Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/fiftiethanniversOOvassrich The Fiftieth Anniversary of The Opening of Vassar College OSfober lo to 13, 1915 I? r^ Record Vassar College ^oughkeepsie 3^w York 1916 Copyright^ 1916, 63/ Vassar College Z). ^. Updike - The Merrymount Press - Boston ""And all thisfeste tyme lastyng the fairest wethir that evir sy Cristen man *' 336135 Foreword THE cycle of fifty years rounded out by the academic history of Vassar College seemed to close not so much in a spirit of pride as with a tacit acceptance of progress accom- plished and the serene will to achieve a larger future. Accordingly, the celebration of the an- niversary of the opening of the college had a constructive as well as a commemorative pur- pose. While affectionate remembrance of the Founder and of those who by their services helped to establish the early college was made abundantly evident, the backward glance was taken not in tribute alone, but also for the sake of estimate and comparison which should make the future structure secure. Essential facts of the past were turned to critical account; both change and evolution were suggested. At the same time a strong emphasis was placed upon the problems of the modern college. The general functions of the college, the true offices of learning, the relation of the college X FOREWORD with which the college of to-day, now grown to a full sense of power, united for creative effort, producing a celebration which was not only memorable in idea and purpose, but touched with beauty. Though the celebration was in truth a com- munity production, special acknowledgments are none the less due. All labors were light- ened by the liberal and discerning policy of the trustees as expressed through their committee, which gave free play to initiative and complete support to originality wherever manifested. The warmest appreciation must be accorded the general faculty committee for wise and thorough planning, and to num- berless individuals for the unsparing expendi- ture of forethought, time, and energy. To the chairman of the faculty committee, who for nearly two years guided with unfaltering en- thusiasm and inspiring skill the many-sided activities of preparation, hearty recognition has been given by common consent. These pages may also express the gratitude of the FOREWORD 3d college for certain acts of generosity on the part of anonymous donors. Through the gift of a friend and as a significant part of the cele- bration, the college is publishing a group of scholarly books written by alumnae of Vas- sar, known as the Semi-Centennial Series, which is to form a memorial of scholarship. A friend who perceived the possibilities of the site chosen for the production of the pageant gave to the college an open-air theatre of unique beauty and charm, which permitted a large hospitality and is now a lasting posses- sion. The pleasure of music, in the Russian Symphony concerts and the organ recital, was made possible through the generosity of an alumna. Indeed, every good gift was given. The co-operation of the college and its friends seemed at length to become a kind of friendly rivalry for the achievement of a common de- sign. Like all else in the plan for the celebration, this book, which seeks to record the events of the fiftieth anniversary, has been completed xii FOREWORD with the sanction and under the general di- rection of Miss Amy L. Reed, Chairman of the Faculty Committee, and Mr. George E. Dimock, Chairman of the Committee of Trus- tees. Constance Mayfield Rourke Chronicler Contents PAGE The Anniversary Sermon By William Herbert Perry Faunce, President of Brown University 3 The Anniversary Addresses Vassar's Contribution to Educational Theory and Practice, by James Monroe Taylor, President Emeritus of Vassar College 19 Spacious Days at Vassar, by Mary Augusta Jordan, Class of '76, Professor of English in Smith College 47 Geographical Research as a Field for Women, by Ellen Churchill Semple, Class of '82, of Louisville, Kentucky 70 The Highest Education for Women, by Julia Clif- ford Lathrop, Class of '80, Chief of the Children's Bureau, United States Department of Labor 81 New Aspects of Old Social Responsibilities, by Lil- lian D. Wald, of the Henry Sti'eet Settlement, New York City 96 Women and Democracy, by Emily James Putnam, Associate in History in Barnard College 109 The Inaugural Ceremonies Invocation, by Henry Mitchell MacCracken, Chan- cellor Emeritus of New York University 129 xiv CONTENTS The Inaugural Ceremonies {continued) The Inaugural Addresses: The Mystery of the Mind's Desire, by John H. Finley, President of the University of the State of New York and Commissioner of Education 131 The Scholar and the Pedant, by George Lyman Kittredge, Professor of English in Harvard Univer- sity 141 The Installation of President MacCracken, by Wil- liam Caldwell Plunkett Rhoades, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Vassar College 156 In the Cause of Learning, by Henry Noble Mac- Cracken, President of Vassar College 157 Salutations: Greeting: On Behalf of the Colleges for Women, by Mary Emma WooUey, President of Mount Hol- yoke College 174 Greeting : On Behalf of the Colleges for Women affiliated with Universities, by Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve, Dean of Barnard College 178 Greeting : On Behalf of the Universities, by Arthur Twining Hadley, President of Yale University 181 The Intercollegiate Student Conference 187 The Pageant of Athena 223 CONTENTS XV Other Features of the Celebration Vassar Milestones: A Play 249 The Historical Exhibition of Physical Training 258 The Alumnae Luncheon 261 The Alumnae Meeting 262 Music 265 Receptions 267 The Anniversary Dinners 268 Exhibits 289 The Semi- Centennial Series 300 The General Programme of the Celebration 303 Delegates 315 Committees 331 The Anniversary Sermon The Anniversary Sermon BY WILLIAM HERBERT PERRY FAUNCE President of Brown University I long to see you^ that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift. Romans i: 2. THERE is a striking and instructive contrast between the attitude of the Apostle Paul when planning his journey to the capital of the Roman Empire and the attitude of the poet Goethe when about to visit the same city. In Goethe's day the best of Rome was in ruins, but from earHest child- hood he had dreamed, by day and by night, of see- ing it. As at last he started on his journey south- ward, his enthusiasm was boundless. As he left the dark forests and chilly skies of Germany for the sunlit plains of Italy, he filled letters and journals with glowing anticipation. On arrival he wrote : Now I am here at my ease, and, as it would seem, shall be tranquilized for my whole life. All dreams of my youth I now behold realized before me. . . .1 rejoice when I think of the blessed effects of all this on the whole future of my being." That was a le- gitimate kind of enjoyment. Many of us have felt it. But the utterance is remarkable for what it neglects to say. Self-culture was Goethe's all-absorbing aim, and that aim was completely, tragically realized. 4 VASSAR COIJ.EGE CELEBRATION Seventeen centuries earlier another traveler was about to visit Rome, then not a mass of crumbling ruins, but still standing, all its temples crowded, all its streets bright with processions, all its palaces stored with the spoils of the world. And no temple or statue or palace apparently could impress him in the least. His moral passion left no place for aes- thetic delight. He had gotten far beyond self-devel- opment as the goal of life. Why was he going to Rome? ' ' I long to see you, ' ' he writes, * ' that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift." The American college, like the individual trav- eler, enters a world far older than itself, and faces a complex mass of contending forces, institutions dying or developing, ideas regnant or decadent. Does it stand here as mere absorber and consumer, or as producer and creator? Does it ask an alms, or offer a gift? Does it seek its own development in num- bers, architecture, endowment, visible , power, or does it hold all it possesses in trust for the struggling world ? Can it transmute endowments and gates and towers into spiritual gifts? Is it simply seeking to extract and assimilate, or is it an inspiring and creative power, the giver of things indispensable to national life? The early schools and colleges of America cer- tainly aimed at an impartation of spiritual life, even THE ANNIVERSARY SERMON 5 if sometimes in crude and mechanical ways. The ''New England Primer" taught New England children to read for one hundred and fifty years, and at the same time taught them the Decalogue and the Message of Israel. The schools of Massachusetts and Connecticut were simply an arm of the church. On the west gate of Harvard University is the quaint inscription which records the motive of the founders of our oldest college : "Dreading to leave an illiter- ate ministry to the churches when our present min- isters shall be in the dust." On the records of the oldest church in Rhode Island, in whose colonial meeting-house Brown University meets on Com- mencement Day, is this entry : ''Voted, to build a meeting-house for the pubhc worship of Almighty God and also to hold Commencements in." That junction of worship and study, that combination of intellectual enthusiasm and religious devotion, that view of the college as the bearer of spiritual guid- ance and inspiration, marked all the founders of the early New England colleges. Whatever may have been true of the universities of Pennsylvania and Virginia, the colleges of New England deliberately sought to impart a spiritual gift. They aimed not primarily at the discovery of truth, — what We now call research. They aimed not at the delights of an abstract and detached 6 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION culture. Imbued as they were with the spirit of Ox- ford, they never dreamed of creating in the Ameri- can wilderness a * ' home for lost causes and impos- sible ideals." The Ciceronian praise of studies that '* adorn prosperity and furnish refuge in adversity ' ' was dear to the Italian Renaissance, but not to the founders of America. Our founders aimed at the equipment of men as leaders of the national mind and conscience, as the givers of something invisible, imponderable, but invaluable to their generation. What was the gift of Mark Hopkins and Eliphalet Nott and Alice Freeman Palmer? What was it that proceeded from the chairs occupied by James Rus- sell Lowell and Maria Mitchell and Louis Agassiz and Charles E. Garman ? Something had happened in the souls of those men and women before they began to teach, and their students felt the vibration of the volcanic eruptions in the teachers' spirit. Why is it that out of obscure colleges, out of dilapidated buildings, and from professors in frayed garments have come the motive powers that have created American life? Because the college has been not a series of buildings, but a state of mind; not an in- genious curriculum, but an attitude toward life; not a conservatory for the elect few, but the impartation of spiritual ideals to the entire nation. The chief duty and opportunity of the colleges THE ANNIVERSARY SERMON r for women to-day lies in fidelity to this early concep- tion. Their chief business is to produce non-economic values and to emphasize intangible goods. The men's colleges have for various reasons, some good, some bad, departed from their original allegiance. The enthusiasm for applied science has led some of them to neglect all which cannot be subjected to laboratory experiment, and to forget that "Zi/^V bases rest Beyond the probe of chemic test.'*'* Some institutions no longer ' ' see life steadily and see it whole," but see it in microscopic fragments. Some of our famous scholars have divorced know- ledge from effort, retaining their intellectual curios- ity, but losing all power to construct. In other institutions for men the outlook has been narrowed by a narrow interpretation of the idea of vocation. Such schools have sent out lawyers who are not primarily interested injustice, and ministers who still conceive religion as retreat from the world. They have produced engineers who understand the strength of materials, but not the characteristics of human nature. They have given us employers who have little knowledge of the problems of labor, no developed social consciousness, nodesire to under- stand how the other half lives. They have given us 8 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION men of crude efficiency without spiritual vision, alive to the demands of their own business but not to the needs of America, men who began as office boys and ended by owning a large part of the earth and the fullness thereof. We have thus sometimes made the college an adjunct of swift commercial success, and have forgotten ' ' the last of life for which the first was made." Our women's colleges have never yet followed after these false gods. But with the entrance of women into fields of economic and industrial effort the same problems will come, the same temptation arise ; and it is right that we should on this quiet Sunday afternoon think of educated women as the bearers of a spiritual gift. I know we are often afraid of the word ' * spirit- ual." It seems to us perilously near the pietistic or the sanctimonious. The word scarcely has academic standing — the more 's the pity. But it is too fine and deep a word to lose out of academic halls. What do we mean by spiritual? Surely we mean the power to look behind the material semblance of an object, an event, a tendency, and perceive the spirit which informs it and gives it significance. We mean the power to look behind the red, white, and blue bunt- ing and see the flag ; to look behind the two sticks set at right angles and see the cross which is the THE ANNIVERSARY SERMON 9 hope of the world ; the power to look behind bayonets and howitzers and see the eternal battle of right and wrong ; the power to see life not as a confused ant- hill, but as an evolving City of God. Such a spiritual gift we need to-day in the realm of scholarship. We are sometimes troubled because the New Testament seems so nearly obUvious to the educational process and speaks of knowledge only as that which '^puffeth up." Perhaps if the New Testament writers could read some university theses presented to-day for the degree of Doctor of Philo- sophy, they would prefer to speak of knowledge as that which ''^ drieth up." When recently there was pubhshed a concordance to the works of Virgil, the fact was made known that in all the extant works of that poet the word et occurs over five thousand times. When this momentous fact was announced, a classical scholar wrote to the author of the con- cordance, congratulating him on his achievement, but complaining of one omission : he should have stated how many times in the works of Virgil et occurs before a consonant and how many times before a vowel. The Scribes and Pharisees live again in this pe- dantic and purposeless learning ; again they tithe their mint, anise, and cummin ; and it will avail us little to escape the tyranny of ecclesiastics if we are 10 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION to fall under the tyranny of the specialists. When womanhood with its swift intuition, its wealth of sympathy, its strong personal conviction, its asser- tion of the soul, enters the realm of scholarship, it ought to sweep before it all learned pettifogging, as the morning sun scatters the clinging mists. It should irradiate knowledge with the light of wis- dom, and should vitalize it with a great human purpose. It should prevent the older studies from becoming inhumanities, and correlate the newer studies with the entire Kingdom of the Spirit. The ancient Greek could not conceive the possibility of a separation of knowledge and virtue. To him beauty and truth and goodness were identical, and to see the truth was inevitably to love it and incarnate it. To us the field of knowledge has become so great that we have divided it into imaginary departments, or have separated it altogether from the personal life. We have found the truth in libraries and museums, rather than as the Greeks did in growth of person- ality, or as the Hebrews did through the Word be- coming flesh. It may be the mission of our women's colleges to call us back to the higher synthesis, to that union of truth and personality which is eternal life. Our age also needs a spiritual gift in the realm of the home. We are all familiar with what is often THE ANNIVERSARY SERMON 11 called the disintegration of the modern home. A century ago all the members of an American family rose at the sound of the same bell in the morning, sat at the same table three times a day, and gathered round the same evening lamp. There was a visible unity in the home, which persisted even when spir- itual unity was wanting. Now we find a discontent with the old rigid order, an expansion of the home until it includes the neighborhood, the school-house, the factory, or the whole city. Various forms of work have left the home, and the women who once did the work have followed after. A vast amount of fem- inine energy has been released from the old burdens and tasks and is now demanding some worthy hu- man object. Women with time and strength to spare are seeking to function in the expanded home and to make the modern city home-like to all its sons and daughters. This released energy is expressing itself sometimes in grotesque or blundering ways, which make us tremble for the future of the home. But as the instinct to mate and nest is ineradicable in the birds, it is far more persistent and inevitable in hu- manity. Homes will be, while stars shine and earth revolves. But can the college give to the home a deeper spiritual significance? At least it can show us all that a home founded on selfishness and love of plea- 12 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION sure can never endure, while a home founded on the sincere desire to ennoble another life and enlarge its possibilities, a home whose roots are deep in altru- ism and idealism, has the permanence of the tree planted by the rivers of water. Affection is both a craving and a giving impulse. But where there is the craving only, — the craving for sensation, for praise, for social success, — the home is founded on the drifting sand. Where there is the sincere desire to impart some spiritual gift, the home becomes as enduring as the truth it expresses and the love it enshrines. Then it becomes not a place for eating and drinking and storing clothes and shoes, but a guest-room for the ideals of humanity, a receiver and transmitter of the spiritual aspirations of the race. The entrance of college women into the realm of economic production should mean a transformation of the quality of the world's industrial life. The col- lege woman in business will either sink to the busi- ness level or will lift business to the level of the pro- fessions. She will either say frankly, with a famous United States senator of a former generation, ' * Busi- ness is war; the commander who lost a battle through the activity of his moral nature would be the deri- sion and the jest of history;" or she will set about the task of making all private business a kind of public service. If she enters industry to conduct it THE ANNIVERSARY SERMON 13 solely on the maxims of ' ' Poor Richard ' s Almanac , ' ' as most men till recently have done, she will simply double the intensity of the economic struggle and double the sordidness of the spirit which controls it. A few days ago one of the largest employers in the United States said to me : * ' I am not a college man, and one thing puzzles me. Why is it that a college education is no guarantee of civic devotion and public spirit? Why is it that in every movement for human uplift, for the promotion of human rights, the college man is just as likely to be on the wrong side as on the right side? Does not a college educa- tion really make for fine citizenship ? ' ' With shame we must confess that the education of men in America has been no guarantee of civic loyalty. Now we look to this influx of womanhood into economic responsibility — which must involve certain losses — we look to it for certain gains. If womanhood fails us here, we may be utterly lost. If women bring into industry only emotional and sub- jective standards, only impressionism and sensitive- ness, then their coming into office and store will hurt rather than help the social order. But if they bring their great capacities for unselfish devotion, for loy- alty to an ideal, for making drudgery the expres- sion of religion, if they bring the love that hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things, — 14 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION then they will transform one great section of the world's work. Then, in place of the philosophy of * ' getting on , " we may have an ideal of service . Then we may be able to carry conscience into industry, and see how the prosaic man behind the counter and the unheroic girls behind the loom may pass their lives as soldiers of the common good. But the spiritual gift most clearly needed to-day from all colleges, whether of men or of women, is in the realm of international relations. The appall- ing tragedy of Europe, which has involved already Asia and Africa and has threatened America, has stripped us of many illusions and brought home to us the primitive facts of national and racial psychol- ogy. We honestly thought that such horrid modes of warfare, such ruthless disregard of plighted faith, had vanished from the civilized earth. We confi- dently affirmed that war was now too costly, or too dangerous, to be declared ; that the economic loss was so clear, the physical cruelty so terrible, that no great war could come again. And now we find that all eco- nomic loss is disregarded, all cruelty endured, all burdens of sorrow are willingly assumed, in the pres- ence of that spiritual enthusiasm which we call the sentiment of nationality. We find that the roots of war are not in the desire for bread, or gold, or even for the safety of wife and child. They are in the ideal THE ANNIVERSARY SERMON 15 world, and the things which are seen — trenches, sieges, battles — are made of things which do not appear. The roots of war are sentiments of devotion to an ideal entity, the state, to an invisible, impalpa- ble somewhat called the nation or the race. The very- words we use in talking of the war elude all defi- nition. Kultur — what is it? NationaHty — who can define it? Racial antagonism — how explain it? We are dealing with forces purely ideal — stronger than codes of law, or siege-guns, or battleships. And if the roots of war are ideal, the remedy for war is in the ideal realm also. In the spirit of man lie the sen- timents out of which war came; in the renovated spirit of man lies the only ultimate cure. The war- ring world is crying for a spiritual gift, for the vision which can see the unity of mankind behind all unlikeness, for the love which can repudiate all ** hymns of hate," for the conscience which will enact the same laws for the individual as for the nation, for the religion which believes God is as near to the black man and the yellow as to the proud Caucasian. The great gift of Jesus to humanity was the gift of a new spirit. He wrote no book. He left no rigid, organization. He erected no building. His gift was seemingly the most fragile and fugitive in all the world, and it has proved to be the most abiding: 16 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION the gift of a new attitude toward God and man, a new temper in human hearts, a new purpose in human society. If we can, through the American college, convey some such gift to the world, we shall fulfill the most ardent hopes of those who laid these foundations in sacrificial toil and undying faith. The Anniversary Addresses Vassar's Contribution to Educational Theory and Practice BY JAMES MONROE TAYLOR President Emeritus of Fassar College ON such a day as this one can almost hear the roll-call of the heroes of the faith, who through long years watched and prayed and waited for the deliverance of women from the shackles of tradition which bound their minds to narrow limits and feared the dawning of a freer day. They had indeed ' * need of patience, that after they had done the will of God, they might receive the promises. . . . They saw them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and em- braced them. . . . Warned of God of things not seen as yet, they waxed valiant in fight, out of weakness were made strong, through faith subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness. . . . Of whom the world was not worthy ! . . . These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise : God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." Among them all Emma Willard and Mary Lyon, great personalities which tower above an only less distinguished host of men and women, must never be unmentioned on these anniversary occasions, — great in vision and in practical force, and pointing 20 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION the way to new heights from which should be caught the glimpses of a larger kingdom. For these women were never so misled as to fancy they were estab- lishing colleges, however great may have been the prophetic gift vouchsafed to them. The distinctly collegiate claim, however, was soon after advanced by Georgia and Mary Sharp at the south, and at Oberlin in the northern and then distant western state of Ohio, pioneers of a multitude that between 1830 and 1860 essayed to give collegiate training to women. When Vassar was chartered in 1861 sev- eral institutions of acknowledged collegiate grade admitted women, including one state university, Iowa. Did Vassar, opened to students in 1865, make any original contribution to this educational move- ment? Did we answer that question with a plain nega- tive, we should but enroll this with the vast majority of colleges, which have been less busy in initiating new experiments than in practicing the best known principles of education. The claim to novelty is not generally reassuring, and we students of the history of education are too well used to the promulgation of old theories as new to be easily duped by claims of originality. Yet it is interesting to ask, to-day, if this college whose position is so distinguished in the history of woman's education, and therefore of all THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 21 education, has contributed anything comparatively new to the theory and practice of its time. And if not new, has its practice introduced or fostered aught that has seemed new to its generation? It is not strange that to the popular mind Mat- thew Vassar seemed an originator of a new move- ment in educational history, — and there was no small measure of truth in the belief. When Vassar was chartered, how many young women were there in the world who had received college degrees from recognized institutions? It is not easy to give an ac- curate answer, but perhaps two hundred had the A.B. degree, — most of them from Oberlin and El- mira, — more the B.S., which was distinctly inferior, or the B.L., which always marked a still weaker course, or some forgotten degree, such as M.E.L. or L.A. The total was so small that it had made no impression on American society, and when Elmira was chartered as late as 1855, apprehension was rife as to results in the small circle that noticed the fact at all, and even professors and college presidents ex- pressed themselves in a way that argued quite com- plete ignorance of what Oberlin had done for twenty years. So widely trained an educational expert as Milo P. Jewett, whose influential career in Mas- sachusetts had been followed by a professorship at Marietta, Ohio, and who was familiar with edu- 22 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION cation at the south by long experience, assured Mr. Vassar that he was establishing "a new thing under the sun," and that the foundation of a great college for women with standards like those of the better colleges for men, well endowed, recognizing the claim of every side of education and culture, physical, mental, spiritual, social, would place his name among the great originators. No one^who reads the newspapers and magazines of that time can fail to see that whatever others had done, to the masses and to the educated classes, in general, this seemed something new. And so indeed it was! If the idea was not original, yet Mr. Vassar's grasp of it was new and unexampled, and his vision of the requirements of such a college for women was as unprecedented as his effort to make the dream a substantial fact. The educational plan of President Jewett, if not original, seemed so to all northern teachers. It was a daring novelty as applied to women, a university scheme, a series of schools Hke those at the Uni- versity of Virginia, in which students should com- plete a definite number of courses to obtain the Mas- ter's degree. It questioned the procrustean four years' course, introduced a group system and election among groups, discussed fully the objections to an elective system (remember that this was in 1863 !), THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 23 favored teaching without text-books, and written ex- aminations, then little known in our colleges. Such a scheme, supplemented by the visions Jewett por- trayed for Mr. Vassar, before 1860 — endowments, apparatus, libraries, art-gallery, museum, physical training, a college home in an attractive park — jus- tifies some claim to originality. The break of friendly relations between the presi- dent and Mr. Vassar defeated the trial of the novel plan, and Dr. Raymond, who was rightly convinced that young women then needed rigor and guidance rather than freedom of election, offered a curriculum similar to that of the typical American college with such modifications as were thought to be called for by women. His discussions show full grasp of the questions raised then and now, regarding the special needs of girls, the demands on educated women, and the responsibility to society of the woman's college. Recognizing that there must be much experiment, he yet entrenched himself securely in the threefold conviction that the course must be liberal and of full collegiate grade, and must not be a servile copy of existing models. If anything could be found better adapted to woman's needs, he said, change must be made '* without hesitation." The claim of aesthetic culture seemed clear, — more attention to literature, chiefly notable then in our curricula by its absence. 24 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION more emphasis on art and music. But was anything else clear? Practical studies are urged, but he asks what are practical, and what not? The question was answered by a promise of opportunity for instruc- tion in domestic employment and business methods, which was not fulfilled because * * the trustees were satisfied that a full course could not be successfully incorporated into a liberal education." See now what this signifies. Here was a broad course of study, a faculty which contained several men well known in their work and one distinguished woman, and laboratories for the sciences such as few colleges could then boast. Note it as evidence of outlook and advanced stand, that when the first building. Main, was erected (1861-65), provision was made for a students' laboratory (then very uncommon in America). As early as 1874, when Dr. Cooley came to Vassar, he found a large senior class ready for laboratory work in qualitative analy- sis, provided with the most recent text-book de- signed for classes in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and this laboratory work was neces- sary for a degree. And Vassar kept pace with the later advance in educational practice when, in 1880, she built and equipped the Vassar Brothers Labora- tory for general work. From the opening there was an observatory with a telescope, then second or third THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 25 in size in the country ; a " cabinet, "as it was then called, reckoned rare and excellent by such a leader of geological science as Dana ; an art- gallery, the equal of which did not exist in more than one or two American colleges; a gymnasium, where the best physical system at that time known for women, Dio Lewis's, was installed ; a riding-school fully equipped, even to a German baron and his wife; a music school, well furnished; a small but growing library, and ambitions and ideals beyond limit. Mark this ! As Jewett promised, it was ' ' a new thing under the sun." The popular impression was not a mistake. And remember, all this was prepared during our great war, which had closed the southern colleges and re- duced and almost extinguished educational inter- est in many northern institutions. When the war closed, in 1865, leaving through the north a vastly awakened and intensified life and deeply developed and broadened interests among women, who had learned organization and wider service in local so- cieties, sanitary commissions, and at the front, Vas- sar threw open its doors to meet this great new de- mand with such an answer as the world had never before given to womankind. No wonder that other, less prominent efforts were for the time forgotten or obscured ! The hour had struck, and the new call 26 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION was greeted with an answer unprecedented in all the annals of woman's efforts and woman's aspi- ration. Matthew Vassar received no more than he deserved. If not, in our objective way of reading history, strictly an innovator, he was virtually an originator, as he thought himself to be, and his new institution offered a novelty in education and an answer to what was then practically a new demand. Let us note particularly that this offer of a broad education for woman, without relation to what was thought to be her special sphere or responsibility, then practically a novelty, was deliberate and not ac- cidental. We are told commonly that the first trus- tees and faculty of this woman's college aimed to give woman a man's education, the only one then available and understood by them, that no other point of view occurred to the pioneers, and that it is left to us, their wiser children, women having now proved their capacity, to indicate the special directions in which they may apply their abilities without wasting them in lines better fitted for the masculine mind and life. In short, it is said, our fathers were so enamored of this ideal of equal edu- cation that they had no thought for differentiations demanded by differences of sex. So far as the first trustees of Vassar are concerned, this is pure fiction. I wish I might so emphasize this THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 27 as to make some slight impression on an accepted tradition and on reiterated assertions of those unfa- miliar with the original records. They never forgot that they were acting for women. Their letters, their discussions, their formulated plans, abound in evi- dence that they were seeking all the time for the supposed demands of a girl's mind and its special limitations. The Founder, a plain man, awakened to this ambition late in life, wished a woman to have all the rights she could use, but was most cautious, in defining those rights, to emphasize her intellect- ual independence and claims. Dr. Jewett kept in mind in all he did the consideration of the peculiar needs of women, and President Raymond's ''Pro- spectus ' ' acknowledged them and promised oppor- tunities for domestic training and ' ' peculiarly fem- inine employment," such as telegraphy and pho- nography, practical lessons in decoration of rooms, dress, flowers, etc. He sought not a man's educa- tion, he said, "but one suited to the sex." While the essentially similar intellectual faculty of girls would be answered by the ordinary college cur- riculum, constitutional differences, intellectual and moral, would be kept in view, he assured the pub- lic. The first lady principal, a lady of the old school, emphasized constantly the importance of cultivat- ing the feminine graces and powers in a woman's 28 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION college. They were all awake to the question as to what the mysterious mental difference might be in girls of eighteen to twenty as compared with their brothers of like age. Why, then, do you ask, was there so little to dis- tinguish the course at Vassar from the general cur- riculum of the American colleges of the sixties? Be- cause in actual observation and experience they could not discover such mental peculiarities as called for different training in a general, liberal education, such as a college is supposed to give to undergraduates. Were they not confronted with the vocational issues of to-day? Did they have no discernment of woman's special function in the home, no understanding of the responsibilities of motherhood, no knowledge of the need of a girl to cook and sew, and administer a household and care for