Extract From the Report a: SBS ry. PRESIDENT JOHN FRANKLIN GOUCHER To the Annual Meeting of The Board of Trustees of : ie | The Woman's College of Baltimore &; INCEPTION ‘The purpose to create a great school of highest college grade, for the education of women as women, to be located in Baltimore and under the general direction of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church, had its birth in the summer of 1883. After a vigorous and protracted debate running through three days, the Baltimore Annual Conference at its session in March, 1884, gave the project its endorse- ment, provided the Committee should secure at least $200,000 before it incorporated. ‘This condition was met and The Woman's College of Baltimore was incorporated in 1885. The Start The plans were patiently formulated, the nucleus of a faculty carefully selected, the main building completed and the College opened September 13, 1888, with thirty-nine students, only four of whom were of Freshman grade; a fifth entered later and these five constituted the first graduating class in 1892. August 31, 1904, the College closed her ; sixteenth year of organized work and attained to the age of legal consent, a modest, comely and vigorous maiden, universally admired and confided in wherever known. Infancy The sixteen years of her infancy were years of experi- ment, organization, probation and achievement. EXPERIMENT Had the management of ‘The Woman’s College of Baltimore been willing to ignore the essential facts of woman’s nature, and been unmindful of woman’s essential functions to the race and to society, or had they been satis- fied with less than the greatest excellence attainable, or had they attempted to provide only another college of the same pattern as those organized and maintained to meet the demands which business and society make upon young men, but to which young women should be admitted ; that is, had they attempted to establish another man-making college for woman-making purposes, their prop- osition had been very different and less questioned. Even then it would have required the experiment and a demon- stration to remove the deep-rooted and generally enter- tained doubt as to its being possible or desirable to develop and maintain a college for women in the southland. The area of this doubt was widened and its gravity increased by the purpose to develop a great college specifically for women, Christian in ideal and atmosphere, which should sacrifice nothing of thoroughness, nor lower in the least the highest standards anywhere attained, yet so adjust and co-ordinate the work and conditions that all would tend to develop womanly women, qualified to be a helpmeet for man at his best. ORGANIZATION Three difficulties in particular confronted the organi- zation. ‘These pertained to the location, equipment and finance. Complications 2 The location is in the South where there were no established ideals of serious and sustained intellectual work for women, no demand for college-bred women, no system of schools, public or pri- vate, leading up to college entrance, while the traditions and customs were averse to lengthened years of prepara- tion before young women enter society. The equipment included among other things the designing and construction of buildings, the defining and co-ordinating of the courses of study with reference to the clearly defined purpose, the selection of a faculty in which the specialist and Christian personality should be combined with experience and apt- ness to teach, the development of a student atmosphere, thoroughly sane, reverent and Christian, the providing for and regulation of physical exercise and the social life, the procuring of the most modern and most accurate scientific apparatus, the gathering, from all parts of the world, of books, manuscripts and other material suitable to illus- trate history, sociology, literatures and the physical sci- ences, and further it required the securing of a steady supply of students through the cultivation and develop- ment of secondary, or preparatory schools for girls, as feeders, which should so combine thoroughness and com- prehensiveness, drill and inspiration as to develop ability and desire for the most advanced college training. More serious than the absence of ideal and demand, harder than developing the equipment, gathering the apparatus and illustrative mate- rial or regulating the physical and social conditions, more Location Equipment Finance 3 difficult than stimulating the desire and securing adequate preparation for such work, has been the financial problem. Had this been simplified, the results in the other directions would have been multiplied. Competition to be successful must not be upon a lower plan of equipment and eficiency than that with which it would compete. “To start Ihe Woman’s College of Baltimore with an equip- ment which would command confidence when compared with the equipment, plus the prestige which the best col- leges had acquired through years of growth, was expensive. It required many hundreds of thousands of dollars. “These funds had to be procured from a limited constituency with- out phenomenal wealth or exceptional liberality, for an object untried, and concerning which the demand was seriously questioned. Essentials PROBATION The undertaking was not greeted with a hearty welcome or cordial sympathy. There