r 
 
 JtA&ohoY. 
 
 Of THE 
 CflVERSITy OF M.UfcWS 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 Founder's Day 
 Mount Holyoke College 
 
 'By 
 
 Rev. Henry Hopkins, D. D 
 
 President of Williams College 
 
THE POWER OF PERSONALITY 
 as ILLUSTRATED in MARY LYON 
 
 FOUNDER'S DAY ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. HENRY HOPKINS, D. D. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE 
 
 MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE 
 
 SOOTH HADLEY, MASS. 
 1902 
 

 M 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 OUNT Holyoke Seminary was opened on Nov. 
 8th, 1837, and Mary Lyon, the founder and 
 the principal, was permitted on that day to greet 
 eighty students. Founder's Day, now an annual 
 observance, is intended to keep alive the memory 
 of that event and the character and achievements 
 of the great woman who conceived the idea of this, 
 the first permanent institution for the higher educa- 
 tion of women in the country, and who had mainly 
 by her own exertions gathered the funds with which 
 to put up the building and launch the institution. 
 This year this event was observed at the College 
 on Friday, Nov. 7th, under delightful conditions. 
 
 4 The weather was perfect, there was a goodly 
 gathering of Trustees, Alumnae and friends, and 
 the audience that greeted the speaker of the day 
 in the Mary Lyon chapel at eleven o'clock filled 
 every available seat. It was a special felicity of 
 this occasion that Dr. Henry Hopkins, the recently 
 elected President of Williams College, was the guest 
 of honor and delivered the address. His subject 
 was ' ' The Power of Personality as Illustrated in 
 
 9.10999 
 
Mary Lyon," and it was treated in a most happy 
 and interesting way, holding the attention of every 
 one of his auditors from first to last. It presented 
 a fresh study of Mary Lyon, her character and 
 her achievements, which won the admiration of all. 
 The Trustees were so highly pleased with this 
 address that at their meeting in the afternoon it 
 was unanimously voted to ask a copy for publication. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 THE evolutionary trend of all our thinking is 
 bringing in a new era of enlightenment and 
 blessing. We are, however, in continual danger 
 of being swept away by this current from established 
 truths and vital principles. Having, for instance, been 
 made aware of the great, irresistible, universal, imper- 
 sonal causes that are molding and changing human 
 society, the present thought of our time is coming to 
 minimize and almost to count for nothing the individual 
 and personal element as a factor in these changes. As 
 the seasons march their round, so civilizations dawn 
 and darken ; cities, empires, rulers and races of men 
 rise and fall as the tides ebb and flow. The forces that 
 lift and lower humanity, that bring on and hinder the 
 better day, are cosmic forces. So be it ; but it is not 
 true that in the grasp of these we are powerless: it is 
 not true that in the presence of these it is idle to seek 
 to change anything, and that we are ourselves swept on 
 helpless by the mighty current. It is true that these 
 very forces, if they cannot be set aside or ignored by 
 us, can be made, and are being made, increasingly 
 co-operative with us. It is even true that the intelligent 
 fore-ordaining and creative will of man, working of set 
 purpose with God, is molding the forms and determin- 
 
ing the direction of evolution, the evolution of the 
 individual and the evolution of society. It is indeed 
 well for us to comprehend the sweep and movement of 
 the cosmic forces, and to be mindful always of the 
 limitations they impose upon us; but it is our special 
 business to understand the might of personality, and 
 the creative energy of the human will. 
 
 Prof. Henry Churchill King has given us a whole 
 philosophy of history in these words : "I count it an 
 axiom that the great facts of the world are persons, the 
 greatest facts the greatest persons, the supreme fact of 
 history the supreme person of history ; and I count it 
 indubitable that that supreme person is Jesus Christ." 
 Having in mind, then, this personal element in the 
 history of the world, we may surely say that it is a 
 salutary thing to remember the lives of those who have 
 been thus great, and have been the instruments of 
 bringing great changes into the world's life. To keep 
 the birthdays of the worthies, of patriots and leaders, 
 to listen to the lengthening roll-call of the heroes of the 
 faith, to remind ourselves of the toils and trials, the 
 tears and temptations, and of the triumphs of those who 
 have walked the earth where we dwell, and have looked 
 upon the scenes that are familiar to us : this is an edu- 
 cation. Nothing is finer than homage shown to a great, 
 noble, forceful human soul. Nothing is more worthy 
 than to remember and honor a pure and strong and 
 beneficent human life. I congratulate you, therefore, 
 upon the observance of Founder's day ; and in the 
 spirit of what I have said I invite you to some thoughts 
 connected with Mary Lyon herself, rather than to the 
 consideration of any abstract theme. 
 
