I ,l!l 'ilP i rl lll'''Tl ' iLykiiliiiiililiiliiiiiiiiiililiJiiiiliiSiiiiiiSliSii Uiy'ill'JJ I' I 1 EGE MinlHiiiill^ '-^ ''-mRAU^' (RmuW Uttirmitg ^ibatg THE GIFT OF ^.r^Ss^jj^JurdLSkSh "^cilvUJnLniVW ^...\Ar\ O % S ,...„ a\v\oi.. Pi Cornell University B Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030633626 CELEBRATION OF THE (!^uarter=Centenatj> OF SMITH COLLEGE OCTOBER SECOND AND THIRD 1900 CAMBRIDGE |)rintelr at Clje EitaetrfiiHe preed 1900 PREFATORY NOTE At the spring meeting of the Trustees of Smith College, April 2, 1900, it was voted to celebrate the completion of twenty-five years of its academic work ; and the President, L. Clark Seelye, the trea- surer, Charles N. Clark, and Mrs. Elizabeth L. Clarke, one of the alumnas trustees, were appointed a committee to make suitable arrangements for it. The Faculty, also, were requested to appoint com- mittees to cooperate with the Trustees. In compliance with this request, the Faculty ap- pointed Professors Henry M. Tyler, Mary A. Jor- dan, and William F. Ganong a Committee of Ar- rangement, and Professors John T. Stoddard, Elea- nor P. Cushing, and Irving F. Wood a Committee of Entertainment. At a subsequent conference of these committees, it was decided that the commemoration should be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 1 and 3 ; that the undergraduates should be asked to conduct the exercises on Tuesday morning and the alumnae to conduct the exercises on Tuesday afternoon ; that a reception should be given by the Trustees and Fac- ulty to the invited guests in the Alumnae Gymnasium on Tuesday evening ; that on Wednesday morning IV PREFATORY NOTE there should be the historical addresses and the greet- ings of the Commonwealth ; and that on Wednesday afternoon there should be an educational conference at which prominent educators should be invited to make addresses. This general scheme was fully carried out with the hearty cooperation of all who were asked to assist in the celebration ; and the vari- ous addresses which were made on that occasion were considered by those who heard them of such permanent value, as contributions to the history of Smith College and to collegiate education, that they have been published in this volume for the benefit of a wider public. CONTENTS I. UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES PAGE Welcome. By Laura Woolsey Lord 3 An Undergraduate View of Smith College Ideals. By Charlotte Burges DeForest ... 4 Story. By Ellen Gray Barbour 11 Poem. By Helen Isabel Walbridge 22 Greeting of the Undergraduates. By Laura Woolsey Lord 24 Response. By President Seelye 25 II. ALUMNiE RESPONSES Greeting. By Mrs. Lucy Clapp Noyes . . . 29 Response for Home and Family. By Mrs. Kate Morris Cone 32 Response for the College Woman and Social Reform. By Vida Dutton Scudder .... 42 Response for Scholarship. By Mary Whiton Calkins . , 49 Response for Alma Mater. By Mrs. Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke 59 III. HISTORICAL ADDRESSES Prayer. By the Right Reverend William Lawrence 73 Greeting of the Commonwealth. By his Honor, Lieutenant-Governor Bates 75 The Origin of Smith College. By Rev. John M. Greene 79 History of Smith College. By President Seelye 94 vi CONTENTS IV. EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE Address. By William T. Harris 135 Address. By Dean Briggs 149 Address. By President Hadley 1 54 Address. By President Low 158 Address. By President Taylor 166 Address. By President Hazard . . . . . .179 Address. By President Thomas 183 OrDer of (Bxtuim FOR THE SMITH COLLEGE QUARTER CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION October 2 and 3 'Tuesday 10.30 A, M. Welcome, By the President of the Students' Council Laura Woolsey Lord^ igoi Address ..... Charlotte Burgh DeForest^ igoi Music . . By the College Glee, Banjo, and Mandolin Clubs Story ...... Ellen Gray Barbour, 190J Read by Blanche Lauriat, 1903. Poem ...... Helen Isabel Walhridge, 1^02 Read by Beatrice Manning, 1902. Music, To Smith College . . . Susan Titsworth, iSg"] Greeting of the Undergraduates Laura Woolsey Lord, igoi Music, Fair Smith . . . Regina Katherine Crandall, i8go 4.00 p. M. Processional. Greeting by Mrs. Lucia Clapp Noyes, President of the Alumnae Asso- ciation of Smith College. Responses. For Literature, Anna Hempstead Branch,^ 1897. For The Home and F'amily, Mrs. Kate Morris Cone, 1879. For Philanthropy, Vida Dutton Scudder, 1884. For Scholarship, Mary Whiton Calkins, 1885. For Alma Mater, Mrs. Elizabeth Lawrence Clarke, 1889. 8.00 P. M. Reception in Alumnae Gymnasium. 1 Unable to be present. JVednesday 10.15 A. M. Processional. Adagio Pathetique, for Violin Godard Mr. C. N. Allen. Prayer Right Reverend William Lawrence, D. D., Bishop of Massachusetts Aria from Elijah, " Hear ye, Israel " . . . Mendelssohn Mrs. E. Humphrey-Allen. Congratulations of the commonwealth. His Honor, Lieutenant-Governor John L. Bates. Address .... Reverend John M. Greene^ D. D. Anthem, " Blessed be the name of God forever " . B. C. Blodgett Historical Address . President L. Clark Seelye^ D. Z)., LL. D. Music. Hymn 177 (Tune, Miriam). Recessional. 2.30 p. M. Processional Pilgrims' Chorus Wagner Addresses by Hon. William T. Harris, LL. D., U. S. Commissioner of Edu- cation ; Dean LeBaron Russell Briggs, LL. D., Harvard University ; President Arthur T. Hadley, LL. D., Yale University ; President Seth Low, LL. D., Columbia University ; President James M. Taylor, LL. D., Vassar College; President Caroline Hazard, L. H. D., Wellesley College ; President M. Carey Thomas, LL. D., Bryn Mawr College. I UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES TUESDAY MORNING, OCTOBER SECOND UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES WELCOME by laura woolsey lord Our honored President, and all Friends of THE College : We the undergraduates welcome you most heartily to our simple exercises. We feel privileged that, together with all of you who rejoice to-day and feel pride in our college, we may speak and sing her praise and try to express the loyalty we bear her. Each class takes its part — whether in song and verse, or in story and more serious thought. First, — for the senior class. Miss Charlotte De- Forest will read " An Undergraduate View of Smith College Ideals." AN UNDERGRADUATE VIEW OF SMITH COLLEGE IDEALS BY CHARLOTTE BURGIS DEFOREST, 190I The years of the average student in a woman's college are taken from that period in her life which is of most importance in its bearing on her future. She is making experiments, and her experiments are along two lines : first, in the adoption of ideals, and second, in the adoption of means by which to real- ize those ideals. Indeed, all our life may be said to be a series of experiments along these lines; but naturally, the experimentation is most pronounced and varied in the formative years, before the plastic character of youth has hardened in the mould of habit. And the experiments have the greatest in- fluence on life if they come in the latter part of the formative period, when the imagination — that factor of prime importance in the shaping of ideals — has been modified by experience and reason from the lawless fancy of childhood to a far-sighted and in- spiring force. With the importance of these col- lege years in mind, we come to ask what ideals the student finds here ready-made for her acceptance or modification, and what helps are offered her for their realization. The college has a double choice of ideals to make, one for itself as a corporate body, one for the indi- CHARLOTTE BURGIS DEFOREST 5 vidual under its care. The college, realizing that it exists for its members, tries to benefit each individ- ual by granting to each as much liberty of self-de- velopment as is compatible with the interests of a community of students. Thus the college seems to find its ideal in flexibility of organization : organiza- tion there must be, if there is to be order ; and flexi- bility in custom and curriculum is a necessity, if the habits, tastes, and needs of hundreds of differing students are to be consulted. Smith College as an organization is working toward this ideal ; the changes which an undergraduate has seen in the last three years have tended toward its realization. If in song last year some of the classes memorial- ized themselves as " victims of experiment," it was more to indulge a sense of humor and a love for classification than to indicate the failure on their part to see the progress of which the "experiments" were signs. Throughout its existence, the guiding policy of this college has been freedom from tradition. Pre- cedent here or in other colleges has not been con- sidered a sufficient reason for any custom or require- ment. Tested by a standard of value rather than of age, however time-honored, such things as class and college yells, class enmities, hazing, and the academic cap and gown — in spite of widely differing opinions — have been found wanting. In our organizations, too, we differ from our sister colleges ; we have no intercollegiate fraternities, not even the Phi Beta Kappa, and our Association for Christian Work is 6 UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES not affiliated with the World's Student Christian Federation. Yet we do not take pride in this isola- tion for its own sake ; quite possibly, even probably, time will show that our policy has been carried to an extreme ; but should that ever be, the same policy of freedom will be found as effective in breaking away from the errors of our own past as in avoiding those found in the past of other colleges. We do believe that in general this policy has been fruitful of great advantage to the college, and as its bene- ficiaries we are grateful that its life began and has so long continued under the guidance of one master personality, of force sufficient to oppose the current of tradition, or turn its power into new channels of greater utility. Even by this time, the college woman has not outlived the period in which she herself is regarded as an experiment ; a statement of her value still calls forth in many places a raised eyebrow or a shrug. Colleges for women have no doubt produced prigs ; they have produced blue-stockings, and sometimes unhelpful and unlovable women; and the peculiar- ities of individual temperaments, accentuated per- haps by abnormal conditions, have been interpreted as the undesirable results of a college education. But in such cases the college has been misunder- stood. If you would find the ideal of this college, do not seek it in a woman's form with a man's in- tellect and a man's tastes ; the best of public opinion scouted such an appearance as a phantom of horror before it had a chance to become a type : nor will CHARLOTTE BURGIS DEFOREST 7 you find it in the professional woman ; the college has long since left behind that period in its career when it was regarded as a training school for spe- cialists. The ideal of our college for each of its students is the attainment of intellectual woman- liness. The intellectual factor of a college training is much more far reaching than to include only the courses taken and the books studied. It includes all the forces which go to stimulate individual think- ing. Students do not come to college to " finish " their education. I know of no phrase better ex- pressing precisely what it is not the purpose of the college to do for any one. The college fails in its intellectual aim if the formal education of its class- room has not begotten at least the seeds of an in- tellectuality which will find its nutrition in all the experiences of the future, and grow more and more toward the independence and impartiality of deep and high thinking. This type of intellectuality assimi- lates to itself; its knowledge is not put on like a gar- ment, but is incorporated, — unlike that of an old man who once remarked that he had studied English grammar forty years before, and then added, " But I hain't had no use for it since." The true intel- lectuality outlives the memory of dates and formulae, and is not dependent on particular surroundings ; it is subjective, tested by its ability to thrive on one end of a log without a Mark Hopkins on the other end. It is not, however, for this reason visionary and unpractical. It is not akin to the schemes of 8 UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES Gilbert's Girl Graduates, who would fain extract sunbeams from cucumbers and teach pigs how to fly. On the contrary, it is of great value in life, for while it candidly refuses " To recognize in things around What cannot truly there be found," it has the power to infuse into these things new in- gredients which may transform them. Our college has before it the difficult task of dis- tilling this essence of the intellectual out of the means of education at its hand. The most apparent of these means is the ordinary lecture or recitation, attendance upon which is rigidly required. In the face of this requirement, however, this college real- izes that the adjustment of the mind to routine work under outside compulsion carries with it the danger of leaving the student without the will or the self- application to work when the pressure is removed. Realizing this, the class-room seeks less to teach facts than to cultivate the philosophic attitude of mind, the scientific spirit, the sympathetic moral in- terest, — qualities which cannot be crammed for an examination, nor divorced for the summer vacation. In granting its students the liberty of pursuing courses in art and music on the same basis as that of the usual elective academic studies, our college shows an appreciation of the basal unity of culture ; and in the changes soon to go into operation, — changes in accordance with which the conferring of the A. B. degree is not limited to students of Greek and the higher mathematics, — this college has taken a long CHARLOTTE BURGIS DEFOREST 9 step forward, proving its realization of the truth that not the object of study, but the quality of the study- ing, makes the student. The college has other means than the purely academic for stimulating the intellectual life, — the campus houses. There in her fellow students the student meets herself multiplied or divided, with additions and subtractions of abilities, ambitions, ex- periences. Her condition, the circumstances of her fellow beings, the vicissitudes of life, force them- selves on her thought, and give her as knotty prob- lems to solve as any that she meets in the class- room. On being told how many students there were here, a visitor once exclaimed, " How much talking there must be ! " Talking — yes, there is much of it ; and it is one of the most valuable means of education that the college can boast. Amid much conversation that is flippant, amid much that is purely recreative, there goes on incessantly an ex- change of thought, a broadening of outlook, an in- crease of human interest, which cannot be measured as a stimulant to the intellectual life. But I said that the ideal of our college for its stu- dents was intellectual womanliness. The intellectual is after all only the qualifying adjective : the woman- liness is the chief thing. Were the intellectual alone cultivated, we should utterly fail of that " harmonious blending of the knowing and the loving powers " of our nature, wherein, as Phillips Brooks tells us, lies the real secret of power. A healthful balance of faculties must be cultivated and preserved ; we are to grow lo UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES " not alone in power And knowledge, but by year and hour In reverence and in charity." When Mark Twain said that the cauliflower was only a cabbage gone through college, he showed a keen appreciation of the refining and transforming power of culture. The intellectual training which has not made finer and stronger the fibres of our very being has been sadly misdirected. Character and refinement, the love of the good and the beautiful, are letters which the world reads and re- members much better than it does an acute mentality. The prejudice which the college as an institution for woman has had to meet has been largely due to the fear that it would detract from her womanly virtues, her womanly charms. We try to prove that fear a mistaken one. In our four short years here, we test the little ideals of our past by the ideals the college has for us, and we test the college ideals by the high- est standard of character and life which the world and our own souls can afford. And if the experiment of these vital college years is not a failure, they show us new truths, add emphasis to old ones, and teach us in loving gratitude to accept the ambition of the college for us : " To virtue, knowledge." STORY BY ELLEN GRAY BARBOUR, 1903 On her first night in Northampton, Katherine Hayes went to sleep wondering what one of the girls had meant by talking about " those poor dazed freshmen." Why should a freshman be dazed? To be sure, she had been a little puzzled, on her arrival, by the fact that they had not given her a sin- gle room. She had not told them that she wanted to room with anybody. And then her trunk had not come ; she wondered if it could be that the express- man had not gotten the address right. There was certainly nothing bewildering about her junior room- mate. She was a pretty, jolly little girl, who sat on the edge of her bed and asked her questions, and, in the intervals of being embraced by returning class- mates, tried unsuccessfully to discover mutual ac- quaintances. She had seemed a little surprised at Katherine's saying she was sure she should prefer a junior room-mate to one of her own class, but had answered that there were, of course, some advantages about the arrangement. Katherine wondered what it felt like to be homesick ; and then she wondered if they were lonely without her, and whether she should get a letter to-morrow, and if they would take good care of her horse, Lynette, — how she 12 UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES should miss her ! And she wondered if she really ought to be dazed. The first few days of college were full of interest, Katherine soon discovered what was meant by " dazed freshmen." She herself had been out of school a year, and certainly most of her class did seem young and "half-baked," and not quite sure where they were going. She had expected to find at once sev- eral congenial friends ; but if she did take a fancy to the girl she sat next to in chapel or recitation, she was more than likely not to see her again for days. The freshmen in her own house seemed particularly uninteresting, and had somehow gotten acquainted with each other before she decided that she wanted to know them. This decision she did not arrive at until she had discovered that the sophomores and upper-class girls, although cordial and ready with more or less reliable information, had for the most part their own groups of friends, and took it for granted that she would fall naturally into place among her own classmates. Why these classmates should put her down as " snippish," she could not imagine. " At the Frolic," Katherine had read somewhere, " the freshman meets congenial members of her own class, and it is likely to prove the centre from whick many of her friendships radiate," But on the morn- ing after the Frolic, she found that she could recall hardly a face. She remembered only a bewildering throng of figures in an extraordinary variety of cos- tume, ranging from full evening dress to shirt waist ELLEN GRAY BARBOUR 13 and short pique skirt. One of the seniors, to be sure, had impressed her tremendously ; but she dis- covered, on bowing to her after church the next day, that she had not produced a similar impression upon the senior. Several members of her own class had promised to call. She was sure she should not be able to tell which was which when they came ; but they did not come. " Why don't you play with your little classmates in this house ? " her room-mate asked. " Honestly, Katharine, that 's the only way to begin. You can ' expand ' more afterwards, if you want to. But it 's so much more fun having your friends right around you." " Well, Alice, you know, the girls in my class all seem so young, somehow. It 's funny, but I hav en't found one of them yet that I 'm sure I care to be friends with. I like that senior down at the end of the hall, though. I wonder why she does n't pay any more attention to me. I 'm sure I 've always been nice to her." '' It can't be that she thinks you seem so young, somehow ? " " Why, Alice, I don't think I seem young. No one ever told me so, I 'm sure. And anyhow I thought the girls here would be so different. I thought they came because they wanted to be im- proved, and" — " And now they won't let you improve them ? " Katherine turned away. It hurt her more than she would confess when she was laughed at. She 14 UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES generally took it well enough, but to-day she was not exactly in the humor to conceal what she felt. She was beginning to realize that she was " out of it." She was not the kind of girl who is denominated "pill," and who, sooner or later, consistently rolls into place. She felt that if she did not fit into the mosaic at first, there was small chance that she would find her proper position later on ; still less would she eventually become the centre of the pattern. At home her companions had been carefully selected for her ; here, like Becky Sharp, she had to be her own mamma, and she trusted her own judgment at once too much and too little. " She was ever so nice to me yesterday," some girl would say, " and to-day she '11 hardly speak to me." And one remark, which the speaker had been at no pains to make inaudible, was still rankling in Katherine's memory, — " It 's quite evident that that girl has had no bringing up whatsoever." A certain set of girls, however, pur- sued her with attentions which she found extremely distasteful. " It 's their motto on the stairway doors," she told her room-mate, " that impressed me the first thing, and it 's been growing steadily worse : ' Push. ' " She came across the campus one afternoon as the juniors were pouring out of class meeting, and she caught scraps of their conversation : " Otherwise, it could n't be better ; " "I was so impressed by the fact that I only got five votes." — " Who 's your president ? " called some one from a window. " Eliz- abeth Hodges," came the answer. " Is n't it grand ?" " Elizabeth Hodges," murmured Katherine, as ELLEN GRAY BARBOUR 15 she went on to her room. "Is that Elizabeth Hodges of Hamilton ? " she demanded, as her room-mate entered, " Why, you come from the same place, don't you ? Why did n't you tell me you knew her ? Is n't it fine she 's elected ? " " But it seems so funny ! However did you hap- pen to do it ? " " Happen to ? It was almost unanimous. She 's the finest girl in the class." " It seems queer, that 's all. I suppose she must be a nice girl, all right, but somehow nobody at home seemed to know her. There — that sounds terribly snobbish, does n't it ? Only, that 's the way things are there, you know." " Well, it is n't the way they are here," returned Alice. " We all think she 's a mighty good sort of person to know. Nobody 'd any more think of patronizing her ! If she were to take you up — but then, I don't guess she will." " I met her over in College Hall the other day," said Katherine, with a trace of disapprobation in her tone, " and she said she was coming to call on me. It struck me as rather fresh at the time, but I sup- pose I 'm greatly honored." Katherine's isolation was becoming irksome. For the sake of being less alone, she began to tolerate those whose attentions had at first annoyed her, and told herself that she was growing broad-minded. They were, she knew, the girls who had been loud- est in condemning her as snobbish ; they were of the i6 UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES class who are never prouder than when they can come home from church and boast that they did n't hear a word of the sermon ; but still, they were good enough in their way. They were generous, and, to a large extent, sincere. Even if some motives for entering college were more commendable than others, those who came for " the life " were surely not to be blamed. At least they were consistent, for they mani- fested a beautiful indifference to flunks and low grades. As the weeks went on and Katherine grew more intimate with them, she neglected herown class work more and more, and developed an extraordinary proficiency in the art of guessing. October passed, and Elizabeth Hodges did not call. Katherine tried to make herself think that she was relieved, but she did not succeed, for she was un- comfortably conscious that a junior president -does not necessarily make it her first duty to call on fresh- men. Elizabeth, on her part, had given up all idea of making the call. She had been a little surprised by Katherine's manner toward her, and, concluding that the interview would not be particularly enjoyed by either, had put the matter out of her mind. It was recalled to her one evening, when in the parlors of one of the college houses she was presented to a celebrity who had just been lecturing in Assembly Hall. " Miss Hodges, from Hamilton, Professor Ro- land," some one had said. " I believe you have friends there." ELLEN GRAY BARBOUR 17 " From Hamilton, Miss Hodges ? Then I Ve just come from your home. I was staying with Judge Hayes ; you know him, of course ? " " I know who he is," Elizabeth replied. " Then I suppose you know his daughter ? She 's up here," he said. " Charming little girl ; I was dis- appointed not to find her at home." " I 'm afraid I can't say I know Katherine very well. I imagine she 's better known in her own class ; she 's a freshman." " Oh, yes, yes, to be sure. I should say she 'd be very popular. Just the kind of girl to fit in here. Self-possessed, but not too much so ; really a charm- ing manner." " She will be better known later, I 'm sure," an- swered Elizabeth with some hesitation. There really did not seem to be anything to say about Katherine ; her making such an impression on the professor was decidedly puzzling. To her, Katherine's manner had seemed anything but charming. But while Professor Roland was reconciling his impressions of Katherine with Elizabeth's non-committal attitude by that gen- erality which seems to the masculine mind of univer- sal application, that all women are jealous, Elizabeth was beginning to realize the truth concerning Kather- ine's position. " The poor child must feel simply lost in this place," she said to herself. " ' Not pop- ular with her own class,* they say ; that 's pretty hard. I believe I '11 take the risk, after all, and go and see her." One afternoon early in November, Katherine was 1 8 UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES feeling particularly blue. In this mood she felt that her companions were worse than unsatisfying, and that at the same time there was no escape for her while she remained in the house. She seemed to herself to have no centre of gravity, and to achieve, by each motion that she made, an entirely unexpected result. Removed from her family and social life, she was out of her orbit. She wandered hopelessly amid conditions where, as it were, the algebraic signs familiar to her former life represented totally differ- ent quantities. In her sanguine moods she felt that some day she should discover what these signs stood for, and then solve the problems about her as the other students did ; but to-day nothing desirable seemed possible. The college experience to which- she had looked forward so ambitiously was degen- erating into a series of more or less creditable and successful attempts at " having fun." The fun was tempered by the knowledge that those in the com- munity for whose opinion she most cared either no- ticed her not at all, or referred to her somewhat scornfully as " one of that crowd." In desperation she felt that her feet were irreversibly set upon the downward path, and that she was never meant for college life. For the intangible spirit of the place had no fellowship with the seeking of pleasure for its own sake ; other things were sought, and the pleasure came with them, so it seemed, and came abundantly. If the two prominent sophomores who roomed next to her occasionally pulled down each other's hair. It did not necessarily follow that they ELLEN GRAY BARBOUR 19 watched the clock with strained nerves during the next day's recitations. Why was it that their appar- ently incessant tennis and basket-ball were no such impediment to their college work as was in Katherine's case the lounging in and out of her friends' rooms ? There was something mysterious in the matter, some- thing radically wrong ; and she felt blind and power- less. And then, to think of Elizabeth Hodges being junior president ! It was just then that Elizabeth Hodges knocked at the door. Katherine rose cordially to meet her, for she had resolved to be at least courteous the next time they met. "It was ever so good of you to come. Miss Hodges," she said. " You must be a very busy person." " I 'm only sorry I could n't come before," an- swered Elizabeth, seating herself with a self-posses- sion and a graciousness which surprised Katherine and made her wonder whether, after all, the presi- dent of the junior class might not be well worth cultivating. This idea deepened into a conviction before her visitor left. There was a magnetism about Elizabeth which caused Katherine to unbend to her more than to any one since her arrival. Elizabeth seemed an embodiment of the college spirit, and when she went a breath of it lingered be- hind. Together with a feeling of shame at her mis- understanding and misuse of all that was around her, there came upon Katherine the dawning of a great love. And she saw that she had only to put out 20 UNDERGRADUATE EXERCISES her hand and take of the plentiful harvest that was waiting to be gathered. This stimulant, tender, comprehending atmosphere, of which she suddenly began to realize the existence, — could it be the result of the association in this place of girls like Elizabeth Hodges ? If she could but begin again ! Then all at once she smiled. Who was she, that she could not begin again ? Did any one outside of her house know her? Were there not many paths she had left quite untrodden, many channels into which she could pour herself, and forget the past? The mortifying realization that she was less than nothing to those about her clothed itself in happiness. The beginning again was not wholly easy. She found that she was better known than she had sup- posed ; but in the end this did not militate against her. She threw herself heartily into her class work, and was surprised to find that she was really inter- ested, and that, apart from the appreciation shown by her instructors, there was an inspiration in it. At first she felt that Elizabeth deserved the entire credit for pulling her out of her Slough of Despond ; later, when she studied psychology, she began to meditate upon the matter from an impersonal stand- point, and to realize that from the time of her arrival the college spirit had been working upon her, and that she had merely not recognized it until it pre- sented itself visibly and tangibly in the form of Elizabeth Hodges. Seeing what the prize was, she had desired it. Seeing that the starting-point was ELLEN GRAY BARBOUR 21 not Hamilton, but the campus, she had set her feet upon the right path. Katherine never achieved college fame. She re- deemed herself wholly in the eyes of those who had known her at first, and she made many friends. But she was not captain of her class team, or editor of the Monthly, or even senior president ; in short, she was not the typical college heroine. Yet, as the college had opened her eyes, and had given her the chance to develop from an importunate child into the woman she was meant to be, in the fullest sense of the words, she was a college success. POEM BY HELEN ISABEL WALBRIDGE, 1902 Once more we bring our hearts to thee, Once more our hopes we dedicate, O College of our love ! — Thou mighty wind whom soul hath wrought, Whom none but soul again may move. As sure as life that never ends, Though man may come and speak and go. So surely stand thy halls ; As shadows blowing on the sea. So frail our ivy on thy walls. O silent voice whom none may know, O tempest blast who goest forth Where none may follow thee. Thy children listen for thy word. Thy breath that they may hear and see. With empty words we dare not call, — Too deep she dwelleth in our thought. Too deep within our heart. She is of life a part to us ; Her praise of life be more than part. To her we bring what we have done. Alike our failure, our success, — HELEN ISABEL WALBRIDGE 23 She is our guide in all ; Our sternest judge when we would boast, Our surest help if we should fall. To her we bring our hope of life, Our old ideals nobler grown. Her lesson sought for, found : — Life still is greater than our thought, For thought still waits, untaught, unbound. Thy blast bears out we know not where, The end we fear not, for his soul That wrought thy life in thee Still shapes thy course aright to those Whose sails have met the rougher sea. Once more we bring our hearts to thee. Once more our hopes we dedicate, O College of our love ! — Thou mighty wind whom soul hath wrought. Whom none but soul again may move. GREETING OF THE UNDER- GRADUATES BY LAURA WOOLSEY LORD These words of praise and of glory in our college which we have spoken and sung are not mere idle sayings ; for not only with our lips do we honor this college, our Alma Mater. But to us who day after day live here the ordered life of the undergraduate, the college means not so much even this fond mother of the fancy, as it does our teachers and our president. So that the love for our college is identified with the more personal and warmer regard for them ; — especially for you, the head of this college, who for twenty-five years has so guided all that we to-day enjoy finer opportuni- ties than any who have gone before us. But rather than for these, we thank you that we have been taught to believe that, though we are hun- dreds in number, each has an individual place, that we are one great family, and that each week we may feel that it is a father who gives us his evening bless- ing. Seldom can we tell you of this our personal loy- alty to you, and so to-day we, the whole undergrad- uate body, wish with this gift^ — American in handi- work and in spirit — to assure you of our true abiding reverence and love. > A bronze elk, by A. E. Procter. RESPONSE BY PRESIDENT SEELYE Dearly Beloved — my joy and crown, — For this generous testimonial of your respect and affection, I am most grateful and deeply moved, — too grateful and too deeply moved to express in fitting words my emotions. In fact, I can sympathize with some of you, when, suddenly called upon in the class-room, you answer, " Not prepared." For I was told that, in the exercises this morning, I was to have no part, and that nothing was expected of me except to listen to what others might say. I rejoice that Smith College has not been in vain. The testimony of the present occasion, however, seems to me a prophecy of the future, more than a memorial of the past. It is the undergraduates, who will determine largely what the college henceforth shall be. Twenty-five years hence, perhaps, you will gather here again to celebrate another anniversary, when some of your teachers who are here to-day will be absent. I can wish for my successor, then, no- thing better than that he may receive as full a mea- sure of respect and affection, as I have been honored and blessed with. II ALUMNA RESPONSES TUESDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER SECOND ALUMNA RESPONSES GREETING by mrs. lucia clapp noyes, 1 88 1 Mr. President, and Members of the Alumnae : I congratulate you that we are assembled in such full numbers on this interesting occasion. We have left our busy homes and occupations to re- visit our academic, seat and here to pay homage to the college of our love and through it to all colleges and universities throughout the land ; " because in them truth is sought, knowledge increased and stored, literature, art, and science are fostered, and honor, duty, and piety are cherished." The spirit in which we come is one of profound thankfulness for the past, and well-grounded hope for the future. At this time we are entitled to enjoy together the history and the memories of the past twenty-five years, during which our cherished college has had its life, and hopefully to anticipate for it an ever widening sphere of usefulness and influence. On your behalf I welcome most cordially the delegates from other colleges and universities ; and all other distinguished guests who honor us by their presence. 