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ADDRESSES 
 
 AT THE 
 
 CELEBRATION 
 
 yUV-^- 
 
 OF 
 
 THE COMPLETION OF THE 
 
 Twenty- FIFTH Academic Year 
 
 VASSAR COLLEGE, 
 
 ft 
 
 June, > 1 890. 
 
.1 
 
 yL "l^-^^ ^ 
 
It seemed fitting to the Board of Trustees of 
 Vassar College to celebrate its twenty-fifth year 
 of academic life^ not merely as a recognition of 
 its own work and history^ but as recalling an 
 event marking an epoch in the education of 
 woman. A plan was arranged designed to 
 embody both these aims. In addition to the 
 usual exercises of Commencem^ent weeky a day 
 was set apart for the anniversary exerciseSy the 
 programme of which follows on another page. 
 It provided beside for an address on Commence- 
 ment Day by the President of the College, for a 
 reception to the guests by the Trustees and 
 Faculty y for a reunion of Alumnce and former 
 students y and for a dinner to the Alumnce. The 
 festivities continued from Monday till Thursday 
 night. There were present delegates from many 
 universities and collegeSy large numbers of former 
 studentSy and hundreds of other guests. 
 
 The week will be long remembered by all who 
 were present y and the Trustees issue the addresses 
 herewith printed as a memorial of it. 
 
Exercises in the tent, Thursday, June 12, 1890. 
 
 PROGRAMME. 
 Overture — Magic Flute, .... Mozart, 
 
 PRAYER. 
 Address of Welcome, .... The President. 
 Historical Address, . . Benson J. Lossing, LL. D. 
 Solo and Chorus — From Hymn of Praise, Mendelssohn, 
 Address, .... 
 
 Chancellor George William Curtis, LL.D., L.H.D. ^« ^^ 
 Cantata (composed for the occasion,) 
 
 ** I will praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart." — Psalm IX. 
 
 . Frederic Louis Ritter, Mus. Doc, 
 
 BENEDICTION. 
 
 March — From Athalie, . . . Mendelssohn, 
 
 The music was furnished by the orchestra of the German Opera 
 Company, of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. The sing- 
 ing was by a chorus of eighty students, under Dr. Ritter's direc- 
 tion. 
 
SR3IT7] 
 
 ADDRESf^SF^WELCOME. 
 
 Mr. President, Representatives of Universities 
 
 and Colleges y AlumncB of Vassar College, 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 It is my proud privilege to welcome you to- 
 day in the name of Vassar College, to participate 
 in the exercises which mark the completion of 
 twenty-five years of academic life. That, in 
 itself, would have been small reason for asking 
 you to leave your homes and work to come and 
 rejoice with us. Twenty-five years in the life of 
 an institution is but infancy ; but this twenty-five 
 years in the great movement of woman's educa- 
 tion marks an era in all educational history. 
 That which many of our mothers and fathers had 
 longed to see, and never saw ; that which good 
 men and women had tried to realize in the face 
 of unbelief and an unprepared world, was at last 
 made possible by a woman's word and Matthew 
 Vassar's splendid gift. 
 
 A great movement never springs full-armed 
 from the brain of time. Sporadic efforts gather 
 
8 
 
 at last into a great endeavor; streams of ten- 
 dency unite in an irresistible flood : then we 
 have an epoch. We gather to-day to cele- 
 brate that epoch, the beginnings of the higher 
 education of woman as a distinct force in the 
 world, as a movement designed to influence 
 educational theory and practice in all time to 
 come. Not to a college celebration, save as the 
 inception of that college marks the epoch, but to 
 the commemoration of twenty-five years of a his- 
 tory full of significance and hope for the world — 
 your history as well as ours — ^we have called you 
 together. 
 
 We rejoice together in the triumph of our 
 cause ; we gain fresh courage for the morrow as 
 we remember what has been done in a single 
 generation. 
 
 Welcome, then, from east and west, from 
 south and north, welcome to this hour which 
 is also yours. Welcome to this registering of 
 a great victory over prejudice and traditional 
 wrong. Welcome to the commemoration of 
 this great progress in which we are all sharers, 
 
9 
 
 and whose fruitage is of eternal import. In 
 the name of the College I bid you welcome, 
 — aye, in his name who would rejoice in this 
 great day could he have foreseen the growth 
 of a cause to which he gave his treasure and 
 himself. 
 
HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 
 
 BENSON J. LOSSING, LL.D. 
 
 Mr, President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 My pleasing duty is to present to you a brief 
 sketch of the Genesis of Vassar College, and so 
 lead you to an intellectual banquet from which I 
 will not long detain you. 
 
 At near the close of the last century, two 
 brothers, James and Thomas Vassar, from the 
 rich agricultural County of Norfolk, in far eastern 
 England, arrived at New York. They were 
 Dissenters of the Baptist order. James had a 
 wife and four children, of whom Matthew, who 
 became the Founder of Vassar College, was the 
 youngest. Thomas was a bachelor. 
 
 In the Spring of 1797, this Vassar family 
 bought and settled on a small farm near the 
 (present) hamlet of Manchester, about a mile 
 from these grounds. The stones of the found- 
 ation of their dwelling may still be seen a short 
 distance below Manchester Bridge. The farm 
 was a part of the beautiful valley of the Wap- 
 pingi's Creek, which flowed along one side of 
 
II 
 
 their possessions. As the summer advanced they 
 were gratified by the apparition of many saplings 
 on the borders of the stream, draped with the 
 spiral .vines of the wild hop, from the clustering 
 blossoms of which they might distill the lupuline 
 for making home-brewed ale, the delight of every 
 English household. But barley for malt was 
 wanting; so, in the fall, Thomas returned to 
 England for that and other cereals, and in 1 798 
 the first crop of barley ever garnered from the 
 soil of Duchess County was raised on the little 
 Vassar farm. 
 
 When apples were ripening in September, 
 there was well-brewed ale in the Vassar home. 
 The thrifty family made it for sale to their 
 thirsty neighbors ; and it was not long before 
 little Matthew, eight or ten years old, might have 
 been seen, with his mother, on the road to 
 Poughkeepsie in a farm wagon, with a barrel of 
 ale, the freshest eggs and the yellowest butter, 
 for which there was an ever ready market. 
 
 Little Matthew and his elder sister sometimes 
 wandered over the half-wooded hills, towards 
 
12 
 
 Poughkeepsie. On one occasion, when out nut- 
 ting, they stood on a gentle eminence, now 
 known as "Sunset Hill" within the College do- 
 main, and admired the scenery westward. " How 
 I wish I owned these pretty woods and fields ! " 
 exclaimed the thoughtful boy, as he looked down 
 upon the plain before him. Fifty years after- 
 wards he did own two hundred acres of those 
 "pretty woods and fields," including "Sunset 
 Hill." 
 
 At the beginning of this century, the Vassar 
 brothers sold their little farm, and James began 
 the business of a brewer in Poughkeepsie. He 
 designed to have Matthew as his assistant, when 
 he should become old enough. When that time ' 
 arrived, disliking the business, Matthew stole off 
 secretly to seek his fortune in the "wide, wide 
 world." He did not travel far. He walked to 
 New Hamburgh, eight miles, crossed the Hud- 
 son River, and became first a drudge and then 
 a clerk in a country store near Newburgh, where 
 he remained four years. Misfortunes impover- 
 ished his family, when the truant returned to 
 
13 
 
 help them, with $1.50 in his pocket, which he 
 had saved from his earnings in ''foreign ser- 
 
 vice." 
 
 Young Vassar brewed ale and distributed it 
 among the villagers with his own hands ; and at 
 the age of twenty he opened a shop in the base- 
 ment of the Court House, for the sale of oysters 
 and ale. He brewed and distributed his bever- 
 age by day, and at night attended to his cus- 
 tomers at the " oyster saloon." He married at 
 twenty-one and began housekeeping in apart- 
 ments under the heavy rent of $40 a year, which 
 his father thought was very extravagant. The 
 little deal table on which the first repast of the 
 young couple was spread is preserved in "The 
 Founder's Room " in the College. 
 
 By the practice of industry and thrift for thirty 
 years, Mr. Vassar accumulated a large fortune, 
 when he gratified a long-cherished desire by go- 
 ing to England and to the Continent with his 
 wife. They were accompanied by Cyrus Swan 
 (one of the survivors of the first appointed 
 Trustees of Vassar College), then a young 
 
^4 
 
 lawyer, as a traveling companion. Being child- 
 less, and approaching three score years of his life, 
 Mr. Vassar had thought much about the disposi- 
 tions of his estate at his death. In London he 
 became much interested in the hospital founded 
 by Thomas Guy, and he resolved to found a 
 similar institution at Poughkeepsie. 
 
 Years of active business passed away. Mr. 
 Vassar occasionally alluded to the hospital 
 matter in conversation with friends. One day 
 he mentioned it to his niece, Miss Lydia Booth, 
 an accomplished teacher and manager of a young 
 ladies' seminary, at Poughkeepsie. 
 
 " Uncle Matthew," said Miss Booth, " I think 
 I can propose something better than that. Found 
 an institution for the higher education of young 
 women — a real college." 
 
 The thought took root in Mr. Vassar's mind. 
 His niece died suddenly. Her *' Cottage Hill 
 Seminary " was succeeded by another, at the 
 head of which was Professor M. P. Jewett, a 
 Baptist clergyman. He became a friend and con- 
 fidential adviser of Mr. Vassar. When the 
 
15 
 
 hospital scheme was laid before him, he said, in 
 substance : 
 
 "A large hospital here would be out of place. 
 If you desire to become a notable benefactor of 
 your race, and make your name imperishable, 
 follow the suggestions of your niece — found an 
 institution that shall be to young women what 
 Yale and Harvard are to young men." 
 
 Mr. Vassar did not ponder long. His sagacity 
 perceived that a rare opportunity offered for lead- 
 ing in a cause of profound interest to his country 
 and to mankind. He brought the subject to the 
 test of practical business calculation. He ap- 
 proved the project and engaged Professor Jewett 
 to assist him in perfecting plans for founding a 
 College for Women on a magnificent scale and 
 the most liberal basis, in which neither sect nor 
 creed, as such, should have controlling influence. 
 Strongly attached to the Baptists by life-long 
 association, he consulted more educators and 
 educated men of that denomination than any 
 other; but when it was proposed to place the 
 college under the general control of the Baptists, 
 
i6 
 
 his more Catholic spirit instantly and emphat- 
 ically dissented. In his address at the first meet- 
 ing of the Board of Trustees he said : 
 
 "All sectarian influence should be carefully 
 avoided ; but the training of the young should 
 never be intrusted to the skeptical, the irreligious 
 or the immoral." 
 
 Such has ever been the sentiment, the policy 
 and the practice of the managers of the insti- 
 tution. 
 
 With the legal and other assistance of Mr. 
 Swan (who had been his trusted counselor dur- 
 ing all the years of discussion) and Professor 
 Jewett, Mr. Vassar proceeded cautiously in the 
 great work of founding the institution that bears 
 his name. It was a new thing under the sun. 
 