children ? They were old- fashioned folk, these fathers. So far as I know, there was not among them one who was likely to forget "woman's sphere," or to fail to define it in a way satisfactory to those most concerned for these things to-day. Moreover, from the press and occasional correspondents came brisk reminders of woman's proper "empire." It has not been left to our day, be it said to our younger contemporaries, to discover how important to women is a knowledge of domes- tic science and of the birth and care of children. THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 29 How did it happen, then, that all promises were forgotten and all plans canceled which looked toward such instruction in the first Vassar? Because Mr. Vassar wished the daughters to have the intellect- ual opportunities and the means of culture which were so freely provided for the sons ; because he and his trustees had faith that such training of body, mind, and spirit as they planned would prove better, broader, and more promising than special educa- tion, and immensely superior in its provision for the resources of maturer life. Moreover, with all their search they were unable to find such intellectual peculiarities in the feminine mind as should change the essential elements of education. No one who reads the reports of the hundreds who applied for entrance to Vassar fifty years ago can doubt that American education for girls was in the main piti- able, superficial, and deadening. Dr. Raymond said in his Vienna report — and no one knew as well as he — that it was ''a sham." The fathers therefore had a duty to womankind, to educate girls really, to train them to study, read, and think, and to awaken them to loftier ideals. They chose the instrument at hand, not because it was for men: Jewett had been teaching girls for sixteen years in Alabama. They had failed to discover the subtle distinctions which demanded another kind of mental training for wo- 30 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION men, — just as our wise generation has also failed. Woman should have a chance: that was Mr. Vas- sar's purpose. The life is more than meat. She should be educated, therefore, not as home-maker, not as mother, but as an individual ; so that whatever her life might be, she should give herself to home, family, social life, public service, with all the better equipment, skill, and accomplishment because she herself was trained. Some of you think that times have changed and that the demand on women calls for another kind of education. But one thing has not changed and will not change, — the need of a soul for its own develop- ment, for resource, for mental breadth and outlook, unharried by immediate needs, or the fancied call of a sphere that may never be aught but a fancy and a vision. Let no word of mine be thought to re- flect on other modes of education as meeting specific demands or immediate calls. I give them my un- qualified respect and sympathy, as means to partic- ular ends. Liberal education, however, has broader promise and resource and inspiration for the soul's life, and that is fundamental in our preparation for special work, for professional life, for social service, for the ministry to church or state. Larger-souled men and women are quite as important to-day as those stamped with efficiency. THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 31 The new tendency among women, so many of whom clamor now for the specific before the gen- eral, — to learn to teach, for example, before they have anything to teach, — is a backward step to the times before Vassar, singling women out again for special spheres instead of training them well to choose and fix their spheres. It is the old argument revived of a writer in ''Godey's Lady's Book" of 1865, that men's colleges, forsooth, are preparatory, but a seminary for young ladies is designed ' ' to complete the education of its inmates," that is, to fit them for their specific sphere. Watch your her- itage, college women ! Watch the tendencies to re- duce your colleges of liberal learning by a theory which would logically make our colleges for men into schools of business, professions, training for fa- therhood, education in blacksmithing or for bank clerks. Better housekeepers, wives, mothers, teach- ers, social workers, stenographers, saleswomen, — yes ! yes ! Our need is manifest. But better women, first of all, larger in grasp, wider of vision, fuller of resource for the soul in the conflicts of these latter days, — that was the message, practically new, that Vassar flashed on a questioning world. We must indeed meet the needs of our time, but what are its chief needs? Sane vision ; calm weighing of the- ories that seem to threaten with dire signs home 32 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION and church and state, and as never before the very existence of the democracy we love and treasure ; broad views of life's responsibilities; the spirit that knows that violence destroys and never constructs ; and hope and faith as well as fearlessness. Where shall we put our chief emphasis? that is the ques- tion. On bread, or * ' on every word of God " ? It was the Master's answer to the tempter that we may well carry into all our ideals of education: "Man shall not live by bread alone." On a hard and over- worked material efficiency that eventuates in horrid and all-destroying war? Or on the trained spirit which, while efficient, can yet see visions and dream dreams ? Here, then, was the first, great, chief contribu- tion Vassar made fifty years ago to educational the- ory and practice, with a new emphasis such as it had never before received. Confronting the prejudices of the day , thou gh firm believers in woman ' s sphere and specific duties, these first trustees of Vassar declared that women should have here the opportunity of broad and liberal training, leaving the question of its specific use for their own determination in ma- turer years. It was a great contribution, in 1865, the year of the closing of our Civil War. It was even then recognized as such, and by most it was believed to be new. THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 33 For ten years Vassar stood quite alone in the pop- ular estimate. Again it was not alone, but to most it seemed so. It was the special exponent of a cause and the special butt as well of the foes of that cause. What in those years before Smith and Wellesley opened, and while the state universities were tar- dily falling into line, was the contribution of Vassar to the great issue? We have a notable pamphlet which in part tells the story, President Raymond's report for the world exposition at Vienna in 1873. It shows that there was no occasion for an apolo- getic stand on Vassar 's part toward other colleges, under the standards and limitations of the period immediately following our great war. A want of his- torical perspective is revealed in judging the Vas- sar of that time by the standards of to-day. The presence of a preparatory department, for years a grim necessity, social rules adapted for that very dif- ferent epoch, and a curriculum quite unlike that of to-day, are no impeachment of Vassar's stand from 1865 to 1875. It is with the college of that day that it must be compared, and it bears the comparison well, in cur- riculum, in the enforcement of its standards (quite another thing), and in its products. Fourteen years after Vassar opened, in 1879, President Barnard, whose services to woman's education must always 34 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION be remembered with gratitude, thought that no sep- arate college could meet the standards of the insti- tutions for men, but his addresses show sometimes a want of actual knowledge of what Vassar was really doing, and an undervaluation of the ideals and equipment and faculties of the younger colleges for women now opened, to say nothing of an idealizing of the relations of the equipment of a university to actual undergraduate requirements and use. Vas- sar 's president was a very able leader and was fully accustomed to college ideals and standards, and in . the small faculty were several well-known scholars and teachers, eminent then or since, with experience in colleges for men, and with tremendous determi- nation and enthusiasm to make the new effort worthy of the fellowship of the best. Moreover, they were met by an eagerness and purpose on the part of their students not so manifest among young men, and a sense of responsibility for a new cause that domi- nated their conduct. The sciences, as we have seen, were remarkably well equipped for that day, and the standards in the older disciplines of mathematics and the languages, which constituted the bulk of the studies of that time, were as high and as well main- tained as at most American institutions. In those ten years, then, Vassar demonstrated that a woman's college, well equipped and well officered, THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 35 could maintain high collegiate standards, could train women intellectually as well as their brothers were trained, and could fit them for life, in public or private service, — yes, for woman's life! Scholars indeed were few, and that was also true in the col- leges for men ; and for women there were almost no encouragements outside the love of learning. Yet of three hundred and twenty-three who graduated in the first ten classes, thirty -five were officers and in- structors in colleges in 1900, twenty of these in col- leges of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, and thirteen were heads of private academies. Thirty- five had taken the Master's degree ; three had won the S.B., and two the Ph.D. (by 1900); and re- member that in those days few men took a Ph.D. in course. Upwards of thirty wrote books or contrib- uted to magazines, besides eleven who wrote text- books. Twelve were physicians, striving against great prejudice. Four were artists, two farmers, two book-keepers. Though the great movement of or- ganized philanthropy came later, three held admin- istrative positions, one hundred and twenty-eight had taught, one- third of whom had been married before 1900. Of the whole number, 56.03 per cent married, one hundred and eighty-one out of three hundred and twenty-three; and they had three hun- dred and sixty-one children, an average of two to a 36 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION marriage, but five of them had six each ; two hun- dred and four were boys and one hundred and fifty- seven girls. Sixty-nine of these graduates had died by 1900. These three hundred women had proved by their normality and efficiency that college women were of value in home and church and state, and in all spheres influenced by woman's life. The fears of men had not been realized: the girl student after all did not talk Greek to the college man's well-gar- nished slang, and Sidney Smith's old sneer was veri- fied in that she did not generally prefer a quadratic equation to a baby. Vassar had met the challenge of an unbelieving world, and made the conflict less poignant for all who should come after her. The arguments against woman's physical and mental capacity, the fears that a college training would unsex her and destroy her faith, and separate her from interest in woman's life and functions in the world, were chiefly directed against Vassar. The supposed necessary weakness of a curriculum for women was tested at her door. The fear that girls could not be held to exact results and solid discipline was met in her class-rooms. The expectation of abnormality and morbidity was answered by the strong life of her graduates. In a degree not true of any other college, because of her equipment and her prominence, she was forcing on THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES Z7 the world attention to the new demands of women, advocating their claims, setting standards that com- pelled acknowledgment, and educating leaders for the colleges yet to be. Patiently, against want of faith and want of interest, against false views and prejudiced antagonisms, Vassar led the battle for the better day, and slowly, slowly — too slowly — won at last the recognition she had long deserved through her honesty and thoroughness. If history does not strictly give her the priority among colleges educat- ing women, it must allow that her place and work through these ten years made her first in responsi- bility and first in achievement. The later problems concern us less to-day because the life of the pioneer was now merged in the gen- eral movement. To improve American standards of scholarship, to make scholarly men and women as well as scholars, and so to train them as to make them more useful in society and the nation, was the task of all, and involved no peculiar service from Vassar. But be it ever remembered that for many years there was no equal opportunity for the woman scholar, even indeed if now there is. Yet throughout this period, in the spirit of Amer- ican individuality, each college was aiming at the goal in its own way. Will it not indeed be a sorry, dismal day for our colleges when the standardizers 38 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION and apostles of efficiency succeed in reducing them to the deadly and deadening unity to which they have brought, for instance, the hotels of Europe? Many believed, and now believe, that every college should establish and maintain graduate work. The problem seemed vital to Vassar. To many of its fac- ulty and trustees it seemed clear that more diiferen- tiation was needed in American education, and that the efforts of most institutions to carry on graduate work must result either in hindering undergradu- ate progress or in superficializing graduate study. The subject was carefully considered, extensive cor- respondence was held with leaders of American education, and in 1894 Vassar withdrew the offer of the Doctor's degree and limited the advanced work offered by the college to study for the Master's de- gree, and for the encouragement of higher scholar- ship undertook the establishment of fellowships for study at universities. Some of you think Vassar gave a wrong answer to the question. To my own fresh memory of condi- tions then, — the weak graduate courses at so many of our colleges, and the offer of the Doctor's degree where there was no possibility of giving the work which should underlie it, — the stand of Vassar seems a distinct contribution to the scholarly ideals of that time, taken by a college then as able as most THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 39 of its compeers to offer graduate work, and deliber- ately taken in what seemed to it the interest of under- graduate thoroughness and for the clarifying of the ideals of graduate scholarship. For Vassar, at least, the plan has worked successfully, and large numbers have gone from her classes to study in various uni- versities. Last year ten fellowships were awarded for that purpose. Meanwhile, the college gained greater opportunity to study and develop the condi- tions of undergraduate teaching and progress. One other principal problem has beset our col- leges during this period, — the enormous increase in the numbers of undergraduates and the relation of this to efficient work. To some that has not seemed a problem at all, but almost everywhere one has heard an undertone of questioning if perhaps numbers might not become too great for efficient handling, until the habit of the mob should dominate the col- lege. Certainly the question is two-sided. The large college has great advantages, and just as unques- tionable are the claims of the small, if both are well equipped and well disciplined. Whether there might not be a compromise is open to trial. Would not a college establishing several distinct units, bound by one tradition, one government, one worship, one central library, but developing in each unit distinct characteristics due to separate faculties and deans, 40 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION unite the advantages of the large and small ? It is to be regretted that the funds at Vassar were not suffi- cient for the hopeful experiment ; and it was boldly decided to limit its students to one thousand. For many years it has adhered to this policy, meeting many practical difficulties, sometimes miscalculat- ing the number of its accepted candidates, but al- ways honestly, and generally successfully, holding to its policy. It has found, again, its energy set free for its undergraduates in giving to the thousand all the care and thought involved in providing for un- certain but surely increasing numbers. The eifort to add to the buildings, the necessary reconstruction of the '* plant," — so-called, — to answer to the larger college, the sudden adjustments of the faculty, have given way to the focusing of attention on a definite problem. As no limit was placed on faculty or courses offered, these have increased while the student body has remained practically stationary. The contribution of Vassar to the social aspect of educational theory and practice deserves a tribute. Our American colleges have seen periods when in loco parentis was read literally and extremely; others when the class-room has seemed to bound the teach- er's vision of responsibility (with due injury to the- ories of teaching as well) ; and others still, when to a full recognition of the independence of the young THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 41 has been added a sense of the responsibility of expe- rience to inexperience, and of maturity to youth. Probably women's colleges have been more prone, from the nature of things, to remember this aspect of the teacher's duty. At least it is true that Vas- sar in its earliest history put forth boldly, strongly, and with conviction the theory of a " guarded edu- cation," the fact of responsibility assumed necessa- rily and inevitably by any body of older people who admit to their circle of influence inexperienced and untried youth. It founded a lady principalship which should have special care of the social interests and life of students, which should offer them friendly counsel and should try to meet their problems with them, by sympathy, advice, and regulation. It never recognized the theory that students may shock all the conventions of a refined moral society with im- punity. No woman's college then — or even now — could be as indifferent to this as colleges for men have too often been. So it came to pass that regu- lations were established that seemed to older girls like the rules of a boarding-school, and so it hap- pened that they were relaxed as society became freer and as young women proved their own inherent love of order and reasoned life. But mere regulation was not its chief purpose. Some like to scoff at ** influence," as if implying 42 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION something vague and sentimental and unappeal- ing to reason, yet the influence of such a personality as Hannah Lyman's, that instilled into the college generations qualities of womanly force, regard for law, religious interest, hatred of the coarse, ungen- tle, and bizarre, and respect for the characteristics in speech and act of the true, refined lady ; the in- fluence of Mrs. Kendrick (to name only the first and last of an honored line), who for twenty of these fifty years, by her cultivated mind and heart, her poise and great social gifts, her ideals and her sane Christian faith, impressed thousands of young wo- men : these are to be reckoned with as forces in edu- cation, intellectual as well as spiritual, and they are among Vassar's distinct, deliberate, and purposed contributions to educational theory and practice. There has been no lack here of recognition of the student. No college could have believed more in its students, or more fully trusted them. But Vassar has thus far adopted no extreme form of student government. There is a splendid, but crude indi- viduality at twenty, full of self-assertion that life will train down, unbalanced because inexperienced, which sees all reform without fringes of compara- tive good and bad, a condition non-existent outside the fancy of an enthusiast. To learn restraint, pa- tience, knowledge before utterance ; to gain also from THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 43 the experience of one's elders, and not merely from crass and wasteful experiment, is the meaning of ed- ucation. The very continuity of an institution's life demands more than a changeful rule. The splen- did enthusiasm and unbalanced individuality of youth must beat against the policies that express the experience of maturity; and experience and knowledge have to answer to this trust, not so much to the youth of to-day, as to this same youth chas- tened, disciplined, and ripened by ten years of life in a world that measures rigidly and judges harshly, and only by results. Is it not worthy of note that the graduates of our colleges of ten years' standing generally remark on the tendencies to license in the undergraduate? Whether we will or not, faculty and trustees and administrative officers must answer to families and to society for the influences that gather about their students. Happily, in late years, at Harvard and Yale, at Columbia and Princeton, and at a host of American colleges, there has been a growing con- viction that we are responsible for our youth, and are wrong, unutterably wrong, if we cast them off* from our counsel and our sympathy. We are learn- ing, perhaps, that the ten commandments have as large a place in real education as Livy 's ' ' Preface, ' ' and the spirit of Christ as great a claim as the charm 44 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION of Chaucer. At least, so thought the founders of Vas- sar when they established an office whose function was a splendid influence for life through nearly fifty years. When in 1913 the last incumbent resigned, new conditions calling for larger organization and greater division of labor led to a reorganization; but in the wardens, united as a committee with their head- warden, the college expressly aims to recog- nize and continue an influence that has been immeas- urable in preserving manners, sanity, loyalty, faith, and large intellectual and social ideals, through all these fifty years. So from the beginning Vassar has confronted the whole problem of woman's life, in itself and as a social force. At a college celebration a while since, one of our educational leaders declared, ''Twenty- five years ago the question was, 'What can the woman's college do for women? ' Now it is, ' What can the woman's college do for the community? ' " I must take exception to this so far as Vassar is con- cerned. The earliest literature of the college abounds in purpose toward society, not womankind alone. To-day, indeed, the social emphasis is about all one hears, and we forget that essential to it is a strong, well-developed individuality. But constituted as we are, we cannot wholly destroy either individual or social emphasis. A few years ago, for example, the THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 45 American college world discovered that citizenship was the fit aim of a college training, but no modern writer has said that more forcefully than Aristotle. Twenty-five years ago, on such an occasion as this, the president of Vassar said that the aim of this col- lege was * * the broadening and lifting of the life of womankind, and thereby of the entire race." Wo- manhood for school, sick-room, social circle, church, home, journalism, business, all were in view, he declared, because from the beginning the ideal of Vassar was to make of a Vassar student a thorough, well-trained, forceful woman, who should use her- self and all she had gained for the service of the world. Perhaps the preaching of that so earnestly in all the earliest years gave those first Vassar women the reputation that followed them everywhere, — that they were wise and efficient and knew how to grasp and handle the problems of life. That was, and is, the best evidence that can be given that the old-fashioned college education — liberal, large- visioned — is a great preparation for life's responsi- bilities, as it assuredly is an open sesame of abiding joy and spiritual fullness. Happily the days of 1865 have given way to a far better time. To-day Vassar is no problem. Rather, she stands here, grown beyond the imagination of her Founder, and welcomes to her anniversary not 46 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION only her younger sisters and her forebears, gra- ciously celebrating with her this day of her glory and of theirs, but also from all over the land uni- versities and colleges that regarded her coming with questions many and small faith, but which to-day are one in their rejoicing in her contributions to the common work of all, for our nation, for our com- mon humanity, and for the Kingdom of God. Spacious Days at Vassar BY MARY AUGUSTA JORDAN, Class of '76 Professor of English in Smith College IT is logically hazardous to attach a term of gen- eral import to a limited period of time. Yet the making of mere record into useful history requires it. Without it, local significance would be baseless. Village Catos and their little senates, the mute in- glorious Miltons, the great kings before Agamem- non, the floods since the one of controversial Noah, the human torpedoes before Bernard Shaw, the spa- cious times of great Elizabeth, with attention to the agate on the finger of an alderman, before the Jap- anese revelation of infinite riches in a little room of adjustable paper sides, and a single centre of interest in a fortnight's worth of flower arrangement in one priceless porcelain, encourage the analysis of the fifty years of Vassar history into periods of discrim- inated character. Spaciousness, with its exclusions and its stimulus, its dangers of emptiness and of vagueness, is the characteristic of Vassar from 1870 to 1880. After 1880, the years fell into the background of a crowded series. For Vassar College was founded not only as an expression of social justice, but as an installment of the ever recurring criticism of education, taking 48 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION definite form in the favoring conditions of time and place. It required a generation of college administra- tion to transform the passionate triumph of women securing a long-contested privilege into a serene ac- ceptance of spiritual discipline. There were noble and ardent students in the earliest days of Vassar who urged their claim to its diploma as a seal of their equality with those who were conventionally rated as competent. There were others who viewed the process of the new education as an entertaining, if expensive, lull before the serious business of life ; and a course of study had to be made which would readjust some of these misconceived ambitions, and would put before the ordinary woman the assur- ance of serenity in an every-day life. The novelty of the details of the entertainment added greatly to its appeal and contributed to a highly specialized type of excitement. Going to college was a thing quite by itself, an experience to be reckoned with — some- thing like Platonic love, or getting religion. These factors, important or negligible as they may now appear, did not make for either clearness or simpli- city in the conditions facing the men and women who were shaping the college policy. The student of Vassar history finds in those plans of Dr. Jewett that have never been embodied in any actual course of study offered to the undergraduates, some strik- THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 49 ing anticipations of the most advanced reforms ad- vocated by the critics of the colleges of to-day. But, obviously, the first duty of the pioneer institution was to live and to grow, and at the same time to give temporary satisfaction to the irrational and immature critics who made up its public. It was, therefore, hardly before the seventies that this experiment could be tried. The result was com- promise, natural, inevitable in itself, but not nat- ural or inevitable in its results. The nervous tension of the earliest Vassar was undoubtedly too high. Its extremes of consecration and irresponsibility were both abnormal. By 1870 the wise compromise had done its costly work. Vassar did not stand, even in the funny papers, any longer for prigs, freaks, so- cial rebels, or eloquent and earnest fanatics. What did it stand for ? Freedom from any obligation upon the students to concern themselves with that ques- tion was one of the factors of the spaciousness that prevailed for ten years. The influences which led a young woman to pro- long her schooling, her study, or her psychical elab- oration were many and interesting at just this time. It is hardly possible to understand now, nor would it have been easy to exaggerate then, the significance of her position as a child of the generation after the Civil W^ar. The close of the great conflict had made 50 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION possible the opening of vistas of alluring activity, stretching out before the expectation of young crea- tures unquestioning in their faith that "time's whiter series" began when the considerate judg- ment of mankind and the gracious favor of Al- mighty God could be seriously depended upon as co-operating forces. There is no doubt that the typ- ical student of this period came to Vassar equipped with certain inspiring and tonic faiths. She really believed that some things had been finally entered on the world's great balance sheet, — the value of raw soul-stuff, for instance, — and that in spiritual geo- graphy some boundaries had been established, — as the one between vital and mechanical efficiency. Even in 1870 the declaration of the Franco-Prus- sian War and of the Infallibility of the Pope only stirred her imagination to a keener sense of gratitude for the providentially favored nation clause under which she was living. Such untoward happenings as a European war between civilized peoples were only echoes of the ancient error that delayed some men in their progress to full enlightenment. It is as hard to believe in the existence of such a young person now, as it was for her to believe in the existence of real obstacles to the acceptance by the world of the ideas she found so salutary. She was quite accustomed to call strife, ambition, and THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 51 greed, 'illusions." Characters known, briefly, as "worldlings' ' were indeed admitted to be often awk- wardly eminent and temporarily influential, but they were so clearly victims of desperate mistake that if they could not be reformed, they might be ignored. By similar rating, wealth and luxury were quite ob- viously accidents, of no real significance except in their abuse. As for family pride and worldly fame, she noted that the great individuals who had served the republic had converted the family name, with discouraging rapidity, into a monopoly, after the manner of the flesh, and into a world inheritance, after the fashion of the spirit. The Social Four Hun- dred had not then emerged from the dangerous classes, and Flora McFlimsey was thought to be an embodiment of a vice that needed only to be seen. The literary preferences of the time will illustrate this assurance of temper. When everybody believed without question that ' ' all service ranks alike with God," Robert Browning's poetry was lightly neg- lected for his wife's, and Mr. William Dean How- ells's estimate of "Hannah Binding Shoes" was quite generally anticipated. In her personal relations, too, this undergraduate was able to make extensive clearances. Temperament had not then been ex- ploited as a charm or a virtue, but it had made a place for itself as a fascination. "Elective Affinities," 52 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION ''Counterparts," she dealt with as Adam did with the beasts in the Garden of Eden. She named these exotic, hot-bed, foreign. She paused a Httle ruefully over Miss Alcott's ''Moods," but looked at in the light of the principles of human brotherhood and of ultimate social equality, these preferential treatments were seen for the assertions of privilege they really were. No less than violence and brute force, these things warred against the spirit, while the immediate future held visions of the victories of peace with its "strangely active arts and restless motions." Even the indeterminate present took on significance from the promise of the future and widened out into vir- tuous achievement by its good intentions. Then Henry James had not changed his published scru- tiny of our national resources in character for his trans- Atlantic trade in shredded personality. Thus energy was released in all directions by the simple acceptance of faith in progress. It was to come in the form of physical, moral, and intellect- ual enlightenment rather than as the attainment of specific results or as the accumulation of material goods. It was easy to see hope for the whole groan- ing and travailing creation, when once the truth had been grasped that the care of the aged and of the young children was a luxurious by-product of exuberant life and not the burden it often seemed. THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 53 So simple did this make human existence, that the average citizen could keep a diary without fear of discovering in himself a multiple or fractional per- sonality, still less of making up a record for a mere occurrence or human blunder. Life and living being in themselves satisfactory activities, diversion and amusement had little inde- pendent value. They seemed to be expressions of some error or lack. Straws and rattles were for chil- dren, heavy or empty hours for the sick in body or in mind. The play-impulse was generally left to take care of itself, or transformed into creative imagi- nation. The past and the distant did not seem bet- ter for being far, because the simplest and slowest of mortals was nevertheless moving among worlds unrealized where every step was adventurous. Just beyond every cross-roads of decision or mile-stone of action, there seemed to lurk some new, infinitely valuable discovery which would change the old pro- portions and substitute new currencies. A young generation felt a strange call from the future and so turned a perfectly courteous back upon the past with its failures ; and with a resolute morning face fronted the new order of things where everybody should have a fair chance, where it should never be too late to make a fresh start, and where friendship should be the leading business of individuals and of nations. 