In her first class, the students have read the entire syllabus-worth of material, and, without being asked to contribute, identify and comment correctly on each slide. She is left speechless. No art history professor I ever encountered at Wellesley would have been at a loss for words to add, elucidate or fabricate information about their images if necessary to fill time. Even if by some miracle the students had read the entire text before the first class, they never would have been rude to the professor as they are in the movie — not even in the seventies, let alone the fifties.

Despite warnings that the Italian professor (Dominic West) “sleeps with his students,” she succumbs to his charms partly because he seems to be “modern” like herself, but finds truth in the concept: falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus. The movie seems accidentally to make the point that this affair, like another with one of his students, was detrimental to the woman involved. It is only fair to point out that another student marries (albeit for wrong reasons), and has an even worse experience. The viewer is supposed to be outraged that a

sympathetic character who is the school nurse, a lesbian, is fired for handing out birth-control devices. It was in fact, as the college president says, against the law.

Her encouragement to the “smart” girl, Joan, (played by Julia Stiles) to go to Yale Law School begins with her giving her an application. When Joan chooses to marry and not to go to law school – not even a lesser one near her husband’s graduate school, Miss Watson is clearly disappointed. Joan replies, “You said you wanted me to be happy. This is what will make me happy, and I won’t be any the less smart.” It proves that someone who is intelligent and confident of her own vocation can make the decision not to go into the professional world. Although this is contrasted with a girl who marries and becomes miserable (because her husband is unfaithful), it is the smart and confident girl who is in control of her life and her vocational choices.

This surprising plug for the choice of being a wife and mother is strengthened by the parting conversation between Katherine Watson and the Italian professor. Hurt by her rejection, he