 In January, 1861, a charter was obtained from 
 the Legislature of New York ; and on the 26th 
 of February, twenty-nine gentlemen named in 
 the charter as corporators, met at the Gregory 
 (now Morgan) House, in Poughkeepsie, and 
 were organized as a Board of Trustees of the 
 inchoate institution. Their names were : 
 
17 
 
 Matthew Vassar, Ira Harris, William Kelley, 
 James Harper, Martin B. Anderson, John 
 Thompson, Edward Lathrop, Charles W. Swift, 
 Elias L. Magoon, S. M. Buckingham, Milo P. 
 Jewett, Nathan Bishop, Matthew Vassar, Jr., 
 Benson J. Lossing, E. G. Robinson, Samuel F. 
 B. Morse, S. G. Constant, John Guy Vassar, 
 William Hague, Rufus Babcock, Cornelius Du 
 Bois, John H. Raymond, Morgan L. Smith, 
 Cyrus Swan, George W. Sterling, George T. 
 Pierce, Smith Sheldon, Joseph C. Doughty and 
 Augustus L. Allen. They represented nearly 
 every denomination of Christians. 
 
 The Board of Trustees was organized with 
 William Kelley, Chairman; Matthew Vassar, 
 Jr., Treasurer ; Cyrus Swan, Secretary, and 
 several standing committees. Only six of the 
 first appointed Trustees are now on the earth ; 
 and only five of them are members of the Board, 
 
 At the completion of the organization, Mr. 
 Vassar addressed the Board and in conclusion, 
 said : " Gentlemen, I transfer to your possession 
 and ownership, the real and personal property 
 
18 
 
 which I have set apart for the accomplishment 
 of my design." Near him, on a table, was a 
 small tin box containing securities, and a deed of 
 conveyance of two hundred acres of land for a 
 college site and farm. He placed one hand on 
 the precious casket, and with its key in the open 
 palm of the other hand, he formally transferred 
 to the custody of the Trustees, $408,000 of his 
 wealth. 
 
 The great Civil War had just begun ; but the 
 Founder and the Trustees did not halt. On the 
 4th of June, 1 86 1, Mr. Vassar, in the presence 
 of half a dozen persons, cast out the first spade- 
 ful of earth at a point where the trench to re- 
 ceive the foundation stones of the great structure, 
 five hundred feet in length and five stories in 
 height, was to begin. The work went on under 
 the direction of James Renwick, the architect, 
 during the four years of war — ^years of confusion, 
 uncertainty and great fluctuations in values — 
 and yet, so admirably were the funds of the in- 
 stitution managed by Treasurer Matthew Vassar, 
 Jr., that, at the meeting of the Trustees in June, 
 
19 
 
 1865, the property including the real estate and 
 securities, had been increased in value to the 
 amount of $700. 
 
 The College edifice was now about completed. 
 A President, Faculty and Instructors for the 
 College were chosen. John H. Raymond, one 
 of the Trustees, was elected President, and 
 Hannah W. Lyman was appointed Lady Prin- 
 cipal, or executive aid of the President. Also 
 eight Professors and twenty instructors and 
 teachers were appointed. The several depart- 
 ments of instruction were fairly furnished with 
 excellent apparatus, and there was a nucleus of 
 a library. Thus equipped, the College work 
 began on September 20, 1865, with nearly 350 
 accepted students in attendance. 
 
 This auspicious beginning of the grand career 
 of the first real College devoted to the higher 
 education of women, gave intense satisfaction to 
 the Founder. His earnest desire to have this 
 result reached during his life-time was abund- 
 antly gratified. He lived nearly three years 
 longer in the enjoyment of the rewards of grate- 
 
20 
 
 ful benedictions which were everywhere bestowed. 
 To his first munificent gift of over $400,000, he 
 added fully an equal amount by gifts while he 
 lived, and by testamentary provisions. He pur- 
 chased and presented to the College for the use 
 of the Art Department, a large collection of 
 valuable paintings and an art library at a cost of 
 $20,000. 
 
 At the annual meeting of the Trustees in June, 
 1868, while the Founder was sitting in a chair 
 and reading his usual Address on such occasions, 
 the manuscript was seen to fall from his hands. 
 He was caught in the arms of one of the Trus- 
 tees who was sitting near him. The vital spark 
 was quenched. His great heart had ceased to 
 beat. It seemed a fitting place for the Angel of 
 Death to receive his spirit, for he was surrounded 
 by his chosen friends and loving helpers in his 
 great work. He was in the midst of fully 300 
 of his foster daughters, and was within the pre- 
 cincts of the magnificent monument which per- 
 petuates his name and the memory of his deeds. 
 
 At the time of Mr. Vassar's departure he was 
 
21 
 
 seventy-six years of age. In person, his stature 
 was a little less than medium height. He was 
 well proportioned and compactly built. His 
 complexion was fair, with lingerings of the 
 ruddiness of good health on his cheeks. The 
 brown hair of his earlier years was plentifully 
 mingled with the hoary tokens of age. His 
 dark gray eyes beamed with the lustre of vigor- 
 ous middle life and the radiance of unextinguish- 
 able good humor. His nose was of the Roman 
 type and firmly set, and the general expression 
 of his face was exceedingly pleasant to both 
 friends and strangers, for in his countenance, 
 whether in action or repose, was ever seen the 
 perpetual sunshine of a gentle, cheerful nature. 
 It might have been said of Matthew Vassar as 
 of Rowe's ideal : 
 
 ** Age sits with decent grace upon his visage, 
 And worthily becomes his silvered locks ; 
 He wears the marks of many years well-spent, 
 Of Virtue, of Truth well-tried and wise experience." 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, LL.D., L.H.D. 
 
 ~ ^ On a summer day like this, nearly fifty years 
 0^^ ^ ago, the anniversary of West Indian emancipa- 
 tion, Mr. Emerson described that event as "a 
 day of reason, of the clear light, of that which 
 makes us better than a flock of birds or beasts." 
 It is another day like that, a day of another 
 emancipation, of a distinct step of higher civili- 
 zation, that we are assembled to commemorate. 
 For events of historical importance the imagin- 
 ation craves a fitting scene and here the imagin- 
 ation is satisfied. We stand upon the banks 
 of the Hudson and the Hudson is our most 
 historic river. Its charm is blended of natural 
 beauty, of patriotic story, of literature and 
 legend. ^ It was the channel by which Hendrick 
 Hudson sought a shorter route to Cathay. It 
 was the war path of France and Great Britian 
 contending for continental dominion. Its pos- 
 session was the tactical object of the war of our 
 
23 
 
 independence. Upon its shores the controversy 
 culminated in the decisive surrender of British 
 arms and the open French alliance. Upon these 
 shores, also, Washington put aside the crown, 
 and at the mouth of the Hudson he saw retiring 
 England furl her flag and sail away. At King- 
 ston on the Hudson, sat the Convention that 
 adopted the State Constitution. At Fishkill the 
 commemorative Cincinnati was organized. Here 
 in Poughkeepsie, beneath the watchful eyes of 
 George Clinton, like the contending Gods in the 
 Homeric legend, Alexander Hamilton and Me- 
 lanchthon Smith strove in the great debate upon 
 the constitution of the United States, and here. 
 New York consented to the constitution, and 
 once more, upon the Hudson, the career of 
 Washington reached its crowning glory as he 
 entered upon the Presidency of the United States. 
 What memorable events have consecrated this 
 
 river and these shores ! What voices have ^yv/^ ^ 
 thrilled the air of this prolific and prosperous S*^^^-^^ 
 valley! What noble figures have peopled this^CX^^CX' 
 majestic scene ! But its story does not end with ^^ 
 
24 
 
 the revolution. With the golden age of peace 
 the vast manorial estates of the Hudson gave to 
 the river a singular social distinction and its 
 shores were the renowned seat of magnificent 
 hospitality. Towns and cities clustering beside 
 it marked the advance of American prosperity. 
 Following the Half-Moon of Hendrick Hudson, 
 after just two hundred years, the Clermont of 
 Robert Fulton moved sailless against the stream, 
 and commerce and human intercourse were 
 emancipated from dependence upon the coy and 
 fitful wind. A little later, with simple Repub- 
 lican pomp and amid the happy truce of parties, 
 the water of Lake Erie was borne down the 
 Hudson to the sea, and a smooth and unob- 
 structed way to the markets of the world was 
 opened to the mighty North West. But still 
 the beneficent river lacked one leaf in its chaplet. 
 Its stately course through storied scenes, its 
 shores teeming with prosperous content, its land- 
 scape of undulating and endless beauty from the 
 Palisades to the Catskill and the softer rural 
 reaches beyond, yet wanted the spell which holds 
 
the traveller s foot at every step in the lesser 
 landscape of other lands, the spell of the genius 
 which lifts them into literature and so gives to 
 every cultivated mind in the world an indefeasi- 
 ble estate in the local landscape. 
 
 In a large sense the experiment of American 
 independence was associated with the river. 
 British dominion fell and the republic was for- 
 mally inaugurated upon its banks. Upon the 
 Hudson, Fulton's genius and Clinton's enter- 
 prise had given the quickening impulse to 
 American invention and industry, and, at last, 
 American creative literature was born under its 
 spell. The shore at Tarrytown stretching back- 
 ward to Sleepy Hollow, the broad water of the 
 Tappan Zee, the airy heights of the summer 
 Catskill, were at last suffused with the rosy light 
 of literature by the kindly genius of Washington 
 Irving. I Burns and Scott have made their Scot- ^ 
 land the Scotland of all the world. / Every hill 
 and stream and bird and flower of the beloved 
 land is reflected individually and fondly in Scot- 
 tish tale and song. The Scotchman with his 
 
26 
 
 deep and strong national sentiment, a feeling 
 which survives untouched by all acts of political 
 union with the British empire, murmurs wher- 
 ever he goes the legendary music of the Ayr and 
 the Doon, of the laverock and the mavis, the 
 Scottish landscape and the Scottish legend. 
 
 It is curious that our literature should have 
 been born of a reaction of sentiment. It was all 
 sermon until Bryant's Thanatopsis, and Bryant's 
 muse was essentially Puritanic. But as the boy 
 Irving used to esoape from the severity of reli- 
 gious discipline by dropping out of the window 
 and stealing to the play, so in his gentle genius 
 our nascent literature at last escaped the sermon 
 and came laughing into life. Not less striking 
 is the fact that the first distinct creation of that 
 literature should have been a characteristically 
 un-American figure. Irving's genius was what 
 in the old English phrase would have been 
 called sauntering. It cast the glamor of idlesse 
 over our sharp, positive and busy American life. 
 Rip Van Winkle, the indolent and kindly vaga- 
 bond, asserts the charm of day-dream and loiter- 
 
27 
 
 ing against all the engrossing hurry of lucrative 
 activity. At first he, and the grotesque Knick- 
 erbocker heroes, were solitary figures in our let- 
 ters. But so strong is the magic of the Hudson 
 that Rip Van Winkle on the western shore was 
 soon joined by Cooper s Spy upon the eastern, 
 and presently Leather Stocking, until long since 
 Rip is but one of a goodly company. Yet still 
 he holds his place. Another literary spirit, a freer 
 impulse, greater genius and figures more com- 
 manding and elaborate, appear. But while one 
 lurid Scarlet Letter spells Puritan, and the keen 
 laughter of Hosea Biglow nails fast the counter- 
 feit American, still Rip Van Winkle lounges 
 idfy by, and the vagabond of the Hudson is an 
 unwasting figure of the imagination, the earliest, 
 constant, gentlest satirist of American life. 
 