54 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION To this end, serious attention was given to the work- ing up of humanity in the raw into the best possi- ble product. ELducation was never before so generally a matter of course. But the process was not so well defined as the result desired was clear. At Vassar, for instance, the examiners were often confronted by candidates who had had no corre- spondence with the office, who had not read the cat- alogue carefully, and who were not in any definite way *' prepared." They nevertheless were hard to convince that the desire for college advantages should not be gratified, or that certain attainments of theirs should not be temporarily accepted in place of the fixed requirements. There were curious instances of candidates who could not pass examinations who felt that their willingness to learn ought to count for something, and who viewed the examiner as a friend to be profited by and not as a difficulty in- carnate to be overcome. The somewhat languid pace at which registration and other mechanical opera- tions connected with entering college in those days went on was made not only tolerable but enjoyable by the vivid sense of social experience that accom- panied it. In those days hardly anything was less like a factory than a college was, although even fac- tories were not the standardized machines they now are. Variety in men and women was a mark of an THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 55 interesting community. But symmetry did not pre- vail in the characters of the teachers, nor was logic aimed at in the conduct of the departments of in- struction. Unexpected improvement in the student was everywhere preferred to orderly conduct of the intellectual process. And such sudden change was almost as much coveted by teachers and depended upon as was conversion in the old view of religious experience. It secured a wide range for effort and ex- pectation. Almost as if in response to this attitude of their teachers, not unfairly comparable, perhaps, to a conference of powers where all were sovereign, but some great and others small, the students of that time had no inclination to legalize their rela- tions within the college, nor was legality thought to be worth emphasis for its own sake. Whittier, Thoreau, Lowell, Robert E. Lee, and Abraham Lincoln had raised issues that had left one genera- tion antiseptic to the legislation virus. So Vassar students went serenely forward meditating gain- fully upon law, but stiffly resenting the multiplica- tion of statutes in education or in social relations. Of course they were also free from the burdens and responsibilities involved in the student activi- ties, for the most part, at that time, uncreated and undreamed of. What did these students do, then, with their 56 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION energy and their time, so imperfectly and inade- quately filled by college work? The answer is a simple one. They lived with the faculty and shared their wider outlook and brooded healthfully on things to come. The typical graduate of the seventies in- creased instead of depleting her central energy dur- ing the four college years. For this result, she owed much to the temper of the men and women who made up the college government. They presented, to the undergraduate eyes, something of the ideals of cultivated individuality described by Emerson as a circle of godlike men and women, embodying the social friendship resulting from the pursuit of lofty and shared aims. The conception of teachers as whetstones for the students' minds, or as high- grade coaches to put intellectual athletes on their way, or as cosmically remote forces in scholarship to be utilized for service by cautious insulation in measured volts, was not then at all generally ac- cepted by students or by teachers. The teachers were still the best part of the college ; they held their own fairly well with libraries, art collections, the countryside, and even student influence. The fac- ulty virtues were thought to be epidemic. But the atmosphere had other factors of influence. The presence of the preparatories, as they were called, — that is, students not yet of full college grade, THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 57 sharing in the college equipment, and often being taught by the same teachers, sometimes in the same audience with the regularly classified collegians, — was made to appear highly creditable, contributory to a desirable variety. It was really a contribution to the problem now engaging attention under the name of the essential unity of the educational process. The impression it made upon the college public was much simpler than this designation implies, — it was really, with all the administrative and theoretical difficulties which ultimately occasioned its abolition, very vital, organic, and human. It effectually pre- vented one fault now alleged against the modern college, that the recipients of its training all wish to be doing the same things and thinking the same thoughts. The preparatories reversed the Greek formula and supplied difference in unity. Naturally there was a marked absence of rigid- ity in administrative order. Vassar illustrated easily the best aspects of what may be called academic quanti valence. Teaching Greek did not unfit an offi- cer for usefulness in the library, and the instructor in gymnastics might teach German. The water- tight compartment treatment of learning, or even of scholarship, would not have seemed dignified to the aspirant for culture in those days. So it was not sur- prising that small corner-rooms occupied by mem- 58 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION bers of the clerical staff, or of the music department, or of the messenger system were centres of perfectly recognized culture and influence. Furthermore, the disappearance of a department from the catalogue list did not carry with it censure, or a verdict of its negligibility, any more than the failure of a comet to meet expectant watching argued its astronomic incompetence. The course of study was essentially a co-operative affair between each student and the faculty. It was, therefore, not half so shameful to fail of graduation with a particular class as it was to force the bestowal of the college diploma upon a "meagre senior." The lists in the catalogue of this general period read a little like Punch's description of the railroad trains in Bradshaw. Most of the work was conducted intensively. Completeness was looked upon as preposterous, not so much because of the shortness of the time at the disposal of the student, as because of the waste of time and energy that would inevitably result. There was a surprising amount of emulation between ex- perts, but a surprising lack of competition between officers . Students were urged from one department into others, sometimes literally pushed out from an early, and, in the line of least resistance, favorite, in order to prevent the repetition of process technically familiar. Men were of the opinion of Mahbub Ali, THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 59 that when the pony is made — finished, mouthed, and paced (in a line of work), from then on, day by day, he will lose his manners if he is kept at his tricks. In the same connection, possibly, it had come about that the course of study was unabashedly regardless of outward show of logic, balance, and symmetry. It was really the beginning of the end of the spa- cious days when a Hteral-tempered young faculty person proclaimed as ground for needed reform the fact that the hours of the working day would not cover the demands of the time-table. To her in brief time was added one who urged that it was illogical to require work that did not count in definite hours and in the rewards and punishments of marks toward the earning of the Bachelor's degree. She held that bodily presence and promptness ought also to have definite recognition, that the student might know the exact total of her risks in absence and inaccuracy. But in the spacious, free, and already changing seventies students had been so long famil- iar with human paradox that they would probably have felt lonely without the factor of practical im- possibility. As they come up for review, these things that did not count, and that were soon squeezed out of ex- istence, and out of the memory of most, and out 60 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION of the respectful consideration of all Hohenzollern- minded critics, — what were they in detail? Lectures on painting and sculpture, music and physical train- ing, public and private manners, personal economy and dress. There was practice in writing, public speaking, indoor gymnastics, outdoor exercise, cho- rus singing, private meditation, and Bible study. In all this, the material view of life was constantly opposed. Fortunately for this aim, interior decoration in the early part of this period was still where it had been left for one part of the country by Sherman's march to the sea, and for the rest by the war income tax. It was the Centennial Exposition in 1876 that began the holding up to the country of the international looking-glass and revealed our ugliness and left us with the problem of whether it was more than skin deep. Meantime the student Hfe of the period moved freely among objects that in their barest poverty and utter nakedness marked the way to their spiritual opposites. Heavy tables were good to write on, Wil- liam Morris and William Allen Butler agreed. Louis Quinze chairs and desks certainly would not have supported imagination. There were simplifications somewhat analogous to curtainless windows and red and green ingrain carpeted floors and dispropor- tionately high walls, in the curriculum. Greek was THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 61 not insisted upon, and history was allowed to take its place in connection with every subject taught. The hope seemed to be that the whole course of study would conspire to make students live Greek, and that they would then naturally avail themselves of the forms of self-expression the language and liter- ature provided. The order of supply and demand described by Aristotle himself was more or less con- fidently trusted to in both instances, — the ends that are beyond the activities are naturally superior to the activities. This was further exemplified by the variety of in- terests and relations which encompassed the class- room. Wealth and variety of physical life were en- dowed with dignity and almost religious urgency. There was nothing incongruous or undignified in the exposition of the Ferris waist or of union under- garments to the corporate college intelligence at after-chapel conferences. The same sort of personal responsibility was aroused by the president's presen- tation of the categorical imperative in the admired series of metaphysical sermons on Sunday morn- ings. The series was primarily addressed to the sen- iors, but the first-preparatory had a chance to hear it five times before it came her turn to listen with appropriating ears. The faculty afforded a varied commentary on the development of the ideas tenta- 62 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION lively undertaken by the students. Exercise in the open air had definite rewards beyond physical recu- peration when Dr. Hinkel and his dog Sailor were encountered. Walking became an effort at artistic imitation, fairly successful, when Dr. Alida Avery's searching scrutiny found nothing amiss in carriage or speed. From students to faculty, there was a steadily increasing and perhaps increasingly unconscious appeal. The academic exosmose and endosmose were quite perfect. Comparatively few students ever knew Miss Mitchell in the class-room, but scores knew her in the corridor, and few escaped her influ- ence. Her infrequent illnesses were eclipses like those she taught the college to note, except that the college needed no teaching when she was obscured. She shed energy and intellectual exhilaration from her waving curls and following skirts. Her friends, who felt that they had sent her to Vassar at great cost to themselves and their various radical interests, came frequently to see how the big investment and its risks prospered. Whatever their attitude or their judgment on the main question. Miss Mitchell rarely failed to use them for the benefit of the under- graduates. She taught social bearing by the nat- ural method at receptions, when no urging induced her guests to lecture or publicly express their inter- THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 63 ests or their warning and reproof for the hard hearts of a class of petted children, as they often took the students to be, despite Miss Mitchell's hopeful view of them. They were a sort of Theban band in their devotion to causes, but otherwise often unrelated. The halls were veritable highways along which they passed, and in which careless irresponsibility so- bered into sudden quiet on meeting them. They were Miss Elizabeth Eastman, Miss Anthony, Mrs. JuHa Ward Howe, Lucy Stone, Louisa Alcott, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Stanton, and Emily Faithful, and they opened the whitewashed halls and rumbling fire-walls into long vistas of suggestion and of con- troversy. Quite diiFerent was the influence of Professor Farrar, who seemed the impersonation of abstrac- tion. His lectures in freshman mathematics made the general subject live for the first time to many of his hearers. Thales and Pythagoras were shown to be likewise treaders of the toilsome way even as the men of the nineteenth century. The difference this made in the required work amounted to revolu- tion. Perhaps no theme possessed less vitahty than geology, perhaps none seemed more ornamental than botany, none less urgent than zoology; but Pro- fessor Orton changed all that for any student who talked with him for ten minutes. Such a one came 64 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION probably on the Philistine errand of getting credit on her entrance card for some bits of study that she had brought from school. To her growing conster- nation, she was received as if she were a fellow sci- entist and a lover of the undiscovered, addressed as if she were in a position to compare past achieve- ment with future eifort. In the few minutes, she found her measure accurately taken, her self-estimate changed from something purely formal to something very real and like the Day of Judgment. For such a student, part of Vassar is in truth near Bull's Head in Dutchess County, New York, but part of it is a lonely, solitary, greatly honored grave on an island in Lake Titicaca. Similarly, any student who considered art a light occupation for the frivolous could never connect that impression with Professor Henry Van Ingen. He often described himself as no longer an artist, but a teacher of drawing and painting, a Dutchman and not a German . These distinctions became deeply sig- nificant when one knew that he preferred the lim- itations he acknowledged so frankly to the role of court painter to the Queen of Holland, — a nice lady, as he genially admitted, but grimly after all, a queen. He spoke in the hearing of at least one young woman who had never dreamed that the feeling for kings and queens could take on any but verbal warmth. THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 65 The borders of her world began to enlarge, and they are still widening out to meet the painful facts. There were, of course, many less striking ex- amples of this expansion of the students' world by personal contact. Most of the teachers were remark- able for the many talents they kept at interest. There were very few who could do only one thing well, and many who lived a most enterprising intellectual life, to which they gladly admitted students and gen- erously made them free of results painfully gained. No surprise was ever expressed at the tasks or at- tainments of the students. They also were citizens in the Republic of Letters. There was often an air of quiet expectancy of some interesting accomplish- ment from particular students on the part of the most sympathetic of the teachers. They followed with almost reportorial zeal the performance of seniors in the public presentation of the required thesis, as long as the custom lasted. The guests of the college in these years made students feel, each as if she were entertaining the lords of life, as they passed and repassed, intent upon their own purposes. George William Curtis imparted for the time being a fine envy of his elegant culture, but this did not prevent the students from court- ing the magic of John B. Gough. Mr. William Allen Butler, said to be the last of the New York lawyers 66 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION who knew enough to be his own office-boy, and Dr. Benjamin Lossing were among the trustees who helped students to think of corporations as having souls as well as purses. Dr. Magoon interested him- self in providing art history and art collections and a proper basis for criticism, as being really among the things on which men live instead of mere lux- uries and diversions. Among the neighbors who used to drop in at Vassar — to see the grown-ups, mainly, to be sure, but with kindly helpful greet- ings for the rising generation and with sometimes attentive scrutiny of individuals — were Dr. Lyman Abbott, our friend John Burroughs, Colonel T. W. Higginson, with his faith in ' 'Alice in Wonderland ' ' as a text-book of wit and wisdom even as in later years, perhaps; and E. P. Roe, Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Swan, and Mr. Frederick Thompson, whose bodily presence would be more sorely missed if they had not built themselves into the college. The Sunday problem did not press theoretically or practically very closely upon the undergraduate, because the European Sunday had not then landed at Castle Garden. The Vassar Sunday of the sev- enties was reasonably free from complicating issues. Bishop Huntington, Phillips Brooks, Bishop Coxe, Dr. Abbott, the president of the college, were strong siding champions of the spirit. But from time to THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 67 time a single day stood out with all the spiritual in- tensity later familiar in Walter Pater's description of White Nights. Such spiritual magic was wrought on a dull morning by a certain sermon that each one of the student hearers thought herself alone in her appreciation of, until at the conversational clearing- house of the dinner table it appeared that there was a petition in circulation to ask for another sermon that day. The president of Smith College, L. Clark Seelye, had discovered to the students of Vassar an unsuspected capacity for more than one sermon on Sunday. To be sure he did not accede to their request, but in his fashion of declining, he deep- ened the impression he had already made, and laid the foundation of an almost romantic attachment between the two colleges which exists to this day. In the logic class, the next morning, his few ques- tions and comments, called out by Dr. Backus, made amends by their scholarly urbanity for some of the hours of chilly abstraction that the lesson on the conversion of propositions had made necessary. Mark Hopkins, in a series of lectures to the sen- ior and junior classes, made it possible for a few faithful girls on hard benches to know something of the fabled opportunities of the boy who shared a log with the great teacher. He lectured with abso- lute frankness. He laid open his mental processes 68 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION and displayed all the machinery of his mind, quite unashamed, and unabashed, and unartificial. Other guests of the college came from over-seas, and as ocean travel was not the rapid transit it now is, they came and tarried, instead of being speeded on their way by automobiles. A ceremonious visit from Dom Pedro, of Brazil, changed the map of South America from a plan of the suburbs of the Amazon to a chart of the home-lot of a very kindly, cultivated, and able gentleman who was unfortu- nate enough to be an emperor temporarily. Charles Kingsley, Edward Freeman, and George MacDon- ald illustrated in different ways the unstable ner- vous equilibrium of genius or talent. Their appeal was sweetly persuasive, or brusquely challenging, or surprisingly irritating, but their assurance of never sinking back into the limbo of contemporary biography was complete as far as the memory of one generation of Vassar College students could last. They were all, in the phrase of the day, too real for words. The Vassar College of to-day is splendid. The undergraduate would say "simply splendid." But I am an old graduate, and I must make a distinc- tion. The splendor about us on all sides is not sim- ple, but complex. It is a fitting task for Miss Sem- ple to explain in terms of anthropo-geography why THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 69 from geologic eras and from under the high arching sky over the Hudson River, Vassar was destined to be splendid. Miss Lathrop will tell you what the best of all educations is toward which these complex destinies are driving. I have tried to remind you of a very real and important distinction. Space in gen- eral is distinguished by the absence of things and the presence of forces. When things themselves are more significant by reason of their relation to force, place or time becomes spacious. The danger in human affairs is that the spacious will be confused with the empty and the idle; that force will be ex- pressed in confusion or machinery. The Vassar of the future must accept the task of solving her grow- ing problem in a spirit loyal to the beginnings made in one of the perfect moments of our republic — the years we call * ' the seventies. ' ' Geographical Research As a Field for Women BY ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE, Class of '82 Of Louisville y Kentucky MINE own people, — mine in the common ideals which Vassar has bequeathed to her children; mine in the common training for life, no matter what its tasks may have proved to be ; mine in the common purposes and hopes born of that good heritage and training : I should like to take you all into my arms, but unable to do that, I want to take you into the heart of my work. I invite you to green fields and pastures new, fields as broad as this great continent, stretching on across river and plain and mountain out to the wide Pacific; fields stretching on beyond the ocean and across the eastern hemi- sphere. This land is yours for the taking. Little of it has been pre-empted. Here you may stake out your claim and measure it by the square league, as the pioneers did on the colonial frontier of Argen- tine. Here you find a field rich and fertile, waiting for a labor force to develop it, promising an abun- dant harvest to the tiller. I speak with enthusiasm on this subject, and in doing so, I am reminded of a retired business man in my home state of Kentucky, who purchased a THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 71 large landed estate in the Bluegrass and became a farmer. He introduced various new and improved methods of cultivation, the latest agricultural imple- ments, and a careful system of economy to prevent waste, all of which promised large returns. After a year or two he went about among his friends, say- ing, ''I am making thirty-three per cent, think of it, thirty- three per cent! " The fame of this won- derful farm spread abroad. People came from all the country-side to see it, — truck-gardeners from the river-bottoms in their mud-bespattered wagons, small tobacco-planters from the hills in their rat- tling buggies, and gentlemen farmers from Blue- grass estates in their imposing motor cars. All put the same question to their host : * ' You say you are making thirty -three per cent?" '^Yes, indeed," came the reply ; ' ' three per cent profit and thirty per cent pleasure." To such a farm I invite you to-day. Better than a meagre three per cent profit, I can promise you a ten or even fifteen per cent royalty on such books as may represent your harvest. And the thirty per cent pleasure is sure to be yours. There are several reasons for recommending geo- graphical research as a field of work for women. In the first place, it is an uncrowded field ; nay, it clamors for laborers. A few years ago — perhaps I 72 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION should say a few days ago — when women began to push into the various domains of men's activi- ties, a sense of crowding went through the world of production, like that which disturbed the nations of the Old World about thirty years ago, when Ger- many and Italy began to elbow their way into the colonial field. For women, geography maintains "the open door," especially as the teaching of this subject in grade schools, high schools, and colleges is making insistent demands for more and better-trained in- structors. To investigators it offers a wide choice of themes in its many subdivisions. The field of phys- ical geography or physiography, though fairly well worked, has still many neglected corners. There are numerous type districts in all parts of our coun- try which need to be investigated, scientifically de- scribed, and interpreted in terms of their long geo- graphical and geological history. Economic and com- mercial geography, though well developed, are by no means exhausted. They still present interesting problems for the investigator. Plant geography, or the influence of geographic conditions upon vegeta- ble life, is still in its early morn with the dew on its flowers. It oflfers an almost unlimited field of entran- cing labor, and promises to the subject of botany a hitherto unsuspected development. THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 73 Finally, there is the field of anthropo-geography, or the influence of geographic environment upon human development. It deals with the geographic factors which have helped to shape history in all ages, in all parts of the world, and among all races. This is the phase of geography to which I have es- pecially devoted myself, and for which in particular I wish to elicit your sympathy and interest to-day. The subject is new and vast. Moreover, it is big with possibilities. I should like to convert this whole audience into a seminar for anthropo-geography, and I would promise to keep you all busy at research for the rest of your lives. This subject is particularly suited to women because of their natural endowment, — their power of observation, their capacity for detail work, their patient perseverance in the collection of material, their intellectual humility, which makes for cautious induction, and finally their imagination. This last qualification I would emphasize; because modern education, which seems to be a big mill especially designed for crushing the imagination, finds a more resistant element in the mind of woman, probably due to her strong emotional nature. Women have another point in their favor in the study of anthropo-geography ; that is their taste and their opportunity for travel, which is a valuable aid 74 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION in general preparation and specific research in this field. Now women, and particularly American wo- men, are ubiquitous travelers in the world to-day, leaving their men in the security of the home nest. If they are idle and rich, they travel to take on the semblance of work. If they are poor and hard-work- ing, they scrape together their meagre funds for a summer of rest and travel in Europe. In all the con- tinents I have met them, — on the border of the Gobi Desert, starting on a twelve days' caravan journey across the drifting sands to the frozen plains of Si- beria ; at the foot of the Himalayan glaciers, prepar- ing to ascend the snow-capped heights ; or tramp- ing alone over Alpine passes, as the best way to see the country. There are few countries to-day in which they cannot safely travel, and none in which they do not wish to travel. Moreover, in the last few decades women have written many admirable books about the lands of their wanderings. These books might be more numerous, and certainly would be more valuable, if their authors had been trained geographers. The scientific equipment which is necessary for research work in anthropo-geography embraces sub- jects which women students for the most part natu- rally select in their college course. These are geology, physiography, economics, sociology, and history, THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 75 with an occasional excursion into the fields of an- thropology, biology, and statistics. As mere prepa- ration, this list may seem a large contract; but as the average college woman comes out equipped with the majority of the subjects and the most important, the supplementary ones to be later mastered represent an easy task. The method of research, again, is well suited to feminine tastes and the feminine order of mind. It involves careful induction from a broad comparison of data. The collection of the data leads the student into wide and varied fields of reading, which forever charm by their novelty and by the lure of the chase to the hunter. Histories, books of travel and explora- tion, descriptions of lands and peoples, are the chief sources, varied occasionally by the duller material of census reports. The plan of procedure is to com- pare typical peoples of all races and all stages of cul- tural development, living under similar geographic conditions. If these peoples of different ethnic stocks but similar environments manifest similar or related social, economic, or historical development, then it is reasonable to infer that such similarities are due to environment and not to race. Thus the race fac- tor in the historical problem is eliminated by wide comparison, and the geographic factor can be esti- mated. 76 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION For instance, if the influences of an island en- vironment be the subject of research, we investi- gate the history and cultural development of island peoples over the whole world, whether they be Ma- lays, Mongohans, Papuans, Polynesians, American Indians, or the various branches of the white race ; whether savage, barbarous, or civilized; whether ancient or modern ; whether they dwell in an island continent like Australia, or a mere fragment of land like the Isle of Man. From this wide comparison of the manifold and varied slowly emerge the common social or historical traits, due to the common factor of insular environment. Suppose we are investigating the natural transit regions of the world. These are small open districts, located between physical barriers of mountain, sea, or desert, and therefore offering a nature-made pass- way for migration, trade, and conquest. Such was the location of the Iroquois country in the low Mo- hawk depression between the Catskill Mountains on the south and the Adirondacks on the north ; of the ancient Philistine plain between the rugged Judean highland on the east and the Mediterranean on the west ; of mediaeval Austria or the East Mark at the Danube gate between the Little Carpathians on the north and the spurs of the Alps on the south ; of the long Rhone trough, offering a valley highway THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 77 from the Mediterranean northward between the western Alps and the rough Cevennes Plateau. If we compare the history of all these transit dis- tricts, we find that they were small areas of corre- spondingly small populations, occupying a location that was at once dangerous but full of opportunity to acquire wealth, owing to the trade which passed through each. Recurrent danger came from the streams of migration and conquest deflected through these natural channels of movement. Attack was in- vited by the abundant opportunity of the position. Hence the inhabitants of such transit regions have developed courage and military power out of pro- portion to their number. They have developed also a talent for shrewd diplomacy, when their larger neighbors courted and conciliated them instead of attacking ; and thus they gained a protector for a time, playing off" one enemy against the other. But the inherent weakness of small numbers and an exposed location has always made desolating con- quest their national lot, in whatever continent they were found. Moreover, the history of one such transit region, if compared in its successive stages of civilization and in its distinctive periods, will show an almost monotonous recurrence of the same big historical events and the same type of national character, 78 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION though the ethnic stock may have changed. The low plain of Flanders and Brabant forms a passway only fifty miles wide between the North Sea and the rugged Ardennes Plateau, which, from the western Alps to the heart of Belgium, raises a natural bar- rier between the Rhine valley and the smiling plains of France. From time immemorial this Belgian gate- way has been assailed from the approaching high- ways on east and west. Its defenders first appear in history when Julius Caesar made his campaign in northern Gaul in 57 b.c. He defeated them in the first battle of the Aisne, and won another costly victory from them between the Sambre River and the Scheldt ; but he treated the conquered with the compassion due to a courageous people, and in his history he left a eulogy on their heroism. In the in- troduction to his '* Commentaries," he enumerates the three divisions of Gauls, and then adds: ''But the bravest of all these are the Belgians, because they fight almost daily battles with the Germans who live across the Rhine." History has moved in a narrow groove across this Belgian plain. Hordes of Teutonic barbarians swept in from the east during the early Middle Ages. Dur- ing the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the in- vaders were the armies of expanding France. To-day the plain of Flanders and Brabant is one vast battle- THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 79 field. The Roman eagle is superseded by the Prus- sian eagle, the Roman legion by the German army corps. Only the compassion of the Roman general is lacking. And the larger world to-day, with a pain- stung conscience, feeling itself somehow an accom- plice in the betrayal of the twentieth century civili- zation, cries with remorseful pity, *' The bravest of all these are the Belgians." Geography sets the stage for the drama which is always playing itself out on this Belgian plain. Geography fixes the entrances and the exits. It de- termines the chief acts of the tragedy, allots the lead- ing r61es, and selects the band of conspirators who furnish the dramatic episode. You are familiar with that stage scene. In the background are the Ardennes hills with their thickly strewn villages. To the left you see the blue waters of the North Sea sparkling in the sun ; to the right, the long river highway of the Rhine leading back into the heart of Europe. In the foreground, by the low bank of the river Scheldt, stands always the figure of Belgium, like Elsa of Brabant, lifting up her hands to Heaven, praying for a champion who shall defend her cause. And more than once in history that champion has come from the sea, sailing up the winding course of the Scheldt in his white-winged boat, like the Knight of the Holy Grail. 