30 ALUMNA RESPONSES This morning with our undergraduate sisters we have looked at the ideals and condition of the col- lege from their point of view. To-morrow it will be our privilege to hear the history of its origin and creation from him who first suggested to the founder the idea of this college, and who was her confidential adviser in the execution of the gift. To Dr. Greene as well as to Sophia Smith herself, our debt of grati- tude will ever be due. To-morrow also we shall hear of the early years of the college from that able, energetic, single-minded, and yet fair-minded man who has presided over this institution during the entire period of its existence. His long term of service testifies to a steadfastness and a devotion unexampled in the history of the higher education of women. Other men and women have been called upon to deal with the difficulties of one period or another in the life of any given school. But Presi- dent Seelye alone has met the problems of a college, from the moment when its corner-stone was laid to the day when it has taken an unassailable place among the great educational institutions of our country. Such, then, being the character of the exercises of this morning and of those in store tomorrow, it is fitting for us to devote a short time this afternoon to a consideration of the meaning of this college in the world at large ; and of the posi- tions its alumnae are filling in the various walks of life. We are now a body of nineteen hundred gradu- ates. Surely the influence of so large a number of MRS. LUCIA CLAPP NO YES 31 educated women is too far-reaching to be fully ex- pressed to-day. But I shall ask you to listen for a brief time to the testimony of a few of our represen- tatives who can speak with illumination of the way in which the alumna is applying the intelligence and power which she has acquired. The speakers will need no formal introduction. We have no " oldest living graduate," and may the day be far distant when that honorary designation may be applied to a single representative of any class ! I shall, however, begin by calling upon one of that immortal eleven who were the first to leave their homes and enter these academic halls to subject themselves to a strange " experiment," which would undoubtedly deprive them of all future interest in home life and all ability in practical affairs. Remarkable has been the result ! As she can testify who has not only been a valued member of the Board of College Trustees, but has survived the varied exoeriences in philanthropic and intellectual pursuits without losing one of the privileges or foregoing any of the enjoy- ments of the domestic life. I will call on Mrs. Kate Morris Cone of the class of '79 to respond to the sentiment, "The Alumna and the Home." RESPONSE FOR HOME AND FAMILY BY MRS. KATE MORRIS CONE, 1 879 In speaking to you of the home as a sphere of influence, I feel very much as some worker behind the scenes might feel if called upon to criticise the play. Some one else would do it better. Looked at from the Inside, which is necessarily my point of view, the home does not appear so much a sphere of influence as an opportunity for satisfying the higher demands of one's nature. If you will permit me, therefore, I will leave you to imagine the influ- ence, while I myself present the side of which I can speak ; namely, the home as a satisfaction to a col- lege woman's demand for a full and active life, in which mind and heart and hand shall have about equal play ; and since less doubt exists as to the full employment of heart and hand in home-making, I shall confine myself chiefly to the intellectual satis- faction which a college-bred woman may get out of a home. Let me get over the most debatable region to begin with, and show how college-bred brains may be exercised in housekeeping. Housework is no longer a thing in which intelligent women need be bound by tradition and foreign models. Contrary to expectation it has been found to offer a field for MRS. KATE MORRIS CONE 33 research, for experiment, and for the application of science to common things of the very first impor- tance. Already the work done by college women in domestic science, as, for instance, by Dean Talbot of Chicago University, Mrs. Ellen H. Richards of the Institute of Technology, and Miss Salmon of Vassar, is said to be the best fruit so far of the higher education of women ; at least, the most original and the most needed by the world at large. One of the recent topics of discussion by the Association of Col- legiate Alumnae is how to make college courses more practical ; that is, how to interest college girls in housekeeping. College women have been largely instrumental in establishing a school of Domestic Sci- ence in Boston. Certain colleges and many schools offer courses on houshold subjects. This week a National Household Economic Association holds its eighth annual meeting at Toronto. To the college girl about to marry and keep house, opportunities for intellectual satisfaction open ; first, in the direc- tion of acquainting herself with the theories of house- hold economics already put forth ; second, in placing her own manage upon a business and scientific basis and seeing the household machinery yield under her hand ; and third, in inventing or discovering or reforming something along domestic lines on her own account. The whole subject of food, its choice, its prepa- ration, its adulteration, and its adaptation to different sorts of efficiency, has been raised to the plane of science. The same is true of household sanitation. 34 ALUMNA RESPONSES The housekeeper has the health of the household in her hands, and with the health, to a very great degree the business and social success, the standing in school, and the moral value in the community of its differ- ent members. The cost of living, with intelligent people, is no longer a matter of guess-work. The family necessities and their relative importance are thoroughly understood. Whatever the size of the family income, the college-bred housekeeper has every incentive for being a good business woman, with the many satisfactions and dignities accruing thereto. The servant problem is part of yet greater problems of labor and capital, women's wages, the foreign ele- ment, and the elevation of the poor, and calls for sociological knowledge of the clearest and exactest sort. The procession of women which passes through our kitchens affords no mean chance for looking into the heart of the workaday world and lightening its burdens and brightening its dullness ; as good a chance, if one chose to improve it, perhaps, as going to live in a college settlement in the neighborhood where these women make their homes. How to get the work of the house done, the cooking, the clean- ing, the tidying, and the serving, and how to get it done well and cheerfully with satisfaction tp all con- cerned, — this ought not to fret but to interest the woman of trained intelligence ; it is her oyster which she ought to be glad to open. Even the housework itself, when one must do it, becomes to the educated woman a revelation of the labor-saving capabilities of brains plus machinery ; MRS. KATE MORRIS CONE 35 and the methods and appliances of housework are said to be still far behind the times. It also enlight- ens us as nothing else does as to what we ask others to do for us, and as to what the great majority of womankind do daily. The final satisfaction is, by being mistress of the situation, to put the housekeep- ing in its proper place ; that is, to make it serve an end instead of being an end in itself. When more women have been to college and more college women have become wives and mothers, we shall begin to see develop the ideal American home. Mrs. Richards in her " Cost of Living," a little book, by the way, which does more to make a domestic career seem worth while than all that has been said on the subject in poetry and fiction com- bined, gives the practical basis of this ideal house- hold as follows : " The twentieth-century household demands of its managers, first of all, a scientific un- derstanding of the sanitary requirements of a human habitation ; second, a knowledge of the values, abso- lute and relative, of the various articles which are used in the home, including food ; third, a system of account-keeping that shall make possible a close watch upon expenses ; fourth, an ability to secure from others the best they have to give, and to main- tain a high standard of honest work." The bearing and rearing of children is the cap- stone of a liberal education. Motherhood is an ex- perience which means much or little according as the woman to whom it comes is educated or ignorant. To the college-bred mother it should bring not 36 ALUMNA RESPONSES merely a revelation of her own nature, but insight into the meaning of all maternity. In the training of her children, the striking thing for such a mother to see is the working of law, the law of life, the law in our members, the moral law, the laws of thought, in obedience to which children, like the rest of us, prosper, and in breaking which they die. The grow- ing child is an object lesson in biology, ethnology, history, and psychology rolled into one, so wonder- ful, so beautiful, always so interesting and instruc- tive, that it is worth going to college just to learn how to appreciate the spectacle. The attitude of learner and observer is particularly a characteristic of the educated mother. While it is her high privilege to interpret and apply law, she is too wise, or too humble, to dogmatize about that impossible entity, " the child." A large part of her business is simply to look on and understand her children ; it is her chance as well as theirs ; and scientific patience is the new factor which a college education contributes to motherhood. Several side issues connected with bringing up children contribute to the mother's intellectual status, if so she wills. One of these is the chance to know intimately the best literature, old stories, noble poetry, and the best of modern writing. Children are keen and unprejudiced critics, and the mother's pleasure is about equally divided between trying anew the old magic and seeing the fresh young minds respond. A child, a good book, and a mother who loves both, — there is no bitterness or world-weariness in that MRS. KATE MORRIS CONE 37 combination ! The very repetitions and explanations which children demand are good for the mother. Some stories and real poetry never wear out, and yield new beauties with each rehearsal. Told and retold, or read and re-read, the mature mind sees into the method of their construction and the reason for their vitality as never before, while, consciously or unconsciously, with this constant practice on the best models, the mother's own style as raconteur, reader, and writer improves. Another opportunity is in the outdoor world. Normal children love animals and flowers, butterflies and birds, stones and stars. If the mother has cared for any of these things in college, her taste and her duty will of course go hand in hand, and one of the deepest satisfactions in life is in store for her. If she has been wholly literary or classical, then her children will open her eyes to new interests and possibilities ; she will owe to them something no mental equipment is complete without ; namely, an acquaintance with nature in one or more of its myriad forms. And with children one sees the happier side of nature, its joy, its poetry, its harmony, its ministry for man. Something ails grown-up taste both in literature and science. Chil- dren bring us back to a truer and purer state, for, as they prefer books without self-consciousness, so they like living things alive and the woods and fields bet- ter than laboratories and museums. Again, the whole subject of education is of special interest to college-educated mothers, — education in the abstract, as a theory, on which a world of delight- 38 ALUMNiE RESPONSES fill books are to be read, both old and new ; educa- tion as an experience which, whether good or bad, one always loves to remember ; and education as an experiment, to be tried on one's own children. If the college-bred mother does not, in all this, find a good use for her brains, especially in steering a rational course for her young people through the mazes of kindergartning, child-study, pedagogy, and manual versus mental training, it will not be for lack of op- portunity. Kitchen and nursery are not, after all, the spheres of highest activity in the home. The evocation of the home-spirit is the best part of what the mistress of the house may do. Home-making is a fine art, and, like most other forms of artistic expression, it is technique plus something spiritual. I do not know why it is not as fine a thing to make a happy home as to paint a beautiful picture, or write a book, or be an educator or musician. It has the same effect on other minds as human-wrought beauty and truth in any form, while out of it true artistic satisfaction is derivable ; namely, pleasure in creating something beautiful. Moreover, somebody must do the thing which other people try to express, and be the mother with the child, and live the story and the song, and practise the theories which the pedagogues preach. The man of the house furnishes the material necessi- ties of the household ; his money, which represents his time and energy, goes mainly for the physical sup- port of his family. All this coal and food, clothing and service, the house-mother may transmute into MRS. KATE MORRIS CONE 39 peace and harmony, rest and comfort, and the other physical and spiritual amenities we associate with home. It is- for her to make it worth while that fa- ther and husband and son should bear the burden and heat of the day outside in the world. Her priv- ilege is to spiritualize and idealize daily duties, and domesticate the higher life. Even her servants should get from her the incentive of working for a high ideal, in the realizing of which no labor is menial and no trouble too great. Or to view her mission in another light, as a rule, unless her lot is exceptionally cast, she will find that many of her neighbors have better houses than they know how to live in, and put more stress on dress than on behavior. The woman of culture and dis- ciplined mind should control both wealth and pov- erty alike in the interests of home-making, and prove that the really beautiful and desirable thing is to have such a domestic menage as may serve the end of har- monious family life, father and mother, children and friends all together. The beauty of hospitality, the elegance of simplicity, the charm of sincerity and sym- pathy, the superiority of fine manners over fine fur- niture and fine clothes, — this is the gracious task set the college-bred mistress of a house. In it she will find, beside the charm of serving nobly those she loves, an uncommon opportunity for the devel- opment of her own character and the use of all her powers. In choosing home-making as one's business in life, there could be no greater mistake than for the col- 40 ALUMNiE RESPONSES lege-bred woman to fancy that she must sacrifice all her favorite intellectual pursuits. I do not think it is profitable for married women to be wage-earners. But for the house-mistress to love books and study, even to the extent of specializing in some depart- ment, is a blessing to everybody. The whole circle is enriched by the accomplishments of each member, of the mother as truly as of any other. An hour's daily study of Greek, if it is Greek she cares for, is a positive help in baby-tending, and the house-work is better done if the mistress comes to it with a mind refreshed and stimulated. Intellectual interests keep the balance between the multitude of claims on strength and time which assail the house-mother, and give her that sense of proportion, in the various func- tions of a busy life, which is necessary to its success. On the other hand, it is the busy woman with brains who knows how to value and employ the little leisure that she gets. Instead of fretting for more leisure, she should be thankful for the lesson of concentration to which she is forced, and comfort herself with the opinion and experience of no less a person than John Stuart Mill, who believed that it was the duty of life to reconcile the active and the speculative, and declared that he could himself do more in two hours after a busy day, than when he sat down to write with time at his own command. Moreover, children grow up and the domestic machinery runs easier the longer one has it in hand. In later life the college-bred ma- tron has all the chance she wants for the pursuit of her individual tastes. Happy is she, then as always. MRS. KATE MORRIS CONE 41 to have something abiding and outside herself to help her to withstand the shocks and changes of life and time. In estimating the chances which a domestic career offers for mental growth, the contribution of heart and hand should not be omitted. The mind can- not say to the affections, " I have no need of thee," nor to the nimble fingers, " I have no need of thee," for the one adds to knowledge, experience ; and the other stands for muscular and nervous control. All three work together to produce a precious sense of fullness of life satisfying to the last degree. The final satisfaction trespasses on that sphere of influ- ence which I asked you to imagine ; it is in using one's education to fill full the content of the word mother, and so in seeing one's self become an earthly providence to eager little minds and souls as well as hearts and bodies. Froebel says that, at first, par- ents stand in the place of God to their children. To be conscious of that relation is to see at a glance both the consummation and the reason of all one's previ- ous life and education. It is a mistake to set up the home as the exclu- sive sphere for the educated woman. Yet it may fairly be claimed that, in the present state of society, the home offers to women a chance for broader de- velopment than any other career, while at the same time it may include another career. I myself am convinced that the kingdom of home is like the king- dom of heaven ; sought first and with all one's heart, all else shall be added unto it. RESPONSE FOR THE COLLEGE WOMAN AND SOCIAL REFORM BY VIDA DUTTON SCUDDER If permissible, I should like to begin what I want to say with a disclaimer of my title. The mention of The College Woman as if she were a genus by her- self, a unique phenomenon of nature, is distastefiil to me. The time has surely come when a self-con- scious contemplation of our own exploits has lost its value, if value, indeed, it ever had. College wo- men are now absorbed into the general activities of society as quietly and naturally as college men, and it is equally unnecessary to segregate them in a class by themselves. It is therefore with no surprise that I have found material for my address a little hard to collect. To be candid, I cannot find that college women, as such, are doing anything especially noteworthy or peculiar, in the way of social reform. They hold their part as individuals, in such movements as the Consumer's League, and in other good works ; thev have, as a body, interested themselves in school sanitation; they are prominent in educational work ; certain among them have experimented with interest and success in furnishing what a friend of mine calls " moral food " to the poor in great cities. But for VIDA DUTTON SCUDDER 43 the most part, their relation to social reform, if they hold any, is personal and invisible. The one exception, the one reform movement in which large bodies of college women, as such, are actively engaged, is the work of the College Settle- ments Association ; and it is concerning this work that I am, as I know, expected to speak to you. It well deserves our attention. The settlement movement is the only one which the colleges for women, in their first quarter century of existence, have initiated ; it has proved part, in its ten years of life, of a larger movement which has grown and is growing with astonishing rapidity all over the country, and it possesses a significance which we are only beginning dimly to surmise. Speaking in this place and to this audience, I may be allowed to say that it is always with peculiar sat- isfaction that I recall the close connection of our own beloved college with the settlement movement from its very outset. As a daughter of Smith, I rejoice that the movement was planned on an occa- sion, indeed, when college women from institutions all over the country were gathered together in the loyal comradeship of the Intercollegiate Alumnae Association, and that many from varying institutions shared in our early hopes ; and also that this meeting of the A. C. A. was held at Northampton, in autumn days as fair as these, and that the little group who first formulated the definite plan for a college settlement, in some large city, supported and controlled by the women's colleges, were all graduates of Smith. The 44 ALUMNiE RESPONSES work, planned then, was started two years later, in the autumn of 1889; it has grown till the College Settlements Association has flourishing chapters in fourteen colleges for women, and controls three houses, one in New York, one in Philadelphia, one in Boston. But recalling the eager talk of those autumn days, it is still easier for me to see from the Connecticut meadows than elsewhere the pinnacles of the Holy City which we long to help build on earth, and 1 must feel that the tie which unites Smith College to the settlement movement is, and must ever remain, peculiarly sacred and close. Now, if I may take the woman's privilege, — hers generations before she went to college, — and con- tradict my opening statement, I should like to say that I do think that there exists a very special bond between the settlement movement and the colleges, for women. The higher education, which has been bestowed on women within the last twenty-five years, means, if it means anything, an immense widening of their horizons. It has not made them masculine ; it has not altered the eternal mystery of womanhood ; but it has directed the special powers of women to wider issues, and to more general ends, for it has sup- plemented instinct with knowledge. The essential instincts of humanity, says John Ruskin, are two, — the love of Order and the love of Kindness. Every one knows how strong these instincts are in women : they have created the domestic life of the Christian nations. Enlarge their scope ; render them opera- tive, not only in domestic, but in national life, and VIDA DUTTON SCUDDER 45 see how our civilization will blossom. Where wo- men once concentrated effort and enthusiasm on one small spot, their quickened vision looks abroad to-day over State and city. They quiver, as befits good housekeepers, at the sight of filth, disorder, and disease, and set to work at municipal activities with an earnestness that shall assuredly help to make these larger homes of ours less imperfect in cleanliness, tidiness, and beauty. Where her own family used to absorb the love and thought of the secluded woman of the past, the woman of the pre- sent, whose imagination has been kindled at the liv- ing torch of larger knowledge, loves her own no less, assuredly, but thrills to responsibility for the whole human family, with an intense yearning over its sor- rows, with an ardent desire to put her trained intel- ligence at its service. It is too soon as yet to tell what will be the result of the entrance of a feminine factor, such as is sure to result from the higher education of women, into our wider municipal and national life. But settlements, placed as they are at the points of most sorrowful and bitter need, in the midst of the seething populations of our great cities, living under conditions that shock any wise home- maker with horror, offer assuredly an opportunity such as is nowhere else found at present for the larger impulse of Order and Kindness to become greatly effective in modifying our civic life. In yet another way we see how close, how vital, is the relation between the settlement movement and the American college. Learning, in a demo- 46 ALUMNA RESPONSES cracy, must assume special functions and special responsibilities. Whatever may be true in older countries, we Americans can never escape the sense of our relation to the whole. Our scholarship must be no barren or sterile matter, acquired for its own sake, or for the benefit of an intellectual aristocracy : it must be active ; it must instigate its possessor never to rest until the vision gained is shared. We can tolerate no fixed class of the intellectually priv- ileged : we demand that our colleges and universi- ties be in the truest sense centres of the democracy, and that from them proceed ceaselessly influences seeking to share with all, the gifts which they impart. Does this sound chimerical? No one contends that the task is easy. Centrifugal forces abound in American life. The unity of the nation is broken by differences of race and religion as well as of class and of wealth. Learning itself, alas ! acts too often as a dividing rather than a uniting force, adding to all other distinctions that final, most inexorable division between the literate and the illiterate. Moreover, our American colleges are in special dan- ger at present of divorce from the democracy. En- dowed by the rich, and patronized by the prosper- ous, they tend to become in the popular mind mere dependencies of capital subtly riddled by class pre- judice, if not crudely false to fearless freedom of speech. It were easy to ignore this feeling, — to look simply at the heights of greater knowledge to be scaled above us, disregarding the ignorant and wist- ful throngs below. Yet " the men of culture," said Matthew Arnold, " are the true apostles of equality." VIDA DUTTON SCUDDER 47 Countless organized and unorganized experiments all over the country seek to realize this difficult apostolate : to place the men and women whose per- sonalities have been enriched with the best the col- leges have to offer in contact with the unprivileged multitudes who have been shut away from much that we hold precious, while yet they possess much that we lack. To bring the centres of learning into vital con- scious union with the outlying portions of the de- mocracy is a crying need of the hour. What can fill that need, — what, I may ask, is filling it, — as effectively as college settlements ? Hither flows in unceasing stream the bright energy, the enthusiasm, the devotion, engendered in the college life ; here brotherhood overcomes distance ; in triumphant de- fiance of differences, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, wise and foolish — nor is the wisdom always con- fined to the products of our academic centres — meet in a common humanity, and mistrust and alienation vanish, as they will always vanish, when soul is given the chance to recognize soul. It is my belief, therefore, that college settlements are no mere accident. I believe them to fulfill toward the college as toward the community an es- sential function, and I regard them as an integral and organic part of the academic activity of America. In saying this I am aware that I claim more than is customary ; not, I believe, more than is just. And it is my hope that this more formal and definite re- lation of the settlements to the colleges may be fully recognized during that second decade of the settlement 48 ALUMNA RESPONSES movement on which we have just entered. May this decade witness a wide and healthy growth ! Smith thrives and increases ; she stands to-day, in the number of her undergraduates, tenth in the hst of American colleges. The growth of the woman's col- leges throughout the country transcends expectation, all but baffles imagination. The College Settlements Association controls an income of |6ooo to ^7000 a year. The sum is paltry, indeed. In desolate neighborhoods, devoid of light and beauty, thronged by the hard-toiling hosts who perform the manual labor to which we all owe our leisure and our life, are the three small houses supported, in part only, by this association. Opportunities press upon them from every side. Theirs it may be to bring to these crowded workers some knowledge of the household arts possible even in poverty ; something of the rich inheritance of beauty and wisdom in which we re- joice ; many of the richer gifts of simple personal friendship and service. These settlements need more space, more equipment, more residents. New regions call us also ; for every city in America has more than one wilderness of poor and neglected folk who would be glad in our coming. Can we not hasten the day when these great wildernesses of modern life shall become fit for human habitation ? Can not we college women express our gratitude for the great work that God has wrought for us, by drawing the college into more direct relation of min- istry toward the great needs of the working people, and into closer fellowship with the life of our great, imperfect, beloved, American democracy ? RESPONSE FOR SCHOLARSHIP BY MARY WHITON CALKINS, 1 883 It is a pleasant duty to express the loyal regard of the alumnae of Smith College to the president, trustees, and faculty, and to the gracious memory of the far-seeing and devoted woman to whom we owe all that Smith College has given to us. We acknow- ledge with especial gratitude the impulse toward scholarship and the training in scholarly habits of study received from our Alma Mater, whose service of the scholarly ideal we gladly recall to-day. By scholarship, we mean, I suppose, a thorough and extended acquaintance with the results of inves- tigation in a given subject, supplemented by inde- pendent study, which is accurate and detailed in observation, vivid and creative in imagination, selec- tive and logical in thought. Scholarship, in other words, is the fusion of erudition and originality, and requires both elements, though people are always mistaking bare erudition or empty spontaneity