 These are but glimpses of the associations of 
 the Hudson River. But they show how pecu- 
 liarly identified it is with our history and litera- 
 ture, with our patriotism and national life. It is 
 surely a singular felicity of fortune, that it should 
 be also as intimately associated with the great 
 
28 
 
 step of advancing civilization which we celebrate 
 to-day, and that upon the shores of the Hudson 
 should be founded the first amply endowed and 
 adequately organized college for women. Like 
 all important steps of social progress, the rise of 
 such an institution is a development, not a sud- 
 den creation. Growth, not miracle, is the law 
 of life. Even St. John's day, the longest day of 
 the year, is not a sudden burst of splendor, it 
 brightens gradually from the faintest flush of 
 dawn, jfrhe rose-bush does not break into full- 
 ness of bloom on some happy morning in June, 
 but with the warmth of early April the buds 
 begin to swell and the green begins to deepen, 
 and gradually like a Queen leisurely robing for 
 her coronation, tint is added to tint, beauty to 
 beauty, until it stands in the sovereign glory of 
 perfect blossom. So our political constitution 
 was not, as is sometimes said, an inspiration, it 
 was an application.^ From the ancient customs 
 of Swiss cantons, from the meadow of Runny- 
 mede, from the Grand Remonstrance and the 
 Petition of Right, in steady Anglo-Saxon sue- 
 
29 
 
 cession and with accumulating force, the princi- 
 ples of our constitution were derived. No one 
 of them was new in our system, but the applica- 
 tion of them at once to the States and to the 
 Union of the States, this was unprecedented, 
 this was the rose of dawn in which all the earlier 
 deepening rays of light culminated in day. 
 
 It would be a great mistake to suppose that 
 we are celebrating an event which was unheralded 
 and had been neither attempted nor foreseen. 
 The greatness of the occasion and the fame of 
 Mr. Vassar ask no such impossible tribute. 
 Every important movement, we are apt to say, 
 is at last one man. It is true that great events 
 in history are symbolized by certain names, as 
 Columbus and the discovery of America, Sam 
 Adams and American Independence, Samuel 
 Romilly and the reform of the penal laws. Dr. 
 Franklin and the lightning conductor, Garrison 
 and the abolition of slavery, Henry Bergh and 
 the compassionate care of domestic animals. 
 But a leader is strong by the strength of others. 
 He is sustained by what is called the spirit of the 
 
30 
 
 age, and he follows, like a keen Indian guide in 
 a company of white men, the trail which fore- 
 runners have made. Columbus lived in an age 
 of discovery. He heard more wisely than other 
 men the voices which Charles Summer called 
 ''prophetic voices" concerning America, and he 
 knew the reason why sailing west would bring 
 him to the East what he sought. Leaders 
 merely lead. They are only a little in advance. 
 They mark the irritation of the stem at the point 
 where the bud will appear. Men like John 
 Howard and Pinel are signs of a quickening 
 public sense of wrong in penal and curative sys- 
 tems, which responds effectively to their appeal. 
 In Matthew Vassar matured the vague desire 
 and tentative groping toward a complete oppor- 
 tunity for the equal higher education of women, 
 by partial efforts, tentative experiments, intelli- 
 ^^: gent schemes, for the same subject there had 
 
 t^ ^- already been, and already signal progress had 
 ^i, ^ been achieved. 
 
 It is about a century since an active and con- 
 stantly progressive interest in the higher, or more 
 
 V 
 
 ^ 
 
31 
 
 truly, the better, education of women began. 
 During the eighteenth century the schools of 
 Prussia, the country in Europe which has most 
 fostered the interests of education, had steadily 
 declined, and the schools for girls were much less 
 efficient than those for boys. The great impulse 
 of the modern Prussian school system was given 
 by the most famous of Homeric scholars, Fred- 
 erick Augustus Wolf, who was invited to Halle 
 in 1 783 by Frederick the Great. Even the Prus- 
 sian catastrophe at Jena in 1806 was not strong 
 enough permanently to disturb that impulse, 
 which only two years after the battle created a 
 department of schools and placed William Von 
 Humboldt at its head. It was under the influ- 
 ence of the same impulse which has produced 
 the modern Prussian school system, that in 1804 
 what is supposed to be the first seminary for 
 women teachers was founded in Prussia. 
 
 But still the general European feeling regard- 
 ing the education of women was expressed by 
 Mrs. Barbauld's exhortation to her sex. Re- 
 member, she says, to what Thackeray would have 
 
32 
 
 called the young British female of a century ago, 
 "your best, your sweetest empire is to please." 
 Mrs. Barbauld was one of the most estimable of 
 women and altogether superior to her own ex- 
 hortation, which was simply that of every Cir- 
 cassian slave dealer hurrying his lovely captive to 
 the Seraglio. Meanwhile in this country much 
 of the freedom and equality which were vehe- 
 mently declared to be the rights of human nature 
 was yet waiting for recognition, and continued, 
 and with all that has been achieved, still con- 
 tinues to wait. 
 
 If a woman suggested that possibly her part 
 of human nature had rights also, as well as 
 powers, she was told, with a forgiving smile, that 
 nature had endowed her with exquisite emotions 
 and remarkable instincts and intuitions, and that 
 heaven designed her to be a lovely vine hanging 
 by delicate tendrils to the sturdy oak of man./ 
 This waiting was especially true of the education 
 of women. Toward the close of the century 
 Mrs. John Adams, one of the most highly culti- 
 
33 
 
 vated women of her time, said that " female 
 education in the best families went no further 
 than writing and arithmetic and in some few and 
 rare instances music and dancing." But the 
 general standard even of the best education in 
 this country at the beginning of the century was 
 very low. In the year 1800 although there were 
 perhaps twenty-five institutions in the Union, 
 called colleges, most of them were little more 
 than high schools, and all together they did not 
 graduate, probably, five hundred students annu- 
 ally. Noah Webster said, *'We maybe said to 
 have no learning at all, or a mere smattering, 
 * * * as to libraries we have no such 
 things ; " and George Ticknor, only twenty-six 
 years ago, said that good school books were 
 rare in Boston, which seems to us to-day much 
 like saying that good diamonds are rare in 
 Golconda — while a copy of Euripides, he said, 
 could not be bought at any book-seller's nor a 
 German book found in the College at Cam- 
 bridge — a situation to be paralleled in the im- 
 
34 
 
 agination only by Paris without the opera or 
 Epsom without the races. If the scholastic 
 diet of men at that day was so meagre we 
 can imagine what that of women must have 
 been. 
 
 But the protest of feeling had already begun. 
 Eighty years ago, reviewing, in the Edinburgh, 
 Mr. Thomas Broadhurst's Advice to Young 
 Ladies on the improvement of the mind, a title 
 which might have described the books that 
 were read by the good young ladies in Miss 
 Austen's novels, Sydney Smith said, that the 
 immense disparity which existed between the 
 knowledge of men and women admitted of no 
 rational defence, because, said the sensible canon, 
 '* nature has been as bountiful of understanding 
 to one sex as the other." While he was writing, 
 Mrs. Emma Willard — whose name should be 
 always held in honor at Vassar and at every 
 similar institution in the world — was improving 
 the minds of young ladies at a school in Ver- 
 mont, and a few years afterward founded, also 
 upon the banks of the Hudson, the Troy 
 
35 
 
 Female Seminary. This was a conspicuous ad- 
 vance in the scope and conception of such 
 academies at that day. But the time was ripe 
 for Mrs. Willard, as it was for Columbus and for 
 every leader of civilization. In the year after 
 the opening of the Troy Academy, Miss Cath- 
 erine Beecher, at Hartford, began her higher 
 school for young women, and at the same time 
 Mary Lyon was already teaching in New Hamp- 
 shire. These schools showered the seed of the 
 higher education of women all over the country, 
 and Mary Lyon cherished the hope of a school 
 " which should be to young women what a col- 
 lege is to young men," and by patient devotion 
 and persistence she modestly founded at last the 
 Mount Holyoke Seminary. 
 
 Simultaneously with the opening of the 
 schools of Mrs. Willard and Miss Beecher be- 
 gan the agitation for a Girl's High School in 
 Boston, as a part of the public school system 
 of that city. With careful economy of the 
 city resources, girls had been permitted to at- 
 tend the public schools in summer, when there 
 
36 
 
 were not boys enough to fill them. But a pres- 
 sure for a more generous education had arisen 
 and such was the persistent and unwomanly zeal 
 for knowledge, that after a prolonged debate of 
 three years a High School was established. 
 The onset of girls bent upon higher education 
 was overwhelming. Like the astounded Mr. 
 Barnacle in Little Dorrit, the city fathers were 
 confronted by a persistent crowd of scholars that 
 wanted to know, you know. 
 
 The Mayor in dismay announced that "two 
 hundred and eighty-six candidates had presented 
 themselves for admission, while the applications 
 for the Boy's High School had never exceeded 
 ninety and the greatest number of boys ever ad- 
 mitted in one year was eighty-four." But such 
 immoderate zeal for knowledge was never 
 known, not only of geography and history, of 
 the multiplication table and vulgar fractions, 
 but even of chemistry and natural philosphy. 
 What was to be done ? What if these daring 
 girls should demand to study Latin and Greek ? 
 
37 
 
 What if they should insist upon Euclid and La 
 Place ? Zoology and moral philosophy and even 
 astronomy itself might follow. The prospect 
 was appalling. The awful question probably 
 presented itself to the City Fathers, what if 
 Boston women should come to know more than 
 Boston men ? Suppose there should arise a 
 Board of Alderwomen, what would become of 
 Boston ? As the good old deacon used to say, 
 ** Suppose, fellow-sinners, you should wake up 
 to-morrow morning and find yourselves dead, 
 what would you say then ? " The situation be- 
 came intolerable and in eighteen months the 
 Boston High School for Girls was closed be- 
 cause there was so great a multitude of eager 
 scholars. The Mayor attested the general 
 awakening of public sentiment reversing Mrs. 
 Barbauld's gentle gospel, "Your best, your 
 sweetest empire is to please," by saying *'it is 
 just as impracticable to give a classical educa- 
 tion to all the girls of the city whose parents 
 would wish them to be thus educated at the 
 
38 
 
 expense of the city as to give such a one to all 
 the boys at the city's expense. No funds of 
 any city could endure the expense of it." 
 