The skylark's home is on the ground ; her first 
 glimpse of the blue heaven is through meadow grasses 
 from a lowly nest, but she soon learns to climb the skies. 
 The free air is her element ; far above the earth she 
 soars and sings, mounting higher and still higher on 
 tireless wing. The singing never ceases, and long 
 after the little speck in the zenith has been lost to sight 
 there still falls through the blue vault upon the en- 
 chanted listener, in globules of ecstatic song, rainbow 
 showers of melody ineffable. The singer has gone up 
 on high, but the singer is not silent ; the singer has 
 passed within the veil, but the song goes on. 
 
 Mary Lyon began life in an humble farm-house 
 among the Massachusetts hills. While she walked in 
 lowly paths of service, her spirit soared. She early 
 learned that she could climb to where the earth looked 
 far below. She knew how to work in the world and 
 live high above it, and it was her joy from heavenly 
 heights to shed down sweet influences. Although she 
 disappeared against the blue fifty-three years ago, the 
 music of her life falls upon thousands of open hearts 
 to-day. If I can gather up and bring to you some 
 broken fragments of that song, my object this morning 
 will be accomplished. 
 
 Who was Mary Lyon ? It would be inappropriate 
 in this place, where all the facts concerning her must 
 be familiar, to give more than the briefest outline of 
 her history. She was a teacher for thirty-five years of 
 more than three thousand young women ; a pioneer in 
 the higher education of women ; an originator of new 
 methods ; a Christian of humble spirit and flaming zeal , 
 
a devout student and a constant teacher of the Bible ; a 
 great promoter of revivals of true religion ; a leader in 
 missions, and withal a specimen of the noblest type of 
 womanhood. Her name is especially associated with 
 Mount Holyoke seminary, out of which in 1888 this 
 college grew. She was the founder of the seminary 
 and for twelve years its principal. The place of her 
 birth was Buckland, Mass., a little mountain farming 
 town. The year of her birth, 1797, was one of deep 
 and general religious feeling. Her mother was a woman 
 of intense religious nature and convictions. The Bible 
 was almost the one book, and the little red school-house 
 and the church were the only institutions. 
 
 In that mountain region she passed twenty years, 
 and there gained the vigorous health which character- 
 ized her. On that " wild, romantic little farm made," 
 as she says, " more to feast the soul than to feed the 
 body," she learned by youthful experience the maxims 
 of economy, self-denial, good taste, and benevolence 
 which she taught her pupils. She was trained to spin, 
 to weave, to dye, and to arrange the autumn stores for 
 winter use. At fifteen years she was housekeeper for 
 her brother. At seventeen she was teaching school, 
 "boarding around," at three dollars a month. She 
 overcame obstacles, she mastered herself. From school 
 to school she passed up to high attainments and useful- 
 ness; always unselfish, always aspiring, always eager 
 to learn more and to do better. Her teaching made 
 arithmetic, grammar and geography great studies. The 
 Bible as she taught it excited deeper and more universal 
 interest than any other study. Sometimes she herself 
 
studied twenty hours a day. She performed the feat of 
 committing the Latin grammar to memory in three 
 days. She calculated eclipses and made an almanac. 
 It is evident that she was unusually gifted, but she had 
 also a high aim, a strenuous purpose, a remorseless 
 industry. 
 
 To place the possibility of a thorough and a Christian 
 education within the reach of young women at length 
 became the controlling and absorbing motive of her life. 
 For this she sacrificed and planned ; for this she prayed 
 and labored through the years ; for this her enthusiasm 
 was quenchless, and it won. Her purpose, expressed 
 in her own words, was to provide " a permanent insti- 
 tution, consecrated to the work of training young women 
 to the greatest usefulness, and designed to be furnished 
 with every advantage which the state of education in 
 this country will allow ; to put within the reach of 
 students of moderate means such opportunities that 
 none can find better ones." Of these words it has been 
 truly said that they need no change to make them em- 
 body the advanced thought of to-day. 
 
 In 1836 the corner-stone of Mount Holyoke semi- 
 nary was laid. Upon this corner-stone, stooping down, 
 she wrote, " The Lord hath remembered our low estate." 
 In 1837 the institution was opened with eighty young 
 ladies, eighty others being refused for lack of room. 
 The second year one hundred were received and four 
 hundred turned away. By persistent, insistent, indomi- 
 table effort she raised for the school $70,000. 
 