were exceptions to this, notable and never to be for- gotten, but the usual attitude was indifference and in some quarters the College was considered an intruder, a protest and an impertinence, and her reception was not unlike that accorded to a girl baby in caste-curst-India. She was required to struggle for her existence within conditions of exceptional severity, sometimes covertly or openly intensified by those who might have been expected to befriend her. She was kept upon a most keenly scru- Reception 4 tinized and severely criticised probation and approval was withheld till her success was demonstrated. : She was never heard to complain of her Devotion to conditions, but patiently, persistently and Ideal prayerfully adhering to her ideal, she made it her one business to grow in excellence and demon- strate her efficiency. ACHIEVEMENTS Nor have her achievements been few or insignificant. She has acquired six acres of ground in the best residential part of the city, mid- way between the future home of the Johns Hopkins Uni- versity and the Peabody Conservatories of Music and Art, and has erected nine buildings, second to none in the country for the purposes for which they were designed. Her faculty, numbering twenty-four, is composed of specialists of exceptional acquirements, devotion and effi- ciency. Property f The teaching staff during the past six- Teaching teen years has included fifty-seven, of Staff whom she never failed to retain any one she desired to have continue, except when the separa- tion was caused by ill health or marriage. As she stands for womanliness, she would not discourage any teacher from finding her natural and highest adjustment. Twenty- one members of the faculty have married and one has died. One-third of the present staff has been with the College ever since their departments were differentiated. She has on her shelves or in her cabinets over one hundred and twenty thousand specimens of historic or scientific value, collected from all parts of the world for illustrative use in the various departments of her work. The apparatus is modern and has been steadily increased as the demands of her developing work have required. Leading biologists have said that she has the best equipped Biological Laboratory for college work in the United States. Her Chemical and Physical Laboratories are also well equipped. Stud There were thirteen hundred and thir- ludems teen students in attendance during these sixteen years, representing nearly every state and terri- tory in the country and many foreign nations. Four hundred and sixty-nine prepara- Preparatory hools | ted her standards Saree tory schools have acceptec st are pleased to meet her requirements, and have sent of their graduates to her entrance classes. Very many of these schools were required to strengthen their faculties, improve the quality of their instruction and increase the quantity of their work before they were accepted as certificating schools. The Girls’ Latin School has been created and developed during this time and no school of its class outranks it, is doing better work nor has a brighter future. Illustrative Material Apparatus Five hundred and twenty-five of her students have been advanced to the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the thir- teen classes she has graduated, and these are making excel- 6 Bachelors of Arts lent records in the widely scattered communities where they live. Seventy-nine of these were in the class gradu- ated last June. Over ninety of the four hundred and Post-Graduate forty-six who had graduated previous to Work last June have pursued at least one year of post-graduate work in the leading universities and tech- nical schools of Europe and America, some with great dis- tinction and all with credit to themselves and their Alma Mater. Last year the University of Heidelberg conferred upon one of them the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, magna cum laude. But once before had that University conferred that honor upon a woman. ‘The University of Chicago recognized the excellent work of another by con- ferring the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, also, magna cum laude. To the thirty-two who have attended Columbia, Pennsylvania, Chicago, Cor- nell, Yale and the Bryn Mawr Graduate Department, twelve fellowships have been awarded by these institu- tions, and the winning of other fellowships, graduate scholarships and other honors both in Europe and America has been of frequent occurrence. ‘Twenty-six have taken their second degree and in some cases their third degree, and it has been asserted by uni- versity men that from no other college does so large a percentage of its women graduates pursue post-graduate Fellowships Second Degree work. Phi Beta Kappa, organized in 1776, a purely literary and honorary fraternity, jealously guarding its reputation by most careful scrutiny of the quality of the institutions to - which it gives chapter privileges, at the last session of its Council granted a chapter to The Woman’s College of Baltimore. “The Woman’s University Club of New York City welcomes the Woman’s College alumne. One hundred and sixty of her graduates were teaching during the past year, twenty-five in colleges, sixty in high schools, and seventy- five in private schools, academies and grade schools. In Barnard College, in