 About sixty years ago, then, public opinion 
 had so far advanced that Oberlin College, in 
 Ohio, was chartered in 1834, and apparently the 
 first collegiate diploma granted to a woman in 
 this country was at Oberlin in 1838. In this 
 college young men and young women were asso- 
 ciated in study. Oberlin was the first institution 
 to try the experiment of co-education. Horace 
 Mann, the. American apostle of common school 
 education, became President of Antioch College, 
 also in Ohio, in 1853, and spoke of co-education 
 there as his great experiment. In the previous 
 year Lombard University, in Illinois, was 
 chartered with absolute equality of its privileges 
 between the sexes. 
 
 These were undoubtedly frontier outposts of 
 changing public sentiment regarding the educa- 
 tion of women. But meanwhile, in 1836, the 
 legislature of Georgia chartered a college for 
 women at Macon, which for some mysterious 
 
I 
 
 39 
 
 reason was called the Georgia Female College. 
 Women are undoubtedly females, but no more 
 so than men are males. The word college does 
 not admit the distinction of sex, and there is no 
 more propriety in calling Vassar a female college 
 than Yale or Columbia a male college. Upon a 
 most valuable and excellent institution in the 
 city of New York there is a sign which an- 
 nounces that a reading-room for males and 
 females is to be found within. But whether de- , '''tC^Z-- — 
 signed for equine males or bovine females is not 
 stated. Besides the Georgia college for women 
 there was a Wesleyan College, in Ohio, incor- 
 porated in 1846, and in 1848 the Mary Sharp 
 College at Winchester, in Tennessee, while the 
 Elmira College, in New York, graduated its first 
 class in 1859. 
 
 These facts and dates are interesting not as 
 incident to any controversy of priority, but as 
 illustrations of a changing public sentiment. 
 The test of civilization is the estimate of woman. 
 The measure of that estimate is the degree of 
 practical acknowledgment of her equal liberty of 
 
40 
 
 choice and action with men, and nothing is his- 
 torically plainer than that the progress of moral 
 and political liberty since the reformation has in- 
 cluded a consequent and constant movement for 
 the abolition of every arbitrary restraint upon the 
 freedom of women. It has been, indeed, very 
 gradual. Compliment and incredulity have per- 
 sistently bowed out justice and reason. But as 
 usual the exiles have steadily returned stronger 
 and more resolute. Their first definite demand 
 was that of education. For this they have 
 pleaded against tradition, prejudice, scepticism, 
 ridicule and superstition. There has been bit- 
 ter contention not only over the end but the 
 means. Profuse eloquence and wit and learning 
 have been expended in the discussion of the 
 comparative excellence of co-education or sep- 
 arate education, of the limitations and conditions 
 which nature herself has prescribed to the range 
 and degree of education for women, of the divine 
 intention^, and of the natural sphere of the sexes. 
 In this ardent but ludicrous debate there have 
 been as many theorizers as theories. The gen- 
 
41 
 
 tlemen of Charles II.'s court thought that women 
 
 were educated enough if they could spell out the 
 
 recipes of pies and puddings, the manufacture of 
 
 which nature had entrusted to their tender 
 
 mercies. Lord Byron did not like to see women 
 
 eat because he thought angels should be superior 
 
 to beef and beer, and it is still a very popular '\hLi^ 
 
 current belief that it is the sphere of lovely — — 
 
 woman 
 
 " To eat strawberries, sugar and cream, 
 Sit on a cushion and sew up a seam." 
 
 This debate of the sphere of the sexes as 
 determining the character and limits of educa- 
 tion is very amusing. For if the sexes have 
 spheres, there really seems to be no more reason 
 to apprehend that women will desert their sphere 
 than men. I have not observed any general 
 anxiety lest men should steal away from their 
 workshops and offices that they may darn the 
 family stockings or cook the dinner, and I see 
 no reason to suppose that it will be necessary to 
 chain women to the cradle to prevent their insist- 
 ing upon running locomotives or shipping before 
 
42 
 
 the mast. We may be very sure that we shall 
 never know the sphere of any responsible human 
 being until he has perfect freedom of choice and 
 liberty of growth. All we can clearly see is that 
 the intellectual capacity of women is an inex- 
 plicable waste of reserved power if its utmost 
 education is justly to be deprecated as useless or 
 undesirable. 
 
 Our dogmatism in sheer speculation is con- 
 stantly satirized by history. Education was not 
 more vehemently alleged to be absurd for women 
 than political equality to be dangerous for men. 
 Happily our own century has played havoc with 
 both beliefs however sincerely supposed to be 
 ordinances of nature. The century began with 
 saying contemptuously that women do not need 
 'to be educated to be dutiful wives and good 
 mothers. A woman, it said, can dress prettily 
 and dance gracefully even if she cannot con- 
 jugate the Greek verbs in mi ; and the ability to 
 calculate an eclipse would not help her to keep 
 cream from feathering in hot weather. But 
 grown older and wiser the century asks, as it 
 
ends, ** Is it then true that ignorant womien are 
 the best wives and mothers ? Does good wife- 
 hood consist exclusively in skillful baking and 
 boiling, and neat darning and patching? No," 
 says the enlightened century ; ** if the more 
 languages a man hath the more man is he, the 
 more knowledge a woman hath the better wife nj^ 
 and mother is she." And if any sceptic should ^ ^ j{, 
 ask, "but can delicate woman endure the hard-^ ^ . 
 
 ship of a college course of study ? " it is a # 
 
 own sex ; — *^ I would like you to take thirteen O^U,.^(ja 
 
 hundred young men, and lace them up, and 
 
 hang ten to twenty pounds of clothes upon 
 
 their waists, perch them on three-inch heels, 
 
 cover their heads with ripples, chignons, rats 
 
 and mice, and stick ten thousand hair-pins 
 
 into their scalps. If they can stand all this 
 
 they will stand a little Latin and Greek." 
 
 *' While I was musing," says the Psalmist, 
 "the fire burned." While the controversy of 
 woman blew high and low, common sense 
 
 woman who ingeniously turns the flank of 
 the questioner with a covert sarcasm at her 
 
44 
 
 steadily prevailed and public opinion ripened. 
 There are always watchmen on high towers 
 of observation who foretell the approach of 
 change. Like the muezzin in the minaret of 
 the mosque, they wake while others sleep. 
 But the spirit of an age is shown, not in the 
 foresight of its wiser men and the dreams 
 and hopes of the few, but in its general 
 disposition and thought. It is not the arbutus 
 and the early violet of doubtful April which 
 assure us that summer has come, but the 
 whole blossoming landscape and the halcyon 
 air of June. So it seems to me the maturity 
 of public sentiment in this country in regard 
 to the education of women is admirably 
 illustrated in the foundation of this institution. 
 Matthew Vassar was not a student nor a scholar, 
 nor were his familiar associations those of the 
 University and intellectual life. From his child- 
 hood he was immersed in business and trade. 
 Sturdy, upright, faithful, sagacious, he was an 
 admirable representative of what Lincoln happily 
 called "the plain people" who have given to 
 
45 
 
 this country its distinctive character. His life 
 and thought undoubtedly reflected the general 
 tendency of the time and the community in 
 which he lived. The public sentiment of an 
 old American community like this is always 
 intelligent and progressive in a degree which 
 is often unknown until it is demonstrated 
 either by some emergency like that of the 
 civil war, or by some individual act. 
 
 There are great names in the history of New 
 York, names illustrious from the character and 
 service of those who bore them, names fondly 
 familiar as those of fathers and leaders of the 
 state. But among the most eminent of such 
 citizens whom the old English phrase described 
 as Worthies, eminent for the significance and 
 value of their services in a sphere which has 
 none of the exciting glamor of military achieve- 
 ment or political renown, are Ezra Cornell and 
 Matthew Vassar. One day during the debate in 
 the last Constitutional Convention of this State 
 upon the proposed clause in regard to Cornell 
 University, I was sitting by Mr. Cornell, and 
 
46 
 
 when one of the speakers quoted a Latin phrase 
 Mr. Cornell turned to me and said, '' What does 
 that mean ? Fortunately for me the answer was 
 not difficult, and when I explained, he said 
 quietly, " If I can have my way, nobody in this 
 state hereafter need be obliged to ask that ques- 
 tion." The city of Ley den, after its heroic de- 
 liverance from the grasp of Spain, commemo- 
 rated its rescue, you remember, not by a statue 
 nor a monument of bronze or marble, but by the 
 establishment of a university. It was the same 
 lofty impulse which moved these two plain re- 
 publican citizens of New York to devote the 
 results of their sagacious and prosperous industry 
 not to their personal aggrandisement, but to the 
 permanent benefit of others. 
 
 ** I challenge any lover of Massachusetts," said 
 a great patriot and scholar at the centenary of 
 the battle of Concord and Lexington, "to read 
 the fifty-ninth chapter of Bancroft's History 
 without tears of joy." It is the chapter which 
 describes the beginning of the Revolution. 
 With something of the same feeling I may say 
 
47 
 
 that I challenge any lover of New York or of 
 the American character to read the first commu- 
 nication of Matthew Vassar to the trustees of 
 this college without profound gratitude and ad- 
 miration. In his simple words, unconsciously to 
 himself, speaks the truest spirit of his time and 
 country. ''It occurred to me that woman hav- 
 ing received from her Creator the same intel- 
 lectual constitution as man, has the same right 
 as man to intellectual culture and development." 
 These words might well be carved in gold over 
 the entrance of Vassar College. The fundamen- 
 tal truth which settles the controversy about the 
 education of women was never more completely 
 and exclusively expressed, and like all funda- 
 mental truths when once adequately stated, it is 
 simple and indisputable. Yet in that contro- 
 versy, if he heeded it at all, Mr. Vassar had 
 taken no part. The conflict with tradition and 
 the logical consequences which his views in- 
 volved, if they occurred to him, did not trouble 
 him. "I consider," he said, "that the mothers 
 of a country mould the character of its citizens, 
 
48 
 
 determine its institutions and shape its destiny." 
 The duty and the necessity of the thorough 
 training of all their faculties were therefore to his 
 mind, unquestionable. If anybody was anxious 
 about the sphere of woman, Mr. Vassar was not. 
 Reason and observation had revealed it. As 
 there was no doubt that it was for the interest of 
 society that men should be thoroughly trained 
 morally, intellectually, and industrially, there 
 could be no doubt that such training was equally 
 desirable for women, except upon the theory 
 which advancing civilization had steadily ab- 
 jured. 
 
