When Patty Went To College

Of all the college stories that have been published in the past hundred or so years, those gathered by Jean Webster into her book 'When Patty Went to College' are among the best. Never before has that subtle and much-abused thing known as « college atmosphere» been so well transferred into type as in this book, the happy-go-lucky irresponsibility, tempered by a vein of conscientiousness, inconsistent and bewildering, that makes the ordinary undergraduate an inexplicable puzzle to the outsider. Miss Patty Wyatt, who furnishes the foreground for the fifteen stories contained in the book, amply exemplifies this bewildering many sidedness. She is ever just in or just out of difficulty, and yet her fun is managed with such frankness and open audacity and such freedom from malice that it always leaves a pleasant taste behind. The book is deeply interesting and thoroughly readable. In fact, it deserves a second reading as well as a first, so natural and spontaneous is its charm.