80 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION When the research student has collected all the necessary material and has deduced from it the sci- entific principle, the problem is to put it all, both data and conclusion, into literary form. For an- thropo-geography, having to do with mankind, is entitled to the same literary treatment as the best history. The scientist, barred from the easy-running narrative of the historian, must nevertheless make his style move as smoothly. As a scientist he must load up each sentence as if it were a pack-horse, and he must place each parcel of data accurately, lest it fall off. Higher and higher grows the load. He must compress the unwieldy mass, shape and model it to better balance and better form, but los- ing nothing. The heavy load is reduced, but it is all there. Its ugly shape is changed, but its content remains unaltered. The pack-horse carries his bur- den more easily ; he scarcely perceives its weight. More smoothly, more swiftly, he moves. He spreads his wings! Your pack-horse has become Pegasus. Your book is literature but it is still science, Darwin- ian in method but Hellenic in form. Thus it seeks to establish two claims to immortality: Truth that is eternal, and Beauty that is eternal. Such is the field of activity, such is the reward to which I would invite you all, — because I love you. The Highest Education for Women BY JULIA CLIFFORD LATHROP, Class of 'so Chief of the Children' s Bureau, United States Defiartment of Labor MAY I preface what I wish to say by asking the special indulgence of the mothers and the teachers who form so large a part of this audience ? To both I speak with the mingled timidity and confidence of one whose long observation has been unhampered by experience. The founding of Vassar gave a substantial re- sponse to the slowly-grown demand for schools of equal standards for all youth, and we cannot be too grateful for the courage of Matthew Vassar, who ventured his estate to express his idea of simple jus- tice to American girls. For fifty years what is known as the higher education of women has been a policy, whose growth is sign enough of the approval it has earned. The higher education in the great group of women's colleges has been and still is purely cul- tural, avowedly and inevitably offering to women the precise cultural studies offered to men, keep- ing pace in implicit faithfulness with the develop- ment of cultural courses in the leading schools for the education of men. How and why these cultural courses have widened might well be the subject of 82 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION a careful study. The changes are a conservative running index of what we like to believe is the grow- ing democracy of our intellectual interests ; but the point is that these courses are oifered as cultural, part of the unspecialized training of an educated per- son, or part of the training preliminary to special training. Perhaps there is no one left to question the ability of women to take in and take on this culture. At any rate, for our purpose let us consider closed the question of assimilation. On the basis of this cultural study, men's col- leges have added professional schools in growing variety, serving the needs of a few thousands each in pursuits dignified and useful, but not absolutely essential to the existence of the race. To certain of these schools women have been more or less pain- fully admitted; but they remain men's schools for men's pursuits, and the great foundations for ori- ginal research are men's foundations. And the inti- mations that women's powers are powers of assim- ilation continue to be heard. The very words "higher education" challenge us to the superlative and push us to the subject I have ventured to state. What is the highest educa- tion of women, and what are some of its immedi- ate possibilities? No one would be bold enough to say that we can discern all these possibilities, and THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 83 as for the ultimate development of the education of women, it is as far beyond our ken as the Vassar campus is beyond the imagination of the cave- woman. May I venture to define crudely the highest education of our day as that which, upon a cultural basis, gives the mind an ardor for discovering facts and relating them to the truth, and which provides the technical equipment of training for independent research? The more fully we examine the scope of the grad- uate professional schools, and the wide sweep of the great foundations for original research, the more it becomes apparent that there is one great interest not yet made a subject of that study for which the high- est education prepares. The one great avocation con- stantly requiring the unsparing service of millions of women is the rearing of children and the conduct of a household. The most universal and essential of employments, it remains the most neglected by sci- ence, a neglect long hidden behind tradition and sen- timentality. Can women of the higher education do less than undertake to put an end to this neglect, to begin to place investigation and research directly at the service of the cult of the family, and to start forward on paths by which the most important call- ing in the world shall gradually acquire professional status? The highest education of women, then, I 84 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION wish to define in terms of the needs of our own time, as training in original research applied to the life and interests of the family. Women of the higher education have vindicated the value of freedom for individual development. The family type based upon equal individual culture of both parents gives a further vindication of women's higher education. Family democracy can only lead toward social democracy, slowly, indeed, but surely. Undoubtedly the family has been gradually gaining in efficiency and in refinement since rivers ran to the sea. Yet as Ellen Richards laboriously analyzed those waters and showed us how to keep them pure for human use, so, we may be sure, the study of the family will reveal new material and moral standards and the practical means of securing them. As a few evidences of the need of study of the family, we may remind ourselves that we do not understand life at the source, nor the reasons for its known wastage, nor how to economize the health and well-being of the race by minimizing this wast- age. The subject has been regarded with such fatal- istic indifference that we do not yet know how many children are born, nor how many die, nor why they die in our own country, while the more intensive knowledge of infant well-being which would enable us to establish convincingly its relationship to social THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 85 well-being and to the rectitude and intelligence of parents is yet to be secured and analyzed. We know strangely little of the growth of the child's mind. Not long ago the advice of a distin- guished alienist was sought as to the practical value of studies of the mental development of normal chil- dren in earliest infancy and during the years before the school and the outside world directly affect the child. He replied that such studies are of the high- est value ; that their primary usefulness as aids in working out the best home training of all children goes without saying ; and that naturally enough he thought of them as especially needful because of the light they would throw on the baffling questions with which an alienist wrestles in dealing with the history of mental disaster. Such studies can be made only by aid of the observations of individual mothers . Is it not a complete revelation of our unconscious relegation of the processes of human development to the limbo of instinct that, while there are perhaps thirteen million mothers in this country, there are at best about a half dozen such studies (made by fathers and mothers jointly), and that in attempting a plan for such studies a great difficulty is present in finding a competent director? We do not know the constitution of the Ameri- can family. I speak of thirteen million mothers, but 86 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION that is only an estimate based on the enumeration of women who are heads of households. No one really knows. The government census has never been di- rected to state the number, though this and much other precious information as to the constitution of every family in the country lies unused upon the millions of untabulated schedules filed away for the last thirty years in the census archives. We do not know how extensive is the industrial employment of married women, nor its effect upon children and family life, nor when it is a result of a scale of wages for men too low decently to support a family, nor whether it is sometimes the cause of a low scale of wages for men, nor when it is fair to all concerned, including society at large, that mothers should work for hire. Worst ignorance of all, we do not know what is the decent support of a family, nor the factors that affect the question in a world where democratic efficiency is still only beginning to struggle up from feudal efficiency. All these are questions whose answers can never be complete nor right until they are expressed in terms of the family. If we cared to ask, these unregarded census fig- ures could tell us various facts which are now seem- ing mysteries. They could tell the numbers of mar- ried women in industry, their ages, the ages and numbers of their children, how many children have THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 87 lived and how many have perished, the occupation of the fathers and mothers, and where the loss of child life is greatest. They could give an intimation of the numbers of families whose mothers are bur- dened and whose privacy is infringed by lodgers and boarders. Yet there has been no demand for this information, and the material gathered in 1890, in 1900, and in 1910 remains untouched. Does the question of domestic service interest you in an academic or a practical way? The unpublished census figures hold the complete history of the shifts in the nationality and distribution of this service for thirty years. Would you know how many families have servants ? Would you know how many women perform with their own hands every daily task for their husbands and children? The answers are in the unpublished sheets of the census. I have referred thus in detail to the vast resources of unused information which the government al- ready possesses with regard to the family, because I know of no other illustration which indicates so clearly our national neglect, — the unconsidered neg- lect of students, the unconscious indifference of the public, — in a field where it is complacently taken for granted that our emotions and personal interests guarantee our efficient attention. Again, if the structure of the family is unstud- 88 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION ied, still less is its dissolution understood. The pro- founder causes for those disasters which only emerge in the divorce court among persons of appreciable income are not indicated by the oft-quoted census figures of 1910, which show that one in twelve of the marriages in the United States ends in divorce. May it not be that the efforts of law and religion to cope with family breakdown lack success because to its study have not been called the wisest repre- sentatives of those who inevitably suffer most in disastrous marriages, the women of our country? Again, women are increasingly the direct retail purchasers of the country. We need education in family expenditure, in the prudent apportionment of an income, in discrimination as to the quality of every article and function which enters into the family life. Here we are confronted perhaps more simply and directly than in apparently larger issues with the fact that no family lives to itself alone. For years a little group of people have urged the purchaser's responsibility, first because unwhole- some conditions of production may bring injury to the family of the purchaser, but finally and conclu- sively because bad conditions of production certainly injure the producer's own family ; and once our eyes are opened we see a thousand proofs that the injury of one family is the concern of all. We may well be THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 89 proud of the scholarly work of the Vassar faculty and alumnae in many fields, but at no point more than here, where pioneer studies in domestic econ- omy by Ellen Richards and Miss Salmon have pointed the way for future independent students. I am not unmindful of the tragic family impor- tance of that helpless residue of social wastage whose index is the population of our charitable and penal institutions, yet I believe that a greater prom- ise of usefulness lies in studying normal life. May it not be that this very social wastage will be saved, not by repression or cure or prevention, but by con- struction, by strengthening the general fabric of human society as the physician combats disease, by increasing bodily vigor and the power of resistance? Consider what the mere establishment of a single centre of training for research in the problems of the family would mean. Would it mean less for family life than the founding of this college meant for the individual student ? I think far more, because it could build upon that cultural basis which the last fifty years have developed. Perhaps wisely our greater women's colleges have thus far kept aloof from any interest in the practical arts of daily family life. Yet independently a wide movement for bettering the household has begun, helped by the re-discovery of the preciousness of the worker's hand along with 90 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION the scholar's eye. The public schools have given us manual training and kindergartens and finally cook- ing and sewing, the state normal schools and the state universities have developed courses and teach- ers' training classes in domestic science. A few pub- lic schools have begun to teach practical housewifery in a practical manner, and city health departments have developed Little Mothers' Leagues. There are a few notable instances of rural schools which are also the teachers' homes, in which the usual work of daily life is well taught. Certain girls' schools and technical institutions offer practical instruction in household arts. But nowhere is there any centre for research and discover}^, nowhere a centre where choice minds are devoting their powers to the philosophy of the inev- itable labors of the average household, to develop- ing by original study improved care of the young who must be nurtured there, new expedients for en- riching the lives of the adults who should be happy there. Nowhere patient research gives the authori- tative sanction which would elevate into a national system, strong, free, elastic, the cult of the Ameri- can family. A graduate school would train a certain number of persons in the art of independent research in va- rious fields. It would necessarily be also a centre of THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 91 research because such training must be done by con- tact with actual problems. Much of its work would be extra-mural. It could, for instance, enHst the aid of many thousand mothers every year. Such cen- tres of research would serve to correlate and inspire the many scattered educational activities now exist- ing, all of which are making more eifective the work of the average household by placing at its service the inventions and appliances of modern science. Nothing could be more unfortunate than any effort to control the practical teaching already under way : nothing, on the other hand, more helpful and wel- come than centres of original study to which prac- tical people could turn for inspiration and help. Again, such centres would by their extra-mural re- lations be kept constantly aware of the practical aspects of their varying studies. Are some of you thinking that this is far-fetched? That wisdom does, after all, make its contribution through the individual to the home finally, that good parents — the only numerous class of parents — create good households, and that the natural devo- tion of mothers can still be trusted? May I reply that mother love can be trusted, but that we presume upon it? Maternal affection is the most precious sur- vival of instinctive life. By its motive power millions of women daily perform miracles of patient toil, but 92 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Nature has withdrawn from the human mother the instinctive wisdom which, as Fabre has shown, she bestows so lavishly upon the hymenoptera. What may we not hope for the future of the race when we put at the service of the human mother's intel- ligence the continually growing discoveries of re- search? I do not propose a small thing nor a cheap thing in urging that the present status of the education of women demands a new specialization, to be signal- ized by the creation of centres of study and research in the service of family Hfe. It means not only great endowment of money, it means the greater endow- ment of trained minds set to the task of working out the expedients, of fashioning the tools of expres- sion, by which that profound maternal instinct, reinforced by intelligence, may freely work out the destiny of the young of the race. It is no less than a revolution which is implied. Its aim is to give the work of the woman head of a household the status of a profession . This change has already begun, and I have referred to the many beginnings of teaching applied household econom- ics as a sign of the coming change. The question is whether the women of the higher education shall strengthen the movement directly and avowedly. ELarlier, when individual development was the goal THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 93 of education, how often has it been said of a wo- man, "Now she is married. What good will all that education do her ? ' ' With the highest educa- tion creating great centres of study through which to utilize and co-ordinate the observations of moth- ers, do we not begin to see at once a new application for the higher education ? Mothers of the next gen- eration will need, not to resign themselves to the limi- tations of their fate, but rather to equip themselves for its illimitable opportunities. Instead of being isolated by the narrow life of home, through it the mother allies herself to the highest studies and makes invaluable contributions as a sheer by-product of her daily cares. The legal emancipations of women are coming fast. The rapidity of her further educational eman- cipation rests with herself. It is now partial; she may enter the recognized professions, those which will always invite a small minority of women. It is for her to make the great occupation of women a profession, to see that the highest education trains those who shall contribute toward that profession's success. Posterity will smile at the naivete with which some of us incline to consider women no longer economi- cally useful because the factory has freed mothers from certain subsidiary domestic arts. In truth she 94 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION now begins to have time and vision to see that there are real and growing arts in the physical care of the young, in the development of the childish mind and behavior. Above all, the mother of to-day may look outside her own door. She is gaining an understand- ing that no home prospers or perishes to itself alone, that the doors of all homes open on the highway of a common happiness, and that economic values are human values. We begin to see in richer terms the equitable meaning of society, and to see in the de- velopment of that meaning a task to be performed by women chiefly, which will demand all the time and wisdom they can summon. I have spoken of women and to women, and for that very reason it must not be left unsaid that in American civilization as nowhere else in the world women may count in their own task upon the aid of the one force more wonderful than maternal in- stinct, that purest product of civilization, the devo- tion of the father. The initiative for the highest education applied to the service of the family rests with women : the carrying out must be done jointly by men and women, since, diverse as may be their daily tasks, the interests of men and women cannot be separated. Both are joined in the great onward march of the race toward that mysterious end which we love to call justice. THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 95 I need not say that I wish Vassar might be the first college for women to add such a graduate school as I have ventured to suggest to her undergraduate college. New Aspects of Old SoQial Responsibilities BY LILLIAN D. WALD Of the Henry Street Settlement, JVenv York City 1COME to you with very mixed emotions: pride and pleasijire in participating in the celebration of an institution tl^at from its inception has carried so many implications of social import; and a very deep regret that, unhappily for us all, the fiftieth anniversary of this college is denied the inspiration of Jane Addams's presence, and that a substitute must come in the place of the wise woman of Amer- ica, the leader, I venture to say, of social thought in her generation. The other speakers have intimated, and I will reiterate the fact, that the business of being a woman has not altered in its essentials since history has been first recorded, and the so-called ' ' new woman ' ' could, if she would, defend her position by time- honored custom and the traditional sanction of the ages. The wise book long ago describing the ideal woman of Biblical days claimed for her worldly at- tributes and great efficiency, associated with tender feeling and a social conscience. *'She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh will- ingly with her hands." A consumer and a producer. THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 97 "She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard." In the real estate business and an agricultural student. ''She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms." A winner of athletic honors. " She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night." An expert, and doubdess an advocate of the double shift. ' ' She stretcheth out her hand to the poor ; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy." A member in good standing of the Associated Charities. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry ; her clothing is silk and purple." A patron of arts and crafts. Her husband is known in the gates, when he sit- teth among the elders of the land. " The implication here is that she has made a man of her husband. ' ' She openeth her mouth with wisdom ; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. ' ' Plainly the social worker. Give her of the fruits of her hands ; and let her own works praise her in the gates." In other words, she is an individual who must stand or fall as she is worthy or otherwise. But the old social theory was established in the belief that the individual was supreme; and then. 98 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION with civilization's advance, responsibility was ex- tended to cover the family and the tribal group, which meant an increased group consciousness with the lessening of individual authority, not revolu- tionary in any sense, but logically evolutionary from the social concept. And now the larger social groups included in the present conception of responsibility bring new aspects of the position that women must take to hold to their importance and their dignity and to be a part of the progress of religion , of the sciences, and of the humanities, that are the essence of civiliza- tion, — not to be the flying buttresses that support the cathedral arches in an auxiliary architectural capacity, but, if inspired and competent, to be even the pillars within the sacred edifice itself. The new application of the gospel that has been preached within this sacred edifice throughout the ages sounds a note of the same change. The conception of religion has extended from the individual to society; a true religion fills the need of both. Economics and gov- ernment and a rational view of religion are based on human needs ; and fundamental human needs under- lie the so-called labor and woman's movements. Years ago, when I first became acquainted with the working girls, they made the light penetrate to me until I saw that the trade union, even the strike and the boycott, were in reality a part of the THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 99 struggle of the young women to hold to their pre- cious inheritances, — shorter hours to enable them to learn to keep the home, to work, to sew, to read, to be courted, and better pay to adorn themselves that they might find favor in the eyes of man. And the theory of individual competition has given place in their minds to the moral conviction of fidelity to socially established standards, for the maintenance of which the individual, even the family, may be sacrificed that the larger group may profit. Our forebears, working in the home, thought only of the needs of the family. As home work became factory work, the home worker became the factory worker. In the early days she felt little of the social philosophy which was embodied in her service ; but that has developed, and with the understanding of collective bargaining, broader ethics have been es- tablished among the working women. To-day they consider the individual in industry who seeks her own interests in defiance of group ethics almost an outcast, scorned as a " scab, ' ' as those who have de- fied the sanctity of family life have been condemned by society ; and in this they are mentally and mor- ally comrades of the modern progressive economists and labor leaders among men. The new aspect of social responsibility in industry takes organized form among other women who, fit- 100 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION ting themselves to the environment of an age of ma- chinery, band together in groups, as in the Consum- ers' League, the Women's Trade Union League; and they have not hesitated to use, for sound moral purposes, methods that, not long ago, might have been considered unladylike and unwomanly. Con- scientious women of a great city of Illinois joined with church dignitaries to agitate publicly for the boycott of department stores which would not adopt early closing hours ; and the Minimum Wage Board of Massachusetts embodies the idea of the boycott by advertising in the counties of the state those em- ployers who fall below the social-industrial stand- ards. Dramatic expression of the new psychology was presented in Connecticut, not long ago, when a number of women workers conducted a twenty-four hour strike, followed by a Labor Day procession, floats, and a steamer excursion, their employer fol- lowing their demonstration by a public statement of his conviction that the eight hour standard for which they had contested was socially and industrially ad- vantageous. Manufacturers in that town and others throughout the state have followed this leadership. Public opinion supports the wisdom and social value of maintaining this standard, and, where girls are concerned, the emphasis has always been laid upon the fact that the conservation of their health and THE ANNIVERSARY ABtiRESSE'S Ibi their morals makes them better mothers and better home-makers. In Pennsylvania, a few days ago, a whole city paid deference to a woman who, loving trees and beauty in nature, conceived the great thought of transform- ing an ugly, disfigured city into one of beauty. Through her perseverance and great patience, and because she brought knowledge and fact to brace her arguments, she succeeded in getting civic pride and enthusiasm roused to the endurance of an in- creased tax rate for this end. She has carried out into the world beyond her own garden her convic- tion of the importance of beauty and order, and has made the city profit by her taste and education and painstaking labors. Not having the happiness of possessing children of her own, she has exerted her powers to secure opportunities for all the children of her city. In Indiana, legislation for better housing has been brought about by a devoted home-maker. Because she felt that the nation's life rested upon the home and because the home was so precious to her, she wrought * 'beauty out of ashes" for her state, sac- rificing the peaceful and quiet enjoyment of her own home, until, by force of all the methods and enthu- siasms of a zealot, better homes were insured for other families than her own. ioa't^ASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION The halos that encircled the saints of long ago might occasionally and with propriety be transferred to the pilgrims who, foot-sore and weary, stand at the gates of state capitals petitioning for legislation to ameliorate and reform, fitting themselves to speak a language according to the law, and adjusting their powers of persuasion to meet the newer require- ments of legislative exigencies. Euripides made the lament of the Trojan women sound down two thousand years, and but yester- day women gathered across the seas to state their abhorrence of war, and on a world stage to declare that they were conveyers of a message for vast num- bers of women in every land, — -the belief that life is precious and that to destroy it is a wanton and unpardonable crime, a barbarism that women ac- customed to band together for the conservation of life would no longer brook. At a stage in history when women were first organizable, they came to- gether during war to protest against war and to offer reasonable substitutes for settling international dis- agreements. Doubtless the first profession for woman (for its roots are set in the care of the young) is that of the nurse ; and it has accompanied her progress through- out the ages. It was a woman of the higher educa- tion, one who knew her Greek and Latin and whose THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 103 mind touched the minds of the erudite of her age, who had a vision of the great responsibility that lay upon her to apply her warm sympathy, her woman's traditional aptitude and trained hands and intellect, to the soldiers, the camp, the sanitation of villages in India and at home; and, when hideous war was over, to expand her socialized womanly influence to cover the almshouses, the hospitals, to break down the red-tape bureaucracy and the antiquated meth- ods of war offices, to write books on nursing and sanitation and protective health measures. This one woman's influence was dynamic, and was so felt around the world. Florence Nightingale lifted the vague, casual, though kindly and devoted, feeling of women into organized, efficient, and invaluable service; she enlarged the nurse's vision to sympa- thy for great groups outside her family or particular tribe. In the last two decades, coincident with a social unrest because of things detrimental to human hap- piness, the nurse has emerged into public move- ments. The appeal to her is the appeal of the com- munity. And that is not at the cost of the single patient or the single mother, but because of the sanctity of life and motherhood, and the conviction that the mother, as well as the unborn child and the infant newly born, have become the trust of 104 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION society. These things challenge the attention of the educated nurse to-day. It has become her respon- sibility to make practical application in the homes of the people of the results of scientific thought and research. Nurses have united together in a na- tional society that they may help and inspire one another, that the community may obtain the utmost advantage possible from this age-old profession of women. It is now little more than two years since they gathered for the first time to record as an or- ganization their interest in and identification with the numerous phases of the public health move- ments and the promotion of right living. There were among them women who had taken the initia- tive in compelling the public to focus attention on constructive, preventive, supervisory methods, that an active cult of health might be built up. Creative minds among them have been at work that nurses may be directed toward a goal of social betterment ; and this purpose marches side by side with the an- cient ideal of a consolatory and alleviating service. It is this most modern aspect of nursing that suc- cessfully enlists the social minded woman, because her work has become an essential part of an harmo- nious whole. The first woman physician in America died only a few years ago, and the first woman to study medi- THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 105 cine in Holland, still vigorous and full of zeal for the free exercise of woman's ability, has been in Amer- ica for the last few weeks, undaunted by war, a crusader of peace for the great human cause. Women, and with them at times far-seeing men, prophetic because they knew the movements of the past, have helped to open up opportunities in the professions, not as special privileges, but so to en- dow woman that her natural gifts might come to full fruition, and not for her, the individual, but for all — womankind and mankind — to serve the commu- nity. To adjust her education to meet the new and enlarging need, great universities have established chairs of nursing and hygiene and home economics, dignifying old and domestic occupations with pro- fessional standards. In those countries and states where political equal- ity has been established I see demonstrations of self- realization, and almost always the development of those inclinations that are traditional. New Zealand, remote and therefore not within the zone of local referendum controversy, has — I think not acciden- tally — the lowest infant mortality rate in the world. In Norway the legislature has lifted a cruel handi- cap from illegitimate children. Into the realm of fed- eral control human needs have been brought, as con- trasted with material and academic and diplomatic 106 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION functions of the government. A Federal Bureau for Children, its chief a woman, one of your own : what new and mannish venture does she embark on? She rouses the nation — or tries to rouse it — to the neglect of the baby. She takes the baby out of the obscure, so often neglected and hidden crib into the full light of publicity. " Suffer not this little one to be lost sight of. It is a child of the nation ! " This bureau is a telling illustration of my theme. The former often only sentimental portrayal of the child is replaced by irrefutable mortality data, and these are shown to be related to high rent rates and low wage scales, — twin home destroyers. That is one of the things that women do when they function in public life. They exercise their intelligence for the preservation of the things that are important to them and have always been and always will be. Upon the educated woman more particularly de- volves the task of re-adapting the social interests of her sex to a changed physical and spiritual environ- ment. She should, as a member in good standing of the great society, be the co-ordinator of human values. The task of organizing human happiness needs the active co-operation of men and women ; it cannot be relegated to one-half the world, and active co-operation for such noble ends cannot be se- cured unless men and women really work together. THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 107 Women have been experiencing the growth of a new consciousness, an integral element in the evolu- tion of self-government ; and as a result many more women than ever believe that they can best repre- sent human interests in government, at least that they can best represent themselves in those mea- sures that immediately concern them and for which tradition and experience have fitted them. They are more earnestly aware of the social responsibility that rests upon them. Colleges and professional schools have prepared the way for the citizenship of women, as have also the factories and the department stores. The restricted, secluded, non-earning woman was logically a dependent, and her efforts were confined to the field of her home activity. The time has passed when the removal of those activities constituted a great venture ; we have long since accustomed our- selves to the idea of her transplantation, and with the statistics of women who earn their own living before us, no longer can the idea of chivalrous male protection be all-impressive. Nothing really good has been lost, and a very fine kind of comradeship — to my mind even a greater romance of comradeship — has been made possible between men and women. The fear that disturbs some that the altered relation- ship between men and women may develop a de- structive sex antagonism, is, I believe, wholly with- 108 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION out foundation. The roots of public social service and responsibility are deeply planted in the nature of woman, and what we are witnessing in our gen- eration are the new manifestations of her unchanged and unchanging interests and devotions. Her circle of human experience and human feeling has only widened, and with it the invisible form of govern- ment so long attributed to her has become distaste- ful, because furtive and therefore essentially un- womanly. She is a freer being, capable of doing more and being more. ' * Give her of the fruits of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates." Women and Democracy BY EMILY JAMES PUTNAM Associate in History in Barnard College THE natural terrors roused by such a title as that given to my modest reflections on this stirring occasion may, I think, be largely set at rest at the outset when I say that I do not pretend to understand either democracy or women, that I re- gard both as necessary evils, and that my intention is merely to ask you to notice two specific ways in which the two are egging each other on, with the result — to my mind — that educated women to-day have as great a responsibility resting on them as any class you could pick out. When we speak of women and democracy it is not the first term only that it is hard to get a sharp, clear portrait of. Not only woman but democracy also is varium et mutabile semper. We don't generally nowadays mean by democracy, I think, a specific form of government ; we mean a new way of look- ing at mankind and the social relations, which some of us grasp by one handle and some by another, so that we often talk and work at cross-purposes. Yet we have a common concept that differentiates us from the ancients with their aristocratic demo- cracies, and from the eighteenth century and the 110 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION rights of man, and from the nineteenth century with its laissez-faire and philanthropy. As I was feeling round for an expression of this new concept suffi- ciently stable for the purposes of this discussion, my friend Professor Robinson of Columbia, with whom I was talking it over, used an illustration which I thought would serve excellently, and which, with his kind permission, I now offer to you. Not only the botanists but any one taking a walk up a New Hampshire hill notices that on the bald stony top various mosses grow and flourish. They positively like the bleak environment which nothing else likes. They don't grow down in the fat mead- ows ; they thrive and perpetuate themselves on the bare rock. Now up to our Ume there has been a sort of feeling that the human species was naturally dis- tributed in highly differentiated groups ; not only a feeling that the Eskimo and the Hottentot are really and radically different from us, but also a feeling so deeply seated in the subconscious, or whatever it is that runs us, that reasoning can only remove it for a little while at a time, that there is a real natural fitness in the fact that a certain fifty women are driv- ing in limousines on Fifth Avenue while a certain other fifty are at work in Macy's basement. The anthropologists, I need hardly remind you, have been making hay of the first of these notions. They THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 111 tell us that the human mind, wherever found, is in- credibly uniform in its general action, though capa- ble of infinite individual variation. They tell us that they 've caught Eskimo babies and planted them in New England villages, whereupon they ' ve grown up not into Eskimos but into New Englanders. They tell us that as far as history goes we can't prove any actual increase in human intelligence. We have piled up a culture under which we stagger, but our natu- ral faculties, speaking of the race as a whole, are where they were. We can't transmit to our offspring the ability to drive a motor-car, and on the other hand the offspring of the Zulu can readily learn to drive it to perfection. Thomas Hardy the novelist is a good deal of a sociologist, and he has a way of lighting up these subjects with a flashing sentence. Glancing at one of his novels the