 This was the first institution designed exclusively 
 for the higher education of women in this country, and, 
 
so far as I know, anywhere in the world. It was two 
 hundred years after the founding in this country of the 
 first college for men. She was certainly the leader in 
 the distinctive movement for the higher education of 
 women under direct Christian influences. Her intense 
 devotion to this end is expressed in her saying, " Had 
 I a thousand lives to give I could sacrifice them all in 
 suffering and hardship for the sake of Mount Holyoke 
 seminary." 
 
 This in briefest outline was her life. Notice in 
 like manner the wonderful results of this life. These 
 are, of course, seen first in the school out of which grew 
 directly the magnificent institution in whose midst we 
 are to-day. From that school there were two thousand 
 graduates. Eight thousand students were for a time 
 under its influence during the sixty years of its life. 
 Concerning the college I have no need to speak. 
 
 Results of her life are to be seen again in the influ- 
 ence exerted by her pupils. From under her care went 
 Mrs. Dascomb, for seventeen years lady principal of 
 Oberlin. The first lady principal of Vassar was also 
 her pupil. Miss Shafer and Miss Morgan at Wellesley 
 transmitted through Oberlin her influence. The first 
 president of Wellesley, Miss Ada L. Howard, was also 
 a graduate of Holyoke. Mr. Durant, the founder of 
 Wellesley, said that he got his first impulse toward the 
 founding of that college from Mary Lyon and her 
 teaching. Mr. Moody traces to Miss Lyon the estab- 
 lishment of his seminary at Northfield and Mount 
 Hermon. It is safe also to say that Dr. D. K. Pearson's 
 early association with Mary Lyon in this valley were 
 
largely influential in determining his princely benefac- 
 tions to Christian education. In many places, in our own 
 country, in far away Africa and in other lands there 
 are schools modeled after her plan and shaped by her 
 ideals. Hundreds of missionaries and of teachers and 
 Christian women in remote places went out carrying 
 with them the ideals and principles formed in the school 
 of which she was the head. 
 
 How do we estimate any woman's rank? Surely 
 the criterion must be effectiveness for good rather than 
 culture for culture's sake. We do not judge a person 
 as we would a statue, by pose, by lines and curves, but 
 primarily by the power to do. The highest beauty is 
 based upon, and must be subordinate to, use. This 
 may rule out from the first place the charming, accom- 
 plished, versatile woman of the club, or the brilliant and 
 graceful modern literary woman ; and it may be that 
 this would put in her place the quiet mother of a family 
 of boys and girls whom she has given to the world 
 physically vigorous, and in the whole range of their 
 faculties well endowed, whom she has trained so that 
 they are intellectually balanced and strong, morally 
 earnest and sound, and spiritually vital and aspiring. 
 That is noblest achievement. This would surely place 
 in the first rank the gracious, forceful, patient teacher 
 of whole ^fenerations of vouth. 
 
 It has been said of Mary Lyon that hers " was the 
 most fruitful life lived by any woman in the nineteenth 
 centur}'." How can we account for this permanent and 
 far-reaching influence? In part by the personal char- 
 acteristics of the woman herself. There was certainly 
 
in her a rare blending of qualities. She was not angular, 
 strong-minded and cold, but sweet and lovable. She 
 was possessed of a penetrating intellect, but also of a 
 large warm heart. She had a perpendicular conscience, 
 but also a genial nature. Her life overflowed with 
 personal sympathy. With a most buoyant temperament 
 she had also intense feeling and intense energy of body 
 and mind. She certainly combined traits which are 
 seemingly opposite, for she had abundant practical 
 talent and abounding spiritual power. She was 
 characterized by sterling common sense and mystical 
 piety, — common sense and piety, a combination that 
 made the Pilgrims and the Puritans successful ; that 
 made the missionary Oberlin in the Vosges successful ; 
 that is needed in every home missionary church and in 
 every city mission and every foreign field, also in every 
 school where personality counts for anything. 
 