for scholarship. But neither the summary, however complete, of other people's results and conclusions, nor the outburst, however lofty, of creative imagi- nation, constitutes scholarship. Neither the pedants of the dry-as-dust school, to whom information is ar^ end in itself, nor the tumultuous thinkers of a storr^; 50 ALUMNiE RESPONSES and stress period, are the scholars of an age. The true scholar has learning, but his learning is the incentive of his spontaneity; he reaches original results, but relates them always with the intellectual achievements of the past ; in truth, his learning and his spontaneity are organic parts of the living unity of his scholarship. This makes clear the part which the college has in the growth of scholarship. It may give to its students, first of all, the true conception of scholar- ship in its dual nature, manifesting to them the dig- nity of learning and the beauty of inspiration. It distinctly fails to attain its own purpose if it does not lay adequate emphasis both on acquisition and on originality, if it does not insist upon accurate information, and incite to independent thought and individual expression. The Oxford of John Locke's day, which characterized him as a " man of turbulent spirit, clamorous, discontented," comparing him very unfavorably with the other students who " took notes deferentially," had no place for the spontaneity of scholarship ; and it is to be feared that the spirit of seventeenth-century Oxford often dominates the modern lecture-room. The great distinction, on the other hand, of the philosophical faculties in Jena and Berlin during the early decades of the century, is precisely that rare combination of erudition and significant novelty which makes scholarship. The t masters of philosophy in those years, Fichte, knd especially Hegel, were possessed of the spirit of lilosophical insight, and were also acquainted with MARY WHITON CALKINS 51 historic systems of thought. The glory of modern universities, American as well as European, is their preservation of these two great traditions, their ap- prehension of the dual aim of scholarship. In a word, then, the college sets before its students an ideal of scholarship, and provides for them an en- vironment suited not only to patient discipline in observation, imagination, and thought, but to inde- pendence and spontaneity. We cannot ask more of the college. Life itself is too short to attain learning, and originality is endowment, not achieve- ment. Evidently, therefore, the four undergraduate years, and even the graduate years of study, cannot create scholarship, but they serve a lofty end when they make scholarship possible. This relation to scholarship at once appears an obvious one when we reflect upon the fundamental purpose of a college. President Seelye clearly for- mulated it, twenty-five years ago. In his Inaugural address. The " chief work " of the college, he said, " is intellectual perfection." In the pressing admin- istrative problems of a large community, and in the excitements, joys, and disappointments of its per- sonal Intercourse and Its social relations, great edu- cators and undergraduate students alike have seemed to lose sight of the truth that the underlying pur- pose of school and college education is Intellectual discipline. This assertion is, it will be observed, a guarded one. In the first place. It applies only to the formal education of school and college ; and this Is a part only of that larger education whose purpose 52 ALUMNiE RESPONSES is as wide as that of life itself, and whose ultimate aim is the establishment of personal relations, indi- vidual and social. And in the second place, only the primary aim, and not the complete purpose of the college, is an intellectual one. The college is in fact a community as well as a school, and the ends of the community have therefore to be gained by the wise ordering of domestic and social life. But in the historic and the logical sequence alike, the community exists for the sake of the school of learn- ing, whose interests, therefore, yield only to the supreme interests of life. To lose sight of this principle and to regard the intellectual training of its students not as the basal purpose of the college, but as an incidental purpose, subordinate to other laudable ends — the growth, for example, of social graces or the spread of philanthropic movements — is to see the whole in a false light, background for foreground, high light for shadow. Neither this basal purpose of the college, to afford intellectual training to its students, nor the narrower aim of the scholar is in any conflict with the supreme end of life : character, the attainment of right per- sonal relations, or — as our college motto has it — virtue. For the life of the scholar is not, as is often urged, incompatible with rich and adequate human living. It entails, to be sure, the sacrifice of many occupations and interests to its own inexorable de- '^ ,^mand for time ; and one cannot, therefore, be at the same time a scholar and a society woman ; one aannot well combine the roles of scholar and MARY WHITON CALKINS 53 mother of a family or woman of affairs ; in a word, one cannot amass learning without devoting to the task long stretches of time and strenuous concen- tration of one's power. In enforcing these claims, moreover, scholarship may also make one oblivious of human relationship, and unmindful of human needs. The refusal of a great historian to witness suffering in any form, and even to visit his friends in illness, was merely the deliberate adoption of a policy of selfish isolation, which many scholars have unconsciously followed. But this is not an inevi- table result of scholarly living. For scholarship neither forbids nor excludes the emotional and voli- tional relations of life. It is an absorbing profession, shutting out other occupations, but it need not be an exclusive enthusiasm. It may rather be subor- dinate to even deeper and more vital passions. Certain characteristics of scholarship, indeed, so far from being merely compatible with ethical inter- ests, actually further them. For scholarship de- mands not only mental endowment, — observation, memory, imagination, thought, — but serious moral qualities as well. Accuracy and Independence, the absolute essentials of the scholar, are merely the old- fashioned virtues of honesty and courage, in specific application to the intellectual life. The passionate devotion to truth in each detail, the untiring repeti- tion of every experimental result, the verification of every minutest figure, the unsparing rejection of tes- timony, however confirmatory of one's theory, when tainted with the least suspicion of inaccuracy, — this 54 ALUMNiE RESPONSES is the stuff of which scholarship is made, and it is nothing more nor less than the virtue of truth. And to the cardinal virtue of truth the scholar adds, not merely the grace of patience, but the heroic virtue of courage, moral equivalent of originality, and, last of all, the virtue of humility, born of a love for the truth so intense that one does not overrate one's own share in it. Truth, courage, and humility are cer- tainly, therefore, not the adornments, but the very material of scholarship, and they are also the qual- ities which ennoble and enlarge all living. Truth in the details of research facilitates truth between man and man; fearless thought is a discipline for fearless living ; patience and humility are not un- learned in the transition from the study to the liv- ing-room. Thus the virtues necessary to scholar- ship are also the qualities absolutely essential to character. May I apply this doctrine in a very practical way to the opportunities of college-bred women in our secondary schools? I suppose we are all agreed that the most serious educational problems of mod- ern times are those of the schools, rather than those of the colleges, but we are probably much divided as to the nature of the needed reforms, some of us railing at the time spent over the "common branches," while others deplore the decay of spell- ing ; some of'us, again, calling for a wider range of subjects, and others deprecating the dissipation of energy on too many topics. But deeper than any one of these causes for complaint, and more urgent MARY WHITON CALKINS 55 than any of these needs, is another, clearly set forth by Professor Miinsterberg in a recent paper. It is the crying need for scholarly teachers, for teachers who both know and love the subjects which they teach, whose enthusiasm is so great that it is an inspiration, whose learning is so large that the cor- rection of errors is a habit, not a painstaking achieve- ment. Such teachers will not sit up half the night to keep one declension, two botanical specimens, or three historical reigns " ahead " of their pupils. Their Latin, their algebra, or their geography will so possess their minds that stimulating methods of teaching will be naturally evolved. Under such teachers, aflame with interest alike in their pupils and in their subject, if they are not fettered and shackled with absurd limitations, courses of study may be widened precisely because all subjects will of necessity be thoroughly and vigorously taught. The serious charges made by Dr. Munsterberg, of unscholarly teaching in American schools, are clearly justified. In great degree, to be sure, the responsibility is that of our vulgar, penny-wise municipal governments, which spend our money on boulevards and artistic hydrants and pavements, taken up for the apparent satisfaction of being laid again, while they require of one poorly paid young woman twenty-five recitations per week in a high school class-room, the reading of a hundred themes, and the oversight of two hundred pupils, and assign to another some such group of subjects as Greek, geometry, mineralogy, Egyptian history, and moral 56 ALUMNA RESPONSES philosophy. But we are not concerned just now with the evils of the city governments. Have not we, the college graduates, into whose hands more and more the school-rooms of America are drifting — have not we at times disregarded the scholarly ideal of the teacher's profession ? Have we not too lightly held our duty done when we have heard the requisite recitations and corrected our full quota of papers ? Have we not supposed ourselves simply responsible for knowing perfectly the paradigms, or demonstrations required of our pupils? In a word, have we not failed to comprehend that the ideal teacher is always — I will not say a scholar — but scholarly? The salaries usually paid to teachers make it impossible, it is true, for many of us to come to our work equipped by graduate study. And the burdens imposed on many eager young teachers make it doubtful if they can ever attain to scholarly methods. There remain, however, a goodly number of us, who have time, if we will use it, for the scholarly treatment of some one of our subjects, who may withdraw from some of our clubs, cut down our attendance upon the afternoon rehear- sals, resist the temptation of desultory reading, and set ourselves resolutely to the long and difficult, yet inspiring task, of thoroughly investigating some topic of study. Such a purpose cannot fail of its fulfillment. Scholarship, in its highest sense we may not attain ; time may fail us for complete acquisition, or we may not possess the flavor of originality. But the pursuit of scholarship is, in a sense, its own \ MARY WHITON CALKINS 57 reward, invigorating one's work in the class-room, enlarging one's whole intellectual life, and lending one the secret of eternal youth — since no one can grow old while there is always something left which one eagerly seeks to know. This is the great opportunity, I think, of the col- lege graduate who turns to teaching. Positions on college faculties are few, after all. More and more the college and university bred woman who denies herself the luxury of the merely scholarly life will devote herself to what is very inadequately called " secondary " teaching. Let her hasten by her own activity the millennial day when the faculties of Amer- ican high schools, like those of German gymnasia, shall include authoritative and recognized scholars ; let her firmly grasp the truth that the perfect teacher has a scholarly passion for truth as well as a human interest in his pupils, uniting in himself those great qualities which make the Platonic Sokrates a prince among teachers : the sympathetic understanding of his students, that " gentle and approving man- ner," as Plato calls it, and the devotion to truth, the quick sense of a " wound inflicted on the argu- ment," Yet even as I speak I realize the vanity of my words, where exhortation is as futile as warning. No angel of toil, with flaming sword, can bar the true scholar from his paradise, and he needs no spoken command to summon him, for he obeys an inner voice, esteeming all the monotony, the toil, and the drudgery of scholarly work as a light thing beside 58 ALUMNiE RESPONSES the overmastering relief which comes with the solution of his problem, the keen exhilaration which accom- panies discovery, the exceeding joy of even a fleeting vision of the truth. RESPONSE FOR ALMA MATER BY MRS. ELIZABETH LAWRENCE CLARKE, 1 883 In response to the sentiment, " The relation of the Alumna to her Alma Mater," I have been asked to give rather a detailed account of the Alumnae Asso- ciation and its work. If, as a part of these alumnae exercises, this should seem a little like " blowing our own trumpet," we must reply that it was asked for by President Seelye, and the alumnae never fail to respond to anything he asks of them. The college opened in the fall of 1875 with four- teen students, but it took four years to make these into alumnae ; so while the college is twenty-five years old, the alumnae are only twenty-one, and though we boast of many things, we do not yet boast of our " oldest living alumna." Not too much must be expected of a body only twenty-one years old. On June 18, 1879, the first diplomas were awarded, and the alumnae, eleven in number, went forth to leaven. They did not scatter so very far : six were from Massachusetts, two more from other New Eng- land States, two from New York, and one from De- laware ; but wherever they went it is apparent that they took a knowledge and a love for their Alma Mater, With the class of 1880, nine more alumnae were sent forth, and in June, 1881, a class of twenty- 6o ALUMNA RESPONSES eight were looking forward to their commencement and the responsibilities to follow. Feeling a desire to keep in touch with one another, as well as to help their Alma Mater, the members of the class of '8i, and those of '80 who were present for their first re- union, had an informal meeting on the afternoon of Monday, June 20, 1881, looking to the formation of an Alumnae Association. The next morning a formal meeting was held, a constitution adopted, and the Alumnae Association was born ; its object, to quote from the constitution, being : " to further the well-being of the college and its graduates by in- creasing the interest of members in the college and in each other." The members of the class of '79 — the eleven Immortals — were at once asked to join. Met on every side by the criticism that girls could not stand the strain of college life, it is not surpris- ing that the first work of the Association should have been In the line of increasing the equipment in the Physical Department at the college. Raising funds for purchasing Sargent apparatus for the gymnasium was therefore the work undertaken by the few alum- nae, and was carried on with the help of the increas- ing number, until over |iooo had been expended and the committee reported in June, 1885, that as much apparatus had been supplied as could profit- ably be used in the small building then occupied as a gymnasium. In the mean time, however, another call had come. In the summer of 1883, the alumnae heard the sad news of the death of Professor Phelps. At once MRS. ELIZABETH LAWRENCE CLARKE 6i they wished to take some action to show their appre- ciation of his service to the college, as well as their personal feeling of loss. It was decided to present a portrait of Professor Phelps to the college and to raise funds for increasing the philosophical library. As it was felt that all the students who had been un- der Professor Phelps's instruction, as well as all the alumnae, would wish to contribute to this memorial, the Phelps Memorial Library Association was formed. Greatly aided by the gift from Professor Austin Phelps of ^looo, and the private library of Profes- sor Phelps, the association was soon able to accom- plish its object. A sufficient sum was raised to give a small yearly income for philosophical books, and these were placed in a separate alcove, in which was hung the portrait. The leaven was working ; the alumnae now numbered a few more than two hun- dred ; and while gathering force for some big work, one or two side efforts resulted in the cataloguing of the College Library, the fitting up as a Reading- Room of the old Chemical Laboratory, now aban- doned for Lilly Hall, and the organization of the Boston Branch of the association. The college was rapidly growing, and in the year 1 886-1 8 87, there were three hundred and twenty- one students instead of one hundred and thirty-eight, the number enrolled from 1 878-1 879, the first year when there were four classes. When the needs of the college were discussed by the alumnae, the phy- sical side still appealed most to them, though the old criticism was heard much less frequently. In 62 ALUMNiE RESPONSES June, 1887, it was "decided" to raise money for a new gymnasium adequate to the growing needs of the college, and a committee was appointed. Ob- serve that it was decided to " raise " the money, not to think about it, not to try, but to do it ; and " a sum not less than 1 20,000," because we had been told that the new Vassar Gymnasium had cost that, and we could not be outdone. With only about three hundred alumnae or former special students, and practically an equal number of undergraduates, who were by no means to be overlooked in a money- raising scheme, the outlook was a little appalling. Those were the days of the alphabet system of rais- ing money. It was almost new then, fortunately for the committee ; but even so, the prospect of finding ten A's, two hundred B's, two thousand C's, and twenty thousand D's out of six hundred people was something of a mathematical problem. It makes us smile now, but there were many of us who got hope- lessly confused in our alphabet, and while A's or B's ourselves, were C's or D's for some one else ; and the intricacies of that committee book, with its numer- ous cross-references, where all sums and names were entered, were only to be followed by the most ini- tiated. I cannot further sketch the workings of the committee and the alumnae during the raising of the sum. A lump of the original leaven was on the committee and so the sum was raised ; but in many cases it meant honest, hard work and personal self- denial, and no means that suggested itself to the in- dividual alumna as her chance was allowed to go by. MRS. ELIZABETH LAWRENCE CLARKE 63 At the end of the first year the committee reported a little over ^4000 on hand ; at the end of the sec- ond year the sum had increased to ^11,000; in the spring of the third year the sum had so increased that it was deemed best to begin the building. When this fact was communicated to the President, two members of the gymnasium committee were elected by the trustees to serve with three of the trustees on the building committee. In June of the third year the ^20,000 had been raised, indeed ^21,- 500 ; but the ideas of the committee had grown as the building had grown, and so work was continued another year. In June, 1891, the end of the fourth year, the building was finished and given to the col- lege, and used by the alumnae, perhaps with some pride, at the Alumnae Tea. The whole cost had been nearly ^28,000 ; and a separate sum had been raised by one of the committee for Swedish apparatus and for fitting up the directors' room. The last sums were not paid in, and the accounts closed, and the committee disbanded for two years more, but prac- tically the gymnasium stands as the work of the Alumnae Association during five years. But during these five years other things had taken place. In June, 1888, the Alumnae Tea was inau- gurated. In the inaugural " talk " which President Seelye gave to his " beloved Alumnae " on that occasion, he announced the vote of the Board of Trustees asking the " Associated Alumnae " to make nominations for three trustees, to serve for one, two, and three years respectively, and to report these 64 ALUMNA RESPONSES nominations to the trustees the next June. At that date the alumnae would be ten years old ; and to ask a person of ten to take part in the government of the family, indeed to make laws for her mother, would seem to imply a precocious American child. Possibly with some feeling of the offspring's youth and inexperience, the trustees had not said " from among their own number," but left perfect freedom for the nominations to be made from prominent per- sons of either sex or from their own alumnae. Of the many names sent in for the first suggestions, it is interesting to note that among the nine names stand- ing highest on the list, there was one of a Vassar alumna, one of a Cornell, and one of a woman re- presenting no college, but the broader general edu- cation gained in her busy, helpful, outside life ; thus showing the modesty of the offspring to assume re- sponsibility and the willingness of the alumna to profit by the training and experience of other wo- men's colleges. As the Vassar and Cornell alumnae felt it impossible to assume the position of trustee of another college, the three names finally submitted to the trustees were those of two of our own alum- nae and Miss Anna L. Dawes; and in June, 1889, the Board of Trustees formally voted these three into membership in their Board. (Again we had drawn from the original leaven for this.) During these five years, too, the growth of the alumnae was shown by the organization of branch associations in Chicago (Feb. 1889), in Springfield (1890), and in New York. The Alumnae Register was instituted MRS. ELIZABETH LAWRENCE CLARKE 65 to keep track of the widely scattering graduates and to help keep them in touch with each other. In June, 1 89 1, the Alumnae Association numbered three hundred and eighty-five. Miss Dawes, who was serving us so efficiently and faithfully as alumna trustee, was made an honorary member of the asso- ciation, — the first adopted daughter. On the completion of the gymnasium accounts in 1893, ^ '^^w committee was appointed to consider the special needs of the college library, and how best to meet them, and to report the next year, thus giving the alumnae a year to recuperate and gain new force. In June, 1894, it was voted to raise $20,000, the income to be used for the library. It was harder to find money the second time than the first ; and although the number of the alumnae was Increasing, their money-making capacity was not correspondingly increasing. After two years of work the committee reported a little over I5000 and were ready to keep on until the whole sum was raised, although it seemed that it would take some years. About $2000 more was added during the third year, but meantime the trustees had agreed to receive the money col- lected and give the alumnae five per cent on the fund ; so that already the benefit of the effort was being felt. A like increase in the fund was being made the fourth year, and this slow but sure progress was being accepted, as it seemed that the alumnae, though very loyal, were unable to do any more, when an added spur was given in the middle of May, 1898, by the attention of the committee being called to 66 ALUMNA RESPONSES the fact that the coming June would mark the twenty-fifth year of President Seelye's service to the college. Certainly the alumnae would want to re- cognize this in some way. The notice of the anni- versary was sent out, and it needed but this added stimulus to bring the money ; for what the alumna would like to do for her college, but feels she can- not, she will do for her President, But there was only 1 9000 collected. How could it be brought up to $20,000 in six weeks ? No wonder President Seelye looked incredulous when told what the alum- nae were trying to do, but he did not know the ef- fect of his name. In the following six weeks money and pledges came flowing into the hands of the com- mittee, so that at Commencement $14,000 was re- ported and pledges of $3000 more which had not reached the committee. That the entire sum was not secured was due only to the brevity of time be- tween the announcement of the coming anniversary and the actual date, as was shown by the fact that the remainder of the sum came in through the sum- mer and fall of the next year, and in June, 1899, ^^e fund of 1 20,000 was completed and presented to the college by the alumnae as the " L. Clark Seelye Library Fund." The undergraduates had for some years felt the need of a Students' Building, and had been collect- ing money for this purpose. When the special call came for completing the library fund in time for an anniversary gift to President Seelye, the undergrad- uates entirely set aside their object and most enthu- MRS. ELIZABETH LAWRENCE CLARKE 67 siastically and effectively helped the alumnae. Now the alumnae want to show their appreciation of this help and their sympathy for the undergraduate aim, and will devote themselves to the Students' Building Fund until that is completed. Though this was to be a sketch of the Alumnae Association, I do not want to close it without men- tion of the Non-Graduate Association. Such is the influence of these college halls, apparently, that those here only for a short time and so unable to enroll themselves as alumnae are yet desirous of showing their love for the college and their wish to work for her. The Non-Graduate Association was organized in June, 1889, and a year or two later started a fund to equip a Teachers' Room, or a Reception Room in College Hall. In June, 1894, this had been accomplished, the few but enthusiastic mem- bers having secured about I500. They at once started to organize a Students' Aid Association, see- ing the need for the help which such a society could give the undergraduates. Three years later this was accomplished, and the Smith Students' Aid Associa- tion is now doing helpful work for two or three stu- dents each year. The present membership consists of both non-graduates and alumnae, but the alumnae are glad to record that the credit both of the original idea and of the initiatory work belongs to the non- graduates. With the graduation of the class of 1900 the alumnae number just nineteen hundred, and are widely scattered, with branch associations in Boston, Chicago, 68 ALUMNA RESPONSES Springfield, Worcester, Syracuse, Hartford, and In- dianapolis ; the eleven have grown. President Seelye has always said that" the alumnae are the advertisement of the college ; if the advertise- ment of 1900 differs somewhat from that of 1879, there is no disrespect — to either, A progressive firm must change its form of advertisement to keep abreast of existing conditions, and with the growth of population must enlarge its advertising medium. I have spoken of the Alumnae Association and its work, and have made no mention of any personal gifts of alumnae to the college. The association in- cludes nearly all of the nineteen hundred alumnae ; it would be glad to include the rest, for by the greater number working together will the greater good be accomplished. The Smith alumna is always loyal and always ready to speak a good word for her Alma Mater, but let not that loyalty be a blind love of a thing because it is ours. Let us keep in touch with our college as much as possible, investigate the criticisms we hear made before we accept them or deny them. We may be sure that our queries, if honestly made, will be gladly answered, and we will find that the prob- lems we did not see are many, and the deficiencies we did see are known to others than ourselves, and are being overcome by the president, the trustees, and the faculty, as fast as it is in their power to do so. It is for us to increase that power by loyal sym- pathy and support. All honest investigation will but lead to more intelligent loyalty. This, then, is MRS. ELIZABETH LAWRENCE CLARKE 69 one side of the relation of the alumna to her Alma Mater, a little account of what she has done, of the debt of love which she is glad to pay her college. What she might do, is only to go forward even more courageously and more closely united to the college. But there is the other greater side, what the Alma Mater has done for the alumna. We cannot tell that. It means a different thing to each one of us — but always a growth — a broadening of our lives — a stimulus given to make of our lives a record that the Mother shall not be ashamed of, whether that record is made in the home, in society, in scholar- ship, in philanthropy, or in literature. It is all for our Alma Mater. Ill HISTORICAL ADDRESSES WEDNESDAY MORNING, OCTOBER THIRD PRAYER BY THE RIGHT REVEREND WILLIAM LAWRENCE Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who art the only source of life and light, we praise and mag- nify thee for all thy mercies and loving-kindness. Thou didst put it into the heart of thy servant to found and endow this college, and didst guide her counselors with wisdom. Thou, through the devo- tion and ability of patrons, of teachers, of officers and students, hast brought this institution to its present estate. It is meet, right, and our bounden duty that we should praise and magnify thy glorious name, and especially that at this time we should remember with all gratitude those thy servants, who, having finished their journey in faith, do now rest from their labors. As we now enter upon another generation of service, we pray for an outpouring of thy helpfial spirit. Endue him upon whom during these twenty-five years has rested the heavy burden of high responsi- bilities of leadership with strength and with thy power. May the memory of thy mercies to him in times of sorrow, as well as of joy, comfort, sustain, and inspire him in years to come. We pray for thy blessings upon the patrons of this institution. May the teachers and the scholars be endued with the love of thy truth. May they have the virtues 74 RIGHT REV. WILLIAM LAWRENCE of courage, faith, and humility. May there ever dwell within these borders the spirit of true comrade- ship, a willingness to bear each other's burdens. And as the graduates go forth, may it be to do their part to perfect the character of the family, the state, and the church. As we pray for the scholars, so we pray also for the Commonwealth, for thy spirit upon the Presi- dent of the United States, the Governor of this State, and others in authority, that they may more and more administer their offices so that truth and justice, religion and piety may be established among us for all generations. Wilt thou help us during this hour so to live in thy presence that we may enter upon the new life with high hopes and with a new determination to carry out the high purposes for which this college was founded. All of which we ask in the name of thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Amen. GREETING OF THE COMMONWEALTH BY HIS HONOR, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR BATES Mr. President : — When the distinguished secre- tary of our navy, three years ago last June, stood on the deck of the battle-ship Massachusetts, in Boston Harbor, he did not say, " This ship is named Mas- sachusetts because of the renown of the sons of this Commonwealth on the sea, in the naval history of our country," but, in responding for the nation, in accepting the gift of that emblem of victory from the State, he said, " Your Excellency, this ship is named Massachusetts well, because Massachusetts stands for education." Secretary Long was not looking into the future ; he was not anticipating the troubles that were even then unseen upon the horizon ; but he was looking at that mighty engine, considering it not as an engine of destruction, but as a monument to the enlightenment and education of the human mind, such as had not been possible in any other era of the world's history. He saw the high enlightenment of mind that had brought forth the idea of that ship, before it had been put in steel, and in copper, and in oak. He recognized the educated mind that had adapted all the delicate parts of hard machinery, so that they should work in harmony. He was look- ing ahead to the educated men who were to guide 76 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES that monster vessel across the trackless seas, shaping her courses by the courses of the stars. And he remembered, that if this Commonwealth had stood for anything in the eyes of the world, it had stood for education. So he said, " Your Excellency, this vessel is fittingly named Massachusetts, because Massachusetts stands for education." The Commonwealth of the Pilgrim and the Puri- tan ! The Pilgrims had not been here four years, before Governor Bradford tells us that the school was teaching the Pilgrims home education. The Puritans had not been here six years, before, desti- tute of all luxuries, wanting in many of the necessi- ties of life, they appropriated four hundred pounds for the establishment of an institution of higher edu- cation ; and from that act came the great university at Cambridge. To Massachusetts, the world owes the develop- ment of the idea of the free public schools. When our fathers came to write the Constitution of this State, remembering that to which they owed so much in the past, they wrote into that Constitution, upon knowledge and wisdom, as well as upon virtue, de- pend the preservation of the rights and the liberties of the people; and they therefore enjoined upon magistrates and legislators in all future periods of the Commonwealth, to cherish the arts and sciences and all seminaries of the same,particularly the Uni- versity at Cambridge, and the common and grammar schools in towns. LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR BATES 77 It was, Mr. President, in obedience to the spirit of that sentiment that, twenty-five years ago, when this institution was starting upon her great mission. Governor Gaston came here to express the good will of the Commonwealth. It is in accordance with that spirit, that I am pleased to stand here to-day, by the direction of His Excellency the Governor, to say a word of congratulation on behalf of the Commonwealth that believes in the equal education of her sons and of her daughters ; to say a word of congratulation upon all that has been accomplished in the twenty-five years, upon the marvelous growth of this institution, perhaps without precedent in the history of any educational institution ; to congratu- late it upon the hundreds of young women who have been sent out to fill greater spheres of usefulness because of the training which they have received within these walls ; to congratulate it upon the army that are at present drinking from the fountains of learning in this place ; to congratulate it upon the magnificent present ; upon the fact that its president and his co-workers have here successfully solved the problems set for it by the founder of this institu- tion. They have added to womanhood. They have increased the opportunities for happiness, for use- fulness, and for honor. Great has been the advancement in these twenty- five years; and yet in the history of institutions, this is but the hour after the sunrise ; the horizon is broadening ; and in behalf of this Commonwealth, 78 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES that recognizes this as one of the institutions typical for which she stands, it is my greatest pleasure, Mr. President, to congratulate you upon the boundless opportunities, when the sun of this institution shall have risen to the glory of the full noon. HISTORICAL ADDRESSES THE ORIGIN OF SMITH COLLEGE BY REV. JOHN M. GREENE, D. D. We sometimes fall into error by attributing too emphatically the authorship of a great social move- ment to an individual. Luther did not originate the sixteenth-century reformation. He was only the spokesman, the voice, of a mighty sentiment which for three centuries had been gathering head in Eu- rope. It was not John Brown who led the assault upon Harper's Ferry in 1859, but the conscience, the enlightened Christian spirit, of this land, which in marching along became cyclonic at that point and struck a United States arsenal. The rising temper- ance sentiment and the labor ferment in our country are further illustrations. When they shall reach a white heat in the hearts of a majority of the people in our land, they will crystallize into beneficent in- stitutions and laws. Therefore when we look for the origin of Smith College we should not expect to find it exclusively in any individual, but in the edu- cational genius, the Zeitgeist, of the place and age. The schoolmaster was abroad, the tide of educa- 8o HISTORICAL ADDRESSES tional sentiment had been rising under the influence of Horace Mann and Henry Barnard, Mrs. Willard and Mary Lyon, and it was impossible that the old barriers which kept the better half of our race from tasting the sweets of higher education could with- stand it longer. That, in a general way, tells what was the origin of Smith College. It is the birth of the spirit of this enlightened age.