other day, I found this doctrine in a nutshell. One of the characters of the novel was passing through London after the season was over. As he walked down Pall Mall, the main difference he noted, says Hardy, was that in- stead of being full of clubmen rubicund with alcohol, the street was full of house-painters pallid with white lead. Now if democracy consists in seeing the accidental character in these differences of complexion, if it leads us on, in the light of Professor Boas' s conclu- 112 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION sions, to see as irrelevant differences of complexion of much longer standing, if it discredits the good old simple inferences from skull-measurement on which my own youth was nurtured, where does it leave us in regard to what we call feminism? By feminism we mean something like this, do we not? Granting that the human race as a whole could be a good deal better off in several specific ways, the plight of women is susceptible of improvement in even more ways than the plight of men. Take men where you will, in Paris or in Greenland, in motors or afoot, in top-hats or naked, in monasteries or in Gay Street, you will hardly find one who would care to be the female of his species, whatever his species happens to be. I do not say that a starving tramp might not be willing to exchange with the Queen of England ; I merely say that in general no man would be willing to be his own wife. This re- luctance, I think, rests in the main on three grounds : the man's sense in the first place of owning a more serviceable physique ; of having, in the second place, a sounder economic position ; and, in the third place, of having greater emotional stability. These seem to me to be, roughly, the most important respects in which men have got ahead of women as repre- sentatives of the human species, and the kind of feminism that I profess aspires to advance women THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 113 on all these lines. It is here that the new democracy touches the special problems of women; with its growing insistence on the uniformity of human ca- pacity and on the possibility of infinite adaptation of the individual, it opens from day to day a brighter prospect that women can to some extent change their spots. I imagine it is not necessary to argue these points with an audience like this. Many of you are doubt- less engaged in more active attempts to understand the conditions and to correct them than I have ever made. Under the first head I should like to say merely this : it seems evident that it is physiology that is hard on women rather than society, except in so far as society has reinforced and exaggerated the ukases of physiology, and it is surprising that women in general are not more keen to find where the limits of the unalterable lie. I have personally the greatest curiosity to see what society could do if it set itself to minimize women's sex idiosyncrasies instead of aggravating them. If I might have my way, all girls would be trained to be manly. They would be stripped of their hampering dress, which is in itself the badge of physical incompetence. They would be practiced in dangerous sports, where life and limb depend on nervous control ; public opinion would require of them the same standard of phys- 114 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION ical courage as it requires of boys ; they would not be allowed to cry when they are hurt ; the schools would have courses in not being afraid of things, beginning with mice and progressing through men- under-the-bed to fire-arms; they would learn the ordinary arts of self-defense, and, in view of their special liability to attack, would supplement these with the open carriage of weapons when circum- stances rendered it advisable. It is my belief that the new habit of mind begotten by such changes as these would work farther than we can easily imagine. The mere fact of the absurdity of our clothes goes far to disqualify us as serious persons. If I were a woman working in a cannery, I don't think it would be to the high-heeled class in the commonwealth that I should look for just and effective opinions on social hygiene. And with the high heel I should like to see go the idea many women seem to hold who should know better, that war, irrespective of the motive for which it is waged, is a new form of self- indulgence that men have invented for themselves, and of which women are the chief victims. So far am I from sympathy with this strange view of war that I hope if it should ever become necessary, which God forbid, to protect this country by arms against a military and despotic culture, we shall see battal- ions of strong and courageous and disciplined young THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 115 women as ready and as fit as their brothers to defend the right. As to the second respect in which the position of women is capable of very great and far-reaching improvement, — I mean the question of economic independence, — there is certainly no need to enlarge on that to an audience of college women, for next to the industrial class, they can, I fancy, show the largest percentage of self-support. I shall assume that you agree with me in believing that the social and political problems of women would be solved automatically if the women of the middle and upper classes had the courage to solve the economic prob- lem for themselves. We will lay it down, therefore, that the girls of these classes should be brought up as regularly as their brothers to the practice of trades and professions, and we would have them continue those trades and professions after marriage. The shift of public opinion on the question of teacher- mothers in the last year or two shows that this can be done more readily than some persons imagine. It would probably modify considerably the current notion of the home, making it more flexible, less conventional, more nearly what each individual pair wants than what society thrusts upon everybody; and that, in my judgment, would be all to the good. It seems clear that to be strong and independent, 116 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION to be able to carry the family if the man should be laid up, as she must do when he is, to be really her husband's partner, to possess the sense of the value of money that comes only from earning it, and the sense of its unimportance in comparison with other values which comes only with the knowledge that more can be earned if need be, — in a word, to be a free-footed human being, would be, for a woman, to eliminate a very high percentage of the causes of unhappiness in marriage. But this ideal has to be reached by individual effort. The final problem of making good is a question of character. Each woman must finally achieve it for herself, as each man must. And my reason for mentioning so obvious a fact is the misgiving I feel at seeing so many women bark- ing up another tree altogether and substituting for the vital ultimate aim some proximate formal one, the pursuit of which is less lonely and calls for no such girding of the loins. It is harder to describe the third respect in which it looks as though men met life more successfully than women. It lies in the neighborhood of the finest quality of women, their noblest function, their purest value to the world, and must therefore be touched with the finest discrimination. Sometimes I feel inclined to call it plumply , as Sienkiewicz does, ** the superior recuperative power of the masculine THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 117 heart," but that makes it look a good deal like an inferiority. Familiar quotation deals with it more satisfactorily by declaring that while ' ' love is of man's life a thing apart, 't is woman's whole exist- ence." And while we are still under the heading of the explicit, we are able to call Henry James as a witness, who is not always eligible as an example of that method. Mr. James has a feminist creed of his own, which he recommends to the propagan- dists while considering the case of George Sand, whose ''abiding value," he says, ''will probably be in her having given her sex, for its new evolution and transformation, the real standard and measure of change. This evolution and this transformation are all round us unmistakable; the change is in the air; women are turned more and more to look- ing at life as men look at it and to getting from it what men get." And he leaves us in no doubt about the exact nature of what Madame Sand got from life that women do not usually get, — she made the emotions feed her talent, instead of crowding it out. With her free experience and her free use of it, her literary style, her love of ideas and ques- tions, of science and philosophy, her comradeship, her boundless tolerance, her intellectual patience, her personal good humor and perpetual tobacco (she 118 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION smoked long before women at large felt the cruel obligation), with all these things and many I don't mention she had more of the inward and outward of the other sex than of her own. She had above all the mark that . . . the history of her personal passions reads singularly like a chronicle of the rav- ages of some male celebrity. . . . Her fashion was quite her own of extracting from this sort of expe- rience all that it had to give her and being withal only the more just and bright and true, the more sane and superior, improved and improving. . . . It is just possible indeed that the moral idea was the real mainspring of her course — I mean the sense of the duty of avenging on the unscrupulous race of men their immemorial selfish success with the plas- tic race of women. Did she wish above all to turn the tables — to show how the sex that had always ground the other in the volitional mill was on occa- sion capable of being ground?" This, then, is the way the matter presents itself to various men, all profoundly interested in differ- ent aspects of the emotional life, and all knowing by experience how it feels to be a creative artist. It may, however, perhaps be more prudently ap- proached if we first advance the proposition that the feminine point of view is invaluable to society because women more than men tend to criticize life THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 119 in terms of happiness, and not necessarily their own happiness. Of course there have always been heart- less, ambitious, and fanatical women ; and there are an increasing number of men who are as sensitive as women to the need for the happiness of people im- mediately about them and of society at large. But, with these abatements, most people are pretty cer- tain to admit by their actions if they will not in words, that what a woman usually strikes for as the kernel of a problem is its bearing on the happiness of all concerned. It is a commonplace that a man who has to announce money losses to a woman de- pendent on him is often astounded by finding that except by way of sympathy for his damaged self- respect, she is not downcast in the least. She is as likely as not to say, "But, my dear, we shall be just as happy in a smaller house." To the man this remark seems either idiotic or a pose. He is think- ing of the external facts of failure ; he would rather be successful than happy. Nevertheless, this fem- inine habit of mind is what makes a man seek a woman for confidante when he is on the brink of (for instance) giving up a lucrative job for reasons too psychic to get a patient hearing in the world of men. It is sound and humane, and the world at large is beginning to adopt it as the true basis of social and economic conceptions. Now the corner- 120 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION stone of happiness as women see it is love, — all sorts of love, — and here again they save the race by being gloriously right. You will foresee that the next sentence must begin with **but." But the inevitable limitation to one's enthusiasm for this beautiful rightness of women is the glim- mering of a notion that in practice they carry it out with a sentimental leakage, an absoluteness of aim, that go a long way toward holding them down to the second rank in pretty nearly every field of achieve- ment. We may note that the theoretical feminists are divided by a fundamental question — is wo- men's progress to be in the direction of a greater diiferentiation between the sexes, or a less? Is it to be primarily emotional with a basis in economics, or primarily economic with emotion sparingly used as a motive power under government supervision ? Are women to be lovers and mothers with Ellen Key, or lesser men with Olive Schreiner? The first set of questions is eloquently affirmed by the women of many countries of continental Europe. The ^'yes" to the second set is part of the birthright of the Anglo- Saxon (though it originated in France among the ideas of '89), and has been hitherto the mainspring in England and America of feminist agitation. From John Stuart Mill through Frances Power Cobbe to Mrs. Oilman this view has been triumphant. It rests THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 121 on the theory that women are over-sexed, that mar- riage-plus-maternity should not be regarded as the first requirement for all women but as an alterna- tive, the other course being ' ' some form of construc- tive pursuit, usually industrial." The problem of the sexually superfluous woman, which almost robs Ellen Key of her sleep, does not greatly trouble these thinkers ; they are appeased by remembering that industry is open to her. Woman in constructive pursuits must up to date, I fear, be thought of as the ^'lesser man." The evidence which has accu- mulated up to our own time has done nothing to in- validate Plato's famous dictum that a woman can do anything a man can do, and that some women can do things better than some men, but that on the whole the best of the world's work, from cooking to sculpture, has been done by men. RosaBonheur may be trotted out as often as her own horses, and the fact will remain that the highest creative achieve- ments are to seek among women to a degree not to be explained by lack of opportunity or of the sym- pathy of society. This admission should, I think, be made without reluctance, since it is not so im- portant as it sounds ; for even a good second place is more than is attainable by the vast majority of man- kind. Still, something should be done about it. Plato believed that the second-rateness of women 122 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION was due simply to their physical inferiority, and he proposed to minimize this by a wiser education that should train them — body and mind — as boys are trained. Emotionalism was not so striking a phe- nomenon in Plato's day as in ours ; even histrionism was not primarily an emotional art, and women were not permitted to practice it. Plato, therefore, though he knew the Maenads were women, could hardly make the remark which every observer must make to-day, that women are vessels of emotion, and that in the histrionic arts, where emotionalism goes far to replace certain qualities essential in the other arts, they have reached the very highest levels. This fact at first sight might recommend emotionalism as a means to art, but it is subject to two qualifications: in the first place there are at least as many men as women on these levels, and in the second place the most commanding women artists have had other qualities in a high degree, — Mrs. Siddons her stolid common-sense and Madame Bernhardt her pure reason. The case of the arts is particularly striking, but we can make the same observations with regard to science, affairs, and the professions. In all these we see women doing well but not excelling. This we can attribute largely but not exclusively to their less robust health, since among men we sometimes see THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 123 the dyspeptic, the tuberculous, and the neurotic at the very top. A friend and well-wisher of women should therefore be eager to persuade them to look into their emotional states; believing that if they decided it would be well to subject these to sterner control and to limit their fields of action, it could be done without damaging other interests. Nobody would consider the attempt advisable if its success were to be inimical to that preoccupation with hap- piness which is the safeguard of the race ; but it looks certain that not only the happiness of women themselves but the happiness of those they love would be increased if all other interests in life were not merely ancillary. Through the action of educated women, then, I look confidently to see the new spirit of democracy test the conventional in every direction, with the re- sult of making women, and therefore the whole race, very much healthier and happier and more useful than they are at present. But I said there were two ways in which college women have a special oppor- tunity to prove the worth of their training, and the second is this. One of the fundamental conceptions of the new democracy is the social mind. We are all aware now that no one can think with complete in- dependence. We must think with our group a large part of the time, yet group- thinking is not very 124 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION profitable as thinking. Real co-operation is done by a number of persons who have wrestled to their conclusions independently, not by a group who are ready to play at follow-my-leader because that is the easiest way. Now it must be patent to everybody that women at this stage of their development are even more at the mercy of the group-mind than men. Their habit of forming little clubs to do this, that, and the other may look on the face of it like a talent for organization. Analysis proves it in many cases, I am afraid, to be the result of reluctance to stand alone. Now, if there is one thing that the college can teach incomparably, it is the power to stand alone, and also to co-operate, the habit of thinking out one's opinions for one's self, and then of joining seriously, reasonably, with others of like mind. One of the phe- nomena of our time is that other types of women, women whose ideas have been formed in the drollest ways, are being shoveled wholesale into contact with larger social processes and stronger social personal- ities than their previous experience has fitted them to stand up against. They are swamped by the so- cial mind. There is something profoundly inspiring in the thought of what Vassar College has done in the direction of preventing this sort of calamity. I am greatly honored that I should have an oppor- tunity on this impressive occasion of saying anew THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESSES 125 how thoroughly I believe in democracy as it obtains in the women's colleges, and in their enormous in-, fluence for good. Invocation BY HENRY MITCHELL MACCRACKEN Chancellor Emeritus of JVew York University FATHER of Lights, from whom every good gift Cometh down ! As Thou hast been gracious to this college in the fifty years that are gone, with like measure grant Thy grace in the half century that we now enter, and throughout every half century to come. May each of them prove a good day's journey toward the ideal of our world, revealed by the angels when Christ was born of Mary : "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Make this college more than ever a laborer with Christ, helping America to be just, and good, and truly great; helping also the stricken nations of the Old World with the help of the Good Samar- itan, seeking to bring them to the inn of peace, of refreshment, and of new life. Teach, O Spirit of God, all the teachers of Vassar. Guide her trustees and officers, and especially the young man now to be inaugurated as her president. Bless him with the blessing which was asked of old by the patriarch for his son Joseph, "the blessing of the God of thy fathers who shall help thee even unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills." We Hft up our eyes 130 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION unto the hills, from whence cometh our help. Our help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Amen. The Inaugural Addresses The Mystery of the Mind's Desire BY JOHN H. FINLEY President of the University of the State of JVew York and Commissioner of Education WHEN Ulysses, by the favor of the goddess Athena, after his years of wandering, was cast upon the banks of the river near his own land, and beheld, as he waked from his first sleep, the princess Nausicaa at play with her maidens, not knowing whether she was a daughter of Zeus or one of the daughters of men, he spoke in awe of her wondrous beauty, and then, pausing, said in those most beautiful lines of all the "Odyssey:" ' ' Yet once in Delos I saw as goodly a thing, — I saw a young sapling of a palm tree springing by an altar to Apollo," — an altar to the god of the wisdom of the oracles, to the mystery that was ever closely, consciously about the Greek in those younger days of the world. Were that old world-wanderer, crossing the seas, which were in his time the baths of the Western stars only, to be cast upon the banks of this river opposite the highlands, here, where the fresh and 132 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION salt waters once met (for this was once the farthest coast of the ocean), and were he, washing away the brine from his body in the sweet waters of the hills, to look upon this campus, he would find here all three of these most goodly things : first, the young college women of whom Nausicaa (whose form should be first in the Vassar ' ' fabric ages old " ) was prototype, who, though as cultured as a prin- cess, glorified every labor even to the washing of raiment and the driving of mules, and kept herself young through play; second, the wondrous trees, more beautiful than the palm, which are the seasons' recurring symbols of birth, death, and resurrection ; and third, the altar, this great collection of halls and laboratories and libraries, where offering is made by the daughters of Athena to the remoter mysteries. I congratulate you, my young friend, of such lin- eage, both natural and acquired, that with such brief wandering you have come, so early in life, to the presidency over the realm of these three most goodly things of earth. It was the wimple, or veil, of one of the daughters of the mythical Father of Letters, conspiring with Athena, that bore Ulysses to a safe shore ; and certainly it has been the wimple of the genius of this place conspiring with your own let- tered genius that has brought you to its guidance. May Vassar be as kind to you as Nausicaa was to THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 133 Ulysses, — she who said to her companions : "We must kindly entreat him, for all strangers and beg- gars [to which category all college presidents be- long] are from Zeus." You have come to preside in a place where the supreme mystery of life (aside from the mystery of mere being, of being born and of dying) has ex- pression — the mystery of the mind's desire. There are countless other mysteries which should make our days, from the reading of the morning paper to the taking off of our shoes at night, like jour- neys through a magician's palace. There is a mystery upon the fields, which, with the help of the farmer, performs, in a season, what the Vegetable Kingdom could not, unaided, accom- plish short of eons, if at all. It was by this mystery that Cain and Abel were awed. Indeed, the very first recorded act of the sons of Adam is that they made offerings (upon primitive altars, as we imagine) of the fruits of the earth's first cultures. And one cannot refrain from observing, in pass- ing, that though there was room under the sun of the wide sky for the altars of both cultures, that of Cain and that of Abel, nevertheless the first of the millions of inter-cultural murders was done. It is not a month since I saw the fruits of these same cultures of the fields and flocks exhibited at 134 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION a state fair, with the flames of man's approving rib- bons upon them. But there seemed no consciousness of the mystery which had brooded over the fields and barn and orchard to bring these miracles to pass. I wanted a Virgil to pass through the stalls and as he sang long ago in his ^'Georgics," without ped- antry, of cattle and sheep and horses and bees, while ** Caesar was flashing war's thunderbolts over the depths of Euphrates, and dispensing among willing nations a conqueror's law, and setting his foot on the road to the sky," I wanted him to sing again, and with greater scientific agricultural knowledge, of the miracles more marvelous, more mighty, than the achievements by man with his arms. I wanted Maeterlinck with his poetical science or scientific poesy to point out the 'incomparable spectacle " of an energy rising from the roots to the full bloom of the flower in the light, to point to the * ' prodigious example of insubmission, courage, per- severance, and ingenuity" shown by the plainest plant in perpetuating its species, and by the exqui- site orchid in bringing the insect to carry its pollen for it. I wanted Henri Fabre, who died day before yes- terday in France, him whom Hugo named the * ' In- sects' Homer," and whom Maeterlinck called one of the profoundest scholars and finest poets of the THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 135 century, to tell them how the cricket chirps, know- ing which, one might know the universe. And instead of the horse-race, I wanted Henri Bergson's philosophical pageant to be shown : the animal taking its ' ' stand on the plant, ' ' then man following, '^bestride animality," and then **the whole of humanity, in space and time, in one vast army galloping, ' ' beside and before and behind the individual, *Mn an overwhelming charge, able to beat down every resistance and clear the most for- midable obstacles, perhaps even death." These poets, naturalists, philosophers, could not, of course, have been heard there, because of the merry-go-round and the hawkers, but here they can be heard, and ultimately every farm will know through such places as this of the glory, not that was Greece, but that is in the very fields of this state (not to speak of the glories which lie beyond our borders), a glory of the fields more to be appre- ciated because of the *' glory that was Greece." There is a mystery of the atoms, of which Lu- cretius sang Considera opera atomorum long before another and a greater Teacher bade men to con- sider the lilies of the field, and ages before Gas- sendi and Newton announced the modern atomic theory, — a mystery before which an old Princeton professor used to take off his hat, it is said, when 136 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION about to perform an experiment, — a mystery which makes ill-smelling chemical laboratories as sweet as cathedrals filled with incense, and dissecting-rooms as sacred as the ground on which the ancient harus- pex divined the will of the gods by examining the entrails of animals. There is a mystery of the ether, which treasures every vibration and enables one of her disciples, the president of Dartmouth, to measure the pressure of a star's light that has been traveling years to reach the earth ; another to feel in Canada the fall of a mass of rock and earth on a mountain side in the Pamir, India ; another to make his voice, which I heard with difficulty while sitting in the car beside him, distinctly audible nearly five thousand miles to the westward and without wires ; and still another, sitting among the scrub-oaks of Long Island, to hear, beneath a tree of radiate threads for branches, and to reveal, in censored speech, what is spoken in Berlin, four thousand miles to the eastward. There is a mystery of the hand, which meant at first only a ministry and a craft, that has come to be a real mystery, a mystery that touches a piece of canvas and makes it a Corot, or breaks a piece of marble and makes it a ' ' Nike, ' ' or touches a few strings and makes a symphony, or sews together bits of human tissue and prolongs life. THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 137 There are many objective mysteries in these kingdoms which lie about the mind. And no curric- ulum is uncultural that brings a mind consciously, knowingly, inquiringly, courageously into the pres- ence of any one of these, however '* practical" the courses by which it is led. There is, after all, but the one objective mystery; for as there are "many faiths and one God," so are there many mysteries, yet but one Mystery. The many are but as trenches along the great stretch of the battle front marked in red for those afar but hid by smoke and fog to those near by. On the contrary, even though a curriculum be as full of the classics as that of the scholar of whom Sen- ator Hoar tells in his ** Reminiscences," the Ph.D., who having read Cicero through fifty times had at last found that while necesse est was used indiffer- ently with the accusative and the infinitive or with ut and the subjunctive, necesse erat was used only with ut and the subjunctive, — such a curriculum cannot be called * ' cultural ' ' (a word for which our civilization must find a substitute after this war is over) unless it bring one to a burning bush that is not consumed, to a theorem that is eternal, (and what joy on earth can be greater than that which a Vassar professor has recently experienced in find- ing a new eternal theorem to add to those of Euclid 138 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION and all others who have lived on the edge of the mathematical mysteries, however regretful to the student of unmathematical mind) — lead one to a burning bush, to an eternal theorem, or even to the mystery of the gnat, for as Fabre is quoted to have said, ''Human knowledge will be erased from the world before we possess the last word" which this infinitesimal but annoying creature, the gnat, ''has to say to us." New disciplines may come into our curricula, dis- ciplines which I have called "synthetic," after the analogy of the synthetic substitutes for accustomed nutrients; and they should come if they give shorter, surer, more economical entrance to the mysteries. It is difficult for me to think these new, substitute disciplines as efficient as the old, just as it is diffi- cult for me not to think it sacrilegious to use olive oil made of cotton-seed for the anointing of kings and priests, though I realize that it is only because the association between cotton-seed olive oil and corona- tion and consecration has not yet been established. But the supreme mystery is, after all, not the sum of all these objective mysteries toward which our courses run, with examinations. Regents' counts, or Carnegie units along the way and degrees at the end. The mystery which we here celebrate is the subjective one, the mystery of the mind's own de- THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 139 sire, — the mystery of the finite mind insatiably longing to know infinitely, of the mind that endures the hardship or horror of laboratory or philosophi- cal trench for the sake of the conquest of the objec- tive mystery, whether it be in science or letters, philosophy or art, in Arras or in Verdun. Through countless millions of years the ''will to live" has struggled blindly, it has seemed, from shape to shape till the ' ' will to know ' ' in man's mo- ment of existence has risen with a light in its hand to lead on the ' ' will to live ' ' into higher ranges of life, — into another kingdom. And here has the mind of woman added its desire to man's : to pursue that which mind alone makes mystery, and through which mind, in recovering it from mystery, has food for its own immortality. To discuss the source and reach of this desire, I should have to steer between the Scylla of the psy- chological laboratory and the Charybdis of the theo- logical seminary ; and I cannot put you in such peril of my seamanship. I can do little more than to put into your ears (against the tempting calls of both those who sing of ' ' culture ' ' and those who extol practicality) this word : that the whole of education is to carry the mind's desire, which is earth's dear- est hope and highest mystery, into eager touch with some mystery of the kingdoms of eternal truth. 140 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION I bring you as proem for this glorious day of the mind, — which like yesterday morning's sky is always at dawn, always showing colors which are the colors of this college, the rose of the coming sun against the gray of the day before woman came upon earth, — I bring you as preface to all of which this day is to be the unforgotten dawn, greeting of that mystical body in which all the institutions of this state, established to teach and train the mind, to guide and stir its desire, have membership. And it has a better, if less concise, word than Emerson's saying: *'To make the wise man the state exists." This gives but a static prospect, and as one has said, ' * A static culture will never be real- ized." ''We have struck our camp forever, and we are out upon the road." The state exists — not alone to make the man wise, but to give the mind freedom and desire to live uncontentedly and close to the mysteries of infinite existence. It is this urge, this insatiable longing, that gives us confidence in the genius of the race to lift the individual, and in the power of the trained, inspired individual to lift the race. The Scholar and the Pedant BY GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE Professor of English in Harvard University SUCH inaugural ceremonies as these remind one, not unpleasantly, of the old-fashioned ordina- tion, with its right hand of fellowship, with its charge to the minister (who is bidden to reflect that he has plenty of hard work before him, as well as many brilliant opportunities, and behind him a line of spiritual ancestors whom he will not find it easy to emulate), and finally, with its charge to the people, always, it seems, delivered with especial unction, perhaps because the speaker is addressing an as- sembly to w hom he is not ecclesiastically responsi- ble. Somehow, — though why it would be difficult to guess, for nobody has even hinted that I have any such office, — somehow, I have come to feel as if there rested upon me the burden of this charge to the people, or (to put it academically) to the grad- uates, for they, after all, are an American college president's parishioners, and though his parish, like that of Chaucer's parson, is 'Svide, with houses far asunder," he is expected to visit them all, '^upon his feet, and in his hand a staff*. ' ' Let us not force the analogy, or drain the figure to the dregs, for it is apt enough without forcing. It will serve, at all 142 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION events, to introduce what I have to say on this au- spicious occasion. And I must beg you, O people, to take my exhortations kindly, even if they do not tickle your self-complacency. Fidelia vulnera amantis. '* Faithful," saith the wise man, '*are the wounds of a friend." I shall not dull your ears and soothe your minds to slumber with the droning commonplaces that you are awaiting so patiently. Those you must take for granted. Of course you mean to be loyal, — loyal to the pitch of enthusiasm, of fanaticism if need be, — loyal with tongue and pen and hand and purse, — loyal to your college and loyal to the young and vigorous scholar to whose keeping its name and for- tunes have been so confidently entrusted. None of you, surely, requires to be warned not to slip into the category of discontented and carping alumnae, — those irresponsible and indolent reviewers, prun- ers of our periods, worms in our bud, flies in our ointment, litde foxes that spoil our vines. You can- not all be always satisfied ; but you are resolved, I feel certain, to be angry and sin not, to seek peace and ensue it, for you know as well as I do that '"''He who would please all men each way, And not himself offend, — He may begin his "work to-day. But God knoivs when he'^ll end!'