 We find a reason for her influence in the character 
 of her ideals. " Rightness " was a great word with her. 
 The legend carved over her grave, "There is nothing 
 in the universe that I am afraid of but that I shall not 
 know and do all my duty," is the keynote of her great 
 life. Her benevolence was also the greatest, for it was 
 intensely personal, and yet as broad as the world. She 
 lavished her thought and kindness upon the weakest 
 and most unworthy of her pupils at the same time that 
 she sent her thought and efforts abroad to distant races. 
 The shafts of scorn cast against missions fell shattered 
 at the feet of such a representative as she of the true 
 Christian spirit. Sone one has called her the heroine 
 of altruism. This seems to me a weak and inadequate 
 
expression to characterize her most Christlike love. (I 
 submit, by the way, that that word altruism is largely 
 overworked in our time.) She was the representative 
 of him whose love burned low as the dust and who yet 
 embraced a race in his redemptive purpose. She was a 
 true follower of him who sought the one lost sheep on 
 the dark mountains and who also sent out his followers 
 to disciple all nations. 
 
 Her methods also account for the influence which 
 she possessed. One only I mention entirely philosophi- 
 cal and profoundly Christian. She believed in and used 
 the positive method. She would not allow a father to 
 tell her that his daughter had a single fault. She used 
 to say to her school, " I usually find young ladies worth 
 a great deal more than I expected ; when I am disap- 
 pointed once for the worse I am ten times for the better." 
 She had great success with sensitive girls ; her whole 
 policy was the opposite of criticism and fault-finding. 
 In her precepts to teachers, she said, "Never be in 
 haste to believe a pupil has done wrong ; never make 
 contemptuous remarks about scholars ; when children 
 have been accustomed to bad habits it is better to keep 
 a record of what is right than of what is wrong." 
 
 All greatest teachers have practiced this method. 
 Arnold found Rugby in a frightful condition. It was 
 considered clever and manly to do the basest things and 
 deceive the master about them. Dr. Arnold never 
 appeared for a moment to believe that he had been 
 cheated. He said practically : " Boys, I will not believe 
 in your depravity." Presently the boys were all saying, 
 
What a shame it is to lie to Arnold when he always 
 believes you." His faith in them burned up all of the 
 faithlessness in their hearts. 
 
 Mention has been made of the singleness of Mary 
 Lyon's aim. With her it was an entire devotion; it 
 was perfect consecration. One wonders whether Mr. 
 Moody could have thought of her, or of himself for that 
 matter, when he said, " The world has yet to see what 
 God can do with a fully consecrated person." It was 
 Martineau who said, in effect, " The mightiest instru- 
 ment in this lower world is a human soul cast into God's 
 hands, without doubt or fear, to be used at his pleasure." 
 As crowning all, the spirit of God dwelt in her as 
 the informing power. The life of God was the life of 
 her life. Body, mind and spirit were surrendered to the 
 molding and energizing presence of the spirit of God. 
 She was a God-inhabited woman. This without a 
 shadow of fanaticism she realized, and this without a 
 shadow of fanaticism we may believe. The possibility 
 of this is the foundation of all true religion. The 
 supreme power of her life lay just there; she was con- 
 sciously and really a worker together with God. She 
 was thus in correspondence with the central force of the 
 universe. We should be unfaithful to the supreme fact 
 in this wonderful life, and to Christian truth, if we did 
 not say that Mary Lyon was in living connection with 
 God through living faith in Jesus Christ. She was 
 what in electrical science is known as a "collector.'' 
 The lines of a force not her own were gathered up and 
 transmitted through her just as by a thousand wires, or 
 on wireless lines, electrical energy is sent abroad to the 
 ends of the earth, as light, heat, and power. 
 
We are in no danger of exalting too highly such a 
 character, of doing excessive honor to such a woman. 
 The aureole of saintship has been placed upon the heads 
 of many far less worthy of it. We do not kneel to pray 
 at her shrine, nor do we invoke her protection and 
 intercession for the seat of learning she founded, but 
 we thank God for her strong, holy and beautiful life, 
 for her wise, courageous and abiding work, and for the 
 perpetual influence, sweet and gracious, but always 
 positive, powerful and penetrating, which is to-day 
 purifying and molding other human lives. 
 
 Mount Holyoke college, enlarged and ennobled 
 beyond the highest thought of its founder, can yet find 
 for its glorious expanding life no loftier and truer ideal 
 than that which allured and inspired her, and can build 
 its great unfolding future upon no surer basis than the 
 fixed principles to which she was faithful. 
 
 Mount Holyoke college is the product, not of the 
 Zeitgeist, not of any impersonal evolutionary influence, 
 not of merely cosmic forces, but is rather the vital, 
 personal embodiment of the thought, life and love of a 
 multitude of thinking, living, loving persons of whom 
 Mary Lyon was first and chief. 
 

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