either blame or praise. She got both.

Said one sympathetic father: "I don't consider my daughter a criminal because she smoked. The school breaks its own rules so often I don't see how they can logically punish others for breaking them. They let my daughter Beatrice come home alone on one occasion when they should have chaperoned her."

Said one indignant mother: "It's a disgrace!"

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