^ Christianity is bearing its fruits. The world begins to see that woman is not man's slave, but is of right his equal in privilege and opportunity. But I shall be expected to be more specific, and mention things local which contributed to the bring- ing of this institution into existence. I would mention, first, the ardent desire for edu- cation in the hearts of the inhabitants of this beauti- ^ It is an interesting fact that " this spirit of the age " effloresced, at about the same time in Massachusetts, into three important edu- cational institutions, in which women receive the advantages of the highest education. As early as 1 867, the plan, now represented by Wellesley College, had taken definite and permanent shape in the mind of the founder, Henry F. Durant. In 1 870, Wellesley Col- lege was chartered by the legislature of Massachusetts; in 1875 it was opened for students. Sophia Smith began to think approv- ingly of a woman's college as early as 186 1. In her will, made in 1868, she devoted the bulk of her property to the founding of Smith College, which was incorporated in 1871, and opened for students in 1875. Boston University was both founded and chartered in 1869. In it young women are admitted as students on the same condi- tions and to the same privileges as young men. This university was opened to students in 1873. REV. JOHN M. GREENE, D. D. 8i ful Connecticut valley. It came over in the May- flower, cropped out at Cambridge in the founding of Harvard College in 1636, and seemed to locate in this valley in full force. It is a noticeable fact that Hampshire County, small in area, and in population only a little larger than the city of Springfield, has four flourishing chartered colleges (two for young men and two for young women) and one first-class endowed fitting-school within its borders. Also ample provision has been made for opening here early in the next century a new institution to be called the Smith's Agricultural School. You must go a long way to find the like in educational facili- ties in this or any land. Sophia Smith was thus born and reared under a fortunate star. Her paternal ancestor in the sixth generation was Lieutenant Samuel Smith, who was one of the most prominent of the original settlers in Hadley. He was a leading man there in church and state, often filling the office of selectman and representing the town at the General Court ; and he was the first layman who was appointed a trustee of the funds left by the large-hearted merchant, Ed- ward Hopkins, for the founding of the school known as the Hopkins Academy in Hadley, which has done much to foster sound learning in these towns. Sophia Smith was in spirit a true descend- ant of that good and honored man who in Hadley " builded better than he knew." He was then lay- ing the foundation of Mt. Holyoke and Smith Col- leges, for Mary Lyon was a descendant from him 82 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES equally with Sophia Smith.* The same blood coursed through the arteries of both these women ; the same * It had been surmised by some, for a long time, that both Mary Lyon and Sophia Smith were lineal descendants of Lieu- tenant Samuel Smith of Hadley, In 1863, I asked Miss Smith if that was not a fact. Her reply was, " My brother Austin used to say it is not." President Hitchcock, in his Memoir of Mary Lyon, traced back the ascent of his subject to the difficult point ; i. e. to a '* Smith " for both father and mother , and there left it. If Sophia Smith's name had then been prominent. Dr. Hitchcock would have persevered till he had solved the problem. He did not, however, have the means for the solution which we now have. Five years ago I called the attention of Daniel W. Wells, Esq., of Hatfield to this matter. He is the highest authority on the genealogy of this branch of the Smith family. Only a few weeks ago he sent me the results of his study, which I give in the table below : — Lieutenant Samuel Smith, b. or 1660. John Smith son of ( 1 ) ; m. in 1663 Maiy Partridge. Joseph Smith son of (a) j m. in 1696 Canada Waite. Samuel Smith son of ( 3 ) ; m. in 1749 Maty Morton. Joseph Smith son of (4) ; m. in 1789 Lois White. Sophia Smith dau. of (5) ; b. Aug. 27, 1796; Founder of Smith College. in England in 1602 ; settled in Hadley in 1659 2. Chileab Smith son of ( i ) ; m. in 1661 Hannah Hitchcock. 3. Mary Smith dau. of (2) ; m. in 1697 Preserved Smith. 4. Chileab Smith son of (3) ; m. in 1732 Sarah Moody. 5. Jemima Smith dau. of (4) ; m. in 1764 Isaac Shepard. 5. Jemima Shepard dau. of (5) ; m. in 1784 Aaron Lyon, Jr. 7. Mary Lyon dau. of ( 6 ) ; b. Feb. 28, 1797; Founder of Mt. Holyoke Seminary ; now Mt. Holyoke College. REV. JOHN M. GREENE, D. D. 83 spirit animated them. They had a noble heredity in an ancestor who was public-spirited and a devoted friend of schools. This in part was the origin of Smith College. The early ministers of these towns exerted a mighty influence towards the founding of this col- lege. The graduates of Harvard and Yale had from the first stood in these pulpits and taught these peo- ple. The members of these churches would not have tolerated an uneducated minister in their pul- pits. At the time Sophia Smith was born (a. d. 1796), Hadley, which was the oldest church in this section, had settled four ministers ; the first two of whom, John Russell and Isaac Chauncy, were grad- uates of Harvard ; the last two, Chester Williams and Samuel Hopkins, were graduates of Yale. Hat- field had settled five ; the first three of whom, Hope Atherton, Nathaniel Chauncy, and William Williams, were graduates of Harvard ; the last two, Timothy Woodbridge and Joseph Lyman, were graduates of Yale. Northampton had settled five ; the first two of whom, Eleazer Mather and Solomon Stoddard, were Harvard graduates ; the last three, the illustrl- Lieutenant Samuel Smith, with his wife Elizabeth and four small children, came to New England in 1634, and settled in Wethers- field, Ct. He was there a prominent citizen. He was fifty-seven or fifty-eight years old when he removed to Hadley. During the first thirteen years of his residence in Hadley he eight years repre- sented the town at the General Court. His name also appears six years among the Selectmen of the tovwi. His house, " the largest in the settlement," was on the east side of the broad west street, near the north end of it. 84 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES ous Jonathan Edwards, John Hooker, and Solomon Williams, were Yale graduates. These were all em- inent men. They were scholars and ardent friends of education. I doubt whether fourteen pastors, their equals, could have been found in three adjoin- ing towns in New England in their day. The three pastors, Dr. Hopkins, Dr. Lyman, and Solomon Williams, who occupied the pulpits in these three towns (Hadley, Northampton, Hatfield) at Sophia Smith's birth and during her youth, had all of them been tutors in Yale College. The influ- ence of these pastors in creating and fostering an educational spirit in this community was very great. " Buy the truth and sell it not " was often on their lips. They exalted knowledge and wisdom before their people. In their sermons they appealed to the reason as well as to the conscience and the emotions. Many of the ministers in this section at that time fitted young men for college, and tutored in their homes rusticated students. Dr. Lyman helped not a few students in the study of divinity, as well as in preparatory and college studies. Rev. Vinton Gould, during his ministry of thirty-one years (i 801-183 2) in Southampton, fitted for college more than thirty young men from that small town. The number of young men in all these towns who went to college was surprisingly large. This shows the educational spirit of these towns during the early life of Sophia Smith. It is not strange, that she and many other girls of that day went and sat on the door steps of REV. JOHN M. GREENE, D. D. 85 the village school-house, to pick up the crumbs that fell from the table when the boys of their age were fed. This ministerial influence was a powerful ele- ment in the origin of this college. Hatfield, the lifelong home of Sophia Smith, was noted for the scholars, the friends of education, and the skillful financiers who were born there or made it their home. William Williams, the third pastor there, was a man of superior scholarship as well as of rare natural gifts. Jonathan Edwards preached his funeral sermon in Hatfield, in 1741, in which he said : " Mr. Williams was a person of uncommon natural abilities and distinguished learning, a great divine, of very comprehensive knowledge, and of a solid, accurate judgment." President Chauncy of Harvard College spoke of him in very eulogistic terms. Hatfield was the headquarters, the rendez- vous, of the aristocratic and tory Williams family for a whole century ( 1 6 8 5-1 7 89). Elisha Williams, a son of Rev. William Williams, born and bred in Hatfield, a graduate of Harvard College, was the third president of Yale College. He held the office thirteen years (1726-1739) with great profit to the institution. Two other sons, born and bred in Hatfield, and often there, were eminent ministers ; and one son. Colonel Israel Williams, distinguished as a civilian and a mihtary officer, and called " ^ e monarch of Hampshire" and one of "the river gods," had his home in Hatfield. He was a trustee of the Hopkins School in Hadley and an ardent friend of popular education. Also Colonel 86 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES Ephraim Williams, the founder of Williams College, dwelt in Hatfield several years. There was a special attraction in the town for him. "The lady that Colonel Williams did not marry " * resided there. Her name was Elisabeth Williams. He may have gotten there his inspiration to found a college. Jonathan Dickinson also^ who was the first president and more than any other man the originator of the institution now bearing the honored name of Prince- ton University, at Princeton, N. J., was born and reared in Hatfield. The Williamses, the Dickinsons, the Patridges, the Lymans, the Smiths, and others, gave the town during a long period a social, intel- lectual, and moneyed prominence in this valley. It was the home and the haunt of scholars and suc- cessful men of business. At one time Hatfield was * Colonel Ephraim Williams, the founder of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., was bom in Newton, Mass., February 24, 1 7 1 5 . In 1 7 5 5 , he led a regiment of Massachusetts troops to aid Sir WUliam Johnson in his attempt to invade Canada. On his way, at Albany, N. Y., he made his will, leaving his property to found a school at Williamstown. He fell into an ambuscade of French and Indians not far from the head of Lake George, N. Y., and was killed, September 8, 1 755. He died, unmarried, at the age of forty. Professor Arthur Latham Peny, in his Origins of Williams- town, pp. 492, 493, says : " • The lady that Colonel Wiffiams did not marry,' toasted at a Jackson Supper of 1859, was in all human probability Elisabeth Williams of Hatfield." " The tradi- tion in his family, as it came down m Berkshire, is silent as to the reasons which led the colonel to change his mind as to the amount of the bequest to her ; the tradition in her family, as it has come down to the present m Hampshire, takes on the color that she rejected him in their last interview." REV. JOHN M. GREENE, D. D. 87 the most prosperous and wealthy town in the State in proportion to its population. The people of Hatfield also had commendable aspirations. In 1835 they gave Edwards A. Park, then a professor in Amherst College and the great- est preacher in New England, a call to become their pastor ; and they were much disappointed that he did not accept it. In Dr. Lyman they had had for half a century one of the most distinguished pastors in the Commonwealth, and they thought they could keep up to their standard if they had Professor Park as a successor. Add to this that the people of Hatfield had for a long time been desirous of establishing a college within their borders. They had talked of it, and discussed it, in private and in public. They erected a building which they called " Queen's College." They petitioned the General Court for a charter ; and the governor. Sir Francis Bernard, issued one in King George's name, and signed it ; afterwards he yielded to the opposition, and canceled it. All this contributed to prepare the mind of Sophia Smith to found this college. What Sophia Smith was in herself was an im- portant factor in bringing this college into existence. Having such an ancestry, and being born in such environment, it is not strange that her mind furnished congenial soil for educational ideas and schemes. She was a woman of sound wisdom and discretion ; of excellent sense and large and tender sympathies. She loved the church of Christ, was a devoted member of it, and received much comfort and in- 88 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES tellectual, moral, and spirihaal strength from its ser- vices. The Bible was to her the book of books, and she so constantly perused it and meditated on its teachings, that when she wrote or spoke, her lan- guage was scented with the flavor and aroma of it. She was both philanthropic and patriotic. In her personal expenditures she was economical and pru- dent ; in her charities, generous. She understood that money has higher uses than selfish enjoyment or gratification of personal pride. She put a su- preme value upon education. With Victor Hugo she believed that " whoever opens a school closes a prison." With the old Jewish prophet she thought that peoples and nations are " destroyed for the lack of knowledge." She also had an exalted idea of womanhood, and thanked God for her feminine birthright. She rather pitied men than envied them. It is often remarked that women give their money and spend their strength for men, and neglect their own half of the world ; and apparently there is too much truth in the remark. No doubt men need all the help they get from women, and much more. But that is no sufficient reason why they should be insensible to the needs of their sisters. Yet judging from facts, there are nine women of large pecuniary means who will freely give money to endow institu- tions for men, where there is one who will give it to an equal extent to help women. Unselfishness, generosity, self-denial, perhaps you call it ; but there are those who more truly brand it as unwisdom. REV. JOHN M. GREENE, D. D. 89 prejudice, lack of sympathy with what is highest and best on the earth. When Napoleon I. said, "What France needs is good mothers," he came near saying what every true philanthropist feels : what the world needs is more good and wise women. Woman needs not only goodness, but also knowledge and wisdom, which as well as goodness are a mighty power. From her position in the family as the guardian of health, education, food, and manners, she especially needs education to fit her for her respon- sible duties. As a teacher in schools, as a writer, a fashioner of society, and former of public opinion in both church and state, she needs the best thought of the age. " To rule the household," ^ or be head or mistress In it, as St. Paul says she should, she needs educational qualification. Such was Sophia Smith's practical and common-sense conception of woman's life and needs. It is not strange, therefore, that she was willing to give money for the founding of a ^ " Rule the household " is the Revised Version translation of oiKoSea-TTOTeiv, in I Tim. v. 14. The New Testament Greek Lexicon (Thayer's) defines the word, "to be master |^or head! of a house ; to rule a household ; manage family affairs." The Authorized Version reads, " guide the house ; " WichPs translation is, "ben hous wyues : " Tyndale's,"gyde the house ; " Cranmer's, " gyde the house;" The Rheims, "be mistresses of families ; " The Vulgate, " matres famihas esse." It is evident that the apostle Paul puts great responsibility upon the wife and mother in the home. If she is fitted for her position, shows that she has the needed qualifications for it, the husbands are few, let us hope, who will not gladly make her the " head" and "ruler " in the household. 90 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES woman's college. It required no skill in argument, or special power of persuasion, to convince her of the wisdom of it. She saw it by intuition, she felt it in her heart of hearts. On the beautiful May-day afternoon of 1861 she went to her pastor's study in Hatfield, and with tears in her eyes told him her brother Austin had left her a large sum of money, which she neither wanted nor knew how to use wisely. She had no objects in mind to which she wanted to give it, and she insisted on his telling her what would be a judi- cious disposition of it in the way of public charity. No excuse, no pleading off on his part, was accepted by her. Her " heart was fixed ; " he must help her in this dire necessity. After several weeks of study and research he ma- tured two plans for the disposition of her property. The principal item in one was the founding of a woman's college ; in the other, the founding of a deaf-mute institution. There was then no woman's college in New England. Vassar College, in Pough- keepsie, N. Y., had been founded not three months before, though it was not opened to students till four years after, in 1865. Not many of the leading edu- cators, in New England in 1861, were ready for a woman's college which would give to young women educational advantages equal to what our young men receive in their colleges. I say this from personal knowledge of the fact. When the two plans were presented to Miss Smith, she, after deliberation, inclined to accept the one REV. JOHN M. GREENE, D. D. 91 which provided for a woman's college. The idea pleased her. She had faith in it as desirable and feasible. She said : " I wish I could have enjoyed the advantages of such a college when I was a girl ; it would have made my life far richer and happier than it has been." But the outside discouragement was so great that the will of 1 86 1 was made, founding a deaf-mute in- stitution instead of a woman's college. But six years later, in 1867, the deaf-mutes were provided for by the munificence of John Clark, Esq., of this city, aided by the State. Then the light, which before had shone dimly, increased, and it was possible to get a board of trustees among our first-class educators, who were in full sympathy with the scheme. The will was then changed, and Sophia Smith became, July II, 1868, the founder of Smith College. She understood that her college would embody four cardinal principles : (i) the educational advan- tages given in it would be equal to those afforded young men in their colleges ; (2) Biblical study and Christian religious culture would be prominent ; (3) the cottage^ system of buildings, or homes for the students, instead of one mammoth central building, would prevail ; (4) men would have a part in the * When the papers for Miss Smith's will were being drawn up, Mrs. Greene, whose three years' experience at Mt. Holyoke Sem- inary had shown her the evils of the one bulky building system, then the fashion for "Young Ladies' Schools," suggested that, for the students of Smith College, cottages or home-like structures, each housing a small group or family, be built. 92 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES government and instruction in it as well as women, for it is a misfortune for young women or young men to be educated wholly by their own kind. These four ideas were in Miss Smith's mind, and clearly expressed in the documents connected with the founding of the college. She hoped to do some- thing which would cause the world to be better and happier. She contributed her mite towards making common in human society " earth's noblest thing, — a woman perfected." This college was fortunate in its advent. It came just " in the nick of time " to create and catch the rising tide of woman's thirst for a higher and com- plete education. And the end is not yet, for it seems as if the " appetite had grown by what it fed on." Fortunate also in having a board of trustees in sympathy with its aim, and skillful to meet mani- fold emergencies. Especially fortunate in a president who seems to have been born with rare endowments for this very work, and whose wise and long-contin- ued leadership in the administration of its affairs has given the college a phenomenal success, and made it the largest woman's college in the world. If there is any immortality on the earth, the name of Sophia Smith is immortal, made so by the simple fact that, when large means providentially came into her hands, she used them in doing good. That is gospel righteousness ; and the " righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." In the sitting-room of Miss Smith's home in Hat- field hung, during the last years of her life, a picture REV. JOHN M. GREENE, D. D. 93 of the poor widow casting two mites, " all her living," into God's treasury. She was very fond of that pic- ture. I was with her, in the studio in New York, when she selected it ; and I well remember the avid- ity with which she took it ; and I am sure that pic- ture, more than any other, shows the ruling passion, the dominant principle, in the heart of the noble and consecrated woman who founded this college. She gave all she was, and all she had, to the Lord ; and here we see the golden fruit. This is my answer to the question. What was the origin of Smith College ? HISTORY OF SMITH COLLEGE BY PRESIDENT SEELYE Honored officials of the Commonwealth, of the city, and of other colleges ; friends and fellow stu- dents : In behalf of the Trustees and the Faculty of Smith College, I welcome you to our academic festival. The story, how the seed-thought of Smith College found congenial lodgment in the mind of Sophia Smith, and germinated in her last will and testament, has already been told by him who sowed the seed, and to whose sagacious, philanthropic husbandry during its germinal process, the college owes its ori- gin. It remains for me to trace the succeeding his- tory of its growth as a visible organization. The most interesting part of that history, I am constrained to leave untold, for nearly all of the teachers of the college are still living ; and were I to state worthily what they individually have done to make Smith College what it is, it would prove, I fear, too great a tax upon your patience, and it would involve too many delicate personal comparisons to be properly made in this assembly. The history of the faculty can be given with better grace and greater freedom at the middle or the end of the twentieth century. I shall confine myself, therefore, to those facts in the PRESIDENT SEELYE 95 material and intellectual development of the college, which can be treated with the least personal refer- ence. The last will and testament of Sophia Smith was signed and witnessed March 8, 1870. She died on the 1 2th day of the following June. In accordance with the directions of her will, application was made by her executors, at the next annual session of the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for the act of incorporation of the Trustees of Smith College. That act passed the General Court with- out opposition ; and the charter was approved by his Excellency, Governor William Claflin, March 3, 1871. According to the first section of that charter : " Charles E. Forbes and Osmyn Baker of North- ampton, John M. Greene of Lowell, William S. Tyler and Julius H. Seelye of Amherst, William B. Washburn of Greenfield, Edwards B. Park of Andover, Joseph White of Williamstown, Birdseye G. Northrop of New Haven, Edward B. Gillett of Westfield, and George W. Hubbaj-d of Hatfield, their associates and successors, are hereby consti- tuted a body corporate, by the name of The Trustees of Smith College ; the leading object of which shall be the higher education of young women, in accordance with the plan and provisions prescribed in the last will of Sophia Smith, late of Hatfield." According to the second section : " The said cor- poration shall have full power and authority ... to grant such honorary testimonials and confer such 96 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES honors, degrees, and diplomas as are granted or con- ferred by any university, college, or seminary of learning in the United States ; and the diplomas so granted shall entitle the possessors to the immunities and privileges allowed by usage or statute to the pos- sessors of like diplomas from any university, college, or seminary of learning in this commonwealth." According to section five : " The Board of Trus- tees, when organized, are authorized and required to locate the said college in Northampton, provided the citizens or town of Northampton, within two years from December 5th, in the year 1870, shall raise and pay over, or cause to be raised and paid over to the said Board of Trustees, if organized, or if not, to the two Trustees named in the fifth section of the founder's will, or to their successors, the sum of 125,000 for the purposes specified in said will. And upon the failure or refusal of the citizens or town of Northampton so to do, then the said Trustees, when organized, shall locate the said college in Hatfield." The sum required to fix the location was voted without opposition by the town of Northampton, at a special meeting, March 20, 1871. Pursuant to the call of the majority of the cor- poration, the trustees met for organization in the oiRce of the Smith charities in Northampton, April 12, 1 871, when the charter was accepted, and the organization was completed by the choice of Wil- liam S. Tyler as president of the board ; Edward B. Gillett, vice-president ; George W. Hubbard, trea- surer; and John M. Greene, secretary. PRESIDENT SEELYE 97 The trustees were remarkably well qualified for the work assigned them. All but one were college graduates; the majority of them, either as professors or trustees, were familiar with college requirements ; some of them had manifested exceptional ability in the management of public and private affairs. They were men of broad views, and determined to execute faithfully, to the best of their ability, the design with which they were intrusted. Their second meeting was held September 1 2, in the same year, when the by-laws were adopted, and the homestead of Judge Dewey was purchased as a site for the college, at ^26,000, and a committee was appointed to select a president. The next meeting was held November 14, 1871, when the adjoining homestead of Judge Lyman was purchased for $25,000, and it was voted to discontinue further ne- gotiations for additional real estate. The land thus purchased, constituted an irregular parallelogram extending from Elm Street to the cen- tre of Mill River, through about the centre of the present campus, and was considered sufficient to meet the need of the college for many years. It was, at least, all the college could afford then to pur- chase, for the choice of a site had immediately raised the valuation of the adjacent property, and the owners refused to sell at a price which the college could pay. In June, 1872, an informal overture of the presi- dency was offered by the committee to L. Clark Seelye, then professor at Amherst College, but the 98 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES offer was declined, mainly in consequence of the in- adequate funds at the disposal of the trustees. The trustees themselves fully realized both the in- adequacy of the college endowment, and the inexpe- diency of erecting buildings and appointing a faculty, until a president had first been chosen. As the funds were unusually well invested, and were stead- ily increasing by the accumulation of their income, more, evidently, was to be gained by waiting than by premature action. To satisfy popular curiosity, however, they issued a circular in September, 1872, giving general information concerning the design of the college, its location, and its probable require- ments. The purpose of the trustees was expressed in these words : " It is the design of the trustees, as it was evidently of the founder, not to add to the number of such schools, seminaries, or academies as now exist for young ladies, but to realize completely and truly the idea of a Woman's College." The following year, the trustees renewed again their overture of the presidency to the same person ; and he finally consented to accept it, provided the opening of the college could be postponed two years, in order to allow a greater accumulation of the en- dowment, and more time to mature plans and erect suitable buildings. These conditions were accepted, and at the annual meeting of the trustees, June 17, 1873, the record states, that Professor L. Clark Seelye was unanimously elected president of Smith College, and a member of the board of trustees. The executive committee were also authorized to confer PRESIDENT SEELYE 99 with the president-elect ; to determine the time when his duties as president shall commence ; and to give him leave to visit such portions of this country and Europe, as he may deem desirable, in order to pro- cure information