 Mr. Vassar's declaration twenty-five years ago 
 is the satisfactory evidence that public senti- 
 ment has reached the conviction which his few 
 and unqualified words announce. Those words 
 quietly set aside forever the practice of the 
 Boston High School admitting girls when 
 boys did not want the places. They signal- 
 ized the end of the tradition which had pro- 
 duced the immense disparity that Sydney 
 Smith declared admitted of no defence, be- 
 
49 
 
 tween the knowledge of men and women. 
 They disposed of all the banter about he- 
 women and crowing hens, a banter which 
 has always an uneasy air of anxiety, as if 
 those who invoked it were a little doubtful 
 of their ability to hold their own in an 
 equal encounter with trained wits. Mr. Vas- 
 sar's words assumed that if Hypatia were not 
 unsexed by teaching philosophy and mathe- 
 matics in the most celebrated school in the 
 world, Maria Mitchell would be only more 
 of a woman than ever, in teaching other 
 women to bind the sweet influences of Plei- 
 ades and to hear the morning stars sing to- 
 gether. " For the last thirty years," said Mr. 
 Vassar, ''the standard of education for the 
 sex has been constantly rising in the United 
 States." The chief obstruction was want of 
 ample endowment. " It is my hope," said he, 
 ''to be the instrument in the hand of Provi- 
 dence of founding an institution which shall 
 accomplish for young women what our col- 
 leges are accomplishing for young men." 
 
50 
 
 To this result something more than the 
 name and form of a college is indispensable ; 
 something more than ample buildings and 
 stately towers and monastic aisles, which touch 
 the poet's heart like ''sweet strains and pen- 
 sive smiles ; " something more than reverend 
 quadrangles of cloistered seclusion, more than 
 romantic suggestion, and the shadowy tradition 
 of a thousand years. These are the accumu- 
 lating graces and charms with which time and 
 association gradually invest an institution of 
 learning, as the moss gathers upon walls i n 
 whose shadow Isaac Newton mused, and whose 
 clustering vines, a slip, perhaps, from a country 
 church-yard, Gray trained and tended. But to 
 a great university two things are essential, first 
 and foremost of all, the teachers, and then the 
 endowment. The teachers, however, are the 
 school. Even Croesus could not found a 
 great university, although he wrought its walls 
 with gold, if he could not place in them great 
 and accomplished teachers. But wherever 
 Erasmus or Colet, in the time of the new" 
 
51 
 
 learning, or in our own day, Agassiz or Fara- 
 day, or Benjamin Pierce, or Tayler Lewis, 
 might have taught, there would have been a 
 university. 
 
 The movement of opinion which lifted Mr. 
 Vassar to his happy design had already pro- 
 duced, as we have seen, seminaries and even 
 colleges for women. But admirable as schools, 
 and significant as they were of the tendencies 
 of thought, the adequate resource and com- 
 prehensive scheme which surround the teacher 
 with all the appliances of teaching, were here 
 first fully and properly supplied. I do not de- 
 preciate the smaller colleges. To them the debt 
 of this country is incalculable. The colonial 
 colleges were little more than high schools, 
 but they were the nurseries of patriots and 
 patriotism, and from them came in large part 
 the leadership of the Revolution and the con- 
 struction of the Constitution. In his famous 
 plea for Dartmouth College in the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, Daniel Webster, 
 its most famous graduate, spoke of it with 
 
 UNI7ER3IT71 
 
52 
 
 filial and personal tenderness, and a suppressed 
 emotion which was profoundly impressive. In 
 the earnestness of his appeal, addressing Chief 
 Justice Marshall individually, he said, with a 
 breaking voice, '' Sir, it is a small college — 
 and yet — there are those who love it." Then 
 he paused, silent, with an emotion which for 
 some moments also overpowered the Court 
 and the hushed and sympathetic audience. 
 
 The emotion and the sympathy are intel- 
 ligible. No man loves his Alma Mater less 
 because of her straightened circumstances. The 
 colonial colleges were suited to the time and 
 to its spirit and requirements, and their influ- 
 ence upon our national development has been 
 profound and enduring. But the requirements 
 of a later time are different. Vassar College 
 a century ago would have been impossible. 
 But if now at the end of a quarter of a 
 century from the opening of its doors, the 
 Founder, as he naturally liked to be called, 
 should visibly return, and sitting here should 
 contemplate his work and closely survey the 
 
53 
 
 record of this college, would he regret his 
 high resolve and wish that he had given 
 it another form ? His deliberate decision 
 founded this institution which was at once 
 the test of the accuracy with which he appre- 
 hended the drift of the sentiment of his 
 time, and one of its strongest confirmations. 
 Was he wrong in believing that the time had 
 come for opening to women the opportunity 
 of the highest education ? Vassar asks. Smith 
 and Wellesley and Bryn Mawr, Holyoke and 
 Barnard College, and all the opening college 
 doors and opening minds of trustees and 
 faculties, the professional schools for women, 
 and fellowships and endowments, and van- 
 ishing sophistries and prejudices, and the ex- 
 tending empire of common sense, all answer. 
 Even . the good old conservative stock of our 
 Columbia College, the scholastic home of 
 Hamilton and Jay, of Gouverneur Morris and 
 DeWitt Clinton, brilliantly blossoms into de- 
 grees for women, and as the other older col- 
 legiate nurseries of our education feel the 
 
54 
 
 gentle feminine pressure which holds their 
 hesitating gates ajar, the chorus of manly 
 voices within begins to murmer, ** If women 
 are not afraid of us, why should we be afraid 
 of women ? 
 
 Elsewhere in the world the spectacle is the 
 same. In the shadow of venerable Oxford and 
 Cambridge in England, Girton and Newnham 
 Colleges share the equal facilities of the univer- 
 sities, and both the great universities have ex- 
 tended themselves by establishing throughout 
 the kingdom examinations to which multitudes 
 of studious girls resort, and as the water in the 
 remotest coves and bays upon the sea shore is 
 lifted by the rising tide, so by these examinations 
 and by those of the civil service, the standard of 
 all English schools is raised. In Germany, as 
 Miss Emma Atkinson Almy tells us in a recent 
 paper, women ask entrance for scientific study 
 into the universities of Prussia, Wurtemberg 
 and Bavaria. The government hesitates, but 
 sends an envoy to inquire into the methods and 
 workings of the English colleges for women. 
 
55 
 
 while the Victoria Lyceum at Berlin has estab- 
 lished a course and methods of study which 
 would naturally develop into a university ending 
 in a state examination and diploma. In France 
 the higher schools for women are constantly 
 higher still, and at the Educational Congress in 
 Paris during the Exposition of last year women 
 were as valued counsellors as in our late Na- 
 tional Conference of Charities at Baltimore, 
 or upon State Boards and School Commit- 
 tees. The University of Paris opens its doors 
 to women in certain studies, and the London 
 University does not hesitate. The universities 
 of Australia are open to women upon equal 
 terms with men. Canada in many of her 
 chief schools gives equal advantages, and to 
 Switzerland, home of the mountain nymph, 
 sweet Liberty, Miss Almy says the aspiring 
 young women of Germany resort to secure 
 the education which as yet their fatherland 
 denies, while the Spanish and Italian Univer- 
 sities do not disdain to train women in special 
 studies, and Northern Europe provides schools 
 
56 
 
 for women of constantly higher grades, and 
 obeys the wise and kindly spirit of the age. 
 Surveying the spectacle, Vassar asks tranquilly, 
 ''Was not the time ripe for me?" and on 
 both sides of the ocean and in all civilized 
 lands, the air is astir with the music of the 
 response — 
 
 "And Jura answers from her misty shroud 
 Back to the joyous Alps that call to her aloud." 
 
 But that this day and occasion consecrated 
 to congratulation upon the opening of the 
 college for women should not want their dis- 
 tinctive triumph, we hear that within the 
 week at English Cambridge amid tumults of 
 enthusiastic acclamation Philippa Fawcett the 
 daughter of Henry Fawcett, the late British 
 Post Master General and Millicent Garrett 
 Fawcett, has won the highest University honor 
 in mathematics, receiving four hundred marks 
 more than the Senior Wrangler. 
 
 All this and these may seem to offer some 
 satisfactory answer to our question of the 
 Founder returned to contemplate his great 
 
57 
 
 hope and noble purpose. But there is yet a 
 final question. Conceding that his act was 
 justified by the conviction and the desire of 
 his time — still, were they not mistaken, was 
 not the foreboding of doubt a forecast of 
 truth, and the warning of ancient tradition a 
 voice which should have been heeded? Mat- 
 thew Vassar was an emancipator. To those 
 who, comparatively speaking, had sat in dark- 
 ness he gave light. But are not those now 
 justified who winced at the shining of the 
 light? That is the question. Has this larger 
 liberty of education, this freedom of choice, 
 this devoted and successful study, this winning 
 of the scholastic palm and proud decoration 
 of the degree, has all this, either in the per- 
 sons of the students themselves, or in the 
 general effect upon their sex and upon the 
 estimate of it, justified in any point the sor- 
 rowful anticipations which seemed to regard 
 the opening gates of the highest education for 
 women as the flood gates of a torrent of 
 evils which should sweep away the loveliness 
 
58 
 
 and grace and essential charm of womanhood? 
 Since Vassar opened its door a quarter of a 
 century ago, has there been a marked tendency 
 among American women to abandon domestic 
 life, and to attempt occupations for which they 
 are not fitted ? Or to state it to you ad^femi- 
 nam, is it true that upon the gates of this 
 college must be written a doom as mournful 
 as that which the Dantean words decree ? 
 Whoever enters here, must she leave behind 
 the fairest hope for woman or for man ? Is 
 it then true that her essential and enduring 
 charm is so cruelly perplexed that to be an 
 angel she must be less than woman ? Is that 
 the curse of Paradise, the endless price of the 
 fatal apple? 
 
 Truth and experience laugh the question to 
 scorn and scatter the cloud of foolish rhetoric 
 about the sphere and duty and capacity and 
 divine intention of woman as if upon that 
 particular subject men were in the counsels of 
 the Almighty and women were carefully ex- 
 cluded. There is no surer sign of a more 
 
59 
 
 liberal civilization and a wiser world than the 
 perception that the bounds of legitimate wom- 
 anly interest and activity are not to be set 
 by men as heretofore to mark their own con- 
 venience and pleasure. The tradition of the 
 lovely incapacity of woman reflects either the 
 sensitive apprehension or the ignoble abase- 
 ment of man. The progressive amelioration of 
 the laws that have always restricted her equal- 
 ity of right, the quick exposure and censure 
 of statutes which will outrage the instinct of 
 justice and fair play, the enlarging range of 
 her industrial occupations, and, like towering 
 ice-bergs melting in a warmer air, the vanish- 
 ing in more generous thought of prejudices 
 and follies of opinion that once seemed in- 
 superable, these are those signs in the heavens 
 that were held to be unmistakable and irre- 
 versible. 
 