*'' THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 143 And the last thing that you look forward to is a spineless and molluscoid administration. Let me shun, then, these generalities, which are as useless for you to hear as they would be unbe- coming of me to utter. Let me come directly to my subject, much discussed, but not yet exhausted, — a subject always vital in an educated community, and never and nowhere more in need of clearing up than in precisely this age of the world and in the minds of our own college public. My theme is ' ' The Scholar and the Pedant, ' ' and on that theme, if time allowed, as it does not, I could contend, in Hamlet's phrase, ' ' until my eyelids would no longer wag." Your governing board has taken the momentous step of calling to preside over your college a man who has achieved a position as a scholar in the most exact and technical sense of that vaguely mis- used term. Other qualifications he has, no doubt, but these do not now concern us. The thing that is of immediate interest in this discussion is his schol- arship, of the amount and quality of which I can speak by the card, since it lies in my own depart- ment, and, to a considerable extent, in a period to which I have given some attention. Further, as I am credibly informed, this exact and painstaking scholarship, — which has not disdained to investi- 144 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION gate certain peculiarities of the English language and English metre in the fifteenth century and to apply the results to the determination of the Lyd- gate canon, — this exact and painstaking scholar- ship has actually been regarded by your trustees and their advisers, not as a scruple as to his avail- ability, but as a substantial merit, — as an asset, if you will pardon the term, which the college is glad to possess and proud to carry on its books at a premium. I am anxious, very anxious, not to be misunder- stood by you, the people to whom I am delivering this charge. The point is, not that your president has been elected for his scholarship alone, which would have been an absurdity, but that his learn- ing and acquirements in this kind have been prop- erly regarded in the sum total of his qualifications. Your trustees have not ignored them and proceeded solely upon other grounds. Nor have they declared that they wanted him in spite of his scholarship. They have taken him as he is, Ph.D. and all, and have done so with their eyes open, knowing well that he is not only an exact scholar himself, but that he values exact scholarship in others; that he is not ashamed of his knowledge of Middle English linguistics, nor inclined to make apologies for his acquaintance with a large body of minute facts, no THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 145 single one of which would save a man's soul or add a cubit to his philosophical stature. ' ' The Scholar and the Pedant ! " For the sake of precision, let us limit our scope — let us confine our subject within the bounds of literary and linguistic study. We discover, at the outset, three propositions, — never, perhaps, avowed in plain terms, but pretty generally assumed by those who desire either to re- form us scholars or, preferably, to abolish us alto- gether. These three propositions, which I shall take the liberty of dragging out of their misty skulking- holes and suspending before you for respectful con- templation, are the following: First: No pedant can be a literary critic, that is, an appreciator or depredator of literature. Second : No literary critic can be a pedant. Third: Linguistic men (what are often called philologists ' ' ) and source-hunters and mediae- valists are all pedants, or, if not, they are saved so as by fire. Let me repeat these three propositions — not be- cause I subscribe to them, but because they are worth noting, and because they may help us, somehow or other, as we proceed. First: No pedant can be a literary critic. Second : No literary critic can be a pedant. 146 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Third : Linguistic men and source-hunters and mediaevalists are all pedantSjthatis, until theyrepent. With these oracles in mind, we shall endeavor to learn what makes a pedant, what is his quiddity. Any number of answers will spring, unbidden, to your minds. Here are a few, which may or may not have occurred to you : a complete list would show as astonishing a variety as the replies which the anx- ious Knight, in "The Wife of Bath's Tale," col- lected to the problem : ' ' What women most desire. ' ' The characteristic of a pedant is a plerophory of cocksureness combined with an equipollent im- patience of contradiction." If that sounds porten- tous, it is at all events sun-clear in meaning. We may condense it, perhaps, into *' intolerant dogma- tism." It is a promising definition, and many of us may feel inclined to accept it without demur. But wait a moment! Cannot each of us remember at least one literary critic of his acquaintance who man- ifests both cocksureness and impatience of contra- diction, and that too with much violence and in the superlative degree? Now, ex hypothesis no literary critic can be a pedant, no pedant a literary critic. The terms, like Shakspere and Bacon, are held to be mutually exclusive, no less, indeed, than incom- mensurable. This must give us pause; and the longer we pause, the more uncertain we shall be. THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 147 For, as we take a mental census of the persons we know who fall under this condemnation, we soon discover that the class of intolerant dogmatists in- cludes many men and women of many trades and occupations. For my own part, I have met with this quality in a large number of business men, in sev- eral lawyers, in not a few physicians, in almost all politicians, and in a good sprinkling of gardeners, fishermen, farmers, dentists, golfers, and minor poets. Truly we have not yet isolated the pedant's quiddity. It looks rather as if we had stumbled upon one of the traits of poor weak humanity as a whole. A second answer to our problem is ancient and still popular. It declares that "the hall-mark of the pedant is an affected or esoteric jargon." "^ Babylonish dialect^ Which learned pedants much affect!'*'' But alas ! this description, if it was ever true, ceased long ago to be of any value. I know and love hosts of alleged pedants, but none of them seems to have any particular fondness for inkhorn words. They use technical terms, like other mortals, when they are discussing technical subjects, but it is hard to see why reduplication or Umlaut^ on fitting occa- sion employed, is any more pedantic than doivell or dovetail or alveolar process or laryngitis or volts or 148 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION ohms or ontology or quadrilateral or scire facias or ad damnum. Once more we are in grave danger of confusing the pedant (who, as everybody admits, gives his whole time and energy to linguistics, the Middle Ages, and the tracing of sources) with the liter- ary critic (who, as we have seen, is never a pedant at all). Authentic^ striking the keynote, impressionism, neo-classic, romanticism, atmosphere, verisimilitude, insight, — what are they? And how do they differ from Umlaut and Ablaut and protasis and weak de- clension? Except, indeed, that they are less precise, and therefore more available than the others for the purposes of pretentious vagueness. Here are some sentences that might indeed be called pedantic. I have made them up as examples. ''A good Anlaut is half the battle." " Auslaut gut, alles gut." * ' It is the little u and i Umlauts of life that make up social intercourse." Here, too, is a paragraph, likewise specially pre- pared, that we should charge with pedantry if we ran across it (as we do not) in a romance of Mr. Jack London's: ''The storm grew worse and worse, and still the captain shut himself up in the cabin — drinking, always drinking. At last, in the gray dawn, he stag- THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 149 gered to the bridge. He was as excited as a delibera- tive subjunctive. His visual images experienced the West Germanic gemination. His basis of articula- tion was an aposiopesis, and his legs were as tangled as an anacoluthon or a contaminated construction." Such discourse as that would assuredly be pedan- tic, but nobody speaks or writes in this fashion — at least, nobody among pedants. As for the literary critics, I am not so sure. Here is a flower of rhetoric which I did not cultivate myself. I culled it last year from a serious and edifying essay in a highly re- spectable magazine. "The elemental, whether in nature or human life, is a constant factor in culture. Only our attitude toward it changes with the evolu- tion of our psychical background. What we bring to nature determines its realizable values for us. That makes the difference between modern and ancient art." This seems both fine and profound until we translate it into untechnical language, and then we perceive, to our mortification, that, except for the conclusion, which may be false, it is a stark truism, masked and shrouded in pedantic jargon. "The changeless facts of nature and life are changeless. But our feelings about them do change, as we grow in experience and understanding. What we get from nature depends on how we feel about it. That is the diflference between modern and ancient art. " Why, 150 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION the thing reminds me of a dogma I once heard pro- nounced by a worthy lecturer: '^Infinite omnipo- tence is all-powerful." We must try a third definition, since the test of vocabulary has left us in the lurch. How will this one do? *' Narrowness is the characteristic vice of the true pedant," — and since, of course, a pedant is all vice, that amounts to saying, *' Narrowness is the pedant's quiddity." Here, again, there is trouble, for most of us schol- ars who are attacked for pedantry are not so narrow as our tip-tilted and supercilious assailants. We are willing, nay, eager, that these assailants should live and move and have their being. We wish them to do their work. We admire them, often beyond their merits, and value the results which they achieve in their own elected province. But they do not admire us. They are not willing that we should do our work in our own elected province. They would burn us at the stake if the law allowed, or, at all events, they would make a bonfire of our collectanea and dance merrily round the dying embers of our special pub- lications. No, — narrowness will not do as the crite- rion of the pedant, until it can be shown that breadth of intellectual sympathy is the guiding quality of the scholastic snob. Thus we come to a fourth definition, closely allied THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 151 to that which we have j ust discarded : ' ' What makes the pedant is his lack of discrimination as to com- parative values. ' ' This might pass muster if it were properly applied — to a plumber I know, for exam- ple, an excellent plumber, who cares more for my money than for the cultivation of his sensorium, and more for the cultivation of his sensorium than for the distinction between Wordsworth's theory of na- ture and Keats 's attitude towards nature, and least of all for the saving of his soul. This judgment, to be sure, does not apply to all plumbers, any more than it applies to all pedants, or all literary critics. Again we are dealing with a failing of our common humanity — not peculiar to scholars, less true of them, indeed, than of most men. Nor do we seem able to discover that this failing is particularly ag- gravated by attention to linguistics, to the mediaeval period, or to the severer side of literary study. At this point a cautionary remark appears to be advisable. It is tacitly assumed by many honest and worthy gentlemen and ladies, that every scholar who writes a paper on the Tiefstufe, or the final -e in Chaucer's ''Troilus," or the metrical oddi- ties of Dan John Lydgate, or the hiatus in French poetry, or the authorship of "Piers Plowman," re- gards the particular topic which occupies him at the moment as of greater concern to the world than any- 152 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION thing else beneath the cope of heaven. What a sin- gular assumption! Such preposterous pedants do, no doubt, exist, just as there are long-haired crushed tragedians, and inglorious Spring poets who should be mute, — the grasshoppers of Parnassus, — and vociferous politicians in the post-office at the cross- roads, and cubist artists, and Baconian cipherers, and inventors of perpetual motion machines, and literary criticules who equate their casual *'how- they-strike-me's" with the laborious exactitude of Aristotle. All sorts of flies sit on the chariot- wheels of progress and cry without ceasing, ' ' What a dust do I raise ! ' ' But I have seldom known a good sound pedant who valued his own small discoveries much higher in the scheme of things than their deserts. And, if so, it was only in comparison with other similar discoveries that he over-rated them. ''An ill- favored thing, sir, but mine own! " Surely this is a harmless partiality, common with mothers and fathers and lovers, and not unheard-of among nov- elists and poets. Of course the chanticleer who fancies that his cock-a-doodle-do causes the sunrise is a pathetic noodle, but he is not the only noodle in the world, just as the pedant is not the only creature who is a pedant ! Sometimes I fear that we are all donkeys to- gether — we foolish mortals — braying dissonantly THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 153 at each other and taking our hee-haws for the ora- cles of Apollo — shaking our ears in the moonlight, and interpreting their shifting shadows as glimpses of the infinite. But the most deluded of all the deluded — who is he? Why, he is the man who has not yet learned the lesson of Montaigne's twenty-fourth essay! He is the man who imagines that pedantry, or freedom from pedantry, consists or inheres in the subject that one investigates, rather than in the nature of the investigator himself, — who supposes that a jejune and unimaginative intellect will blossom as the rose under the fertilizing influence of lectures on the art of poetry, or that a rich and lively mind will wither and fade under the blight of mediaevalism or the frosty touch of linguistic science. But what has become of our pedant? Has he escaped in the scuflfle? Sursum corda! Here he is at last ! He exists in all professions, in every walk of life, among literary critics and men of science as well as among students of language and the devo- tees of the Middle Ages. And now I will define him — without more talk : A pedant is any man who uses a set of technical terms that differ from mine. Test this definition as rigorously as you will : it will stand your reagents. Throw it how you may: it will always come down like a caltrop, with its 154 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION point in the air. Wheel it about as you like : it will ever pass current, like the three legs in the coat of the Isle of Man. And now that I have defined the pedant, the temp- tation is irresistible to rush in where angels fear to tread and to attempt a definition of a snob. A snob, I take it, is a person who, among his equals, thinks that he belongs to a privileged class. He is one who regards his own special field of study as coincident in area with the Elysian fields, and who scorns all ploughmen who are not engaged in cultivating his own particular half-acre. In a word, he is a more or less elegant bigot, who makes trouble for his broader-minded fellow-citizens in the Republic of Letters. He thinks his windows are open toward Jerusalem, when, in reality, his vision is bounded by the walls of his neighbor's back yard, and he finds the view depressing. Therefore, having been dowered by an inscrutable Providence with the gift of fluent speech (like Ulysses, lago. King Claudius, and other sHppery characters), he rings the changes on the rubbish heaps that he sees there, never sus- pecting they may be the unassembled parts of a new flying-machine. But the clock is striking, and Phoebus plucks my ear! "Make an end," he commands me, '*of this pedantic gallimaufry of words, and explain, if THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 155 you can, to your long-suffering auditors, what it all comes to, and how it may be construed as a charge to the people ; for such you averred at the outset, O shameless one, that you were burdened in conscience to deliver !" Phoebus is right in principle, but alas ! Phoebus is an ancient. He belongs to an age out- worn. I am afraid he spoke Greek when he was in his prime, and we moderns have got far beyond the necessity of comprehending a dead language, even if it be the speech of the ever-living gods. Be- sides, Phoebus never knew any American women, and he cannot therefore appreciate the agility of their minds. But some among you, as I perceive, axe mere men, and therefore need enlightenment. For is it not the wail of the uncomprehended woman in every recent drama: '*You don't understand! Men never understand ! ' ' Therefore my peroration shall be brief, and I will make it as plain as I can. Scholarship, in its most rigorous sense, is a necessary element of culture. Do not dishearten it. Do not insult it (and stultify yourselves) by confusing it with pedantry. Your new president, like those who have gone before him, is a scholar. Hold up his hands ! Cheer up his heart! Help him, Alumnae of Vassar, to keep the torch alight, and to pass it on, still burning clearly, to who- ever shall receive it from him in the sacred race ! The Installation of President MacCracken BY WILLIAM CALDWELL PLUNKETT RHOADES Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Vassar College IN these golden days of our jubilee, the time has come for a message from the trustees of the col- lege, that body of men and women who have wrought faithfully for its establishment. I count it a good Pro- vidence which permits me, on behalf of the Board of Trustees of Vassar College, to invest you, Henry Noble MacCracken, with this sacred office, to pro- claim you publicly as the President of Vassar Col- lege, as one for whom our prayer is that He in whom all treasures of wisdom are hid, may give you the key to those treasures, that you may know how to keep this trust worthily. In the Cause of Learning BY HENRY NOBLE MAC CRACKEN President of Vassar College 1 ACCEPT the charge that has been laid upon me with all the humility and with all the hope in the world. Professor Kittredge, there was a lad just out of college, fifteen years ago, who began to be a teacher in the land of Syria, by the shore of the Adonis Ri ver, where Thammuz died, and the scattered parts of Osiris came to land ; and the most impressive fact in his first year's experience in the East was the feeUng of affection and loyalty which clung around his title, ma'almy — '* my teacher." He had always been accustomed to take teachers as a matter of course, — necessary inflictions, perhaps, — but tha.t their title should be regarded as highest in respect of all titles by courtesy I confess had not crossed his mind. One of the things that the East taught him was a reverence for the calling. The Arabs have a proverb : * * Him who lends me I can repay ; but for him who teaches me something there is no pay." (The budgets of American colleges were originally designed with reference to this proverb.) But the Arabs are right; there is no measuring the debt which the pupil owes his teacher. Thus, as I greet 158 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION the teacher who gave me strong impulse to labor in thecause of learning, with the words Salaam timmak, ya ma'^almy^ ' ' Peace to thy lips, O my teacher, ' ' the words bear more of meaning to me than the con- ventional salutation for excellence of oratory. They mean, in fact, all that I have to say to-day of the dynamics of student life, yes, more than all. Salaam timmak, ya ma'almy. Dr. Finley, as the representative of the state and of the pubhc invited with us, there was another phrase which I learned out there, which seemed to me to have a meaning beyond that of an English phrase, and in greeting you with the phrase Beii betak, ' ' My house, thy house, ' ' I wish to assure you and all our guests of the welcome that lies behind such a phrase. The student's interest in his teacher and the com- modity with which his teacher deals is not to-day what it has been in the past, at least so far as re- gards our colleges of arts. Of all the varied appeals that are being made in these days to revive the student's ambition, I commend you to the practice of a friend who deans it in a college not one hun- dred miles away. Calling a student to his office not so long ago he said : ''Jim, Professor Blank has bet me thirty dollars that you will be dropped from col- THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 159 lege before commencement. I have taken up his bet; the stakes are in that drawer. Am I going to lose that money? " We all know Jim's response to such an irresistible proof of faith. It must be confessed that when such violent stimulants are necessary to gain application, the reaction will not be wanting. The interest of students to-day in far too many branches of learning is of the kind which the most enthusiastic professor could hardly with good con- science describe as more than kindly. A student of my own, who had looked with indulgent benevo- lence upon my efforts through the semester to obtain something of his allegiance, came to me after the marks had been announced, and made this apology as one gentleman to another: '*Mr. MacCracken, I want to say I am sorry you did not get me through, because I know every flunk gets you in bad at the office." This is, no doubt, an extreme instance. One could hardly classify this courteous gentleman as really affected by what I will call the dynamics of student life. We must press our inquiry a little closer, if we are to understand the problem of inter- est in education. Our friends, the physicists, have divided the sci- ence of dynamics into its branches of kinetics and statics : kinetics is the study of the circumstances of actual motion ; statics is the study of the circum- 160 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION stances under which a body may remain at rest. The division, while it need not be pressed too far, may be a satisfactory one to follow in this attempt to analyze the student mind. Every year as I look down into the faces of the entering students, maintaining year after year as they do — in their geographical distribution, their religious faiths, their social standing, their intellect- ual promise — the mystery of the law of averages, the question has forced itself upon me : ' ' What is it that has really brought you to college?" To call this kinetic force the law of averages is not to de- fine it, but simply to describe one of its attributes. What motives impel each year in every college that group of students whose composite picture we teachers so clearly have recognized? I name it com- posite because, whether it has been our fortune as teacher to have assigned to us students whose names run from K to 0, or whether our class lists have run the gamut of the entire alphabet, the picture seems a consistent one. Side by side on the row there sit the student who has not come to college but has been sent, and whose lack-lustre eyes convince the teacher that her thoughts are otherwhere ; the student who has come for a good time, and who radiates in an aura, youth, high spirits, and irresponsibility; the student whose THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 161 compelling force — if it could be analyzed — -might be called conventionalism, and who comes to college because among her friends and in her city it has become the thing to come, and who has scarcely at any time given further thought to the subject than that it was the most natural course of events. These three come from one social level, and seem instinc- tively to be friends at once. They look perhaps with a little awe, perhaps with a litde pity, at the girl next on the row, who has been driven by the love of learning, the insatiable curiosity of the devotee, whose eyes burn with a consuming fire that wastes her physical self. The teacher, glancing down the row, may never be certain of those who hold the higher seats. This student, at least, will never aban- don the pursuit of learning. Beyond her, of larger frame, more easy carriage and bearing, perhaps with even more promise for the future, is the student in whom ambition plays a great part, — ambition of which she may not be conscious, but which, dwell- ing far beneath the surface of her life, rises now and again as the one great motive of her acts. She is here because knowledge means power, because discipline gives authority ; and she looks beyond the class-room, dreaming of the day when these gifts shall have their sufficient exercise. One more sketch may complete the row. There is the student with a 162 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION special talent already partly developed, who comes to college for the pure pleasure of its exercise, the pleasure of its development ; collegiate life is to her an instrument of practice ; her aims are definite and technical even when she matriculates ; she fits uneasily into the broad curriculum of the general course. Let this, then, stand as the roll-call of the typical group at college. These are the motives which may be called the kinetics of student life. What laws shall be exercised upon them for that subtle trans- formation which brings out in the newcomer the col- legian's point of view? Will these motives remain? Will others take their places? Is there any single abiding plan which will be able to weld such differ- ent types into one? Is this advisable? These ques- tions form the great problem of the future for the undergraduate college to solve. Hitherto our col- leges have gone much by inheritance ; the business of learning has been handed on from one generation to another ; sons and daughters have grown up and gone into the business, scarcely questioning their own wishes, but entering because it was their ex- pected duty. There are signs, however, the country over, of changes, which all of you have noted, in this docility of the college world. Values of studies have been called in question. Attempts to set up scales by THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 163 which the various branches may be weighed have everywhere been started. And so we come to the second great question that confronts the teacher as he looks down into the faces of the freshmen. His thought is no longer, ''What has brought you here?" but, "What have we to give you ? ' ' The psychologist answers, ' ' Interest, ' ' or if not so broad an answer as this, let him reply, ' ' An interest. ' ' Education in our time is based upon this single appeal. It is so of the days of school. Pro- fessor Dewey says in his prediction as to "Schools of To-morrow : " " Interest ought to be the basis for selection, because children are interested in the things they need to learn. ' ' The theories of the hour most loudly proclaimed in education are those which devise methods of arousing an early interest in the child. The curricula of American colleges to-day are no less based on this great law. Many teachers and many students feel that the application of the word required or compulsory to any part of collegiate in- struction thereby destroys the great part of the edu- cational value which such study might otherwise have. The catalogue of the typical college of arts to-day exhausts the printer's stock of the letters m, «, and y; the student may do this or that ; she may take one or the other ; elective^ optional^ desired^ — such are the words exhibited in the description of 164 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION courses. When considered in detail, the announce- ment in many courses resembles the description in the nurseryman's catalogue; the student, like the commuter, is to be tempted with a tale like this : *'Conchology F, first semester (3). This course if well planted early in the fall will give out a rare and profuse bloom of gorgeous colors and luxuriant foli- age, throughout the season ; its effects last well into the following year." Yet, with all this appeal to the statics of student life, the forces that hold the student at his task, the colleges are not satisfied. Marks, prizes, promo- tions, penalties, supplement the variety of stimulus which the varied table of college fare provides. Stu- dents are guided to interest in separate fields of study through group systems, — group systems which, in most colleges, are nevertheless so broad in the alternatives offered, so generous in the choices, as scarcely to deserve the name. In fact, the free elec- tive system at Vassar, according to a recent study, has resulted in an equal concentration upon single fields with that shown in colleges where a group system has prevailed. And all the while, in spite of these innumerable efforts to arouse the interest of the student, the most successful teachers of our time will tell us that this is the one most difficult task in college work. Not only is interest a controlling ques- THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 165 tion among professors, but with student life itself. Student self-government, as you student delegates know very well, has to battle with the same indiffer- ence in the college body that the professors find. In the same way trustees and committees are con- stantly engaged in making the circumstances of stu- dent life favorable to study ; proctors obtain quiet in study hours; *' Silence!" stares upon us in com- manding signs within the precincts of the Library, whose very atmosphere is silence ; the clamor of re- bellious steam within the pipes is stilled by vacuum systems; sites are selected for the college remote from noisy and distracting parts of the town. And still the problem faces us : what static force will hold the student's interest? In direct appeal the American college of arts to-day may at first sight contrast unfavorably with the schools of different aim and method. In the techni- cal school of to-day one may enter the class-room where the shop instructor is teaching a group of men gathered about the forge — one may even slam the door — and not a single student in the room will turn his head ; one may pass among the groups of girls engaged in learning new designs in embroidery, and not an eye will be diverted in the direction of the in- terrupter. A nurse who gives instruction to mothers in country districts said at Vassar, the other day : 166 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION '*My classes require no attendance to be kept." The truth of such an observation is patent to any one who will but take the trouble to step around the corner and observe. What is, however, the reason for this? First, I think, is the fact that such workers have been accustomed to win against odds. They have been trained by bitter experience in the art of attention. But more than this is the great single stim- ulus of self-interest which is in the back of the mind of every student. The trade, the profession, the definite pursuit, beckon instinctively every hour. Application at the moment seems to be instantly transformed into energy ; there is no long period of waiting, but mental acquisition is to be turned into terms of more recognizable value. The interest of such classes is self-interest. I use the word in no ' unworthy sense, with no criticism of the fact, with no lack of recognition of the value which such schools possess for our nation. I only point out that it is harder in the college of the liberal arts — nay, it is almost impossible — for the teacher to find the appeal to self-interest. Self-preservation at college is a motive which is appealed to largely through marks, and the increasing tension at examination periods is almost the only appearance — a wholly artificial one, by the way — of this motive in the life of a college. THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 167 There must be some other way of obtaining the enthusiastic assent of the college student to the train- ing which the course in arts may give him. How shall this way be found ? Some teachers have thought to find it by what may be called the forcing process. They have taught history by seeking to make of each student a little historian ; they have taught lit- erature by suggesting the possibilities of genius in the undergraduate mind ; they have taught govern- ment by mapping out the college as an object lesson ; they have instructed in ethics by essays in college problems, so-called. But the forcing process is at best artificial. We cannot make of the college com- munity a mirror of the larger life. The attempt, though plausible, is doomed to disappointment. Other teachers have sought to induce in their stu- dents an intense curiosity in themselves. They have emphasized the accomplishments which a superfi- cial breadth of study may seem to provide. They have imposed an honor upon their disciples. Up to a certain point they have succeeded. The appear- ance of culture is most easily obtained, perhaps, by the appeal to this motive, but the larger results may never come in this way. What is indeed the real business of a college? What is it that college does to a man or a woman? The question might be answered, perhaps, if we 168 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION could accurately study the characteristics of those who have not come in any way under college influ- ence or the influence of its disciples. What are the essential characteristics of a so-called self-made man, apart from merely superficial ones? The one great characteristic, it seems to me, is his positiveness, his absolute self-confidence, bred of unconsciousness of a wider experience. College, then, means poise, consciousness of a world experience, the larger bal- ance in the realization of the life of the race. There is, too, as a characteristic of the self-made man, of at least the more striking members of the type, a sense of something lacking, a feeling of unfulfil- ment, a note of deprivation. Many self-made men have expressed this in giving others that which they themselves have missed. Hence, again, college gives to a student the sense of fulfilment ; the sense of a rich inheritance ; a feeling to the student that the kingdom of the mind has been unrolled, its prospects delineated, its promises described. In a word, col- lege is to our time — the saying is a bold one, per- haps — college is to our time what Dante was to his. Dante is called by a recent writer ''the mediae- val synthesis," the bringing together and the sum- ming up of his age, the fulfilment of life and learn- ing, the unity which ran through the diversity of mediaeval life, the brimming channel of current THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 169 convention and thought through which the full feel- ing of the age poured forth. This is, then, what college has to offer to the stu- dent, — the genius of modern life. There is much of promise as there is much that makes for thought in such a phrase. If this be true, colleges will scarcely increase the number of surpassing artists. A re- porter, seeking to give the public what they want, asked me last week : ' ' Tell me, if George Eliot came to Vassar, what kind of novels would she write? " I could not answer the question ; but I am sure she would be conscious of the sense of the great past which is preserved and recorded for us in the col- legiate course. For the rest, she would find adapta- tion, organization, multiplication of the resources of the mind rather than initiative or innovation. Col- lege itself is the genius. And whatever of special stimulus its students are to have will come from the sense of their unity with its main purpose, the cause of learning. Hence, the community feeHng will rise within the four college years, the feeling, too, of observation and of criticism rather than of creation. Minds will be curious rather than original ; the individual will be transmuted into the corporate soul; the heirs of all the ages will be somewhat heavily burdened with the sense of their inheritance, and many of them 170 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION will be content to leave their rights forever in chan- cery. But for others the college experience will be a beneficial one. ''Foreign countries," said Beowulf, are best visited by him who is of high worth in himself. ' ' The country of learning is best sought by students well deserving. There seems a very gen- eral agreement among educators of our time that as in the last generation the field of knowledge grew far beyond the ability of former faculties of half a dozen professors to encompass, so, in our day, the field has extended beyond the scope of all but a very few of our largest universities. The recently inaugurated head of that university which first stood for research into the ultimate things of science and of life has asserted that each university should set before itself ideals determined by its geographical position, its relative nearness to government centres, great manu- factories, great centres of population, and the like. Would it not be equally fair to assume in the case of such a college as Vassar, that its peculiar appeal to young women seeking higher education might be determined by what would be called a stratum of interest, an idealism underlying the whole land and not confined to any section? To maintain its posi- tion, Vassar College must drive down until it taps this vein, and there are signs from past experience THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 171 that, once tapped, this flow of good-will throughout the country will be no less continuous than that of the old Franklin oil wells which have been flowing now these forty years. What is to be this vein, which, running through the great