which may be useful to the college. After a survey of existing institutions for the higher education of women in this country and abroad, and consultation with the leading educators, some principles of the general policy which should determine the organization of the college seemed clear. First : no preparatory department should be connected with it, and the courses of study and grade of scholarship should be on a par, intellectually, with the standard requirements for the degree of bachelor of arts in colleges for men. Second : it should be distinctively a college for women, in which they should have superior opportunities for develop- ing and perfecting womanly characteristics. Third : the original endowment of the college should be preserved intact, and if possible steadily increased, until its income should be sufficient to satisfy the educational needs of such an institution of learning. By its location in Northampton, the college was spared at the outset some expenditures which in many other localities it must have incurred. The town had already a large and unusually well-selected library ; and Judge Forbes, one of the original trustees of the college, early confided to the presi- dent his intention of leaving, at his death, a large sum of money for another library, especially designed to furnish the amplest facilities for literary and scien- 100 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES tific research. As he was then an old man, he sug- gested the expediency of waiting for the operation of his bequest, and to spend no more of the college funds than necessary for a separate library. The town was amply provided with churches of different denominations, as New England towns are apt to be, and the college could gain the benefit of their religious culture without a separate church, — a method which better suited also its undenomina- tional religious character. Owing to its proximity to other colleges, some of their professors could be employed advantageously to give instruction in vari- ous departments, according to the plan subsequently followed in the annexes for women at Harvard and Columbia. Hitherto no college for women had started with- out a preparatory department; none had required Greek for entrance; and in the majority of them both the quantity and quality of the work demanded was little more, and often less, than that accomplished in the best secondary schools. Vassar was the only existing college for women worthy of the name, and it was then incumbered with a large preparatory de- partment, and had not placed itself on a par with the best colleges for men in its requirements for admission. No way to disabuse the popular mind of the impression, that a woman's college must be of an inferior intellectual type seemed more effectual, than to adopt the requirements for admission in the best New England colleges. This was accordingly done ; PRESIDENT SEELYE loi and in the first official announcement made by the president, October 20, 1873, — issued as an appendix to the first circular of the trustees, — it was stated that candidates for admission will be examined in arith- metic, geography, the construction of the English language, general outlines of history, the Latin and Greek grammars, the Catiline of Sallust, seven ora- tions in Cicero, the first six books of Virgil's iEneid, three books of Xenophon's Anabasis, two books of Homer's Iliad, algebra to quadratic equations, and two books of geometry. These requirements re- presented the New England standard of admission then in vogue. Whatever modifications might be made in these requirements afterward, whether they were ideally the best for women or not, it seemed to the trustees that no diiferentiation could safely be made at the outset in the intellectual work de- manded, if the college standard were to be respected and maintained. It was not yet sufficiently clear what studies could be profitably substituted for these, as a better preparation for liberal culture to meet the distinctive capacity of a woman's mind. There was no intention to formulate a scheme so fixed, that it would not be hospitable to new ideas, and that could not adjust itself readily to the modifi- cations future experience might indicate as advisable. There was a keen sense of the pioneer character of the enterprise, and of the importance of preserving an open mind, ready to profit by the lessons ex- perience might teach. Above all, there was the dominant purpose to provide the best physical and 102 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES mental training, and the most invigorating religious and social atmosphere, for the development of an ideal womanhood. The curriculum first adopted corresponded also with the prevailing usage in New England colleges, but offered a wider range of electives than most of them them did. Its most noticeable peculiarity was the position given to the study of music and art, and to Biblical literature. The trustees felt that it would seriously detract from the value of a college training for women, in the estimation of many intelligent peo- ple, if during the period allotted to it, no opportu- nity were given to cultivate their musical or artistic talent, or — the opportunity being given — a stigma and restraint were placed upon the culture by not allowing it any consideration in the work necessary for an academic degree. Music and art were not, therefore, entirely ignored, as in the colleges for men, nor was a disproportionate amount of time and atten- tion given to them, as in most schools for women, but they were introduced as electives of equal rank with those with which they were coordinated ; — and they could only be taken by those who were quali- fied for advanced instruction in them of a college grade. Notwithstanding the superficial way in which they had often been taught as fashionable accom- plishments, no valid reason appeared why advanced studies in art and music might not prove as liberal- izing and fruitful as some of those already admitted in a curriculum of a liberal education. There seemed no good reason, also, why Biblical literature should PRESIDENT SEELYE 103 not, according to Miss Smith's suggestion, receive an honored place by the side of other literatures, to be studied, not from a theological, but from a literary- point of view. To allow the funds to accumulate, and to secure a more satisfactory growth, it was decided to admit only one class at the beginning, and each successive year to form a new class, until the four classes then characterizing the American college were duly or- ganized. The traditional names — Freshman and Sophomore — were discarded, in the hope that some of their masculine associations might be discarded also ; and First Class and Second Class were adopted as their equivalent. The other names, — Junior and Senior, — in use for the two upper college classes were retained. The special differentiation on account of sex ap- peared in the social regulations and provisions. In- stead of dormitories or mammoth structures, large enough to meet both the academic and domestic necessities, the trustees decided to erect one central building exclusively for academic instruction, and to group around it comparatively small dwelling- houses, as they might be needed, which should be conducted, so far as possible, like well-ordered and refined private homes. A department of social cul- ture was created, and a lady appointed at its head, whose special duty it should be to direct the social life of the college, and to supervise subordinate ma- trons, who should take charge of the housekeeping and culinary affairs. This plan did not work well ; 104 HISTORICAL A-DDRESSES and in two years was modified by appointing, at the head of each house, a lady competent to direct both the social and domestic life, — an arrangement which has proved very successful, both in securing the end desired, and in its easy adaptation to increasing numbers. College Hall, the first academic building, was finished and dedicated July 14, 1875 ; and the pre- sident of the college was then formally inaugurated into the office, which he had practically filled for two years. An introductory statement was made by Professor William S. Tyler, president of the Board of Trustees ; an inaugural address was given by the president of the college ; and a biographical sketch of Sophia Smith by Rev. John M. Greene. Con- gratulatory addresses were made by his Excellency, Governor Gaston, and Rev. Dr. Andrew P. Pea- body of Harvard University. A virtue was made of our necessities, and the house which had been occupied by Judge Dewey was arranged as the first dwelling-house, and called the Dewey House. It originally occupied the site of the president's house, and was moved to where Seelye Hall is now, and the president's house was erected on its former location. The college opened with morning prayers at a quarter before nine, September 9, 1875. There had been many applicants for admission, but only four- teen were able to meet the entrance requirements, and with that number and four resident teachers, the regular academic work began. The average age PRESIDENT SEELYE 105 of the students was eighteen, — the oldest being twenty-one, and the youngest sixteen, — and they represented nine States. The following year, 1876, there were again many applicants, and sixteen were able to pass the examinations, and another class was formed, and additional teachers were appointed. The exclusive policy of the college created much local dissatisfaction. With two classes numbering altogether only thirty students, the town, apparently, was not reaping enough financial benefit to remuner- ate it for its expenditure of 1 2 5,000 to secure the location of the college. Outsiders were disposed to croak over the fearful strain which the students were said to endure in order to maintain their stand- ing at Smith. " How is this," — said the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon one day, as he met the president of Smith ; " it is currently reported at New Haven that you have cases of brain fever every week at Smith, in your effort to make women know as much as No one had given anything to increase the endow- ment. People generally stood aloof waiting to see the upstart die. Real-estate owners were discouraged and ready to offer adjacent property at lower prices than they had previously demanded, and the college was able to increase, at more reasonable terms, its domain, by the purchase of two small estates on Green Street. A financial agent had been appointed to solicit funds, but after six months of thorough canvassing, he had found no one willing to aid so doubtful an experiment, and he was honorably dis- io6 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES missed. The treasurer of the college had given the clock, and a lady had given the bell, and these two gifts were the only visible signs of a benevolent interest. Notwithstanding these discouragements, the trus- tees were not inclined to abate their requirements. They were well pleased with the progress the stu- dents were making, intellectually and physically-, and had increasing confidence that the true course had been taken. There were a few cheering signs. The Mary A. Burnham Preparatory School was started in 1877 in Northampton, and there was evidence that similar schools were planned elsewhere, which would serve as feeders. The same year an encouraging offer was made of ^1000 to form an art collection, on condi- tion that the trustees would appropriate I4000 for the same purpose. The offer was accepted, |6ooo was appropriated by the trustees, and the small art gallery was soon filled with an admirable collection of casts and representative works of the best Ameri- can artists. At the beginning of the third year, after the pre- paratory schools had had time to shape their instruc- tion to meet the college demands, a much larger number of well-prepared candidates for admis- sion presented themselves, and the third class of forty-two was formed. Still more encouraging was the outlook at the beginning of the fourth year, when seventy-two students were admitted, and the formal organization of the four college classes was PRESIDENT SEELYE 107 completed, with a Senior class of twelve, a Junior class of ten, a Second class — alias Sophomore — of thirty-nine, a First class — alias Freshman — of seventy-two; in all one hundred and thirty-eight. The campus began to seem inhabited. The college was fortunate in the character of these early students. They came from refined homes, with good breeding and with high social ideals. A large proportion of them were daughters of college grad- uates. It required some strength of purpose in a woman to go to college then. Only those intellect- ually inclined were disposed to meet the severe tests required for entrance. They were zealous for learn- ing, and in hearty sympathy with the effort to make the scholarship of the college fully equal to that in colleges for men. Their ambition was to make it superior, and they were jealous of anything which might appear a concession to feminine weakness. If they found how much Latin or Greek the men were taking in neighboring colleges, they were solicitous to take a little more. As Professor Mather said, he noticed this difference between the students at Smith and Amherst : " At Smith the classes desired to have the lessons longer, and at Amherst to have them shorter." The college was too poor to start with an ade- quate corps of resident teachers, and the full time of a professor in all departments was not needed by the gradual formation of small classes. Professors were accordingly employed from Amherst, from Yale, and from Johns Hopkins, who, after teaching the io8 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES same subjects, and employing the same tests of schol- arship, gave uniform testimony that the women, on the average, learned their lessons better, and attained a higher scholarship than the men. This testimony, of course, pleased the students, and was an addi- tional guarantee to them and to the public, that a collegiate standard was maintained, and that women were competent to take as much intellectual work, and to do it as well, as men in corresponding classes. The faculty consisted, at the beginning, as it has since, of both sexes. At first, there was a larger proportion of men ; later, the proportion was re- versed. It was more difficult to secure competent women for teachers than it is now. There were, however, then as now, liberally educated women without academic degrees. The colleges have had no monopoly of the higher education either of men or women ; and among those who have never en- joyed college privileges, there are some who, in in- tellectual ability and literary and scientific attain- ments, would rank higher than the majority of college graduates. From this class, as well as from college alumnae, the college has been able to secure competent women as teachers ; and their presence on the faculty has added much to its efficiency and power. The college was fortunate in starting with only one class. It was not embarrassed by traditions brought from other institutions ; it escaped entirely the class jealousies and antagonism which those tra- ditions have often aroused and perpetuated; and it PRESIDENT SEEL YE 109 was able to secure thereby a more homogeneous life and develop an esprit de corps in harmony with its own ideal. Additional dwelling-houses were soon needed for the larger classes. In 1877 the Hatfield House was built, and was so named from Miss Smith's na- tive town and life-long residence. The following year the Washburn House was built, and named after Ex-Governor William B. Washburn, — one of the trustees and benefactors of the college ; and two years later, the Hubbard House was built, and named after the first treasurer of the college, George W. Hubbard. The first commencement was held June 18, 1879. An innovation was made in dispensing with the cus- tomary orations and essays from the graduating class. Instead of these, an oration was given by President Eliot of Harvard University; a poem, written for the class by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, was read by Professor Churchill of Andover ; and the de- gree of A. B. was conferred upon eleven students, who had satisfactorily completed the prescribed aca- demic course. From the beginning, the trustees had laid much stress upon physical culture, and regular gymnastic exercises had been given the classes in College Hall ; but that expedient was no longer practicable, as the class which entered in 1879 numbered ninety- two, and the total number of students that year was two hundred and two, — a larger number than the trustees expected for twenty years. A separate 1 10 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES wooden gymnasium was built, accordingly, in 1880, and located where Lilly Hall now stands. The lower story had a bowling-alley and music-rooms, and the upper hall was fitted up with gymnastic apparatus prescribed by Dr. Sargent of the Harvard Gymnasium. The same year, the music and art schools were established. These schools were designed, both to meet the need of those who desired to give greater attention to art and music than could be permitted in the regular academic course, and to furnish better facilities for regular students in those departments than could be provided for them exclusively. Pro- fessor Blodgett, who for several years had conducted a music school at Pittsfield, and for two previous years, by weekly visits to Northampton, had given instruction in music in the college courses, was ap- pointed professor, and director of the school of music. Professor Niemeyer, of the Yale Art School, was engaged temporarily as teacher, and director of the Art School. The only music-rooms were in the lower story of the gymnasium, and the art instruc- tion was given in the attic of College Hall, which was converted into studios. These accommodations proved so inadequate and inconvenient, that earnest efforts were made to secure funds for separate build- ings. Aid soon came from an unexpected source. In 1 88 1, Winthrop Hillyer, a citizen of Northamp- ton, who had retired from active business, and was living a secluded life, became much interested in the art collection, and offered $25,000 to provide a PRESIDENT SEELYE iii suitable building for it, provided the subscriptions already made for that purpose — amounting to about $8000 — could be used to increase the art collection. This offer was gladly accepted, and Mr. Hillyer subsequently added $5000 to his original gift. It was a small sum for such an object, and the closest economy was necessary in its expenditure, but it was much the largest gift thus far which had been received, and it was a great encouragement, as evidence that the college was beginning to secure the generous sympathy of intelligent men. The Hillyer Art Gallery was finished in the summer of 1882, and was soon filled with a valuable collection of representative works of the best American artists, and of casts of ancient and modern sculpture. Mr. Hillyer died in the spring of 1883, leaving no will, only among his papers there was found an unsigned bequest of 1 50,000 for a permanent in- crease of the art collection. Such a bequest, without a signature, had no validity, but his brother and sis- ter, Mr. Drayton Hillyer and Mrs. Roland Mather, — his only heirs, — with scrupulous generosity, gave the entire ^50,000 to be invested as a perma- nent fund for an art collection. Five years later, owing to the rapid increase of the collection, they gave ^10,000 to build an addition to the Gallery, which was finished in 1887; and Mrs. Roland Mather, at her death, in 1896, bequeathed $15,000, to be applied, after the death of two beneficiaries, who hold it in trust, to the furtherance of her brother's design. Thus, out of the interest begot- 112 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES ten by its first art collection, the college received from the Hillyer family ^105,000. Fifty thousand dollars would be a low estimate of the value of the other gifts by artists and friends to enrich this art collection. Stimulated by the success of the art movement, and the distraction caused by the noisy gymnastics over the heads of music teachers and students, redoubled efforts were made to secure a separate building for the music work. Only about I5400 was pledged, but the need seemed so urgent and imperative, that the trustees appropriated the bal- ance needed, and Music Hall was also completed in 1 88a. To secure a site for it, two more adjoining homesteads were purchased on Green Street, and the college became the owner of most of the land bor- dering the campus on Green Street. In 1883, only a few days before the opening of the fall term, the college community was greatly shocked and saddened by the tragic death of Pro- fessor Moses Stuart Phelps, who was accidentally shot while hunting in the Maine woods. He was a man of rare endowments and intellectual attain- ments, and an inspiring and greatly beloved teacher. His valuable philosophical library was given to the college by his father. Professor Austin Phelps ; and, as a proof of their esteem, the alumnae raised a fund of $500 to be called the Phelps Memorial Library Fund for its perpetual increase. His father after- ward also left a bequest of $1000 for the same pur- pose. ; PRESIDENT SEELYE 113 No special students were at first admitted. It was soon discovered, however, that, owing to the lack of any generally accepted standard of education for girls, there were women desirous of a higher edu- cation, who, in some studies, had advanced beyond the entrance requirements, but could not pass an examination in others. They were too old to reen- ter secondary schools, and begin systematic work in the studies in which they were deficient, and must either be deprived altogether of a collegiate edu- cation, or some provision be made to take courses which they were qualified to pursue with the regular classes. To meet their need, notice was given in 1877 *^^' special students would be admitted in limited numbers, who were beyond secondary schools and who could give satisfactory evidence of their ability to pursue elective courses with the regu- lar students. They would be entitled to no degree, and must maintain an average grade of scholarship. They were required to pass the same examinations for admission as the regular students, except in the classics and mathematics, for which they might offer specified equivalents. Each succeeding year a few students had availed themselves of this privilege. Most of them had maintained the required standard of scholarship. Some of them had pursued in the college a four years' course of study, which else- where would have entitled them to degrees. In the judgment of the faculty, their work should be pro- perly recognized, and made more systematic and co- herent by the establishment of specific courses lead- 114 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES ing to appropriate academic degrees. Accordingly in 1884 the faculty petitioned the trustees to grant the degrees of B. L. and B. S. to those who should satisfactorily complete the prescribed courses. Can- didates for admission to these courses were required to pass the same examinations as the classical stu- dents in everything but Greek, for which an equiva- lent, either in French or in German, might be sub- stituted. This equivalent was carefully devised, so that as much time and study would be required to fulfill it, as its classical alternative. No diminution was made in the prescribed classical studies for the classical degree. The new courses were not only a concession to the difficulty of procuring Greek in- struction in many schools where excellent training was given in other branches, but also were a recogni- tion of the capacity which specials, who had been educated in such schools, had shown to take colle- giate courses. It was the dawn of the idea, that there might be more than one mental dietary for a liberal education. Meanwhile, the scientific departments had out- grown the quarters assigned them in College Hall, and were urgently demanding ampler accommoda- tions, but the trustees were unwilling to diminish the endowment for that purpose. In this exigency, Mr. Alfred T. Lilly, a silk manufacturer of Flor- ence, offered I3 0,000 for a scientific building, on the condition that the trustees would agree to pay him during his life, or to his wife during her life, should she survive him, semi-annually the sum of PRESIDENT SEELYE 115 $900. This offer was also a surprise. Mr. Lilly had been considered a religious iconoclast, and was frankly outspoken in his opposition to Christianity, but he was a firm believer in the higher education of women, and in the value of scientific study, and he was in fiill sympathy with the effort to provide bet- ter facilities for its study at Smith. His offer was accepted; and he afterward added ^2380 to his ori- ginal gift. Lilly Hall of Science was dedicated June 22, 1886, with an address by Professor J. P. Lesley of Philadelphia upon the " Utility of Physical Science in Education." To make suitable provision for astronomical study, and as a tribute of affection to their wives, the same year, 1886, an observatory was built and equipped with astronomical apparatus by two of the trustees. In 1888, additional testimony of the increasing appreciation of the college was given, by a legacy of $5000 from ex-Governor William B. Washburn, and by the will of George W. Hubbard, whereby, as his residuary legatee, the college eventually re- ceived about $65,000. Thus far, the number of students had continued to increase, until less than half of them could be accommodated in the college dwelling-houses; but notwithstanding the urgent demand of many parents who refused to send their daughters, unless they could be accommodated in houses under the direct supervision of the college, the trustees still hesitated to imperil the financial standing of the college by ii6 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES using more of its endowment for buildings, which would prove unproductive should the numbers de- crease, — especially as homes could readily be found in excellent private families for all who could not be accommodated in the college buildings. Some relief was afforded by the purchase of the real estate opposite the Art Gallery, in 1885, and the conversion of its homestead into a college dwell- ing-house, which was called the Stoddard House, after Solomon Stoddard, who formerly occupied it. In 1889, still another dwelling-house was built, and called the Wallace House, after Hon. Rodney Wal- lace, a trustee and benefactor of the college. The plan was also then adopted, whereby three places among the trustees could be successively filled for periods of three years by candidates elected by the alumnae, — a plan which has been of great advan- tage in promoting the intelligent and sympathetic cooperation of the alumnae. At the same time it became manifest that a larger hall must be provided for general assemblies. Social Hall would seat only about four hundred and eighty, and in 1889 there were five hundred and eleven stu- dents. Folding doors were opened into the adjoin- ing lecture-room, but that also was soon filled, and in 1890, the hall, was enlarged by the addition of a transept, with seating capacity for nine hundred, — large enough, as everybody thought then, to meet the need for many years. The enlarged hall, which was henceforth called Assembly Hall, was furnished with an excellent three-bank organ, the gift of Pro- PRESIDENT SEELYE 117 fessor Blodgett ; and much additional dignity and in- terest were thereby given to the musical recitals and religious services. The first gymnasium had also become outgrown, and through the efforts and gifts of the alumnae and their friends, the Alumnae Gym- nasium was built and opened in 1892. The same year, additional land was purchased on Green Street, upon which two new dwelling-houses were built and opened in 1893. They were called the Lawrence House and the Morris House, as memorials of the generous aid and valuable services rendered by Mrs. Elizabeth C. Lawrence Clarke, of the class of 1883, and Mrs. Kate Morris Cone, of the class of 1879. To furnish better facilities for botanical study, in 1893, the first plant-house was built ; a botanic gar- den was formed, and the entire campus carefully laid out so as to combine, as far as possible, the attrac- tive features of the landscape with a scientific group- ing of the shrubbery. Still another dwelling-house was built in 1894, and called the Dickinson House, as a memorial of the gift of Samuel Dickinson of Hatfield, who gave the college $10,000 from the estate of his sister, Mrs. Philura Dickinson Hubbard, — widow of George W. Hubbard, — who died intestate ; and whose brother, in the gift, generously carried out a wish she had expressed before her death. March 23, 1895, ^^^- Mary Smith Tenney died, leaving her homestead to the college. Through her influence an undivided half of the estate had been bequeathed to the college by her brother, Justin ii8 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES Smith, who died in 1880, on condition that his sister should have the use of it during her life. Mrs. Tenney was a native of Northampton, and much esteemed by those who knew her for her rare quali- ties of mind and heart. In her early life she was one of the pioneer teachers in the West, and after her marriage conducted successfully, with her hus- band. Dr. Tenney, a famous school in Ohio for a quarter of a century. She then returned to her birthplace, and, after Smith College was founded, became deeply interested in its welfare. For several years she made her house a home for its students, and bequeathed it to the trustees with the intention, as stated in her will, "to provide a home for the students of Smith College which shall be called the Mary Smith Tenney House, as a memorial of my interest in the higher education of women. It is my desire that thereby students who are unable to meet the full expense of a college education may obtain board at lower rates. At the same time, I do not desire that the house be exclusively for this class, but also for other students who may be able to pay the current prices, so that the same spirit of social equality may prevail as in the other college houses." The house, thus given to the college, was built by Mrs. Tenney's great-grandfather, Isaac Clark, in 17 10, when the outskirts of Northampton were a wilderness, and Indians were the terror of the inhabitants, and wild beasts frequently came to their doors. It was occupied by four generations of the same family for nearly two hundred years. PRESIDENT SEELYE 119 Through the generosity of E. H, R. Lyman in 1896, a large addition was made to the plant-house; and soon afterward the cost of the entire structure was assumed by him, as a memorial to his mother, Anne Jean Lyman, who for many years had made her home in Northampton, distinguished for its hospitality, refinement, and intelligence. In 1897, the land in the rear of the gardener's house, containing two houses beautifully situated, was purchased, and the houses converted into an infirmary. An addition was also made to the Alum- nae Gymnasium, to secure a more commodious en- trance and rooms for the director. In 1897-98, the college purchased all the remain- ing land on the southwest corner of Green Street ; — so that after many years of negotiation it was able to extend its domain in an unbroken line to the streets which bound it on the west and south. On the new land thus purchased another dwelling-house was built in 1898, and called the Tyler House, as a memorial of Professor William S. Tyler, whose long and honorable service, as a trustee of the college, had been terminated that year by his death. The ad- joining dwelling-house, already on the property, was preserved as the Tyler annex. The scientific work soon outgrew the Lilly Hall of science, as it had outgrown College Hall, and in 1898, plans were adopted for a new chemical labora- tory, which was finished at the beginning of the win- ter semester in 1899. This laboratory originated in a gift of I5000 by the father of a member of the 120 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES class of 1895, who first offered to increase it to one third of the sum needed for an academic building, costing 1 1 00,000, if the class and their friends would raise the balance. As the sum proposed proved too large to be thus secured, the offer was subsequently modified by offering $10,000 more for a chemical laboratory, on the same condition. The class and their friends raised $15,000 and the trustees became responsible for the balance. To form a site for it, the old Stoddard House, which had become too dilapidated to be longer used profitably, was demol- ished. This laboratory, while relieving the overcrowded condition of Lilly Hall, did little to satisfy the urgent need of additional recitation and lecture rooms for other departments. A new hall for gen- eral academic purposes became an imperative neces- sity, and a gift of $50,000 was made for that pur- pose, on condition that an equal amount should be raised by the trustees, and the building should be called after the president. The condition was ac- cepted, and Seelye Hall was completed In 1900. The name of this benefactor has hitherto