 More visible, and perhaps in some sense 
 more persuasive and conclusive than these, is 
 the verdict of literature, which unconsciously 
 records the highest and final judgment of an 
 
6o 
 
 age. The women of to-day, as reflected in 
 the genius of the philosophical historian and 
 artist of current society whom we call nov- 
 elist, is a very different figure from the wo- 
 man of the eighteenth century novel. Indeed 
 that novel was not written for her. She 
 was not expected to read it, and if we fancy 
 Cowper and Mrs. Unwin reading Tom Jones 
 and Amelia, we only see that Mrs. Unwin 
 was very unlike the educated matron of to- 
 day, while in Goldsmith's Vicar, the purest 
 idyl of them all, we still hear the tone of 
 the time, the thin refrain of the baby house 
 in the nursery, "Your best, your sweetest 
 empire is to please." It is a fresher air, a 
 sweeter music that breathes through the Eng- 
 lish novel of to-day, and it is in the literature 
 of the English tongue as in the feeling of 
 the English speaking race that we must look 
 for the true contemporaneous position of 
 woman. 
 
 These are all the happy harbingers of the 
 tranquil and conclusive adjustment of what 
 
6i 
 
 Margaret Fuller nearly fifty years ago called 
 the great lawsuit of man against men, woman 
 against women. It is a case called long since 
 in the highest court of justice and appealed 
 from age to age. But observe how curiously 
 the plain good sense of Matthew Vassar in 
 1862 responds to the words of the most 
 learned and accomplished woman of her time 
 in America twenty years before. The demand 
 of woman, she said, with proud and subtle 
 scorn, is not poetic incense ; every woman can 
 receive that from her lover. It is not life-long 
 sway, every woman by becoming a coquette, 
 a shrew or a good cook, can secure that. It 
 is not money, nor notoriety, nor badges of 
 authority. These may be sometimes sought 
 by women but they are not the demand of 
 woman. Her demand is '' for that which is 
 the birth-right of every being capable to re- 
 ceive it : the freedom, the religious, the in- 
 telligent freedom of the Universe, to use its 
 means, to learn its secret as far as nature has 
 enabled her, with God alone for her guide 
 
62 
 
 and her judge." In these words Margaret 
 Fuller said nothing which Matthew Vassar did 
 not say. But they were mutually unknown. 
 Probably he had never heard her name and 
 she was dead long before his name was 
 known. But when the word and act of such 
 a man unconsciously confirm the thought of 
 such a woman, it is because the common 
 sense of man apprehends the deepest and most 
 essential feeling of woman. Her feeling is not 
 that of a goddess nor of an houri, whatever 
 their feelings may be, but that of a human be- 
 ing. In a few simple words the whole woman 
 question was solved by the clear-minded man 
 and the thoughtful woman. 
 
 It was before she had written the paper 
 while she was yet a young woman, that, as 
 a boy in Providence, where she had come to 
 be a teacher in a classical school, supporting 
 herself and her brothers whom she educated, 
 I first saw Margaret Fuller. She was already 
 the friend of scholars and famous men and 
 noble women, and her wit and wisdom and 
 
63 
 
 extraordinary accomplishment easily dominated 
 the brilliant society of the city. She was a 
 woman of delightful humor and gayety of 
 manner, and as it was said of Burns that the 
 charm of his conversation called travellers at 
 the inn from their beds at midnight to listen, I 
 have heard Margaret Fuller keep a company 
 of young persons on a journey constantly 
 enthralled by her racy wit and humorous in- 
 telligence. A scholar, a critic, a thinker, a 
 teacher, a queen of conversation, above all a 
 person of delicate insight and sympathy, the 
 wisest of friends, of the utmost feminine re- 
 finement of feeling, and of dauntless spiritual 
 courage, she seems to me still the figure of 
 Woman in the nineteenth century, which was 
 the title of her best known paper. 
 
 Daughters of Vassar, such is the woman, 
 I doubt not, whom Matthew Vassar vaguely 
 foresaw when his generous heart inspired him 
 to his noble task. It is the woman that as 
 a lofty ideal presides over the studious hours 
 and quiet meditations of these halls. It is 
 
64 
 
 the woman of the nineteenth century whom 
 the other centuries foretold. The old times, 
 indeed, were good, but the new times are 
 better. We have left woman as a slave with 
 Homer and Pericles. We have left her as 
 a foolish goddess with Chivalry and Don 
 Quixote. We have left her as a toy with 
 Chesterfield and the club ; and in the enlight- 
 ened American daughter, wife, and mother, in 
 the free American home, we find the fairest 
 flower and the highest promise of American 
 civilization. 
 
The Future of the Woman's College. 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED ON COMMENCEMENT 
 DAY BY PRESIDENT JAMES M. TAYLOR. 
 
 It is almost impossible for those who have 
 grown up within a generation to understand 
 the varied hopes and fears which greeted the 
 announcement of the opening of Vassar Col- 
 lege. After admitting fully the earnestness 
 and the value of the efforts to give a col- 
 legiate education to women before that time, 
 it must be confessed that they were accom- 
 panied by discouragements, by lack of appre- 
 ciation, and by a general failure to advance 
 their standards, due to popular indifference 
 and unbelief. The foundation of Vassar, with 
 its endowments and broad equipment, warrant- 
 ing the hope that it might realize the ideals 
 which many a man and woman had beheld 
 in vision, attracted the attention of the edu- 
 cated world, and drew forth, at once, a re- 
 sponse from friends and foes of the new 
 
movement. The chance of success gave it 
 the color of novelty ; forces which had been 
 gathering slowly united now ; ideas began to 
 transform themselves into fact ; there seemed 
 to be a new thing under the sun. 
 
 For a quarter of a century Vassar and its 
 successors have done battle against miscon- 
 ception, misconstruction, unbelief, and sheer 
 ignorance. The woman's college has met, in 
 turn, the physical, mental, social and moral 
 arguments against woman's education. To the 
 assurance that it would result in physical wreck, 
 it has pointed to statistics, to facts, to young 
 women in better health than the average of 
 their class outside the colleges. To the as- 
 sertion that woman cannot be educated to 
 the level of young men, it has answered with 
 its honestly enforced curricula of studies, and 
 with its graduates. To the fear that social 
 life would be robbed of its pleasantness, and 
 domestic life of its attractions, it has replied 
 with its cultivated, refined women, and with 
 its large percentage of marriages and happy 
 
^7 
 
 homes. To the danger of moral and religious 
 defection, it answers with scorn to the be- 
 liever in any education, and with emphatic 
 denial to the merely fearful and timid. 
 
 It has not finished its apologetic age. Per- 
 haps that is true of all college education in 
 the midst of an age marked by the greed 
 of material comfort and success. But at least 
 to-day we may put objectors behind us, and 
 let the dead past bury its dead. If, anon, 
 we must turn again to meet some belated 
 reasoner, if we must still do pioneer work in 
 many a section of our land, yet to-day our 
 faces are toward the future, and strong in our 
 faith, and glad in a proud present, we for- 
 get the things that are behind, and press 
 onward. 
 
 What of the future of the Woman's Col- 
 lege, and of the education it shall represent? 
 
 Although the college moulds and forms 
 the opinion of its generation, it is not less 
 true that it also reflects its spirit and tenden- 
 cies. Public opinion has been rapidly shifting 
 
68 
 
 for twenty-five years gone, and great changes 
 have taken place in the popular regard for 
 whole realms of study once deemed the essen- 
 tials of education. These changes have made 
 themselves felt in every progressive college of 
 our land. Practical studies, Brod-studien, so- 
 called, have been forced into greater promi- 
 nence, the worth of neglected departments of 
 knowledge has been strongly asserted, and the 
 demand for more room for them in the curric- 
 ulum of the college has been made with an 
 irresistible emphasis. It could not be that the 
 effort to adjust the college to this new de- 
 mand would be accomplished without friction 
 and much disorder. There was a distinctive 
 American College when Vassar was established ; 
 to-day that college may exist, but every pro- 
 gressive institution has moved away from the 
 old foundations, and, as yet, no general agree- 
 ment has been reached as to the best form for 
 the college of the coming century. It is not 
 too strong an expression to use of our educa- 
 tional system to call it chaotic. What shall 
 
69 
 
 be the outcome ? what the general form of 
 the cosmos that is sure to be, ere long? 
 
 Certain lines of cleavage already appear to 
 be fairly distinct. The elective system of 
 study has secured a hold on the future, al- 
 though its precise limitations are far from 
 settled. But as adjusting itself to individual 
 needs and idiosyncrasies, as allowing a latitude 
 in the curriculum otherwise impossible, as in- 
 citing to greater interest and larger independ- 
 ence in the student, there can be no ques- 
 tion as to its permanence. The most ardent 
 admirer of the old system must admit the 
 poverty of the curriculum under which those 
 of us who entered college twenty-five years 
 ago, or more, were educated, and the com- 
 parative uselessness of a large amount of 
 study through which we were forced, at an 
 age when we were capable of doing serious 
 and independent work in lines better suited 
 to our tastes and powers. There is a mean, 
 assuredly, between the abolition of all restraint 
 on the young student and the theory that 
 
70 
 
 we ought to be obliged to pursue the very 
 things which are distasteful to us, a theory 
 which has in it a certain very thin vein of 
 truth, but which has no more general appli- 
 cation to the mind's life than it has to the 
 physical desires and tendencies. 
 
 The elective system has become the doom 
 of the old college, and suggests the lines on 
 which the new will form. The American col- 
 lege of the coming generation will be a well- 
 defined union of the college and the univer- 
 sity, and this will be made possible by the 
 progress of the secondary schools. They have 
 made remarkable advance in the past twenty 
 years, and are so improving their methods, 
 and are accomplishing so much more than 
 formerly that we have every reason to hope 
 that the coming generation will be readier 
 for college work at an age earlier than is 
 now customary. This seems to be demanded 
 by the conditions of our society and by the 
 nterests of the young. It is undesirable that 
 our preparatory work shall be so extended 
 
71 
 as to postpone the earlier, and compulsory, 
 work of our first college years to a time so 
 late as practically to exclude the most of 
 our youth from the broader training of the 
 later course, or else to send them forth from 
 our professional schools, or into business, or 
 even into social careers, at an age too ad- 
 vanced to give them a fair chance in the 
 competition of life, even if it does not also 
 diminish greatly their adaptability to the 
 new conditions in which they find themselves. 
 Better teaching and better methods have al- 
 ready done much to meet this demand. The 
 vast improvement in the mode of classical 
 training in our schools, the addition of in- 
 struction in elementary science, the courses 
 in English, superior to those in most of our 
 colleges twenty years ago, are signs of the 
 better era. Before long we shall also learn 
 that time can be saved in the earlier educa- 
 tion of boys and girls. The absurdly exag- 
 gerated prominence given to arithmetic, for 
 example, will be corrected, with a consequent 
 
72 
 
 saving of much valuable time. Still better 
 methods of teaching English and History will 
 save more, and with the diffusion of the ad- 
 vanced methods of classical teaching now in 
 use in our best schools, there is every reason 
 why the average age of entrance to college 
 should be reduced by at least an entire year, 
 unless, indeed, the colleges shall insist, mis- 
 takenly, upon an advance, pari passu, of their 
 requirements, in the face of what seems to be 
 a reasonable popular demand. 
 