resources of national life, shall constantly and continuously feed, as it certainly has in the past, this college with a never-ending stream of devoted students? I have called it the vein of idealism. It is that current of present thought which magnifies the cause and sinks the individual in the great purpose for which the individual may strive. To convince our students early that they are all essential parts of a great plan is to provide the interest which is the critical element in American education. In this sense the college will never become as it has been described, **the home of lost causes;" it will for- ever be the nursery of new causes. The fulfilment of these great needs of national life may be far dis- tant, but if the need at least is perceived, the devo- tion of the student will not be wanting. My short experience in college life has taught me that the happiest among the student body are always those already identified with some great unifying force. What shall be the nature of these forces to which we shall invite our students to affirm undying al- legiance? In the formative period of college life it 172 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION would be an error for us to predict anything more closely defined than the three great missions, reli- gion, learning, and society. Early enough the quiet of college days shall have been exchanged for the narrow tread of the professional career ; our students will take up this or that definite cause, this or that more confining propaganda, it may be, to which their whole lives will be devoted. The college cam- pus should be held sacredly free from all selfish im- pulses. Every class-room should be an open forum, not a closed shop. Academic freedom, it seems to me, consists in the right within the sphere of one's own field of study to teach the facts up to the Hmits of human knowledge, and beyond that border where fact ceases and conjecture begins, to present a rea- sonable harmony of thought. Such are the great causes in which Vassar College will enHst her com- panies of the future. Vassar will recognize that ac- tive personal reHgion is the only safe ground upon which to build the mighty fabric of the mind ; that a respect for all true learning is the beginning of scholarship ; and that a general love for society can never be divorced from the gospel of loving one's neighbor. The most of those who enter our class-room will attach themselves where the need is most important ; only the courageous, the constant, and the deter- THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 173 mined will prosecute the search for new continents. For a thousand who volunteer for Red Cross work in the tumultuous advertisement of war, there is but one Stefansson resolutely turning his back upon the great upheaval and setting his face again to the far north. This will be, doubtless, increasingly true for women, whose reactions to the immediate stimulus are more intense than those of men ; whose sense of humor yields more readily to the accident of the moment than to a pre-arrangement ; who fling themselves in companies into the crying needs of the hour ; who also in the problems of routine pos- sess in high degree the quahty of patience. There will hardly be more than one Maria Mitchell in a generation. So it must be with learning. Upon every side the more direct appeals will press upon us, turning one or another of this band of ours into useful labor for mankind. But the highest and the first cause of all at college is the cause of scholarship. To stand where no man has trod, on the margin of life's view, and to seek out with steady purpose what life has yet to offer ! Salutations Greeting : On Behalf of the Colleges for Women BY MARY EMMA WOOLLEY President of Mount Holyoke College IT is a very gracious privilege, Mr. President, which is extended to me this morning. A greet- ing from the colleges for women is only another name for congratulation, and such a wealth of material as we have for our congratulations ! Generally a college is content with a birthday, — or with a new presi- dent, — but Vassar never does anything by halves, and consequently must add to the glories of her half- hundredth birthday, the distinction of an inaugura- tion. May she celebrate her centennial in a similar way, — with the installation of her next president! We cannot look out over this beautiful campus, with its stately buildings, without being impressed anew by the material accomplishment ; an accom- plishment of which every dollar represents its full worth, for if ever financial bricks were made without straw, the feat has been accomplished in our colleges for women, the results being out of all proportion to the gifts received. THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 175 But our congratulations are upon the intellectual achievement of the college as well as upon its ma- terial accomplishment. The publications which are a part of this celebration indicate both the achieve- ment and the stress that Vassar places upon the intellectual life, which, after all, is the raison d'etre for the college for women, and, may I add, also for the college for men, — a fact occasionally over- looked. Again, our congratulations are for what this col- lege has accomplished as a great social and moral force in the community and in the nation. It would be invidious to call attention to some of the names which are in our minds at this moment, names of women whom we all delight to honor, — invidious and incomplete, for there are Vassar alumnae in less conspicuous places, less widely known, who in quiet ways are helping to make the world better and happier. You and the college are to be congratulated, Mr. President, for all that the fifty years have wrought. I cannot turn from this backward look and the sug- gestion of reasons for our congratulation, without reference to the chief among them all, the one that has been in large part responsible for the progress of this college, — the sane, steady, able, wise leader- ship for a quarter of a century of Vassar's president, 176 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION honored and beloved without as well as within the college Avails. But this is the day for looking forward, and again Vassar is to be congratulated on all the promise of the future under your leadership, Mr. President. Surely no administration was ever begun with greater inspiration. The background of the world tragedy but deepens the sense of the importance of the work to which you have put your hand, and makes this occasion one of unusual significance. I have in mind two remarks : one made by President Lowell at the Brown celebration a year ago, that the battlefields of Europe were taking from the world many of the scholars of to-morrow as well as of to- day, placing an added responsibility upon the uni- versities and colleges of America to make good their loss ; the other, from an article written by an East Indian, in which he predicted that as a result of the war the centre of civilization would shift to the Orient, as Europe would have no one to train the coming generation, and America was manifestly unprepared to take up that work. The challenge to the American college for women as well as to the college for men is a challenge to be a leader in the depth and thoroughness of its work, in the breadth of its sympathies, in the loftiness of its ideahsm. ''To set the noblest free" is a motto THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 177 for the Christian college as truly as for Christian men and women, and in your work of leadership in the realization of this high ideal, the colleges for women bid you God-speed. Greeting: On Behalf of the Colleges for Women afBliated with Universities BY VIRGINIA CROCHERON GILDERSLEEVE Dean of Barnard College PRESIDENT MacCracken, I have the honor to bring greetings to-day not only from Barnard College of Columbia University and all that ancient university as a whole, but also from the entire group of affiliated colleges for women which, as separate entities, but under the protecting shadow and with the help and inspiration of the great universities of which they are parts, carry on their work in what they deem a happy mean between co-education and the separate college. We of the affiliated institutions, like all the other colleges for women, look upon Vassar as the re- spected and beloved older sister, who has blazed the trail for us all. In this conservative eastern section of the country, it was well that Vassar, in a com- paratively secluded and safe environment, should first attempt the perilous adventure of teaching girls Greek and philosophy and higher mathematics. Not until she had survived this bold beginning, and had disproved the dire prophecy that no truly Christian parents would ever send their girls to college, did we venture the still more perilous exploit of plant- THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 179 ing our outposts of educated femininity in the very centre of the great masculine universities, encom- passed not only by the dangers of philosophy and higher mathematics, but also by a great body of male seekers for knowledge — a combination which still seems to the University of Virginia too dread- ful to be dared. These greater perils we are peacefully surviving, as Vassar of the early years survived hers. There may be occasional moments when in the midst of the complexities of a large university organization, and the perplexing complications which are inevitable in such family life, we look with momentary envy upon the life of single blessedness led by Vassar and the other separate colleges. But only for an instant. We would not change our wedded state. We value as of priceless worth our connection with the great universities who have welcomed us to their inspir- ing sisterhoods of schools and faculties. We would not change our state, nor would we for an instant wish to have Vassar and the other great separate colleges change theirs. They stand as perpetual symbols of achievement and guides for our sex. For fifty years the tradition and the standard of Vassar have given strength and inspiration to all who have striven for the better education of women. Her policy of sound scholarship and of broadly lib- 180 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION eral education, unshaken by momentary fads and vo- cational fallacies, the sane type of normal, healthy, happy womanhood exemplified by her graduates, — these have helped us all. And now, on the threshold of an era rich with rapidly unfolding opportunities and responsibilities for educated women, you come. President Mac- Cracken, into this rare inheritance. By your family tradition, by your own sound scholarship, by your broad vision, you are equipped to lead Vassar on to even greater years. From the affiliated colleges for women I bring to you good wishes for a long and brilliant administra- tion, crowned with satisfying success, and to Vassar affectionate greetings and felicitations on this happy and memorable day. Greeting : On Behalf of the Universities BY ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY President of Yale University PRESIDENT MacCracken, on behalf of the universities of the United States, I take great pleasure in congratulating an institution which, in the novelty and variety of its educational problems and its record of success in meeting those problems, is second to none in our whole honorable body. I also take this opportunity for myself and for my colleagues of congratulating you personally on your accession to the *^seat perilous," to a career difficult beyond beUef, and as glorious as it is difficult. You will be required, as another speaker has already said, to make bricks without straw. The work of education in which you are engaged calls for the best teachers and the best appliances. You will be asked to do that work with appliances that are inadequate and teachers that are underpaid. You will be called upon daily to solve problems that are in their nature incapable of solution, and to answer questions when the data on which such answers should be based are incomplete. You will be asked to make a choice, and often a momentous choice, between alternative lines of policy where the out- come in either case is uncertain ; and to carry out for 182 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION months or years in the face of discouragement the policy thus chosen while it remains undetermined whether the choice was right or wrong. You will be asked to reconcile conservatives and progressives, theorists and practitioners, advocates of culture and advocates of efficiency. You will be required to work hard for thirty-six hours out of every twenty-four, and to take at the same time the repose that is needed to preserve your clearness of judgment and your serenity of temper. You will, in short, be com- pelled to combine in your own proper person the ser- vice of Martha, who was cumbered with household cares, and that of Mary, who thought only of her Lord. Such is the task. And what is the reward? Rus- kin has said somewhere, ' * If you wish to do your best, choose a task that is within your powers. If you wish to do better than your best, choose a task that is beyond them." To you we look with con- fidence to do better than your best. Let me con- gratulate you. Sir, on having chosen a task that is beyond your powers; a task which involves mis- takes, but a task which will make the very failures of to-day pave the way for undreamed-of successes to-morrow. Yours will be the reward of the master builder, whose work grows under his hands like a living thing. If I may borrow a figure from an THE INAUGURAL CEREMONIES 183 earlier speaker, yours will be the privilege, when you have been toiling with worn hands and with eyes downcast at the stones of the altar, to see that, after you have worked on the stones, that which once was a shoot has grown up into a tree. Nor does the reward lie in the work alone. There is an equal or greater reward in the devotion of your fellow-work- ers. For when they see you doing better than your best, they too will learn to do better than their best. Until a man has occupied a position like yours he hardly can conceive the depths of loyalty of the stu- dents and teachers and graduates of the college, or the generosity with which those who seem to have least to spare of time or strength or money give of what they have. This loyalty, as I can testify, by grateful, though brief, experience in Yale — you have given ; this it will be yours to receive. The ancient Greeks gave to the greatest of their princes the title ' * Leader of men. ' ' You, Mr. Presi- dent, are a leader of men. And I know of no body in this whole wide world whom one might be more proud to lead than those who for half a century have been learning to love and work for Vassar College, and who set their faith in its future. Of the inher- itance bequeathed to you by your honored predeces- sor, there is nothing more precious than the loyalty which they transfer to you. Your work, Mr. Presi- 184 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION dent, is their work. Your faith shall be their faith. To you it is given to build better than we any of us now know, because you have the support of hun- dreds and thousands through the country to whom the name of Vassar is and always will be dear, and who will follow its president wherever he leads. The Intercollegiate Student Conference The Intercollegiate Student Conference THE intercollegiate student conference met in two open sessions on Monday and Tuesday mornings of Anniversary Week to discuss a ques- tion of common student interest, — the function of non-academic activities in college life. Fifty-three delegates were present, representing twenty-eight men's, women's, and co-educational colleges and universities. Many of the delegates had been invited to take a definite part in the programme ; all had been asked to join in the discussions. After welcom- ing the visiting delegates to the conference and to the anniversary celebration, Phebe Briggs, Chair- man of the Intercollegiate Student Conference Com- mittee, introduced Irmarita Kellers, President of the Vassar College Students Association, as chairman of the meetings. Eleanor B. Taylor of Vassar Col- lege opened the general subject for discussion by a speech on *' Extra Curriculum." Miss Taylor pictured the strict regimen of col- lege life in a mediaeval university, where the stu- dent's time was given almost without interruption to his studies, and where recreation consisted simply in walking within the college precincts and in con- versation. Nor was this exacting routine peculiar to 188 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION the Middle Ages, said Miss Taylor. Even at Har- vard in 1828 the good student was described as hav- ing no proper distractions from his academic work, no outside society, no legal possibility of an evening in Boston ; he was not even offered easy access to the university library, which seemed then to be con- sidered a place of recreation. The contrast with stu- dent life of to-day is easy to draw. Ninety per cent of the student's time is said to be spent outside the class-room, and a large portion of these hours is occupied with non-curricular activities. Yet the new order has been of comparatively recent growth. In the first ''Prospectus " of Vassar College, issued in 1865, debating societies were mentioned as ' ' utterly incongruous and out of taste." To-day we have debating societies in all of our colleges, and inter- collegiate debates between many of them. The first student publication at Vassar was a four page annual. Now a weekly and a monthly as well as a large annual are published, and many colleges have dailies. With the radical changes which student life outside the class-room has undergone has come a change of attitude on the part of both students and faculties. Non-curricular activities are no longer con- sidered a mere pastime for the gay and idle, some- thing apart from serious work. The most earnest students enter into them, and faculties regard them INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 189 as a positive good. President Meiklejohn of Am- herst has said that they are actually essential for a full and complete rounding out of student life. The conference, then, is an important one, because it deals with things that take up a large share of the student's time and energy ; it is also a hopeful one, for the attitude of both students and faculties toward its subject is that of increasing recognition. To create a basis for general discussion the pur- poses and working practice of typical modern non- academic activities were then described in a series of speeches by visiting delegates. Under the cap- tion '' Professor Baker," WilHam C. Boyden, Jr., discussed dramatics at Harvard, throwing particu- lar emphasis upon the experimental writing, stag- ing, and acting which is done in connection with the courses given by Professor Baker in the drama, and in the Harvard Dramatic Club. Professor Baker acts as a kind of father-confessor to the club, which was founded for the purpose of stimulating the writing and production of original plays. That it has fulfilled something of its function is proved by the fact that such successful wr iters as Percy MacKaye, Herman Hagedorn, Edward Sheldon, and Eld ward Knob- lauch, gave their undergraduate plays under its aus- pices or in Professor Baker's Forty-Seven Work- shop. In the Forty-Seven Workshop student plays 190 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION which are imperfect or incomplete are revised and finished, and then acted by members of the Dra- matic Club or by Boston amateurs, each production being coached by Professor Baker and the author. Thus the author gains the most complete kind of practical experience. Besides the plays so produced there are other forms of dramatics at Harvard. The Hasty Pudding Club and the Pi Eta give plays each year; German and French plays are given by the language clubs ; and there is a Shaksperian revival. But the work done with Professor Baker is by far the most important and the most serious in the univer- sity. Through the Dramatic Club and the Forty- Seven Workshop unusual opportunities are given to the undergraduates for free experimental work in play-making and play-producing ; and with the new dramatic building now in contemplation, in which it is planned to have a revolving stage and all the accessories of the new stage-craft, dramatics at Har- vard should prove a vital factor in the development of American drama. Like Harvard dramatics, dramatics and pagean- try at Wellesley furnish abundant opportunity for original undergraduate experiment, besides fulfill- ing certain social functions, said Dorothy Rhodes of Wellesley. The Barns wallows Association was organized to provide a social centre in the college by INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 191 giving amateur plays, and thus to promote com- munity spirit. Each year the Barnswallows put on a number of these plays, which are made as sponta- neous as possible and require few rehearsals. More serious effort is devoted to the out-of-door produc- tions, which include types of the poetic drama, Shakspere plays, and Greek plays. Recently a col- lege operetta has been instituted, for the parts in which any student in the college is allowed to try; and an original pageant is produced each year for Wellesley Tree Day, in which every member of the college actually takes part. This pageant is given out of doors at rhododendron time, when the flowers make a gorgeous color background, and itself forms a beautiful and significant picture. Miss Rhodes de- scribed one of the elaborate productions of the pa- geant which are given every four years. The Tree Day Mistress first presented the myth of Cupid and Psyche in a poetic prologue, and there followed an impressive color-processional of flower-bearers, musicians with silver harps, armed warriors, and priests, who broke forth into a hymn to Venus. The myth was acted by picture-dancing, the parts being taken by seniors, and was followed by a freshman myth of lighter character, which showed children, sprites, and gnomes. It is upon the picture-dancing that most thought and care are spent. A member of 192 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION the faculty always coaches the dancing, but the con- ception, the poetic lines, the dramatic arrangement, and the costuming are wholly the result of inde- pendent undergraduate effort. Press work in New York City as carried on by undergraduates of New York University was out- lined by William K. Doggett. College activities and, at times, outside events are covered by the under- graduate reporters. All the work is done under su- pervision. A senior manager organizes the freshmen interested in newspaper writing; these men learn their technique through practice, and are finally rec- ommended by the manager to the various city edi- tors if their work is acceptable. Once on a newspaper staff, the student reporters receive further practical instruction through observation of the changes and revisions of their copy made by experienced news- paper men. Such papers as the ''Tribune," the ''Times," the "Press," the "Herald," take and pay for material from undergraduates. The value of the work apart from the remuneration lies in its practical training. A university daily offers practical training in news- writing and editorship, but it also fulfills other important functions, according to Donald O. Stew- art of the "Yale Daily News." This paper gives to the college the service of a general bulletin board ; INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 193 it provides accurate news of the college; and its editorial columns help to shape college opinion. Further, through personal contact with the large number of freshman competitors — ** heelers" — the editorial board of the daily is able to help these men to find their best place in the university. Work on the* 'News" not only benefits the individual; it is a social factor. The general purpose to give college news in a con- venient and accurate form to the college community was also emphasized by Dorothy Eaton of Smith in speaking of the "Smith College Weekly." The Weekly" at Smith has proved itself a necessary ad- j unc t of college life . Co-ordinate with the ' ' Weekly , ' ' the * * Monthly ' ' takes its place as a means of stim- ulating undergraduate literary production; the "Monthly" also attempts to serve as a tie between the student body and the alumnae, and to make con- nections with students in other colleges. That the magazine is fulfilling its purpose is proved by the fact that it is known among outsiders for its origi- nality and sanity, that one- third of its subscriptions come from non-students, and that it is able to sup- port itself without the subsidy of advertising. Practical knowledge of parliamentary law and training in oral presentation of argument are the special aims of the Mount Holyoke Debating Soci- 194 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION ety . Marion Truesdell explained the close, intensive, scholarly work done by committees and debaters in preparation for interchapter debates within the col- lege and for intercollegiate debates with Wellesley and Vassar. Holyoke favors free student-faculty co-operation in debating as productive of increased excellence and skill, but in the work for the inter- collegiate debates such co-operation has not been utilized because of the agreement made by the colleges involved, Vassar in particular wishing not to depart from its tradition of wholly independent management. Interest in debating at Holyoke has lately been stimulated not only by the triangular intercollegiate debates, but by a money prize, — the interest on one thousand dollars, — to be offered each year by the class of 1890 to the student who shows the greatest proficiency in debating. Accounts of the Williams Good Government Club and of the RadcliiFe Civics Club illustrated inde- pendent constructive work by undergraduates in the fields of sociology, economics, and politics. The Williams Good Government Club takes an active part in community life and interests. A vigorous anti-saloon movement is being pushed by the club in the neighboring town of North Adams. A law-en- forcement committee sees that reforms and bettered conditions are actually maintained, — for example. INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 195 forcing the prosecution of violators of the laws with regard to the sale of liquor to minors, and of the cig- arette law. Another committee is investigating the milk supply around Williamstown. An apple-day committee arranges an apple exhibit for the farmers in the North Berkshires, at which expert pomolo- gists speak on the improved methods of apple cul- ture. A department of the club conducts classes for foreigners in neighboring towns, trying in par- ticular to give instruction which will lead to good citizenship. Still another has inaugurated the Big Brother movement in Williamstown. Well-known outside speakers on social and political subjects are brought by the club to the college. Between three and four fifths of the Williams students belong to the Good Government Club, said Meredith Wood, who described its activities. Its purpose is to create an in- telligent interest in the social, economic, and political life of the country, and to tackle such immediate problems as can be solved or bettered by actual work. If the Radcliffe Civics Club had a motto, that motto would probably be one prevalent in military circles to-day, — *'Be prepared," — said Rosamond Eliot of RadclifFe. The club seeks to prepare the undergraduates of RadclifFe to become active, intel- ligent, useful citizens, leaders in the community to which they are going after graduation. The inter- 196 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION ests of the club are political. It unites in a single active body the undergraduate suffragist, anti-suf- fragist, and socialist chapters, college chapters of the Women's Municipal League of Boston and of the Women's Peace Party, and a Debating Committee, co-ordinating and enlarging the activities of all these organizations. Like the Williams Good Government Club, the Civics Club brings important speakers to the undergraduates ; debates are arranged between its members ; and open meetings are held at which Harvard professors are asked to lead the discussions. By these means all persons interested in questions of the day can gain new knowledge, new points of view, and can learn self-expression. The club does not, however, take part in active affairs ; its purposes are those of stimulus and instruction rather than of practical politics. Comradeship and service were emphasized by Grace E. Mong of Oberlin as the object of the Ober- lin Young Women's Christian Association. Much of the energy of the association is devoted to practical work. Social and athletic clubs have been organized at a local settlement. Camp-fire groups in the Oberlin High School are led by members of the association. Sunday-school work is undertaken in the town and in neighboring rural districts. Necessaries of life are distributed to poor families. An employment com- INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 197 mittee helps students who wish to be financially in- dependent during their college course ; and the asso- ciation assists in the financial campaign of the Na- tional Young Women's Christian Association each year. The association also conducts religious meet- ings in the college, and arranges Bible and mission study classes. Outside speakers are frequently asked to lead the meetings. The effects of the Christian Association are far-reaching, for it seeks to make it- self a force not only among the undergraduates, but in every community where these undergraduates may find themselves. As offering training in self-control, self-direction, and democracy, and opening up horizons of useful- ness and ability, student self-government is one of the most important of undergraduate activities at Barnard, said Carol Lorenz, who explained the pur- poses of the Barnard Undergraduate Association. At Barnard a council which is responsible to the Undergraduate Association and to the faculty meets weekly to administer the undergraduate business of the college. This council directs the large policies of the student body, it keeps the machinery of the smaller organized activities running smoothly, it maintains the honor system. But the association is coming to feel that most of these matters may now be taken for granted, said Miss Lorenz. They have 198 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION to do simply with the background against which the higher issues of college life are presented. The students have other interests than those in college sports, clubs, plays, and publications ; they have, supposedly, a vital relation to their academic work. Why, then, should they not have something to say about the conditions of that work, the subjects offered, the subjects required, the conditions of en- trance to college? The Barnard students believe that they have a point of view which is valuable, and which should be officially recognized. Last year the Barnard Student Council optimistically proposed to the faculty that they admit a senior member of the council to the Faculty Committee on Instruction. While this step has not been taken, an approach at least has been made toward a larger form of self- government. A Bible course has been added to the curriculum pardy because of a recommendation of the Student Council. Recently the council's plan for academic credit for certain non-academic activities readily connected with work in the Economics De- partment has met the approval of the dean and of. the department, and seems to be in a fair way to be accepted by the faculty as a whole. Committees have been appointed by the Student Council to investi- gate academic affairs of special interest to the stu- dents, such as cut systems, preceptorial systems. INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 199 and forms of entrance requirements ; and the results of these investigations are to be submitted to the faculty with a formulation of the students' point of view. But an undergraduate association must extend its scope still further; as the broadest student group, it should look to the students' future usefulness, said Miss Lorenz. The college prepares for future life, and the undergraduates have constantly in mind the question of their later activities. It has seemed, there- fore, logical and appropriate for the self-government association at Barnard to show its members some of the opportunities open to them after graduation, that they may be directed into useful service. A vo- cational committee has been appointed, whose busi- ness it is to manage a vocational bulletin board, to keep a file of vocational schools, to plan for a series of meetings which will be addressed by women who have succeeded in their special vocations, and to run a series of articles in the college weekly on vocational opportunities for women. In general the Undergraduate Association at Barnard tries to meet and handle the larger problems common to the or- ganized student body ; and it believes that it is trav- eling toward achievement. The accounts of typical non-academic activities were followed by speeches which focused opinion 200 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION as to the ideal functions common to these activi- ties. In a speech on ' ' Breadth versus Depth " B. B. Atterbury of Princeton explained that the problem of non-academic activities in such a university as Princeton, which might be called a big, little col- lege, had at times been a difficult one ; the students have tried to carry on all the activities supported by the larger universities, and the result has some- times been that too much emphasis has been placed upon extra-curricular as opposed to intra-curricular work. But the attitude of the students is changing, Mr. Atterbury said. The older men are attempting to impress upon the younger students the fact that their non-academic activities must rest upon a firm foundation of scholarship, — scholarship as secur- ing depth of development for the future. At the same time they try to show the younger men that non- academic activities make a distinct contribution to the student's life. These oifer breadth of develop- ment. The two forms of activity make college life complete. Non-academic activities are essentially practical; they may often be a direct preparation for later work after graduation. They provide play and recreation. They teach the student a strict economy of time and energy, since economy is necessary if outside activities are to be carried on. They invite free competition ; latent possibilities in the student INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 201 are often brought out, and the effect is beneficial both for the modest and retiring, and for those of the opposite type. But perhaps most important of all the effects of these activities is the experience which comes from working with fellow-students. It is not by merely living together or by casual contacts that students learn to know each other best: it is by working together. The chief problem for the stu- dent becomes that of wise choice among the many opportunities open to him. If curricular work offers depth, and non-curricular work offers breadth, then in general the student should play off one interest against another; he should so choose his outside activities that they will provide him with the wid- est and most varied experience. With many inter- ests on the one hand and with thorough training on the other, he can approximate the ideal type of the *' all-round" man. Maxwell E. McDowell of Colgate discussed The Problem of Leisure, ' ' attempting, as he said, to discover the single definite need which all non- academic activities fill. The college student is given leisure, which he spends pretty much at his own discretion ; a great deal of it is certainly spent in non- curricular work. But the problem of leisure is a per- petual problem, one which presents itself in mature life as well as in college. Many business men lack 202 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION the ability to use their leisure for real relaxation and pleasure. The ideal function of non-academic activ- ities in college is to teach the college man to play properly; that is, to use his leisure for a pleasurable change of occupation. Non-academic activities can locate the student's interest in some definite subject or line which will not only broaden his experience while he is in college, but will later become a ''re- juvenating hobby." Interest in sports, writing, dra- matics, even a concern in poHtics among older men, often proves to have its origin in student activities. The problem of leisure for the college student is the problem of so using these activities that they will become of benefit to him in later life. That there is no radical difference between aca- demic and non-academic activities was the point