been sedu- lously concealed, but I trust at the semi-centennial it will be made public. In 1898, the alumnae completed the library fund of $20,000, in honor of twenty-five years of service by the president, and paid It to the college treasurer, with the stipulation that it should be called the L. Clark Seelye Library Fund. In 1898, also, after protracted litigation, the college received from the PRESIDENT SEELYE 121 estate of Miss Eliza Appleton Haven about $50,000, which she bequeathed at her death, in 1896, for the benefit of the astronomical department. The trustees thereby were enabled to make a much needed addi- tion to the observatory, and to provide an endow- ment for the astronomical department. Miss Haven was a member of the Appleton fam- ily of Portsmouth, distinguished for several genera- tions by its liberal contributions to colleges for men ; and it was an encouraging sign, both of the change in public sentiment and of the growing appreciation of Smith College, that, without personal solicitation or acquaintance with any member of the faculty or trustees, so generous a bequest should have been made for the higher education of women. A house on Elm Street, purchased in 1898, was called the Haven House, as a memorial of her gift. The Methodist parsonage, purchased at the same time, was called the Wesley House. Both of these houses were on land adjoining the campus, and made valuable additions to it. In 1895, also, the Forbes Library, which Judge Forbes had foretold at the opening of the college, became a reality, — offering freely its privileges to the teachers and students, and greatly increasing, with its magnificent building and munificent endow- ment, their facilities for literary research. In 1900, the last dwelling-house was completed, and called the Albright House, after Mr. J. J. Al- bright, as a memorial of his various contributions. This year 1900 is signalized also by the announce- 122 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES ment of a revised curriculum, whereby wider options can be given candidates for admission, and the de- gree of Bachelor of Arts can properly be conferred upon all graduates. The intention of the faculty in making this revision, to which they gave much time and thought, was not to lower in any respect the high standard of scholarship which the college has always demanded of graduates, but to adapt the prescribed and elective work more closely to the changed conditions of modern scholarship, and to the diversity of mental gifts. It was a clearer recog- nition of the growth of modern literatures and mod- ern sciences, and of the broader conception of a liberal education, which that growth has necessitated. The revision, also, is interesting, as indicating a cer- tain maturity and independence of judgment, which did not exist when the first curriculum of the col- lege was published. The requirements for gradua- tion are no longer merely a copy of those in the colleges of corresponding rank for men. They vary according to the lessons taught by twenty-five years of educational practice. The courses of study, which will henceforth be offered to women at Smith, have been enriched not only by educational progress else- where, but also by the contributions which educated women themselves have made to our knowledge of their capacity and their requirements. In this hasty retrospect of its material and intel- lectual growth, I have mentioned but few of the benefactors, to whom the college owes its existence. The total gifts in money which it has received PRESIDENT SEELYE 123 amount to ^922,753, If the value of additional gifts in land, works of art, books, apparatus, were fairly estimated, the sum would be increased to about 1 1,000,000. Those who have contributed to this amount are too numerous to mention. Some of their names, I do not myself know, and some I am not permitted to reveal. With the exception of Sophia Smith, few have given large sums. The college is the outgrowth of a widely extended charity. To these generous benefactors, who have given freely of their substance to make it what it is, is due, primarily, whatever success the college may have achieved. May they have as their reward the consciousness that they have founded an institution which will be a perpetual blessing to mankind ! Coequal in honor are those to whom the manage- ment of these gifts has been intrusted. Not only have the trustees given their services to the college without charge, but they have been also among its most generous contributors of money ; and so wisely have they managed its finances, that, after twenty- five years of profitable educational work, they could repay to Sophia Smith, were she living, all that she originally gave, and still retain a cash balance nearly double the amount of her legacy, besides possessing a valuable campus of nearly forty acres, thirty build- ings, extensive literary, art and scientific collections, free from all indebtedness. The college is still poor as compared with other institutions of equal rank. It greatly needs money 124 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES for scholarships, scientific apparatus, professorships, new buildings, and especially for a hall large enough to accommodate its general assemblies ; but it is no longer ridiculed and despised, because of the utter inadequacy of its funds to attain its end. Not less are the trustees to be commended for their unwavering fidelity to the college ideal. The high standard of scholarship and womanliness which they set at the beginning, they have never lowered. All their resources they have employed to provide each year better opportunities for intellectual growth and for the development of a healthy. Christian wo- manhood. More marked than the financial gain has been the increase in the courses of study and in educational appliances. To the trustees, the college owes that which is most essential to its success, and far more difficult to secure and manage than money, — a competent Faculty of instruction. No other gift of a school is equal to a good teacher, and no other force can contribute so much to its success In the scholarship and personality of its teachers. Smith College has been peculiarly blessed. They have cooperated assiduously and heartily to fulfill the intention of its founder and its guardians, — never intermitting their efforts to im- prove its curriculum, and to regulate the methods of instruction and mode of life, so as to secure the greatest possible well-being of their pupils. Indi- vidual failures and mistakes indeed there have been, but as a body, the faculty of Smith College has been the most important factor in its academic life ; and to PRESIDENT SEELYE 125 many of its members, the students owe a spiritual inspiration and mental power which have made them their lifelong friends and debtors. Smith College owes much to its epoch. The age was ripe for such an institution. Public opinion had been enlightened through the persistent efforts of the advocates of a higher education during three centuries, and the way had been prepared for a successful advance movement. Since the college opened, a revolution has taken place in public sen- timent. Coeducational colleges, and the excellent colleges for women in this country and abroad, have demonstrated woman's capacity for a higher educa- tion, and the benefit she will receive from it. Girls are no longer excluded from public schools, and in most cities, as generous provision is made for their education as for boys. The college reaps the benefit of these changes which time has wrought. Fifty years ago. Smith College would have perished from inanition, or have been metamorphosed into a female seminary. It owes much to its environment. The fostering care of this Commonwealth, the intellectual atmos- phere of New England, its colleges, its high schools and private academies, have proved invaluable sources of strength. The town of Northampton was a most fortunate selection for a site. The beauty of its situation, the refinement, intelligence, and generosity of its citizens, its libraries, public works, and institu- tions, — all these have added greatly to the attrac- tiveness and efficiency of the college. Few places 126 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES could have been chosen possessing so many advan- tages, which could be immediately utilized to satisfy educational necessities. Rarely, indeed, has an obli- gation been so speedily and fully repaid. The col- lege has proved pecuniarily more profitable to the city, than any of its industries. It has greatly augmented its material wealth, raising the valuation of all the real estate in its immediate vicinity six hundred and fifty per cent ; so that the taxable pro- perty, which the city has gained by the presence of the college, far exceeds that lost by the exemption of its real estate. It has also enriched the city with those higher treasures, whose worth cannot be reck- oned in gold and silver. •The college owes much to its students and alum- nae. Beginning in 1875 ^^*^ ^^^Y fourteen, the total number of undergraduates in 1900 is eleven hundred and thirty-four. They come from many States, extending all the way from Maine to Califor- nia and Oregon. The majority of them are here, not to follow a fashion, nor to win a livelihood, but to become more intelligent women, — better qualified for whatever time or eternity may bring. Repre- senting the best culture of American homes, they have enthusiastically responded to every appeal to establish usages which should promote gentility in the best sense of that word. The rich and the poor associate on an equal footing. The daughters of millionaires are side by side, in the same classes, with those who support themselves out of their own earnings. No discrimination has ever been made. PRESIDENT SEELYE 127 and I trust never will be made, socially or academic- ally, on account of wealth or poverty. The students here are estimated according to their character and scholarship, and not according to the money they can command. With such material, it has been comparatively easy to develop the best intellectual and social characteristics. Their various associations — the Athletic Associ- ation, the Smith College Association of Christian Workers, the Missionary Association, the College Settlement Association, the literary clubs, the College Council — have proved valuable auxiliaries in the de- velopment of the complex life of the college. There have been no class rebellions, and no traditional antagonism between the students and their teachers. Whatever differences of opinion may have occurred from time to time have been readily adjusted by friendly conference. The dominant spirit has been not merely one of submission to college authorities, but of hearty cooperation with them to realize the highest ideal of what a woman's college should be. The number of alumnte corresponds exactly with the date of the century — 1900. They are the best evidence of the education they have received, and they have been its most enthusiastic advocates. They have triumphantly met the severest tests of scholar- ship, and they have repeatedly won the highest honors as graduate students in the best universities in this country and abroad. As writers, teachers, and suc- cessful workers in varied professions, they have given abundant proof of their intellectual attainments. 128 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES Some of them have gone as teachers and physicians to foreign lands, and have rendered valuable and heroic services during the massacres in Armenia, and with the Red Cross corps during the wars in Greece and in Cuba. Many of them have become impor- tant agents in charitable work. They have organ- ized and successfully maintained college settlements among the poor in our great cities. In cooperation with the alumnae of other colleges, they have inves- tigated some of the most pressing social needs, and the best methods of satisfying them, examining, for instance, the condition of the working girls in shops and factories, and publishing valuable treatises in reference to domestic service and household expenses. Most of them have married, as might be expected, and in their own homes, as wives and mothers, have manifested in less conspicuous ways, the benefit of their intelligence in the training of their children and in the management of their households. Nor have they become physical wrecks by the process of their education. Here and there, one may be found who suffers the fixed penalty for physical neglect, but the majority of them are sounder in body as well as in mind, by virtue of the education they have received. The requirements in regard to sleep and systematic exercise, the constant effort to check nervous waste, and to enforce sanitary regula- tions, — these have been as beneficial physically, as other academic requirements have been intellectu- ally. Nor is the testimony of Smith in this respect peculiar. Statistics show that the health record in PRESIDENT SEELYE 129 colleges for women is as good as in the colleges for men, and is superior to that of women generally. They have done much, also, to improve the health of their sex and of the community. Numerous health associations have been formed by them, which have been efficient factors in preventing disease. Through their agency, for instance. In New York, large masses of pest-breeding offal and offensive slaughter-houses were removed. In Philadelphia, they secured an improved system of filtration for the water supply. In Pittsburg, they prevented the dumping of garbage into the streams. In Boston, they established cook- ing-schools, and diet kitchens to prepare nutritious food for the sick, and wholesome lunches for the school children. They have given much attention to dietetics, and awakened a more general interest in the sanitation of houses, and in the preparation of wholesome food, suitable for different ages and pur- suits. These girls, who have spent four years In studying the classics, mathematics, the sciences, philosophy, and literature, with little thought of their application to daily necessities, have shown themselves, after graduation, among the most practical workers, and have given additional emphasis to the old truth, that a well-trained mind in man or woman is one of the most useful as well as one of the most enjoyable and ennobling possessions. The college Is justified by its fruits ; and by its fruits it has succeeded in win- ning popular confidence. Finally, friends and co-workers, who honor us by 130 HISTORICAL ADDRESSES your presence. Smith College is much indebted to you, for assisting us to celebrate the completion of twenty-five years of its academic work. How incom- plete that work has been, how deficient, judged by the standard set for it to accomplish, no one can be more profoundly conscious than he who has directed it from the beginning. The chief significance and encouragement of its history are in its prophecy for the future. Out of the struggles and weakness of the past, the college has been acquiring strength for greater achievements. With ampler resources it looks forward hopefully to improved educational methods and to richer results. The past justifies the affirma- tion, that here, with increasing wisdom, trustees and teachers will continue to seek the best means to re- alize the highest ideal of a woman's college. Here the body will be cared for as the work of God and the helpmeet of the spirit. Here, high scholarship will be maintained as the pathway to clear insight and sound judgment. Here, refined manners and good morals will be assiduously fostered, that the gentle- woman may never be lost in the scholar, and charac- ter may ever be held superior to learning. As expressing still my supreme wish for the future of the college, which it has been my privilege to serve, and with stronger emphasis in view of its his- tory, I would repeat, in closing, the same words which I uttered at the beginning of its academic work : " To virtue knowledge," is the sentiment upon our college seal. May the time never come when the spirit of this institution shall reverse the order of PRESIDENT SEELYE 131 these words, and make knowledge first and virtue secondary ! May He, whose Spirit is the strong- est inspiration to virtuous living, and whose Mind is the chief stimulus to mental culture, inspire all our efforts, so that the knowledge which is here acquired may be for his glory and the advancement of his kingdom ! Him we would reverently acknow- ledge as our greatest Teacher, as our supreme author- ity. In Him we trust ; to Him we dedicate the col- lege ; and to Him be the glory and the honor forever. Amen. IV EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER THIRD EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE ADDRESS BY WILLIAM T. HARRIS, UNITED STATES COMMIS- SIONER OF EDUCATION The last quarter of the nineteenth century in- cludes the first quarter centennial of this institution, which proudly claims its share in the new movement for the higher education of women. It is a wide- spread movement and fraught with profound signi- ficance for civilization. Higher education means education in directive power. Directive power comes from two elements, — first, a knowledge of principles and moving causes and ideals ; secondly, a knowledge of human nature and an ability to create confidence in one's leadership. These two elements are quite apt to be separate, and one person may have a knowledge of human nature and the ability to create confidence in his fellows, while he lacks a scholarly knowledge of social forces and the historic development of ideals, such as one gets through higher education. On the other hand, another per- son may get a higher education, who lacks a sympa- thetic knowledge of humanity at large, and has small capacity to interest others in his aims and purposes. 136 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE But it always happens that the great social leaders, whether educated or uneducated, have to avail them- selves of the services of the class who have received higher education. These act as secretaries, superin- tendents of labor, architects, engineers, professional advisers, and purveyors of the accumulated wisdom of the past. Woman has come into this work of higher educa- tion during the epoch we are considering with ever increasing numbers. In 1873 there were 740 col- lege students in each million of the population of this country ; of these only one in fourteen were women (683 men, fifty-seven women). The number had not very much increased by 1880 because of the hard times which prevailed in the United States, — only 780 college students in a million population ; but of these the women were one in eight, while they were only one in fourteen seven years before (692 men, eighty-eight women). Again, in 1890 the quota of college students had risen to 880 in a million popu- lation, but the number of women had risen to nearly one fifth of the entire number (717 men, 163 wo- men). Again, in 1895 the college students stood at 1190 in the million population, and the women had reached twenty-two per cent of the total (927 men, 16;^ women). Finally, according to the most recent statistics, which were those of 1898-99, the college students were 1270 in the million, and the women exceeded one fourth of the entire number (947 men, 323 women). Those who believe in higher education have had WILLIAM T. HARRIS 137 great occasion for rejoicing; for while in 1872 the entire number of college students in the million pop- ulation was 590, in 1899, twenty-seven years later, the number had risen to 1270, much more than double the former quota. Subtracting the women students, the men had risen from 540 to 947, that is, had nearly doubled, while the number of women had risen from about 50 in 1872 to ^^2^ in 1899, having increased to six times the former number. One of the most important and most immediate effects of this increase in the number of college edu- cated women is the increase in women teachers. The woman possessed of a higher education seeks a position not only in colleges, in high schools and academies, but also in the elementary schools, and the entire educational system of the country is en- riched and raised to a higher standard. The number of women in the common schools, including the elementary school and the high school, has constantly increased for half a century, and as late as 1871 it had reached the ratio of fifty-nine per cent of the whole, while in the year 1899 it had reached sixty- eight per cent. Of course this is not the ratio in secondary schools as a whole, nor in colleges. In- asmuch as the instruction of women differs qualita- tively from that of men, one must study the results of this increase of women teachers in our corps, in order to understand fully the significance of the social influence involved in these changes. It is necessary only to glance abroad to discover the same changes in progress that have been re- 138 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE corded here. In the German cities, for instance, the number of women teachers has very much increased ; and one city, Freyburg in Baden, counts 135 women to 100 men teachers. Such cities as Cologne, Strass- burg, Metz, Aix-la-Chapelle, count ninety or more women to 100 men in the corps of elementary school teachers. In many cities, however, the number is still quite small, as for instance, in Leipzig there are only eleven women teachers to 100 male teachers. But taking the corps of teachers as a whole, there has been a remarkable increase, not only in Prussia but in various others countries of Europe. In 1822 the ratio of women to men in the corps of teachers in the elementary schools was about one to fifty. This had increased to one to twelve in 1855 ; in 1886 to one to eight ; and at present it is about one to six. In Bavaria, the number of women teachers has risen to quite one fourth of the entire number, from as small beginnings as those mentioned of Prussia. Even in Saxony the number of women teachers has increased to one fourth. In Italy, the number of women teachers in the elementary schools is three fifths of the entire number. In Austria, the number of women Is more than one in five. In Hungary, it is one In six. In Belgium, it Is nearly one half. In Norway, It Is one third. In the Netherlands, about the same. In England and Wales, the num- ber of women teachers has arrived at nearly the same proportion as In the United States. So, too. In Scot- land. Japan is following European example and has a rapidly increasing corps of women teachers in WILLIAM T. HARRIS 139 its elementary schools. In ten years the number increased from about 3000 to nearly 8000, In Switzerland, the women teachers number about three sevenths of the entire corps. In France, the change has been equally note- worthy. In 1 850 there were 48,000 men and 32,000 women engaged in the work of the elementary schools (the larger part of the women thus engaged belonging to the convents in France), while in 1897 the number of men had risen to 6jy239y but the number of women to 84,93 8. The number of secu- lar women teachers was nearly 46,000, the remainder belonging to ecclesiastical establishments. This in- crease of women teachers in France has, in my opin- ion, contributed more powerfully to the creation of a stable middle class in France than any other cause. It used to be said years ago, that the cause of the in- stability of the French republic, and the danger of revolution in that country, was due to the fact that there was no substantial middle class such as existed in Anglo-Saxon countries. To one who visited the Paris Congresses the past summer the evidence was unmistakable that France had passed safely beyond the period of danger from revolutionary reaction, and that this progress is due to the education of the masses in the elementary schools, and, in particular to the education of the women. This influence has been felt by the accentuation of the ethics of the family and the ethics of civil society ; and a some- what diminished emphasis is placed upon the ethics of a military career, which formerly in France re- ceived a disproportionate share. 140 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE The higher education of women in the French Lycees and colleges for women is bringing forward into the directive forces in France a larger and larger number from year to year of highly cultured women who possess tact and practical insight. The higher education of women in France in Lycees alone enrolled in 1882,744; but in 1895, 5757, and in 1899, 6108.^ In order to have a more adequate view of the significance of this increase in the higher education of women, it is necessary to look at the sociological change which these data indicate. In our day the development of productive indus- try by labor-saving machinery has proceeded so far Teachers (1897-98). Male. Female. Per cent male. Per cent Female. Total number. In state common schools 131,750 »77,443 32.20 67.80 409,193 In city public schools 8,321 74,468 10.05 89.95 82,789 In public liigh schools 8,542 9.399 47.61 52.39 17.941 In private academies, etc. 4.075 5,282 43-55 56.45 9.357 In public normal schools 783 1,080 42.03 57-97 1,863 In private normal schools 634 374 62.90 37.10 1,008 In colleges and univeraities 7,788 i.SH 83.63 16.37 9,312 In schools of technology 1,068 103 91.20 8.80 1,171 In colleges for women 642 1,834 25.93 74.07 2,476 Total 163,603 371,507 30.57 69.43 535."° 1873 Women in Medical Schools " 261 Women in Law Schools & 6 Women in Theological Schools " 2 From catalogues for 1873. " In 8 institutions, 6 of which are medical colleges for women. ^ In two institutions. " In St. Lawrence University (Universalist), Canton, N. Y. 1898 1.397 147 198 WILLIAM T. HARRIS 141 that we all recognize the advantage which a little school education gives the working man over his illiterate companion, for he shows himself able in the needed qualities of alertness and versatility, and the illiterate hand laborer, who has obtained his skill of hand through several years of apprenticeship and many years of journeymanship, is not his equal. A newly invented machine performs the labor that once was done by hand, at so small a cost to society that the human machine, in competition with the machine made of wood and iron, cannot earn its food and clothing. It happens that the pupils educated in our elementary schools find it easy to readjust their vocations whenever a new invention renders it ne- cessary. Moreover, the girls in this struggle find for themselves manifold new occupations with remuner- ative wages, their alertness and versatility — woman's special mental characteristic, we are told — being required in directing machines. This change of the nature of labor from mere hand labor to that of directing machines — a change which invites woman to enter the fields of productive in- dustry side by side with man — is connected with another change in the demands made upon women for work within the family. For one after another all the occupations of the household which are capa- ble of generalization — that is to say, capable of be- ing reduced to a few simple processes and performed by machinery — are separated from the household and placed in the manufactory. Hence there is less drudgery within the household. The spinning and 142 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE weaving are no longer done in the home ; and even the manufacture of fabrics into finished clothing is done in the shop ; so, too, the work of preparing most of the articles of food, especially the prelimi- nary processes of this preparation, are performed by machinery and in wholesale establishments. This process goes on continually wherever urban life has superseded the isolated farmhouse and the hamlet. There is recorded a shortening of the working hours as a continuous effect of the increase of the powers of production, aided by machinery. The total annual production in the United States in the year 1 800, a century ago, is estimated at less than ten cents a day for each man, woman, and child. By the introduction of steam during the next fifty years, the production increased to about thirty cents a day per inhabitant, and with the man- ifold applications of all kinds of motive power the increase in the second fifty years of the nineteenth century has been to raise the production to very nearly fifty-five cents a day. This increase means creature comforts and even luxuries for the upper half of the population, and a fair supply of food, clothing, and shelter for the lower half. The lesson of this change which is going on in pro- ductive power is obvious. It means a pressing invi- tation addressed to each man, woman, and child in the community to ascend to a higher use of directive power and to come into participation in the material productions of the whole world. With the increase of directive power and the WILLIAM T. HARRIS 143 necessity of preparation in elementary and superior education for the trade or profession, ail classes and conditions of society are brought into the school. The women as well as the men feel the need of this preparation, and gladly avail themselves of the op- portunities opening for them. The work of the day for each individual comes to include a higher intel- lectual effort. Each individual comes more and more to contemplate the events of the entire world, with their collisions and solutions, while he is en- gaged in his individual struggle with the problems and tasks of his own environment. He is interested now, through the newspaper, in national movements in China and South Africa, as well as in his own trades. These wide combinations demand wider and more thorough education. It is well known that collisions which come upon the illiterate are suf- ficient to bereave him of his life through mental worry and desperation, while they have little or no effect upon the person who has received superior ed- ucation. The higher education solves in an abstract form the combinations and collisions of the forces of nature and alike of the spiritual forces, and thus prepares in advance the individual to meet diiBculties without defeat and without nervous exhaustion. The increase of individualism on the part of all classes of society, and on the part of the women as well as the men, involves an increased demand for recognition in all directive spheres, and not merely in the industrial sphere or in the household, but also in the political state itself. What this signifies can 144 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE be indicated very briefly in conclusion. The world of productive industry, whose principle is competition, furnishes a healthful stimulant to the persons of the community who are capable of receiving elementary and higher education. To that class of intellects which cannot be reached by education, competition is dangerous and hurtful, and the community must care for them as well as for the other weaklings in society, — not only the weaklings in thrift, but the weaklings in intellect and the weaklings in morals. All of these classes need to be taken in hand at the beginning with the principle of nurture ; that is to say, with the method which the mother uses with her in- fant, rather than the method used by the political state (i. e. the principle of justice). Man has a tend- ency to use the principle of justice not only in deal- ing with his fellow men in their full maturity, but with children and the weaklings of society, who have not the full normal endowment of responsibility. The characteristic of sex in this particular may be regarded as something perennial, and not subject to diminution by reason of the causes that we have just now discussed. Woman has the characteristic of graciousness and kindness, perhaps I should say tenderness, brought about by the constant occupa- tion with helpless infancy. Were the infant to be held responsible for his deeds, and the principle of mere justice applied, he would perish. But the principle of nurture, which makes up to the child his lack of power to care for himself, is not a principle which is fitted for man in the maturity of his strength. WILLIAM T. HARRIS 145 There justice is best for him, and will stimulate him to his best endeavors. Justice and grace or gracious- ness are thus the two characteristics appertaining to sex ; but elevated into their transfigured and eternal form, and the admission of woman into all spheres of social influence will bring the principle of nurture into those provinces where the principle of justice has been found not sufficient for the best develop- ment of certain classes of society. Not only does the child need nurture, but the adult criminal class and the adult pauper class need the principle of nur- ture quite as much as they need the principle of jus- tice. Justice looks out for the return of the deed upon the doer, but nurture ignores the deed of the individual and considers his ideal possibility of per- fection, and seeks by mild means of correction to form the character and to support it, by creating an artificial environment and adapting it to the need of the immature individual. The state government as formed by a free masculine ideal of society ap- proaches towards a perfect realization of justice, but is very defective on the side of nurture. When it undertakes to distribute charity, it often weakens the people whom it would help and makes