 But it will never be possible to develop 
 the general high school, or the correspond- 
 ing private school, in its necessary relations to 
 the public, to a point where it can take the 
 place of the earlier college years. Much less 
 will it be possible to furnish in any school 
 that atmosphere or influence which constitutes 
 so important an element in the value of a 
 college training. The college alone can ac- 
 complish the desired result, and the American 
 college will do it more successfully, because 
 of the influences of the strictly university por- 
 
73 
 
 tion of its curriculum on the prescribed work, 
 and because of the presence among the 
 younger students of those pursuing the broader 
 and more independent work of the upper 
 classes. 
 
 There is some question as to the time in 
 the course when the methods of university 
 study will supplant those appropriate to the 
 college. The probabilities point now to the be- 
 ginning of our present Junior year, — or even 
 to the middle of the Sophomore. At least it 
 seems assured that the type of college toward 
 which we are moving will combine with about 
 two years of prescribed work an entirely elec- 
 tive course of two years more, — that all pre- 
 scribed study, and all work in large classes, 
 will fall below the period now marked by the 
 beginning of the Junior year, — and that beyond 
 that time the student will be left absolutely 
 free in his choice among a large number of 
 electives, in some of which he will do inde- 
 pendent work with the minimum of the con- 
 straint essential in the preparatory years. A 
 
74 
 
 broader basis of scholarship, higher ideals of 
 student life, and larger facilities in our col- 
 leges, will make possible what now would be, 
 in most of our institutions, an encouragement 
 of superficiality and ignorance. 
 
 It is not forgotten that there are colleges 
 which already closely approximate this general 
 ideal, but no one familiar with our educa- 
 tional literature will think that there is any- 
 thing like a settled plan in the movement. It 
 has been largely a hap-hazard advance, — one in- 
 stitution following another, and all influenced 
 most largely by the example of Harvard. 
 But the signs of the times indicate that the 
 future college will be a definite union of 
 the two systems now united in an indefinite 
 and chaotic way. Now we are trying, too 
 frequently, to do university work on the 
 basis of the crude preparation of the student 
 fresh from the school. Then we shall have 
 a secure foundation, a thorough training, — bet- 
 ter at eighteen years of age than it was at 
 twenty a quarter of a century ago. 
 
75 
 
 Nor, again, has it been forgotten that Har- 
 vard College, which has been the chief influence, 
 thus far, in the movement of the new education, 
 has recently suggested a new line of possible 
 development in the shortening of the college 
 course. It is perhaps too soon to speak with 
 definiteness on a yet unsettled point, but if the 
 movement shall succeed at Cambridge it does 
 not seem possible that it can be followed by 
 any influential number of American colleges. 
 It may hasten the day when Harvard shall 
 throw off" all that is distinctively characteris- 
 tic of a college, and make itself a univer- 
 sity, in every sense, but it is impossible — at 
 a time when the general cry is for a higher 
 standard of American scholarship, — it is im- 
 possible that the leaders of our American col- 
 leges shall consent to a step which would 
 imply, if it became general among them, the 
 lowering of requirements for the Baccalaureate 
 degree, and the reduction of the college to- 
 ward the grade of the preparatory school. 
 And even if the alternative were possible, and 
 
76 
 
 the Freshman work were to be demanded 
 from the schools, it still would remain true, 
 as has just been said, that the failure of the 
 school to give the college influence would 
 be a distinct loss to education. But the 
 public would not tolerate such an increased 
 curriculum in the school, and the colleges 
 generally cannot consent to a diminution of 
 their work. The Harvard plan is not yet all 
 seen, but it cannot be a plan for the Ameri- 
 can college. 
 
 There will be exceptions to the type de- 
 scribed. Some colleges will confine them- 
 selves entirely to university methods of in- 
 vestigation and instruction, but of necessity 
 they will be few. For many a year there will 
 not be demand enough to warrant the effort 
 to maintain more than a very few universi- 
 ties. The number of students in America who 
 can give the time to the more advanced work 
 is small now, and will not be large, probably 
 for years to come, and if the American col- 
 lege generally is allured by the example of 
 
77 
 
 these exceptional institutions the result will 
 be disastrous to a sound education in col- 
 lege and university alike. The most opti- 
 mistic observer knows that among the uni- 
 versity students at these various centers are 
 many whose training does not warrant them 
 a place in a true university. 
 
 The mass of our best colleges will do the 
 double work of college and university, and 
 will thus meet the general demands of Ameri- 
 can scholarship. The strong foreign influence 
 which we have been feeling will decrease. 
 Even if the suspicion does not arise that the 
 university system of Germany in much of 
 its detail is not an ideal system of education, 
 the conviction will grow that it is not fitted 
 to the conditions of our American life ; that 
 its best features may be appropriated and en- 
 grafted on our present system without the 
 absurdly illogical effort to convey the Ger- 
 man university to a land which has not the 
 German gymnasium. Scholars from the Ger- 
 man university frequently declare that they 
 
78 
 
 attended the lectures but little and devoted 
 themselves to the seminar. Our coming uni- 
 versity, it is to be hoped, will make more 
 use of this most potent engine of advanced 
 education, in which the free intercourse of 
 teacher and student may be ideal in its ad- 
 vantages, and less of the method of lectur- 
 ing which many seem to think the chief fea- 
 ture of a university, but which, as a method, 
 is of least profit to the student. And yet 
 the introduction of this method of instruction 
 even for immature students seems thus far to 
 have been one of the chief results of the 
 work of over-zealous advocates of imitation 
 of foreign methods. We must better the 
 American school, we must advance the Ameri- 
 can college, and we must have the Ameri- 
 can university ; but while we learn from 
 others we need not be imitators, and in our 
 eagerness for a high standard of education 
 we should not forget that we are educating, 
 not an abstract person, but a boy and girl 
 
79 
 
 who are products and part of the peculiar 
 life of America. 
 
 What relation has all this to the future of 
 the Woman's College ? It is the indication 
 of what that future shall be. 
 
 The question as to whether women shall 
 have the same kind of education as men is 
 still regarded by some as an open one. No 
 one, however, has yet given good evidence 
 that the broad requirements essential for the 
 mental training of a boy are less essential 
 for the groundwork of the mental life of wo- 
 manhood. The high school and academy 
 discover no such differences as to demand 
 different training, and the college, in the view 
 here presented, will develop those lines of 
 work to an extent warranting the belief that 
 the student may be left to independent choice. 
 The elective system will thus meet any fan- 
 cied demands for variety in woman's train- 
 ing, but on the foundations solidly laid, and 
 not, as of yore, on a groundwork of superfi- 
 ciality and unestablished theory. 
 
8o 
 
 Indeed, one product of the coming genera- 
 tion of woman's education will doubtless be 
 the conviction among educators, already 
 largely prevailing, that in education we have 
 one problem, not two, a problem concerning 
 the welfare of a personality, and on its men- 
 tal side involving no discussion of differences 
 broad enough, or definite enough, to warrant 
 a consideration of different methods or cur- 
 ricula. The crude hypotheses of the past still 
 survive, but they are rapidly ceasing to be 
 working hypotheses, and the products of our 
 women's colleges will soon give them their 
 death-blow. 
 
 What shall be the extent of the curricu- 
 lum of the future college ? Its sole limita- 
 tions shall be those compelled by the time 
 of the course and by the maturity of the 
 student. 
 
 The fact that we deal with comparatively 
 immature minds needs to be urged upon the 
 attention of many of our modern dreamers. 
 The danger of the young specialist is too 
 
8i 
 
 often seen in practice to need much emphasis 
 here. A well-known teacher in a leading 
 university has recently remarked upon the 
 spectacle presented by his own graduates, 
 specialists, introducing into high schools the 
 methods of the university, — a sight familiar 
 •enough to those who know the schools, and 
 suggestive of a certain danger in immature 
 specializing of work not enough considered, 
 the danger of divorcing the interest of the 
 young specialist from a general education. 
 For, after all has been said, the mere spe- 
 cialist is in no sense a well educated man. 
 We may be thankful that there are men wil- 
 ling to spend a life on the dative case, but 
 Heaven forefend us from the conception of 
 education which is based on such examples, 
 or finds its ideals in such narrow specialism. 
 The curriculum of the American college 
 will continue to aim at a general education, 
 and at a moderate amount of specialism on 
 the basis of such a broad training. It will 
 train the average scholar, and its graduate 
 
82 
 
 courses and the general universities will open 
 the way to the fullest development of the 
 specializing tendencies of the few. 
 
 It has already been intimated that the cur- 
 riculum of the earlier college years must fol- 
 low the lines of the subjects everywhere rec- 
 ognized as essential to liberal training, — lan- 
 guage and literature and history, science and 
 philosophy. That is not affirming that these 
 must be doled out after the methods for- 
 merly current. That all of these will be re- 
 quired seems axiomatic, but there is room 
 within these requirements for a larger free- 
 dom than has been customary. 
 
 Observation and experience may have de- 
 monstrated that a general education demands 
 some scientific training, but it is not shown 
 thereby that every boy or girl shall study 
 Botany. Linguistic training is essential, but 
 not training in two particular languages. And 
 to study history does not necessarily mean the 
 study of Greece and Rome only. Prescrip- 
 tion, that is, may grow in very definite lines and 
 
83 
 
 not be the same for all. But whether by an 
 old-fashioned prescribed system, or by a modi- 
 fied group system suited to the capacity and 
 needs of young students, the college must 
 hold the student to a definite education in 
 these old lines that represent the mental and 
 moral needs of human nature, or it will fail 
 to give a broad and well balanced training, 
 or to open to the mind the great vistas of 
 knowledge, — and surely these are among the 
 most precious results of education. 
 
 Nothing save time and want of money need 
 limit the elective system based on this train- 
 ing and filling the two remaining years. 
 New subjects of investigation will appear ; 
 there will be room for all. One who recalls 
 the subjects that have enriched our curricula 
 within twenty-five years, must have larger 
 hope for the coming quarter of a century. 
 How many colleges of that time offered the 
 study of History, even for a single year? 
 Probably not half a dozen presented the 
 subject of Quaternions. English Literature 
 
84 
 
 was scarcely known among them. Biology- 
 was unheard of, and indeed has not yet con- 
 quered its place in most. When one reflects, 
 on the wealth of opportunity now afforded at 
 our leading colleges, the various courses in 
 English, the special departments within every 
 special science, the philological work offered 
 in connection with both ancient and modern 
 languages, the broad extension of the courses 
 in history, the altogether new phases of psy- 
 chological problems, the awakening interest in 
 Biblical study, the attractive courses in music 
 and art, one sees that all the cycle of knowledge 
 will be open to the students of the future,, 
 and that their limits, even within the four 
 years of a college course, will be only those 
 of their own capacity. Young people of 
 twenty will never be able to do the work 
 of those of forty, whatever their improve- 
 ment and opportunities, but they will do 
 much better work at twenty than they did 
 who passed out of college twenty years ago. 
 Not only will they be broader scholars, and 
 
85 
 
 illustrate the results of a better system of 
 mental training, but they will be sustained 
 and invigorated by a rational training of the 
 physical powers. The curriculum will come 
 ♦nearer to the old Greek ideals than did that 
 of our fathers, but we shall surpass that, 
 for in our modern Christian civilization the 
 college will recognize the spiritual nature of 
 man in a sense unknown to the ancient 
 world, and will adapt itself to its require- 
 ments. A healthful body, a vigorous, well- 
 trained mind, a spiritual nature balanced and 
 strong, a whole manhood, a symmetrical 
 womanhood, will be the aim of the higher 
 education of the coming age. 
 