Vassar, in The Woman’s College of Baltimore, in Columbia University, in the Woman’s Col- lege of Lucknow, India, and in other colleges and schools less conspicuous but just as important, as well as in secre- tarial and other positions of trust they have made a good accounting of their attainments and personality. One is World Secretary of the Young Woman’s Christian Association with her office in London, another has been called to England to introduce Deaconess work among the Presbyterian churches of Great Britain. India, Japan, Syria and other mission fields are blessed through the devotion and saintly living of others. Phi Beta Kappa Teachers Missioners But perhaps nowhere are her graduates exerting a more hallowed and normal influence than in the marital relation. Over one hundred have married and in consecrated homes are performing the highest functions of life. Those who have not yet 8 Marriage attained to this highest adjustment, as. well as those who have, are giving their lives, with their acquirements of knowledge and attainments of culture to acts of charity and works of benevolence, and are a vital, constructive force in home, church and society. Wherever they are confronted by serious or unusual problems or conditions, their eficiency is demonstrated. “These things have been true of all her graduates, with scarcely an exception. Her experimental stage is passed; her probation has been accomplished, for by her achievements she has been judged; her graduates are welcomed, honored and sought wherever they are known and worth is appreciated. Demonstration Her organization is endorsed by word Endorsement and patronage, as well as by that most subtle and most genuine of all commendations, imitation. The ideals of The Woman’s College of Baltimore are gaining ground in high educational centres all over the land, so much so that there has been many a modification, more or less radical, in leading institutions, and in the attitude of prominent discussions in regard to the college education of women, the trend of which is toward the ideal and methods which The Woman’s College of Balti- more was created to conserve and illustrate. ‘There is very much yet to be done not Further Bey elopiient by abandonment of any ideal for which she has contended, but by the enlarge- ment and natural development of that which she has already commenced. Everything is encouraging save her debt. The maiden has attained to her majority, able and 9 eager to serve, with a peculiar commission, a charming | personality, rare prestige and demonstrated efficiency. Her debt is the only discount upon her prospects for gracious and widening service. h Ouil To establish The Woman’s College of Cash Outlay Baltimore and The Girls’ Latin School of Baltimore, two great and entirely distinct institutions, each grading in the first rank of its class, and to accom- plish all which has been achieved in these sixteen initial years has required a cash outlay of $2,800,000; one-half of this sum, or $1,400,000, has been invested in ground, buildings, equipment and endowment, the other $1,400,000 has been spent for the running expenses and for interest. Deb Against the entire expenditure there is ept a debt of $459,000. None of this is chargeable to the running expenses of the College. All of it is chargeable to the land, buildings and original equip- ment. The debt of $459,000 is about fifteen per cent. of the total outlay for the twenty-one years since the enter- prise was first projected. ‘This is a deficit of less than one per cent. per annum of the entire outlay since the College commenced organized work sixteen years ago. The Woman’s College of Baltimore 1s fully justified by her past; $500,000 would make her present absolutely solid and secure her future beyond a peradventure. She needs other buildings, increased endowment and enlarged facilities to meet the demands which confront her and make good the promise of her youth. If the burden of the debt were removed she could wait for her natural growth to provide these. Necessities Io About sixteen per cent. of the investment already made is all that is between her and a superb life of perpetual and blessed ministry. ‘The disastrous fire of February last crip- pled her resources and retarded her progress. Baltimore is courageously reconstructing her places of business and sacrificing hero- ically to accomplish this. Is not the Christian training of her daughters the business of Christianity? Shall not chivalrous Baltimore and the generous Americans else- where, stewards of God who giveth the power to get wealth, do for The Woman’s College of Baltimore, with its responsibility for the Christian training of immortal souls, as well as they are doing for factories, mills, shops, stores and offices, given over to material things which perish in the using? I have no doubt it will be so. ‘There are evidences of it already. Of the $500,000 essential to the continued efh- ciency of the College, $100,000, or twenty per cent., has been pledged since the fire on condition that the other $400,000 are secured. In the judgment of many who have wide vision and accurate knowledge of the conditions, nothing more important nor more urgent can demand the sympathy, the generosity, the sacrifice of those who believe in God, in righteousness and in the judgment to come. Baltimore Fire Preferred Investment II