them less able to care for themselves. Those who have had most experience in dealing with the weaklings of society have reached the con- viction that nurture should temper justice in the administration of the laws wherever the weaklings of society are concerned, not only in case of the weaklings in morals who become criminals, and the 146 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE weaklings in mind, who become insane or feeble- minded, but also in case of the weaklings in thrift, who are so improvident in the management of their property as to involve their children in physical suffering, loss of self-respect, and in bad habits of living. While mere justice looks only to the overt act of the criminal, nurture studies the genesis of the criminal classes and devises means for their re- moval. It has become evident to students of social science, that it is a waste of labor and a wrong done to humanity to permit the existence of conditions which will breed crime, and on the other hand pro- viding merely for the punishment of the criminal. Mere abstract justice is a Sisyphus who rolls his burden to the summit only to see it again at the bottom of the hill. But just as the tenderness of the mother nurtures the child into responsible will power and into a love of right for right's sake, so this feminine element added to the State will make it able to provide for that very large population which fills the slums of our cities and constantly menaces life and property. The greatest obstacle to the progressive adoption of local self-government is the danger which comes from enfranchising the weaklings of society. They do not need the ballot or the right to vote, but they need nurture in schools and progressive training in industry and in the management of property. It is the participation of woman as an active influence in political affairs, that promises to hasten the realiza- tion of a government which adopts the principle of WILLIAM T. HARRIS 147 nurture in the place of abstract justice in dealing with the weaklings. The preventive function is needed quite as much as the punishing function of the municipal government. Woman's advice and aid in the administration of this function has long been desired. The present movement towards the superior education of woman will do much to hasten this good result. The necessities of local self-government force upon our attention the importance of providing for the lowest stratum of society. A government of the average is unpleasant for the higher strata of society. This can be remedied only by elevating the lower strata. In a republican form of govern- ment each citizen is his brother's keeper. The re- publican principle demands nurture as a principle coordinate with justice, and this is the fundamental reason why we should look forward to the more ex- tensive participation of woman, not only in the sphere of industry but in the sphere of political gov- ernment. Doubtless many mistakes will be made on the road to discovering the best ways and means for this social change. To expect that women shall bring the influence of their principle of graciousness to bear on society by adopting men's methods is a grave error. Woman In literature, not only as writer but more especially as reader, has effected a radical reform. Obscenity and harshness have been mostly eliminated from contemporary literature and art ; so it will happen that woman in sharing the government 148 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE will avail to eliminate the rigors of the law and much of the corruption in politics that now prevail. But hasty and crude experiments in this direction will be likely to increase political corruption, and to make the weaklings of society less able to care for themselves. Notwithstanding all the drawbacks which we may anticipate, we are sure that the future of woman means the gradual acquirement of her share of in- fluence in the division of labor and in political con- trol. The progress of science and the conquest of nature by means of invention, the increased perfec- tion of machinery which eliminates the necessity for the factor of human physical strength, and above all the successful prosecution by woman of studies in superior education, make the achievement of her ideal on the part of woman only a matter of time. ADDRESS BY DEAN BRIGGS Dr. Thomas Fuller, in his "Church History of Britain," devotes a few lines to what he calls the " Conveniency of She-Colleges." " Nunneries also," he observes, " were good She-Schools, wherein the girls and maids of the neighborhood were taught to read and work; and sometimes a little Latin was taught them therein. Yea, give me leave to say, if such feminine foundations had still continued, pro- vided no vow were obtruded upon them . . , haply the weaker sex (beside the avoiding modern inconveniences) might be heightened to a higher perfection than hitherto hath been attained. That sharpness of their wits, and suddenness of their con- ceits, which their enemies must allow unto them, might by education be improved into a judicious solidity ; and that adorned with arts which now they want, not because they cannot learn, but are not taught them. I say, if such feminine foundations were extant nowadays, haply some virgins of highest birth would be glad of such places ; and, I am sure, their fathers and elder brothers would not be sorry for the same." As early as the seventeeth century, then, people were thinking about good She-Schools with no vow 150 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE obtruded upon them ; in. other words, about Smith College ; and from the seventeenth century I take my text, " Conveniency of She-Colleges." There was once a man of the woods to whom it was revealed that he need do no work, but might beg and preach ; and one day when some pleasure- seeking fishermen had landed their boat and he had got from them what money he could, he opened the following dialogue : — " Had a pretty good time, have ye ? " "Yes." " Been fishin', have ye ? " "Yes." " Had a pretty good time, have ye ? " "Yes." " Well, let 's set daown and think about death for five minutes." To such a session I invite you now. Is there a grave side to all this festivity ? Do girls' colleges justify themselves, after all ? What is a girls' col- lege for? What is, or should be, the difference between a girls' college and a boys' ? Is there an i«conveniency of She-Colleges ? " To women," said a great man, " we owe the charm and the beauty of life," — and some women were offended at his saying it. " I believe it has been proved conclusively," said the same man, " that in college women can do whatever men can ; we do not yet know at what sacrifice." Together, these two observations (both just) suggest the con- ventional objections to girls' colleges. DEAN BRIGGS 151 In the best sense — in the highest and noblest sense — we owe to women the charm and the beauty of hfe. For purity of thought and heart, for patient courage, for recklessly unselfish devotion, for the love that rests and strengthens and inspires, we look to women. These are the best things in women; these are the best things in life : in them men can- not compete with women ; and women lose them if they compete with men. Here is the key to the whole question of women's colleges. These colleges exist, not for the competi- tion of women with men, but for the ennobhng of women as women. They do not, or they should not, exist primarily for the higher learning ; no more should men's colleges. All colleges, whether for men or for women or for both, are first and fore- most schools of manners and of character; of en- lightenment through study, through contact with the best that has been known and thought in the world, through association with the chosen youth from every part of the land and with the men and women who teach them. Colleges are watch-towers with wide horizons, — training schools for the ap- preciation of high aims, for that efficiency of leader- ship which cannot exist without knowledge and with- out the wisdom that is born to him or to her who uses knowledge well. If women's colleges keep their eyes on the true aim of all colleges, they will stand ; if they teach women to compete with men, they will fall, — or, what is worse, they will make women ignoble. 152 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE But is not the college woman pedantic and un- lovely ? No more than the college man. A pedant — man or woman — a being who loves learning for the vanity and the show of it, is not a being to whom we look for the charm and the beauty of life ; yet, if we must have pedants, the more they know the more tolerable they are; and the more they know the less likely they are to remain pedants. There were brave men before Agamemnon ; and there were pedantic women before Smith College; and I, for one, have yet to see the woman whom Smith Col- lege has made pedantic. Doubtless learning makes the wrong kind of girl pedantic, just as culture makes the wrong kind of boy effeminate, just as philosophy makes the wrong kind of man a scoffer and theology makes him a Pharisee ; but, speaking generally, I believe that the vanity of learning is not so much a woman's excess as a man's. A woman's excess is rather in headlong devotion to the task that lies before her ; in the morbid consciousness of unconquerable human ignorance, which she will fight to the end with every risk to body and to mind. The true college life leaves a girl more womanly, as it leaves a boy more manly, — more womanly be- cause lifted up from the sordid earth to the heights ' from which she sees far and wide the glory of every- day duty. And what of the higher learning, which I seem to have pushed aside ? The higher learning should be open to every man or woman who is fit for it, who loves it, and who for its sake will accept what- DEAN BRIGGS 153 ever loss of domestic life it may involve. For a door to the higher learning we look to our colleges ; but if we assume that the American college of to- day exists primarily for the higher learning, we either close our eyes to a plain fact or condemn the American college of to-day as a failure. The col- lege sifts its men or women, and lets through those finer scholars to whom learning is joy supreme ; the rank and file it must train, not for the higher learn- ing, but for the higher life. It does not, if it is a good college, make men effeminate or women mascu- line. The best man has the tenderness of a woman (but he must be first a man) ; the best woman has the strength of a man (but she must be first a wo- man). The difference between a good man and a good woman is radical and eternal : there is no com- petition ; there is only striving after high example. Through a college education the right kind of boy becomes in time a better husband, a better father, a better citizen ; the right kind of girl be- comes a better wife, a better mother, a better mem- ber of society : for he or she has been led through learning to culture, through culture to wisdom, and through wisdom to a more abundant life. ADDRESS by president hadley Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : — It is always a pleasure to listen to the Dean of Harvard College; a pleasure, however, tempered on this occasion by the fact that he has anticipated so many of the things that I had a mind to say, and has left me little else than an opportunity to empha- size certain parts of his speech. Above all else, it seems to me, we should lay stress on the idea, so fundamentally important, that the work of our colleges is not the preparation of scholars, not the development of doctors of philoso- phy, — good as doctors of philosophy may be in their way, — but the training of citizens for the work of life. And for this the important thing gained at college is not primarily or solely the know- ledge of books, not primarily or solely the use of facilities obtained in libraries and in laboratories, but the meeting with living men and living women, from various parts of the country, engaged in com- mon pursuits, training themselves for a collective life with a collective public sentiment, growing up amid all those traditions which make college life dear to us all while we enjoy it, and college memories yet dearer as they fade into the past. PRESIDENT HADLEY 155 To those who feel in this way, the question about women's colleges and their competition or non- competition with men's colleges answers itself; or rather it becomes hardly worth asking. The ques- tion reduces itself to this : Shall women be given opportunity to lead this collective life, with women of their own age and in similar pursuits from all over the country, as men have had it from gener- ations ? And in view of the experience of the last quarter of a century, which has been realized so nobly by those I see before me, the experience which your president has witnessed, and of which he has been so large a part, the question has been answered in the affirmative, — overwhelmingly in the affirmitive. We have, then, to ask only the subsidiary ques- tion : How shall the college course be arranged so that this end of collective life may be most fully secured ? It is in this indirect way, that the arrange- ment of the course and choice of studies have their chief importance. I cannot attempt to lay down, in this time and this place, the specific parts of which a college course should or should not consist. But we must remember that the chief importance of the course is in attracting the right kind of student material for this life of mutual education. If it does this, it will be a good one ; if it fails to do this, it will be a bad one. We need to have the studies of the college course sufficiendy modern to attract living people, but not so modern as to reduce them to the level of mere distractions in the general cur- 156 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE rent of the day. We need to have the studies of the college course sufficiently practical that the stu- dents may not feel that they are wasting their time, yet we must avoid the far greater danger of making them so practical as to turn the college into a sort of second-rate professional school, where each person is pursuing his or her own separate life. So far as specialization saves the time of the student, it is a good thing. So far as specialization withdraws stu- dents who should be leaders from college life, so far it defeats the very purpose for which colleges pri- marily exist. We need to have college studies so arranged that there shall be an atmosphere of hard work, be- cause we wish to have the college a place for workers and not for idlers. We need to have the whole system of collegiate study so arranged that peo- ple shall look outside of the present and into the past. We need to have sufficient instruction in the study of classical literature of the various nations to make the college a place for those people who care not alone for the present, but whose interests are in a wider history than that of one generation. It is because our colleges for men and women have done this, have made studies that are attractive to broad people, hard workers, who give them- selves to the collective life, that they have trained and are training citizens. And since they do this, we need ask, I think, no questions as to whether they should be here, or whether they are in general doing more harm than good. They are here. PRESIDENT HADLEY 157 They have shown their right to exist. The ques- tions that confront them, important as they are, are questions of detail, to whose solution we can turn with confidence. And we need say relatively little of the separation and difference of men's colleges and women's colleges, because of the collective life in which both are training up the American citizen- ship of the future. ADDRESS by president low Mr. President, Officers, Students and Friends OF Smith College : When I was at The Hague, last summer, I had some conversation with the Ambassador of Siam to France, who represented Siam at the Conference of Peace. From him I learned that the Siamese lan- guage is a tone language ; that is to say, a language in which the same word spelled in the same manner has four or five different meanings, according to the tone in which it is pronounced. If you will bear this in mind, I think you will appreciate an incident that befell our American Minister to Siam, the Hon. John Barrett, from whom I heard it, when he was called upon to say a word of greeting to the first graduating class of the Women's College of Siam. He practiced with his interpreter, intending to say to' them in the best Siamese that it gave him great pleasure to find himself in the presence of so many ladies who had carried their intellectual de- velopment to so high a point. When he began his utterance in the Siamese language, there seemed to be evidences of great pleasure among his audience that they should be spoken to in their own tongue ; but the pleasure quickly gave way to looks of anger. PRESIDENT LOW 159 and finally of dismay. He was afraid that the Queen might leave the room, and all the ladies with her, as he took his seat. The French Minister who sat near him asked him if he knew what he had said. " Why," he said, " I intended to say that it gave me great pleasure to find myself in the presence of so many ladies who had carried their intellectual de- velopment to so high a point." " Well," said the French Minister, " what you did say was, that it gave you great pleasure" — up to that point, you see, the ambassador's tone was all right — " to find yourself in the presence of so many old lionesses with big feet ! " I have concluded, Mr. President, having that in- cident in mind, that I would henceforth confine my utterances in public assemblies to the English lan- guage ; and, in that good mother tongue of all of us, I want to bring you the heartfelt greetings and congratulations of Columbia University. It may seem to you that these greetings and con- gratulations have the more significance because Bar- nard College, a college for women, is an integral part of our university system. But if they have the more significance for this reason, they do not gain, believe me, either in sincerity or heartiness from that fact; for, with or without Barnard Col- lege, Columbia University would rejoice with all its heart in the history of Smith College and in the prosperity which has attended it for the last quarter of a century. One can look at this question of the higher edu- i6o EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE cation of women, as at any other, either in detail or in the large. And when I look at in the large, it seems to me to suggest in a certain way what hap- pened to the world when Columbus discovered America. He added a new world to the world of men ; and the old world has been enriched, the his- tory of nations has been enriched, in two ways by that discovery, — not only by the direct product of America, but by its reaction upon Europe. When the higher education was made available to women, something like that, I think, occurred. One half of the race was given privileges which up to that time only the other half had had. And if those are indeed privileges, — as all in this room, I am sure, believe they are, — it seems to me to follow, as a matter of course, that in the long vista of the ages the race will be enriched, not only directly, by what college-bred women may do, but also by the reac- tion of the college-bred women upon the life of so- ciety as a whole. Without any regard, therefore, to questions of detail, the movement for the higher education of women has had my sympathy and cooperation ever since I have been old enough to understand it at all. It may be of interest to you to hear how, un- der different conditions, this same problem has been worked out in the city of New York, and in con- nection with the university which I have the honor to represent. At Smith College, you have been dealing with the problem in a simple form and on its own merits. My predecessor. President Barnard PRESIDENT LOW i6i of Columbia, began as early as 1879 to urge that women should be admitted to Columbia College upon the same terms as men. He reiterated that suggestion year after year for several years ; and in 1883a large popular petition was presented to the trustees of Columbia, asking for coeducation in Columbia College. That the trustees declined to grant; and in doing so, I think they represented fairly the weight of public opinion in New York City at that time. But they declined to grant co- education, not because they were unfriendly to the higher education of women, but because they did not believe in coeducation in the city of New York. They did, however, even then, agree to confer upon women who should demonstrate, by passing exami- nations, their fitness for the degree, the Columbia degree of Bachelor of Arts. They established what was called the Collegiate Course for Women, and those who met the requirements of this course might receive the degree. Columbia gave them nothing but the examinations. As might have been foreseen, this plan did not work well. Young wo- men felt that they were asked to make bricks with- out straw. The faculty of Columbia, on the other hand, felt that the degree was being cheapened ; be- cause it was being given to women upon conditions certainly less stringent than those which applied to it in the case of men. Although this system, therefore, upon its merits was sure to break down, it had another and better effect that might also have been foreseen. Inside i62 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE of sixteen years, it led to the establishment of Bar- nard College, a separate college for women. If you recall what I have said to you about the attitude of President Barnard upon this subject, you will readily understand why those interested in this cause gave to this college his name. The trustees of Columbia agreed to recognize Barnard College, and to give to its graduates the Columbia degree, provided the course of instruction in Barnard was kept upon the level of the course in Columbia College. Under that general recognition, Columbia has always con- ducted the examinations for admission to Barnard College, and also in course, and has conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts upon those who have met all the requirements. Last year, that general and indefinite understand- ing between the two corporations was succeeded by a definite agreement, which has somewhat changed, I think, and in an interesting and beneficial way, the status of the two corporations. Barnard College has been given exactly the same position in the university system as Columbia College. It is repre- sented in the University Council as Columbia Col- lege is ; and so has the same opportunity to shape the policy of the university as a whole which Co- lumbia College has. It has its own faculty, which will hereafter conduct its own examinations; and the degree will be signed by the president of the university and the dean of Barnard, instead of, as heretofore, by the president of the university and the dean of Columbia. The faculty of Barnard College may consist of either men or women. PRESIDENT LOW 163 In other words, while the suggestion of coeduca- tion in the college has met with no more favor now than in 1883, although coeducation is now accepted, with certain reservations, in the university itself, I think you will perceive that at Columbia Univer- sity the college for women has been honorably re- cognized as an integral part of our system. Our college for women holds exactly the same relation to the university, within its own sphere, as our col- lege for men holds. Without burdening you with details, it is proper to point out what seem to me the advantages to Barnard College of this arrangement. First of all it makes Barnard College a sharer in the history and prestige of Columbia University. The President of the University is charged with exactly the same duty to Barnard College, as he has to Columbia College. All officers of Barnard College are ap- pointed by the trustees of Columbia University, on the nomination of Barnard College after approval by the president of the university. These officers, accordingly, rank as officers of Columbia University, without reserve. In other words, Columbia Uni- versity has given to Barnard College a position of academic dignity as great as that enjoyed by Colum- bia College ; it has given it, furthermore, the full advantage of the University's great prestige ; and it has assured to the College the careful oversight and guidance of the president of the university. Gradu- ate women students are admitted directly to the university, to such courses as may be thrown open to them, on the same terms as men. i64 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE Only one thing Columbia University has not given. It has not given to Barnard College the benefit of its own endowments; but it has done what is better, it has created for Barnard College a situation certain to lead to the increase of Barnard's endowments to whatever sum it can advantageously use. Already, in ten years, starting with nothing, Barnard has accumulated a property of $1,000,000. It does not call for great faith to anticipate the further growth of its endowments, in even a more marked degree, as a result of the arrangement I have been describing to you. Its position in the university system assures stability; and gives to those inclined to contribute to its growing useful- ness the assurance of wise management. Thus the total endowment available for education by the uni- versity, instead of losing proportionate efficiency by being called upon to meet the needs of both men and women, is likely to increase in volume, as the needs increase, to the great advantage of all con- cerned. To sum up the matter in a single word, I think that Barnard College now enjoys every possi- ble advantage of a separate college for women; and, in addition, the very great advantage of sharing in the life, the traditions, and the reputation of a strong university. I have been interested in the clear statements of Dean Briggs and of President Hadley, as to the object of a college. I agree with all they have said. I also think that the objsct of the college is to give a liberal education ; that is to say, to train a man PRESIDENT LOW 165 or a woman to develop his or her powers. And yet I think, in saying this, that it is well for us, at this time, also to recognize that in the college, al- though we do not make scholars in a technical sense, we do lead many to desire to become scholars, both in and out of the professions. The latter function, the making of scholars and of specialists, is the pro- per business of the university. I stated to you a moment ago that the greetings and congratulations from Columbia were no more hearty because Barnard College is part of our system, than they would have been if we had never had any- thing to do with the question of the higher educa- tion of women. I want to add, however, before I close, that it is an incident of the situation that I have just outlmed, that the President of the uni- versity is ex-ofEcio the President of Barnard Col- lege, and I want to leave with you the greetings and congratulations of Barnard College also, as 1 should not otherwise be privileged to do; ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT TAYLOR The movement which this college represents to- day was not born of the single claim that woman has the right to use her mind. It has indeed stood for that. At the twenty-fifth Anniversary of Vassar, George William Curtis said that these words of Matthew Vassar should be written in gold on the front of Vassar College : " It occurred to me that woman, having received from her creator the same intellectual constitution as man, has the same right as man to intellectual culture and development." It was the assertion that woman has the right to study all subjects, to educate herself to the limit of her powers, and to enjoy the pursuit and the re- wards of scholarship. It scouted as unscientific the opinion that she is unfitted by nature and mental capacity to attain to the highest, and claimed her privilege to prove by effort, rather than by the the- orizing of men, what are her real capacities and what her limitations. The result of the test is now a matter of history, and we need not dwell a moment on the right. Far more important is the influence that has grown steadily through these years for higher ideals of edu- cation and culture, and therefore life. It was not to PRESIDENT TAYLOR 167 be expected that in its early stages this new work, fettered by every conceivable difficulty and preju- dice, should raise itself above criticism and mistake, but it is noteworthy that in the remarkable educa- tional movements of thirty-five years the women's colleges have kept pace with the better colleges for men in both theory and practice, that their equip- ment is as good, their curricula as broad and as thoroughly enforced, their graduates as well trained and as well fitted for university courses, which many of them follow, as the graduates of similar institu- tions for men. They no longer plead for recogni- tion ; woman's education is as much a factor in our life as man's, and if regarded in even an economic light, or viewed only as a sociological problem, who shall call it second to any interest of our time when we consider what woman is in the home, in society, in the church, and indirectly in the state ? It is to be remarked that broad as is the claim of woman to all graduate and professional study, the great emphasis of the movement has been put upon liberal education, not the training of teachers, nor the education of physicians, nor the winning of any doctorates, but upon the sound, broad, liberal, train- ing for general living. We talk always of women's colleges, not universities, save as now and then some voice (a man's) is raised on behalf of a great university for women. Surely there is nothing less necessary in this very needy world, and nothing could be less desirable and more unfortunate from the point of view of the best education. Women's 1 68 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE colleges have met a need, and it will grow no less as our American life becomes less homogeneous, more complex, and more influenced by foreign ideas of womankind, but the policy of our great uni- versities will make forever undesirable, and I hope impossible, the relegating of graduate work to a uni- versity created for women. It is this exaltation of the college that leads me to suggest a few thoughts in this conference bearing upon certain dangers to which the American college is exposed, from above. There is nothing novel or surprising in the emphasizing of particular needs in our educational system until we almost lose sight of the older interests, and it is not strange that in giving so much thought to the graduate and profes- sional schools, and in trying to raise our university ideals to worthy standards, the needs of our colleges have been often forgotten or overborne. University ideals often overshadow and threaten the well-being of the college. Again and again at educational con- ferences one may hear the theory advanced that our colleges should be content to take the upper work of the high school and the lower work of the college and thus content themselves with preparatory work for the universities ; and in the State of New York it has been argued that they should surrender their degree conferring power to the university. In other words, there has been a tendency to regard the col- lege as a stepping stone rather than as the centre of the whole higher education, to minimize its impor- tance, and to plan for its extinction, so far as its PRESIDENT TAYLOR 169 peculiar office and place in American education are concerned. Could a more serious mistake be made, in view of the peculiarities of our American life and the ministry to that life now, as well as in the past, of the American college ? To my own mind this as- pect of purely liberal education for the many is the most important phase in the whole range of educa- tion. Every part of the work is important, tran- scendentally so, from the kindergarten to the grad- uate school, but the college years are preeminent, because of the stage of growth to which they address themselves. The youth is at the most susceptible time in all his training, — the mind opening to the range of life's powers and responsibiUties, kindling toward new ideals, reaching out for direction in paths of thought and questioning new and untried, eager for friendships which shall make or mar the life ; with the feelings of the adult and the self-restraint of immaturity, all life, physical, mental, religious, awakened, eager, susceptible, longing for suggestion or ambitious to transgress all bounds, — this is the age of the teacher's largest opportunity and of the student's gravest danger. The after-life is made for most of us in these four years. It is this that makes the years of liberal education so epochal in life, and that demands from college faculties and trustees the frank, cordial recognition of the interests of life that are out of books as well as in them, and the con- stant struggle against the provincialism and narrow- ness of view that are besetting temptations to all of our profession. 170 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE The best results of education cannot be gained for this period of life through any school, and if we could crowd the college down and raise the school up, and so pass from some future gymnasium into the uni- versity which is to be, I believe that we should dam- age irretrievably the development of our youth and the highest interests of our work. Manifestly, in the little time at my disposal there is no opportunity to dwell on the growth of the American college as a natural product of our national needs, nor to meet the arguments that may be urged for German, French, or even English methods. I must content myself with saying that we have much to learn, though not all, from their preparatory methods, but that we are developing in the American college and the American university systems better fitted to our own peculiar development. I could choose no better text for my contention than these words, taken from one of the admirable reports of Dean Briggs to the President of Harvard University : " It [that is, the college] cannot take a lower place than the graduate school till the development of a scholar becomes more abiding than the education of a man." Let me venture to suggest two or three directions in which those who have their minds chiefly on the university idea are endangering or hindering the development of our colleges. The tendency to increase entrance requirements to such an extent as to overburden the schools strikes in three ways at the college : — PRESIDENT TAYLOR 171 First: It tends to reduce the thoroughness of school preparation. I am not forgetful of the great need there was, and is, to put such pressure on our school system as to compel a better use of time, a better choice of subjects, and a wiser method of in- struction. A vast deal has been accomplished in this respect, and the outlook for a much better school education is encouraging (and to no one In our gen- eration, be it added, are we so much indebted for this as to the President of Harvard University). But we may move too fast as well as too far. We may for- get that we deal not only with imperfect teachers and superintendents, but with school committees and school districts, and with pupils trained under con- ditions not ideal, and a too hard requirement be- comes often, amid the natural difficulties of school administration, an encouragement to cramming, to forced processes, and to discouragements which do not further the real interests of higher and better education. It is a very exceptional school, to-day, that does not complain, and with reason, that our heavy and diverse requirements exact of them a ser- vice they can give with difficulty, if at all. Have we not pushed up our requirements even more rapidly than the schools have improved, and so given them a double burden ? The question is one that deals with relative and not absolute quantities, be it marked ; with actual conditions, teachers as they are, pupils as they are, family and social surroundings as they are. Had we not moved as rapidly on the higher lines, we might be doing better work on the intermediate. 172 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE perhaps ; but the present tendency, and there are signs that it has gone as far as it will for some time, has too often given us a more extended prepara- tion of our students without corresponding improve- ment in quality. The colleges are by no means free from blame in the matter, but most naturally their exactions are results of the imposition on them of the university ideals. To me it has always seemed a misfortune that the youth should be kept under school methods to an age as advanced as we now demand. I doubt the intellectual and moral gains, and incline to believe we develop character more rapidly and intellectual life quite as fully if we get our students at seventeen rather than at eighteen or nineteen. What the schools can do well, under their conditions, for the average boy or girl of seventeen, we should exact, but no more ; for the surplus is at the peril of good work in the school. I believe it would be vastly better to put our efforts to save time in education at that point than to abbreviate the opportunities for general, liberal education in our colleges, or to crowd them by our professional demands, for these latter methods minimize the value of the college and its distinctive function in comparison with the work of the university. Second: This same tendency to crowd the course of the school study operates with others to force ele- mentary work into the college course. This result is due in part to other causes, — to the welcome of the university or college to students prepared on PRESIDENT TAYLOR 173 many different lines, and to the possible spread of the opinion that all studies are of equal value, but a prime factor is the crowding of courses of prepara- tion so that something must be omitted, and oppor- tunity must be given for it later in the curriculum. There is certainly an advantage to be reaped from a moderate introduction of these opportunities into col- lege courses, as in the case of Greek, and often of a modern language. The extremest case of this sort is the acceptance by one of our leading universities of students without Latin, the condition of entrance on these terms being the making up of the entrance Latin in college years. It seems to me unfortunate to compel a study in these precious college years whose chief educational value depends on its earlier mastery. Another leading university more consist- ently, it seems, has abolished the requirement of Latin altogether, giving adherence therein, supposably, to the doctrine of the equal value of all early studies. One owes all respect to a view championed by some of our ablest leaders, even though it seems to him unsupported by the teaching of educational history and psychology, and our own limited observations of results since the newer theories of education have been advocated. But both courses seem to antago- nize the position of the college as distinctively stand- ing for broad, liberal, and unprofessional education as against every form of special study. Time permits here no argument on the value of this study referred to, nor is that necessary to our conclusion. Educational theory may reject it from 174 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE the place it has assumed for centuries. Clearer ob- servation may even show us that it is unnecessary to a sound and liberal culture. Its condition is referred to now only as pointing a tendency among those es- pecially interested in university education to crowd out, for the sake of the later training, much that has been deemed essential to it, — or, holding to the value of the study, on the other hand, to give it a place in later years at the expense of other pursuits better fitted to the maturer stage of college work. It is not the requirements of college work that lead to these peculiar developments, and this is the point of my contention, but the overshadowing of college ideals and standards by the claims of graduate and professional work. Third: One more result must be mentioned. There is a tendency to pass from the high schools directly into the schools of the university without taking the college course at all. The result on the college needs no comment ; it is a logical step to- ward its destruction ; but one must think regret- fully of anything which does not increase the broad and liberal training of our so-called educated profes- sions. For the breadth and culture and joy and deeper peace of life, the liberal rather than the spe- cial education is the chief requisite. A second point suggestive of danger to the col- lege is the recent offer of a college degree lower than the traditional baccalaureate. Our colleges themselves have sinned enough in the matter of de- grees for insufficient causes, but the improvement PRESIDENT TAYLOR 175 has been steady and hopeful. This recent move- ment IS a revival of a plan tried in several instances in the west, but never before made prominent, I believe. Discussion was invited upon its announce- ment in the Educational Review, but I have not noted much attention to it thus far. It seems to me chiefly significant as striking at a well-rounded and higher college course in the interest of those who cannot take it, and an encouragement to be content with something less than the best. Every institution gives certificates of work ; why dignify with a degree anything less than the complete course ? It is most significant that the announcement of this degree at the end of the sophomore year is ac- companied by the distinct claim that it is better for many to stop then, and by the further assertion that many academies and high schools can do this very work of the first two years of college. I be- lieve that to be absolutely unwarranted by any expe- rience our strong colleges have had with the schools, and to be contrary to what we ought to expect from the very nature of the school and its methods as contrasted with the college and its aims. It is to be feared that such a degree would be sought chiefly by teachers and others in a hurry for some academic sign, and so that it would become an encourage- ment to lower an appreciation of an A. B. degree by pupil and teacher. No more direct attack, how- ever, has been made recently on the integrity of the college, and no clearer statement of the fact that it 176 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE may be crushed between the upper and nether mill- stone, the school and the university. A similar tendency is shown by the current desire to reward university extension courses with degrees, and by the rather extravagant encouragement given to those who can give to study and instruction only the closing hours of a busy day, to believe that they are receiving the full value of a college course. Surely it is the narrowest view of a college that thinks only of the class-room ; the playground, the athletic field, the social hall, the friendships, the inspiration of a life lived for a long time in halls which resound with the noblest traditions and amid scenes which live with the highest examples of man- hood and womanhood, — these make up the college, and they are not for those who cannot give the time and mind and spirit they demand. By all means let us popularize education, by all means extend the advantages of school and college to all who can take them, or any part of them, but let us remember that if we are to keep the value of the education for them we must preserve its ideals and its traditions, and these are commonized and lost if we lower our symbols and lead the young to think they have gained what they really have not. The first essen- tial in education is reality, and it savors of the unreal to bestow college honors or degrees on those who lack college training, college spirit, and colle- giate opportunities. Finally, those who have their minds chiefly on the university idea tend to obscure the true dig- PRESIDENT TAYLOR 177 nity of the college If they fail to insist on the equal worthiness in life of the undergraduate work. More study is not in itself worthier than more good work of any sort. Everything depends on its use. It may be better for the world and for the individual that a man saw wood rather than dig Greek roots. Every adviser of youth must have experienced the difficulty of which Jowett tells regarding the young fellows who sought his counsel as to their going on with graduate work. The double danger as well as the double reward is always present. It means de- feat often, unfitting for life's actual work often, and the sad discovery by others, if not by the student, that he had no call for the higher life (and there is no higher) of the real scholar. And so, at last, the question is as to the use of our opportunities, and on that plane the work of the college may be as valuable, as dignified, as well worthy of preservation and honor as the best of our strongest universities. The air is full of other sentiments, our journals abound in other tendencies, and it surely is not amiss on such an occasion, the anniversary of a great college, to mark with fresh emphasis the truth that in all American education there is no larger oppor- tunity possible than that possessed by the college which aims to be and continue a college, and seeks no higher privilege than the opportunity of guiding, training, helping, and inspiring our youth to reach on from the base of a liberal education either to the higher studies of the university, or to the directly practical requirements of our common life. 178 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE I congratulate Smith College on its history, its power, its opportunities, its outlook; I congratu- late its President on his wise and remarkable admin- istration ; and I can offer no better wish for him and for Smith than that this institution of his own build- ing may continue to exert the influence and hold up the standards of a college, without higher ambitions, and without longing for the higher sounding name of a university. ADDRESS by president hazard Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : — I have come to-day to bring greetings and con- gratulations from a sister college, I might almost say a twin sister college, since Wellesley and Smith have the same year of birth. Each of the two colleges has long since developed an individuality of its own, so that they are not liable to the confusion of iden- tity which twins sometimes suffer from. But the tie of age remains. Smith and Wellesley were together in their birth, and they stand together now. In a recent visit to the west, I was delighted to find grad- uates of both colleges working side by side. Wher- ever I found Wellesley women, there also were their sisters from Smith. Indeed, in many of the west- ern cities the college club, including graduates of Vassar and all the colleges, has taken the place of the special college club. It is surely an event of no small significance, when so many distinguished per- sons are gathered together to celebrate this anniver- sary. Twenty-five years is nearly the lifetime of a generation. For twenty-five years Smith has been doing its work to equip women better, as we hope, for the life of the world. College training for women can show results, and our schools all over i8o EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE the country are profiting by these results. Women must of necessity be teachers, if not in academic work, or technically, yet in the home and family life. What great man has not owed his success in large degree to his mother ? If it is true, as we are told, that the impressions received by an uncon- scious infant from his mother's hand go far toward moulding the character that is to be the real person- ality of the man, how wise, how tender should that touch be ! It is true that what is called the higher education pursued by great bodies of young women is a new thing. Long ago we were told that " The kingdom of heaven sufFereth violence, and the violent take it by force." This is the new kingdom of heaven for women. They have striven for it — it has some- times suffered violence at their hands. But there is no longer even the apparent need for aggression. It is happily conceded on all sides that women can master the same studies as their brothers, and often carry off more than their share of the prizes. We need no longer clamor at closed doors. The doors are open. It is for us to make wise use of the opportunities before us. In nature the same soil, the same benign influ- ences of air and rain and sun, contribute to the per- fect development of all fruits after their kind. The russet apple may not say to its rosy neighbor, " Give me your fairness." It is the perfection of the one to be fair, of the other to be brown and sound. Ideally, the same ought to be true of human development. PRESIDENT HAZARD i8i The same sustaining strength of religious principle, the same open airs of intellectual freedom ought to combine for the best development of both men and women. But the fruit is borne by the tree after its nature. We self-conscious creatures too often per- vert our own nature, and take it to be quite other than what it is. Here, where the great apostle of the doctrine of necessity is known and honored, it might be pleaded that the fruit of personality is a fixed and unalterable thing. But the larger doctrine, and, as it seems to me, the truer, is that the freedom with which we are endowed makes choice necessary. We must determine our efforts for ourselves. We must put limits within which to train the growing mind, that it may expand more completely at maturity. We must will strongly ; we must act gently. Gentleness and strength must go together to form the ideal character which is the end of all education. A woman without gentleness is a monster ; a woman without strength is a parasite. All the training of the mind and the heart and the hand is needed, for judgment must always be tempered with mercy, and love be kept strong by active labor to secure the high result we aim for. These, Mr. President, I know to be your ideals. Smith has been fortunate in having had one hand at the helm for its first quarter of a century. This which we see about us is not the result of a former generation. It is your labor, it is the harvest from seed of your sowing. Here hundreds of young 1 82 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE women have come who regard you with a filial affec- tion, and to-day they greet you as the inspiring and controlling genius of their beloved college. And I share their enthusiasm. I give you joy, Mr. Presi- dent, on this your achievement, and I wish you many years of happy and prosperous work for Smith College. ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT THOMAS The first connection between Bryn Mawr Col- lege and Smith College began twenty-two years ago, in 1878, when the founder of Bryn Mawr College, Dr. Taylor, and several members of his board of trustees visited Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith before deciding on plans for the organization of Bryn Mawr. The Vassar of that day consisted of one vast building which contained lecture-rooms, assem- bly hall, library, offices, kitchen, dining-room and living-rooms for students, professors, and president — indeed, the trustees of the college alone seem to have been unprovided for under its comprehensive roof. Wellesley also was teaching its college classes and housing and feeding all Its professors and Its students in one huge structure, built in direct imitation of Vassar. But Smith had already worked out for itself what I believe to be the true system for a residential woman's college. The academic work of the college was carried on In a separate aca- demic building, at that time only one building ; the students lived in college houses holding from twenty-five to fifty students, each house provided with its own table and independently administered. The professors, with a few exceptions, did not live In i84 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE the residence houses, and in consequence were free outside of lecture hours to organize for themselves an independent life of study and recreation. After carefully weighing the merits of the two systems, the founder of Bryn Mawr decided to follow the ex- ample of Smith ; and just as Wellesley's main build- iHg recalls Vassar's, so Bryn Mawr's central aca- demic building recalls in many ways that of Smith. The recent buildings of both Wellesley and Vassar follow the Smith College plan. The experience of twenty-five years seems to show that women — and, I believe, men also — cannot live together in num- bers much exceeding one hundred without serious difficulties of administration and nervous strain, and that the ideal number of students in a house of resi- dence approximates more nearly to half a hundred than one hundred. In its financial organization, also, Bryn Mawr owes Smith a debt of gratitude. Smith College had from the first adopted two principles of primary im- portance for a residential college: first, that there should be a rigid separation of tuition fees from board and room rent ; and second, that each hall of residence should be required to yield a fair return in room rent for the money invested in it. It is, I think, mainly due to President Seelye's good advice to me in 1885 that, at the end of every fiscal year since then, Bryn Mawr, like Smith, has been one of the few colleges in the United States to close its books without a deficit. In the fifteen intervening years that have elapsed, it has come to be generally PRESIDENT THOMAS 185 recognized that halls of residence properly adminis- tered increase, rather than impair, the financial re- sources of a college. In many other ways the early organization of Smith was in accord with the later development of women's college education. Twenty-five years ago it was a piece of magnificent courage for a college for women to refuse to maintain any preparatory department and to admit only those students who had passed entrance examinations equal in difficulty to those of the higher New England colleges. Yet to-day every woman's college worthy of the name has followed Smith's example : Wellesley closed its preparatory department in 1880 ; Vassar in 1888 ; Bryn Mawr opened in 1885 without one; Mt. Holyoke and the Woman's College of Baltimore closed theirs in 1893 5 ^"^ Wells College in 1896. Again, Smith gave its students larger personal lib- erty than had ever before been enjoyed by so large a body of college women in the East; a liberty that has become more complete perhaps than was at first intended, a large number of the students — who have come too fast to be provided for in the college houses — having been allowed to live in the surround- ing town, until now, as I am told, more than one half of the students live outside of the college cam- pus. Northampton to-day presents the unique spectacle of a women's college town. The students of Bryn Mawr still live in the college halls, or else in their own homes, but the first encouragement toward giving them the ample measure of liberty they now enjoy was derived from Smith. i86 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE In expressing Bryn Mawr's gratitude to Smith, I have endeavored to touch briefly on some of the many features in which Smith College led the way in women's education. Thanks to its advanced position during its first ten years, I think that every- body will admit that the ablest and most ambitious girls in the Eastern or Middle States who wished a college education flocked to Smith College. The original impetus has not yet spent itself; Smith is already one of the largest colleges in the United States. In this respect its undergraduate department ranks fifth among the colleges of New England and the Middle States, and tenth among the four hundred and ninety-one colleges of the United States enu- merated in the last report of the United States Edu- cational Bureau. It has a larger number of women students than are studying together in any other place in the world ; and its normal growth is not checked, as in other women's colleges, by the neces- sity of building for each additional student. If this rate of growth continues through the next quarter of a century. Smith will in all probability become the largest undergraduate college in the United States, There is every reason to believe that the number of women going to college will steadily increase rather than diminish, and that this increase will be brought about not only by the operation of general causes, but also by various special circumstances of our American civilization. Among these circumstances must be enumerated the greater freedom and greater leisure of women in the professional and mercantile PRESIDENT THOMAS 187 classes, as compared with men, or with women in other countries, and the fact that primary teaching is already wholly in the hands of women, and second- ary teaching slowly but surely falling into their hands. They already form nearly fifty-four per cent of all secondary teachers in the whole United States, and nearly eighty-one per cent of all primary and second- ary public school teachers in the North Atlantic States. In the eight years from 1890 to 1898, women students have increased in the undergraduate departments of coeducational colleges 105.4 per cent, as against the seventy per cent increase of men students ; and in separate women's colleges 138.4 per cent, as against men's increase of 34.7 per cent in separate colleges for men. Everything indicates, therefore, that provision must be made in the immediate future to give great numbers of women a college education. And does the experience of this quarter centen- nial of the existence of Smith College, during which this great experiment has been going on in coeduca- tional, independent, and affiliated colleges, also indi- cate how this education may best be given to women ? Certain conclusions may, I think, be reached very definitely : first of all and most sure, that so far as twenty-five years may be held to establish anything, it is proved beyond question that women's minds and men's need the same discipline and the same methods of teaching, and that the same discipline and the same methods produce the same result in trained intelligence and useful life, and that no disci- 1 88 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE pline except the most honest will in the future be regarded by educated women as satisfactory. It will be far less easy for a college for women than for a college for men to live on its past reputation. The figures I gave a few moments ago seem also to indi- cate that at present in the East of the United States, women, or their parents, which amounts practically to the same thing, prefer independent women's col- leges. Even more striking figures than these may be given. In the college departments of coeduca- tional colleges, the average number of women study- ing is 48.4, whereas in the college departments of independent women's colleges the average number of women studying is 331.91, and in affiliated col- leges 192.8. In 1897-98, 1 1.4 per cent of all the women studying in coeducational colleges obtained the bachelor's degree, whereas 13.4 per cent of all the women studying in independent women's col- leges obtained the bachelor's degree, which indicates probably that women prefer women's colleges for four years of residence. The average number of graduates of the four women's colleges belonging to the Association of Collegiate Alumnae is 1309 per college, the average age of the colleges being twenty- three years ; the average number of graduates of the fifteen coeducational colleges belonging to the Association of Collegiate Alumnae is only 469.9, although the average age of the colleges is 27.7 years. If only the academic standard of women's colleges can be kept equal to that of the best colleges for men, PRESIDENT THOMAS 189 this preference of women for women's colleges seems to me, on the whole, a wise one. Women have behind them a long tradition, extending into prehistoric times, of being in the background, of counting for little in the life of affairs or of the intellect. In cer- tain provinces of China, private owners of quiet and lonely pools of water find it necessary to protect them by the notice : " Girls may not be drowned here ; " and something of this inherited feeling of their rela- tive unimportance is very present to most women, and is a serious handicap in strenuous intellectual endeavor. This feeling is undoubtedly fostered in coeducational colleges. It is very depressing for large bodies of young women to study where no women hold positions of influence or honor on boards of trustees, or in college faculties, apart from the incal- culable loss to women students of the influence of women scholars and teachers. Then, too, where wo- men and men are taught together exclusively by men, it is impossible that men professors, in spite of the better academic work of women, should not regard their men students as more important, — as they are indeed in a sense, — and women are quick to recog- nize this ; whereas in a women's college everything exists for women students and is theirs by right and not by favor. I often think that I can detect a real difference in mental buoyancy and courage between graduates of coeducational and independent women's colleges. I am myself a graduate of Cornell, and I suspect that I missed a great deal of the air of the world spirit natural to youth that I should have found 190 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE in women's colleges. I know that I missed much of the delight of college life known to girls in the women's college of to-day. If the intellectual sub- ordination that comes from even the slightest sex discrimination exists in coeducational colleges, it is to be found to an even greater extent in affiliated col- leges, and in a very different sense. Here women really get a second best, and in no respect the same opportunities. Affiliated colleges cannot, of course, remain indefinitely in their present condition. They are halfway stopping-places on the highway leading to coeducation, and as such most cordially to be wel- comed and fostered ; their manifest destiny, however, is to become absorbed in the college to which they are affiliated, which will then become frankly coedu- cational. If they develop in the reverse direction and become separate colleges, such as Barnard will become in 1904, when women are to be excluded from all the undergraduate work of Columbia, they will furnish, I believe, the least desirable kind of col- lege education yet offered to women. On account of their location in the midst of a great body of men undergraduates they have, so far as love-making is concerned, all the disadvantages of coeducation, and none of the advantages of the normal and natural association of men and women in the laboratory and class-room. They must for an indefinite period re- main less good than the undergraduate men's college a few steps away across the campus, because labora- tories and apparatus and teachers must be duplicated for them, and their endowments are small, and, how- PRESIDENT THOMAS 191 ever they may be added to, will remain relatively small for many years. Each great teacher can teach only a few hours a day, and if the women's college has half the hours, it must pay half the salary. The wo- men will gradually fall to the share of the younger instructors of the men's colleges, and of the cheaper teachers the women's college can afford to engage for itself Their choice of elective courses (there is in this respect already the greatest difference between Barnard and Columbia) will be infinitely less than men's, and their undergraduate education will inevi- tably be an inferior education. Much is sometimes said of the great advantage to women of sharing the common university library, which, after all, is all that they really can share with the men's college, but this is fallacious. Undergraduates can use only a few books. In fifteen years, at a cost of about |6o,ooo, we have got together at Bryn Mawr a working library of thirty-two thousand volumes, which is far more than even the exceptional undergraduate can make use of Everything else except the library — teachers, laboratories, apparatus, and buildings — must be du- plicated for the dependent women's college. I have ventured, in spite of the presence of President Low, but in virtue of his courteous promise to forgive in advance what I might say, to speak frankly, because I understand, not only from the papers but from private information, that the University of Chicago is now considering a scheme to exclude women and organize them into a separate college, which, like the approaching reorganization of Barnard College, will / 192 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE be a distinctly backward step for women's education. It behooves those of us who are here to-day to weigh well the advantages and disadvantages of this fourth form of educating women, which we may perhaps call the "dependent women's college." We have three examples of dependent colleges, — the Wo- men's College of Western Reserve University, the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College of Tulane, and the Barnard College of 1 904, — and two examples of true affiliated colleges : RadclifFe College and the Women's College in Brown University. On the other hand, if I am correct in believing that of the four forms of women's education carried forward from the nineteenth century, — coeducation, independent women's colleges, affiliated and depen- dent colleges, — women themselves so decidedly pre- fer the independent women's college, a great respon- sibility and a great trust are imposed on those of us who are guiding the destinies of women's colleges. If we are destined to become even for a time the greatest centres of study for the greatest numbers of women, we should also become great centres of learn- ing in the truest sense of the word, and see to it that our faculties are, if possible (and it is unfortunately quite possible), selected even more rigidly than in colleges for men for original work and teaching power, and that our students are even more hardily trained in intellectual and moral excellence and the love of learning for learning's sake. ,:;t|iiiiili!i!:!i ■ :.! ".! . !"■; 1 ;:■ h