 But in this progress, what of the Woman's 
 College? Can it maintain a like intellectual 
 grade with the colleges for men ? 
 
 Observe that this is not primarily a ques- 
 tion which regards the quality of students. 
 In that respect it has answered itself, in 
 schools, in colleges, at home and abroad ; 
 woman has demonstrated her capacity to 
 
86 
 
 maintain her place as a student beside her 
 more favored brother. The question con- 
 cerns the ability of a Woman's College to 
 maintain a Faculty of intellectual rank equal 
 to that of the college for men. Is the, 
 question a real one ? Let it be freely ad- 
 mitted that the problem for woman is com- 
 paratively new, and that the ideal of the 
 average woman student as to the grade of 
 scholarship needed in a college may not, as 
 yet, be sufficiently high. But let us deal 
 also with facts on the other side. The 
 number of excellent scholars is small, and 
 the number of great scholars who are also 
 great teachers is very small. There is an 
 abundance of good scholarship, however, 
 among men, and although there is much 
 less among women, the advance is rapid, and 
 it should be remembered that the commer- 
 cial worth of it is greatly less than in the 
 case of men. Very, very few places bid for 
 the scholars among women, but they are 
 increasing, — both the scholars and the places. 
 
87 
 
 It has taken time to learn that a college 
 training is not the precise equivalent of 
 broad scholarship, that a special and extensive 
 study, not in the one line merely, but in 
 cognate lines of research, is essential to pro- 
 ficiency, and to professional dignity and worth. 
 It will not be long, for example, before a 
 general study of Literature, in college, will 
 be universally felt to be insufficient for col- 
 lege instruction in English. And yet, even 
 here, be it remembered, the Woman's College 
 has no reason to be humble before the 
 colleges for men. 
 
 But now, given the scholarship, who shall 
 say that the training will be inferior to that 
 in other colleges, — that the refined, accurate, 
 discerning mind of woman shall not rival in 
 teaching power the best of her colleagues 
 among • men ? And why shall she be less in 
 that mightiest and most persistent influence 
 that the true teacher exerts, — the influence 
 of character, — the awakening, inspiring force 
 of mind to kindle, stimulate, and recreate 
 
88 
 
 the ideals which govern the destinies of his 
 students ? What possible quality of the true 
 teacher is wanting in the scholarly, inspiring, 
 and inspired woman ? The world has been 
 slow to regard woman's education seriously, 
 but the thoughtful man knows that the quali- 
 ties of woman's mind have made her pre- 
 eminently a teacher, and that with the broader 
 opportunities of our day, with scholarship 
 equal to the best, there can be no question 
 of the maintenance in women's colleges of 
 standards as high, as exacting, and as thor- 
 oughly maintained, as those in our older in- 
 stitutions for men. If the argument thus far 
 concerns women only, it is because the fear 
 of the fearful is directed to that point. But 
 the chairs in women's colleges are open to 
 men as well as to women. The supply is 
 abundant. What shall forbid the woman's 
 college from commanding the best talent 
 among men, as well as among women ? It 
 is chiefly a question of endowments, — and en- 
 dowments will come. The day will come, as- 
 
89 
 
 suredly, when the wealthy women of America 
 will awake as two or three of them, and 
 more men, have awakened, to the claim upon 
 them of this great work of the education of 
 their sex. They will come to see how largely 
 the hope of the future of America lies here, 
 and with that awakening will come every 
 possibility to the woman's college possessed 
 by those for men. Indeed, be it said, that 
 to-day, even with present resources, their 
 facilities for work are beyond those of the 
 average college for young men. 
 
 It is alleged, however, that it will be im- 
 possible to keep the best talent in these col- 
 leges, — that they are isolated, and the oppor- 
 tunities open to the teacher are thus few. 
 The objection is somewhat amusing to one 
 who knows the situations of the major num- 
 ber of our strong American colleges, and 
 who knows the easy access to considerable 
 cities, to say nothing of New York, Bos- 
 ton, and Philadelphia, enjoyed by the larger 
 colleges for women. A certain isolation comes 
 
90 
 
 indeed to every busy worker, even in a large 
 city. But this ojection will be even less true 
 than now, as these college communities grow 
 and make their own distinctive society, while 
 at easy distances the great libraries, art gal- 
 leries, and scientific collections of our largest 
 cities furnish every desired opportunity for 
 special work. 
 
 Doubtless the best faculty can always be 
 secured and kept, where it can be paid, and 
 where it has opportunity of usefulness, — and 
 where can there be greater, to one who looks 
 deeply, than here ? 
 
 We are thus led to ask one more ques- 
 tion as to the future of the Woman's Col- 
 lege, — what of its social conditions ? 
 
 The primary question here is precisely that 
 which is agitated by the colleges for men, — 
 the necessity of the dormitory, or the leaving 
 of the student to provide for himself. One 
 woman's college began on the latter plan, 
 and found it unfeasible. It must be ac- 
 cepted as true for young women, at least, 
 
91 
 
 that when away from their homes they must 
 have a home. The demands of society for 
 some kind of chaperonage are just and nec- 
 essary. No right feeling parent can send his 
 daughter into such social conditions as may 
 seem possible for the son. 
 
 It may be urged, also, that the true col- 
 lege spirit cannot be gained where the students 
 are scattered. That spirit is no inconsider- 
 able part of the education of the young, 
 and it certainly depends on some central gath- 
 ering place for social relations. The dormi- 
 tory would, therefore, seem a desirable and 
 needful part of the social life of the woman's 
 college of the future. 
 
 Shall it be the large building or the "cot- 
 tage " ? Both. There are great advantages to 
 be claimed for both. A real cottage sys- 
 tem, a cottage accommodating a small family, 
 is impossible because of the expense involved, 
 and the real issue is between a large house 
 and a great building. Because both will meet 
 certain demands, both will continue to form 
 
92 
 
 part of the future college. No method is 
 ideal, but the " caravansary " plan, to use the 
 opprobrious term which has begged and fal- 
 sified the whole question, has been found full 
 of good for the average student. With a 
 room to every student, the large building 
 bears well the tests of comfort, quiet, and 
 health. It renders the gathering of the body of 
 students easy, and access to libraries, lectures, 
 concerts, chapel, comfortable. These advantages, 
 combined with the saving of expense, will pro- 
 bably make the large building a common 
 feature of the college, while the popular 
 demand for smaller houses will render them 
 also a part of the equipment of these insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 But these will not complete the social fa- 
 cilities of the woman's college. The distinct- 
 ive college community, the homes of men 
 and women connected with the institution, 
 will soon begin to cluster in the neighbor- 
 hood of the college with the inestimable 
 advantages of a refined society, embraced in 
 
93 
 
 homes distinct from the college building, 
 open to the students, and adding a normal 
 element to their lives, — and affording to in- 
 structors a variety quite impossible where all 
 are under the roofs of college buildings. 
 Too much stress cannot be laid upon this 
 phase of our development, sure to be accom- 
 plished in the immediate future. The social 
 tone of a woman's college must possess a re- 
 finement not so absolutely required in a man's. 
 Society itself, in the best meaning of the 
 word, depends far more on the culture and 
 influence of gracious womanhood than on any 
 power of men. More care is therefore essential 
 in providing the environment of cultivation dur- 
 ing college years, and this can be normally se- 
 cured, in large part, by the presence of a dis- 
 tinctively college community beyond the college 
 walls. The woman's college will forfeit the 
 good will of society, and justly, when it forgets 
 that the education of womanhood means more 
 than the training of the mind to useful thought; 
 and indirectly, never directly, surely in these col- 
 
94 
 
 lege years, the woman's college must always 
 cultivate with care the graces and proprieties of 
 social life. It will fail of its high purpose if 
 it ever makes its aim the education of the 
 teacher, the physician, the business woman. 
 Its high aim is to educate womanhood, — wo- 
 manhood trained in body, mind, and spirit, — 
 womanhood for the school, the sick-room, 
 the social circle, the church, the home, — the 
 woman, who, whatever else she may be, scho- 
 lar, teacher, journalist, business-manager, wife, 
 mother, — is first of all, and last of all, the re- 
 fined true woman. 
 
 What shall be the attitude of Vassar Col- 
 lege in view of the progressive movement ? 
 
 Let its past answer. Despite the insuf- 
 ficient understanding at times of the great 
 problem, justly, termed an experiment, we 
 may yet claim that a steady progress has 
 characterized the educational ideals and labors 
 of the college, that with an income never 
 sufficient to justify rapid advance, and gener- 
 ally insufficient to meet running expenses, 
 
95 
 
 every department of the college stands on a 
 much higher level than was possible ten 
 years ago. Its work has been not merely 
 honest and thorough, it has been progressive. 
 It has justified the noble purpose of its 
 founder, and its history makes his splendid 
 gift one of the glories of philanthropy. 
 
 If it has accomplished such results in its 
 pioneer years, when it has met misconcep- 
 tions, and even base slanders, if it has 
 struggled on bravely, doing its work soundly 
 and carefully, and proving its soundness by 
 its fruits, — then what may we not hope for 
 in the better day which is dawning, and from 
 the fuller appreciation of the weighty import- 
 ance of our labors ? If, with scanty funds 
 and danger of debt ever before us, we have 
 established a college on firm foundations, 
 what shall we not hope from the coming 
 years, and the large endowments they will 
 bring? New friends will arise to supplement 
 the efforts of the old. New buildings, new 
 laboratories, new libraries, will grow about us. 
 
96 
 
 Professorships will multiply. Social life will 
 become fuller and richer. And with all this 
 increase will come in growing numbers the 
 graduate student to pursue here her special 
 studies, or with this as a basis and a home, 
 to follow out her chosen lines among the 
 libraries and museums and scientific collec- 
 tions of the neighboring metropolis. 
 
 What shall be our limit? The ambition 
 of the Honorable Board, which has so wisely 
 guided the destinies of the college ? The 
 past is the answer. The aims and ideals of 
 the Faculty ? They have not yet been approx- 
 imately realized. In the desires and loyalty 
 of the Alumnae ? They cannot be surpassed. 
 All are our pledge to the future that Vas- 
 sar College, in hearty accord with its sister 
 institutions, shall labor for the broadening 
 and lifting of the life of womankind, and 
 thereby of the entire race, and so shall it 
 more than realize the high thought of its 
 founder, Matthew Vassar. 
 
OVERDUE. = 
 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY