The modern college for women, evolving by rapid growth from recent simple beginnings to its present highly complex state, is unquestionably still in the process of development. A glance over the changes already accomplished brings conviction that the present situation is but a stage in the life history of a virile institution. That present condition is explicable only by a knowledge of its beginnings. The conception by the founder, the inheritance of his ideals, the impress of early traditions, and the effect of the immediate environment have served inevitably to produce variation. One woman's college differs from another in the courses which it offers its students, in the emphasis which it places upon values, in characteristics academic and social, because of certain elements which brought it into existence and certain factors which have been at work on it ever since. That the variation is on the whole comparatively slight points toward an integrity of purpose highly creditable to the protagonists of education for women. A study of the modern curriculum should, then, receive illumination by a knowledge of early curriculum, its reason for being, and the modifications and adaptations which have attended its growth during its struggle for existence. If history has one function, it is to interpret the present by the past. If the present is to become significant as a signpost to the future, such an interpretation is essential. The colleges upon whose curricula the study herein is based were chosen as fair samples of the varieties of modern colleges for the education of women: Vassar College, "the oldest of the well-equipped and amply endowed colleges for women in the United States," and Wellesley College, closely paralleling it in age and rapidity of development; Radcliffe College, a pioneer in establishing a college wherein women, without coeducation, could receive instruction from a university for men, and Barnard College with a like affiliation with a men's university; Mount Holyoke, the most important college which developed from seminary beginnings. The following chapters are presented: (1) The development of the curriculum; (2) A comparative study of modern curriculum; (3) Summary of the study of the modern curriculum; (4) College teaching; (5) The relation between major studies and vocations; and (6) The socialization of the women's college. A bibliography and an index are included. Individual chapters contain footnotes. (Contains 7 figures.) [Best copy available has been provided.]