urged by Lewis W. Douglas of Amherst, who spoke on ' ' The Relation of Extra-Curriculum Activities to Scholarship." The function of the college is to give a broad intellectual stimulus, an acting philosophy of life, a fundamental principle upon which its stu- dents can act, and with which they can co-ordinate all their other principles. Extra-curriculum activities, then, must be kept consistent with this general func- tion. Many non-academic activities, such as debat- ing, dramatics, political clubs, and work on publica- tions, merely continue the work of the class-room. INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 203 Obviously these are not inconsistent with the gen- eral purpose of the college. Others, such as student government associations, with their regulation of the honor system and their control of minor clubs and organizations, shape the conditions under which academic work is done. Here there is a clear con- nection between curricular and non-curricular work. Even athletic activities have their direct effect upon the scholastic side of college life, in so far as they are wholesome and beneficial to the physical condi- tion of college students. Non-academic activities are simply practical, supplementary experiences, and as such are wholly in harmony with the purposes for which the college is organized. They, too, offer intellectual stimulus and contribute toward an act- ing philosophy of life. But the exact training which scholarship gives is the first purpose of the college, and non-curricular activities must be kept subor- dinate to this purpose. They must remain supple- mentary experiences, said Mr. Douglas, or they have gone beyond their legitimate scope. After a discussion of practical values in dramatics by Mary Denney of Goucher College, which again stressed the definite training offered by non-curric- ular work, and an account of the Cornell women's vocational conference by Helen Spalding, there fol- lowed a short discussion of the honor system as es- 204 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION sential to tfie fabric of student life. Closing the ses- sion , Mary B . Guy of Vassar College spoke on ^ ' The College Democracy." Miss Guy agreed with Mr. Douglas that the line between curricular and non- curricular work could not be definitely drawn. It is impossible to say that any sole object is attained by the one, or that any part of our training is neglected by the other. As was pointed out by Mr. Douglas, the two often deal with the same materials. Non- academic work is sometimes said to offer freer play to individual initiative than does the academic work, but in the class-room more and more opportunity is being given for the play of individual initiative. The difference is simply one of degree : in the class-room the work is carried on under the general leadership of the instructor ; while non-academic activities are managed pretty much according to the independent wish and judgment of the student. Together within the unit of the college, with similar aims and pur- poses, the two forms of student activity produce the elements of a democracy, — if democracy may be taken to mean that situation in which equal op- portunity is given to all freely to develop their best powers. So far as the curriculum is concerned, all students meet the same requirements and enjoy the same privileges. Living conditions are practically the same for all ; the influence of wealth tends to be INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 205 negligible. In the open field of non -academic work, through sports, dramatics, writing for publications, debating, and the rest, this equality is still further extended. Each student is given opportunity for experiment in the field which most interests him. He enters freely into competition with his fellow- students. He may develop practically at will his own peculiar interests and abilities, carrying on and applying the work of the class-room or departing from it, as he chooses. With few of the complicat- ing conditions which prevent the realization of equal opportunity in the world outside, the college, with all its activities, academic and non-academic, serves as a small working-model of democracy, and so as an ideal training-ground for future citizenship. At the second session of the conference, three broad questions of policy important in the management of non-academic activities were discussed : the de- sirability of professional coaching ; the proper basis of membership for student organizations ; and the desirability of academic credit for non-academic work. In opening the discussions Elizabeth M. Heath of Vassar College urged that these questions be considered in the light of the essential purposes of non-academic pursuits. The first session of the conference had brought forth certain fundamental 206 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION ideas concerning these purposes, she said. Non-aca- demic activities serve not only as a laboratory of ex- periment, not only as a supplemental arc rounding out the circle of a normal life, not only as a safety valve for surplus energies, — taken with the aca- demic activities, with no strict line of demarcation between the two, they express the higher interests of the student community. They provide opportu- nity for the use of the student's best powers. Does the student, then, develop his or her highest capa- bilities through wholly independent work, or under the specific training offered by a professional coach or a faculty adviser? The basis of membership in student organizations has its direct effect upon the student's freedom to follow a line of special inter- est. What, then, are the best principles of member- ship in these organizations? The premium of aca- demic credit, if placed upon non-academic work, would have a decided influence upon the decisions of the student in the choice of pursuits. Would such a premium work for the best interests of the student and of the college? Delegates to the conference were invited to bring to bear upon these problems the results of their own experience. In an argument against the employment of the professional coach in dramatics, Richard Parkhurst of Dartmouth emphasized the difference between INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 207 the professional and the college stage. The profes- sional stage, he said, was primarily a money-mak- ing venture ; the college stage should be educational. At Dartmouth dramatics under a professional coach have proved to be far from educational. The direc- tions of the coach were invariably superficial, the actors followed these blindly, individual initiative was destroyed, real dramatic interest but shghtly stimulated, and the results were stereotyped per- formances of no artistic value whatsoever. Actors would lumber about the boards in the regimentals of the chorus lady, fondly imagining that by using the motions the coach had taught them they would im- press their friends with the realism of their acting. The audience howled with glee when some favorite was discovered, and the remark was often heard that the whole thing was ''just too funny for words." Is there any college dramatic ideal in this? Rather a college boy performance, with a total waste of effort and a total lack of appreciation of the possibilities of the college stage. Two years ago a new policy was inaugurated. Under the direction of an under- graduate manager and an undergraduate producer the student actors were allowed to develop their own parts. Plays presented on the metropolitan stage and musical revues of a high order began to appear on the average of once a month on the stage of Web- 208 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION ster Hall. Creditable talent has come to light, and to- day dramatics at Dartmouth are the premier non- academic activity. The new policy takes the harder way, but the undergraduate is out for bigger things than finished gesture and perfect enunciation: he is out for training in the school of practical experience, and trained in such a school he can and does pro- duce intelligent, capable, and artistic work. James A. Garfield of Williams supported Mr. Parkhurst in a criticism of the professional element in the colleges, saying that professionalism was not compatible with the present day spirit of individual responsibility, thought, and initiative among col- lege students. Mr. Garfield believed the first session of the conference had shown that students were no longer willing to remain passive, leaving the man- agement of college life wholly in the hands of others ; there is now a movement toward complete under- graduate assumption of undergraduate affairs. The new spirit of independence is fundamental. But pro- fessionalism means dependence rather than inde- pendence ; individual initiative is surrendered to out- side control. Moreover, with professionaHsm is bound to come the tendency to make curriculum work sec- ondary rather than primary in the student's mind. A high-grade professional accomplishment becomes the thing. On the other hand faculty co-operation INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 209 offers stimulus without hampering initiative, be- cause the teacher realizes that the best form of training for the student is that which forces him to work out his problems for himself. The teacher is the adviser ; the professional coach is the master or informer. Dorothy Kyburg of Mount Holyoke in a later speech also urged faculty co-operation as desirable, not only because of its benefits to the student, but because the faculty enjoy the opportunities given for self-expression and recreation ; and experience at Swarthmore further bore out the general contention in favor of faculty coaching as opposed to profes- sional coaching, according to the account of John E. Orchard of Swarthmore. Dramatics, debating, and the productions of the musical clubs receive faculty advice and assistance at Swarthmore. The faculty are paid for the heavier pieces of work. Both professional and amateur coaching are em- ployed at Barnard, said Ruth Salom of Barnard. The coaching for dramatics is done by professionals ; the coaching for the Greek Games, the unique con- test between the freshman and sophomore classes, is done by student committees. Experience at Bar- nard seemed to show that when a given activity de- mands for its success spontaneity, enthusiasm, and co-operation among the students, it is wiser not to 210 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION use the services of a professional coach ; but when mature skill, judgment, and unlimited time are needed — as in an ambitious play — a professional coach is a necessity. Miss Salom paid a warm trib- ute to the production of the * ' Pageant of Athena ' ' at Vassar. In the discussion which followed Miss Salom 's speech, a student from Vassar emphasized the fact that the pageant had been given under the direc- tion of Miss Hazel MacKaye, a professional, and expressed the opinion that the results could not have been attained without her assistance. Another speaker from Vassar suggested the danger of getting into ruts without fresh stimulus from outside, and spoke of the influx of new ideas which a good coach can bring. She also pointed out that the earlier speakers had assumed that the coach was necessa- rily out of sympathy with the educational ideals of the college, whereas such need not be the case. A good coach will take exactly the same attitude toward the students that a good teacher takes : he will offer his experience, but he will see that the students work out essential problems for themselves. Another speaker mentioned the difference between the prob- lem of coaching in dramatics and that of coaching in other activities, such as debating and writing for publications. In these latter activities stimulus can INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 211 come from the class-room, whereas in acting no such stimulus exists within the college, there being few if any college courses in acting. Coaching in dra- matics might therefore be desirable when coaching in activities more nearly parallel to the curricular work might prove a restriction to initiative. In closing the argument B. B. Atterbury of Princeton emphasized the fact that the professional coach saved time for the students in matters of rou- tine, but as still more important, he helped to produce results which could be achieved in no other way. The objectionable features of professional coaching, he thought, could be eliminated. Faculty assistance is also of the greatest value ; at Princeton faculty coaching of the crew and of the debaters has proved extremely successful. The student's initiative need not be destroyed, said Mr. Atterbury in conclusion, either through professional coaching or faculty as- sistance. The discussion on the basis of membership for undergraduate organizations centred largely upon the idea that competition is not only the fairest but the most effective basis for membership in organiza- tions and for participation in student activities. This point of view was specially stressed in the opening speech of the discussion by Oliver A. Weppner of Colgate, whose subject was ''Incentive plus Effi- 212 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION ciency." Only a basis of excellence founded upon competition can insure the purposeful interest neces- sary to the best success of college organizations, he contended. Such a basis quickens energy and pro- duces incentive; it also, brings out the highest type of efficiency. Mr. Weppner illustrated his argu- ment by the history of debating clubs, musical socie- ties, and other organizations at Colgate, which had emerged to success by an adoption of the competi- tive basis. At Harvard the principle of competition is used in the selection of undergraduates for the manager- ships of the many and complex activities, said Wells Blanch ard of Harvard, who oudined the Harvard system. Each competitor does practical work in the particular field which he has chosen, acting as as- sistant to the official manager up to the time when the new manager is chosen. Choice of managers rests upon proved efficiency, but character and good judgment are also taken into consideration. In the six societies at Wellesley, which corre- spond somewhat to the fraternities in the men's colleges, and are primarily centres of social life, the basis of membership is in substance that of compe- tition, for members are chosen because of excellence in scholarship, or because of the performance of a certain amount of public service. Scholarship and INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 213 public spirit are thus promoted in the college. The Wellesley system was not advocated as perfect by Edith Jones, who described it; but the present basis is believed to mean an advance toward equality of opportunity for all. The basis of membership for organizations other than the societies at Welles- ley varies according to the character of the society. Those clubs whose activities demand a special pro- ficiency are on a partially competitive basis, while such organizations as the Students Association, the Christian Association, and the Athletic Associa- tion, in which interest is general, naturally include almost the whole student body. At Amherst, said Charles B. Ames of Amherst, no student can belong to an organization — the Chris- tian Association, and one or two minor clubs ex- cepted — until he has paid his athletic tax, a tax which averages from five to sixteen dollars and is levied according to a general approximation of the income of the student. The payment of this tax entitles the student first of all to membership in the Students Association. The sum collected is di- vided among all the smaller organizations ; in this way each student contributes to the support of all. Within the large associations competition exists for the various activities. In the fraternities scholarship is a factor in membership ; no man can be initiated 214 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION who is not passing four out of five subjects. More- over, freshmen are ineligible for participation in any college activities until the second semester, and then they can take part only if they are free of entrance conditions and have at least an average of seventy, while sophomores and upper class-men are ineligi- ble if they have more than one condition. The gen- eral system seems broadly representative. Opinion as to the desirability of academic credit for non-academic work was sharply divided. Nor- man Salit of the College of the City of New York argued that credit should be given. Academic and non-academic work were often much alike in pur- pose, as had been frequently pointed out in the con- ference, he said. Not only is credit due for work that is really educative, but non-academic work is so es- sential for the undergraduate that it should become actually compulsory. Non-academic work makes for symmetry of development. Many students now fail to take a part in this work, and so lose its benefits; their education is accordingly incomplete. To a basis of one hundred and twenty- credits of academic work for graduation, an additional ten credits might be added, these to be worked ofFinnon-curricular activ- ities. The details of administration could, Mr. Salit thought, be easily arranged. Campus and curricu- lum should be brought together, he argued. INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 215 Margaret Writer of Wells opposed Mr. Salit's argument, saying she believed that non-academic activities exist primarily for the student's relaxation and recreation, however important their effects may be. To give credit for such activities would be not only to rob them of their essential character, but of their chief value. The work involved need not be paid for by any system of rewards. The college, she main- tained, exists primarily for intellectual training. No other institution gives such training; and to intro- duce into the curriculum elements of work which are not strictly intellectual would be to lower Ameri- can standards of sholarship, — a disastrous step for the nation, since Americans are even now chiefly known as business men and money-makers. In counter argument Ruth Salom of Barnard said that the correlation of certain forms of non-academic activity with the curriculum would vitalize schol- arship. Education is tending more and more to combine practical work with the academic studies, she declared. If the outside activities of the student, often in direct line with her academic work, could be brought into relation with the academic depart- ments, the result would be of the utmost value both to the student and to the departments ; extra-curric- ulum activities often test the student's grasp and understanding of her academic work. Holding this 216 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION opinion, the Student Council at Barnard has drawn up a plan for correlation, — the plan mentioned by Miss Lorenz in her account of student government at Barnard. Such forms of outside activity as ser- vice and investigation in settlements, the Bureau of Municipal Research, and the Bureau of Intercol- legiate Occupations, are directly in line with the work in certain courses in Economics ; and it is in connection with the Department of Economics that the new plan will be informally tried at Barnard this year. A committee made up of members of the Eco- nomics Department and a representative of settle- ment work in the college will decide in correlation with what course or courses the plan is to be used. They will select the activities for which credit should be given ; they will accept or reject any candidate in accordance with their judgment, and give or with- hold credit for any piece of work submitted. In order to insure efficiency of supervision the committee will appoint a faculty supervisor for each student's work. Students must present reports, themes, and a sched- ule of time spent, signed by the supervisor. Classes of those engaged in this extra work will be held under the guidance of the teachers of the courses involved. The plan will be limited to use in the advanced courses in economics for the time being, but it has met with general approval, and the coun- INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 217 cil hopes to formulate still further plans by which pageantry, dramatics, and literary work in the Press Club and on the college magazines will be affiliated with the curriculum in the same way. Herbert A. Wichelns of Cornell, who followed Miss Salom with a speech on * ' The Real Purpose of the College, ' ' agreed that non-curricular activities served the same functions and worked along the same lines as the curriculum, but he said he beheved the main sense of the conference had been that these activities should not be the major interest of the stu- dent. That they actually are the major interest of the student he thought to be a matter of common know- ledge, but it was his opinion that they are really of comparatively little significance. To put upon them the premium of credit would be to distort w^hatever value they have out of all proportion, and to alter the purpose of the college, which is strict intellect- ual training. J. Brackett Lewis of Oberlin, closing the argu- ment, took issue both with Mr. Wichelns and with Miss Writer, and Hke Mr. Salit and Miss Salom upheld a closer correlation of curricular and non- curricular work. He pointed out that in the plans advocated no substitution was made of non-cur- ricular for curricular work. He said that he him- self would not cheapen the Bachelor's degree, but 218 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION because of the value of non-curricular work, he be- lieved that such work should be definitely required of every student, over and above the highest schol- arly requirements. The fault of the old system is that too much is done by a few students, and their curric- ulum work suffers in consequence ; whereas a large number of students should be forced out into an ac- tive college life, and the work so distributed as not to fall too heavily upon any single individual. The new plan would of course entail a standardization of the value of extra-curriculum activities, but many colleges now have a point system for the limitation of activity, and it should not be impossible with the point system as a basis to formulate a scheme of standardization. The faults with the proposal seem to be two, said Mr. Lewis. The equipment in most colleges is not sufficient to allow the participation of the whole student body in non-academic activities ; the equipment would have to be enlarged. Then the possibility exists that a system of requirement would make these activities unpopular. But the benefits brought out by the earlier speakers are numerous, and seem to outweigh the objections. We are in col- lege for intellectual training. Why not use that train- ing while we are acquiring it? Non-curricular work offers the meansof application. Furthermore, through the general participation in student activities which INTERCOLLEGIATE CONFERENCE 219 would result from a system of credit, class barriers would be broken down to a large extent. Each stu- dent would be thrown into contact with others whom he must judge by their ability or talent. The outside activities themselves would be strengthened by the increased competition for responsible posts. The scheme would build up college life and would build up the lives of the students. The conference attempted to formulate no conclu- sions. Throughout, the opinions expressed were di- verse, even mutually contradictory, as was natural, and experience itself seemed to vary widely in the different colleges. The values of the discussions were mainly those of comparison and of many-sided state- ment. Yet certain points of view seemed central. Definitions of the purpose of the college appeared as constant points of departure or of reference. An absorption in the experimental and practical affairs of non-curricular work was frankly avowed, but more than often the educational worth of these affairs was stressed. Social aims were frequently defined; broad connections were steadily regarded. Viewed as part of a celebration whose chief interest was educational, the special contribution of the confer- ence might be said to consist in the comprehen- sive picture which it gave of a widely various, free, 220 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION and purposeful undergraduate activity, developing in vital relationship to the larger activity of the college. The Pageant of Athena Composed and presented by the Students of Vassar College under the direction of Aliss Hazel MacKaye The Setting The Pageant of Athena takes place in the new out-of- door theatre built on the slope south of the Sanders Laboratory. The broad green turf-stage lies in an an- gle at the foot of the slope, encircled by the trees of the Pine Walk and showing glimpses of the lower lake and of the hill which rises to Sunset in the farther dis- tance. At the back of the stage where the pines form a close screen rises a wide low dais, with three shallow steps along its sides; to the left is a stone-rimmed pool, whose water sometimes is still and sometimes bubbles and plays. A thick double border of low-clipped ever- greens runs across the front, hiding the orchestra pit, and broad natural paths lead directly upon the stage. The color background for the Pageant is the prevailing color of mid-October. The ripe gold of the stubble on the Sunset slope is reflected in the still clear waters of the lake, and over the dark green of the pines lift the brilliant treetops along the hill above the glen, the yel- low elms arching high like a crest. The Pageant begins in the bright sunlight of early afternoon and closes with the first dusk. The Pageant of Athena Of Pallas Atliena, glorious Goddess, I begin to sing, of the Gray- eyed, the wise; her of the relentless heart, the maiden revered, the succor of cities, the valiant, true child of her father. Homeric Hymn. VEILED priestesses approach the inner stage, moving in rhythm to the slow measure of the Overture to '^Euryanthe." They kneel and invoke the goddess Athena. In a cloud of smoke and a burst of altar flame, majestic in helmet and spear, Athena appears before her handmaidens, passes between the kneeling groups, and bids them rise, that they may behold her Web of Knowledge, interwoven through the ages with the lives of learned women, rich with the colors of their thought. The priestesses unveil and Athena speaks : ^^ Bright in the skein of time gleam many strands^ Endlessly varied. I have chosen those Ofjlame., ofjire^ of rich^ luxuriant gold., And those whose beauty lies in their clear strength. My -will it is to weave them., strand on strand.. Tracing the course of learning through the years In one close-wrought design. And those who come Shall pause before this fabric, ages old.. Shaped by past lives in symmetry and truth.. And glorying in design so well begun.. Themselves shall add thereto. And this my web Shall weaving be forever., never doneP 224 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION The goddess vanishes, and the priestesses move away slowly as the beginning of the Web becomes visible. Sappho Men I think will remember me even hereafter. Sappho. SAPPHO, Hero, Andromeda, Atthis, and other maidens enter a glade on the Island of Lesbos, singing. They dance as they come, and their song runs sweetly, — ' ' Do thou, O Dica, set garlands in thy lovely hair, twining shoots of dill together with soft hands, for those who have fair flowers may best stand first even in the favor of goddesses, who turn their faces away from those who lack garlands. ' ' All are in bright fresh colors, coral, green, yellow, or blue, except Sappho, who wears white. Some carry vines, Hero bears a loom, Atthis a lyre. They scat- ter, and at the bidding of Sappho, those who bear leaves and flowers seat themselves near the dais and begin to weave and bind their garlands. Mnasidica, Gyrinno, and Erinna, "of sweet speech and lovely laughter, " go to the pool, where they play at knuckle- bones and sport with their own reflections, while Hero plies her loom, and Sappho sits on a marble bench upon the dais and talks to those who are weaving gar- lands, with Atthis near her. But soon Hero casts her loom aside, runs to Sappho, kneels, and cries, ' ^ Sweet THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 225 Sappho, I cannot weave my web, broken as I am at Aphrodite's will ! ' ' Sappho raises Hero, and together they walk back to gaze across the cool waters of the lake, Sappho telling the maiden that she is but weary weaving her web of love. Yet the eyes of Hero waken Sappho's own longings, and presently she comes for- ward alone, chanting. At first her words can barely be heard ; then she speaks out in full tones : * ' Now Eros shakes my soul, — a wind upon the mountain falling upon oaks, a green wave leaping into trem- bling spray over gray rocks." She stands for a mo- ment, rapt. " I do not think to touch the sky with my two hands. . . . On the hills the shepherds tram- ple the hyacinths under foot, and the flower dark- ens on the ground." As she pauses again, Dica and Erinna suddenly run to her, and Sappho turns, catching Dica fairly and laughing. She bids the two bring the others, that Atthis may now sing the joy of the day, weaving her golden song as the sun- light weaves among the branches. Dica and Erinna beckon the maidens, who gather upon the dais, and Andromeda flings a garland around Sappho. At a sign from Sappho, Atthis moves away and strikes her lyre, singing softly and clearly: *'The sweet- apple blushes on the end of the bough, the very end of the bough, which the gatherers overlooked — nay, overlooked not, but could not reach. . . . The 226 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION sweet-apple blushes on the end of the bough . ' ' Atthis turns shyly to Sappho as she finishes her song, and Sappho, smiling, calls her words far sweeter of tone than harp, more golden than gold. "Your wreaths for Atthis, ' ' she cries, and the maidens crown Atthis with their jasmine, ivy, and laurel, speaking their praise together. They run back with her to the dais as dancers enter, and Sappho bids the dancers dance for Atthis: ''Dance! Weave the sunlight and the fragrant leaves with your dancing — your wreath for Atthis. ' ' The music of ballets from ' ' Orphee ' ' and ''Alceste " is heard, and the band of dancers, with loose-bound hair, clad in chitons whose color is pale like sea-sand, join in happy changeful figures. Some play as with tossing balls while they dance ; some chase each other as in a game across the lawns; others rest at times by the pool. At the last they all run to encircle Atthis and gayly lead her off through the trees, dancing as they go, the maidens with them, except Dica and Erinna, who follow slowly with Sappho. THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 227 Hortensia The women forced a way to the judgment seat of the Triumvirs in the Fonim, through the ranks of the people and the body guards, who stood aside to let them pass. Appian's Roman History. There Hortensia, when ... no man dared undertake their defense, pleaded the cause of the women, with firmness and success. Vale- rius Maximus. TWO guards pace up and down, and a crowd gathers before the Forum. The senators Pollio and Sallustius in crimson -bordered white togas enter, discussing the fruitless demand of Hortensia and other women to Fulvia, wife of Antonius, that they be relieved of the war-tax levied upon the rich daughters, wives, and sisters of the proscribed. Citizens come in, and also other senators accom- panied by cHents and slaves. A blind beggar limps from group to group ; a wine-merchant with his jar vends his wares ; boys in blue, brown, and pur- ple tunics run across the rostrum, annoying the guards, and catching coins flung to them by a sen- ator. In the scramble one boy slips into the pool and runs oflf dripping, jeered at by his companions and the nearby spectators. Trebatius joins Pollio and Sallustius, the noise of the crowd swells, the end of the discussion is lost. Presently lictors enter, two by two. The crowd breaks for the triumvirs, who mount the rostrum, surges together again, and is 228 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION silent, a sombre throng. The triumvirs consult for a moment ; then Antonius begins to speak, exhorting the citizens of Rome to hear judgment on the mili- tary tax. But as he speaks Hortensia and a group of women are seen to the left, quickly making their way toward the Forum; they press through the crowd, and at the rostrum Hortensia demands im- periously that the cause of the women, the cause of justice, be heard. Octavianus asks: "Nay — and shall we let a woman plead ? ' ' Hortensia challenges : * ' Does justice scorn a woman ? ' ' She appeals boldly to the crowd: "What will ye, citizens of Rome, shall justice speak?" The crowd gives a strong assent : "Ay, Lepidus, let Hortensia be heard. Ay, ay, — Hortensia shall be heard. Give audience, An- tonius ! ' ' Antonius reluctantly grants the right of speech, and Hortensia mounts the rostrum. A white- robed strong figure, turning now to the triumvirs, now to the crowd, she speaks with pride and deter- mination, contending that the women have had no share in the making of the civil war, and that al- ready they have been deprived of their husbands, brothers, fathers, sons, by proscription. " If we have done you wrong, as you say they have, proscribe us too, as you do them. But if 't is true that never have we women cast a vote to exile one of you, nor yet torn down a dwelling-house, nor lost an army, nor THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 229 kept you from enjoying place and honor, pray why should we, who have not done the wrong, share with the culprits in the penalty? And why should we, debarred from holding office, from leading armies, and from politics, — the strife that brings you to this wretched plight, — pay taxes though we share not in the state? Because 't is a time of war, you say I When is it not?" The crowd gives voice to vehe- ment approval as she closes passionately: *^Thus, then, we answer your unjust decree: we never will obey, — nay, rather will we die ! " At a motion from the triumvirs two lictors drag Hortensia down from the rostrum and out into the centre of the stage, while others try to check the movement of the crowd. But the crowd will not be withstood; some push forward toward Hortensia, some move threateningly toward the rostrum, and their clamor takes on a sterner note. The triumvirs deliberate, visibly at a loss, and finally An tonius speaks: *' Peace! Peace! We, Marcus Antonius, Gains Octavianus, and Mar- cus Aemilius Lepidus, the triumvirs, are moved by this woman, and will deliberate upon her bold plea. Therefore, to-morrow morning, here, we will give justice." The crowd cheers, taking this for a favor- able sign, and Hortensia goes off in triumph with the band of women. Many follow her, and shouts of acclaim are heard again. The others disperse, the 230 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION triumvirs with their attendants leaving last, in dis- cussion. The Abbess Hilda of Whitby This handmaid of Christ, the Abbess Hilda, whom all that knew her called Mother, for her singular piety and grace, was not only an example of good life to those that lived in her monasterj'^, but afforded occasions of amendment and salvation to many who lived at a distance, to whom the blessed fame was brought of her industry and virtue. Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England. THE scene takes place in the cloister court of the double monastery at Whitby, where Caedmon, the gleeman who has become a monk, awaits Hilda. A porter gives an order to servants, who bring in stools, cushions, and an embroidery frame showing stitchery of gold on black, and Hilda enters with the Abbot of Whitby and his two attendants. They are followed by a procession of black-garbed nuns, two and two, who gather upon the dais to embroider the altar cloth. Hilda wears a neutral-toned abbess's robe and a white wimple; her bearing is quiet and serene, her movements have a simple dignity. She turns to the Abbot and invites him to stay, that he may hear the bard Caedmon sing, but the Abbot may not stay. He has fulfilled his mission of consulting Hilda as to the fiefing of the monastery lands ; he now speaks with her briefly of the eager Brother Wulf- here, who longs to spread God's word throughout THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 231 the world ; then bids her farewell. Hilda gives her benediction, and he and his servants depart. Hilda now takes a scroll and reads in Latin from Genesis, and as she reads a low, flat-bottomed boat carrying the three brown-clad monkish figures is seen slowly putting out across the lake, the gold cross in the stern mirrored in the quiet waters. The nuns have paused in their work; there is a moment of stillness. Hilda then tells Caedmon that he must sing, that the sis- ters may learn from hearing him: "Sing as thou didst on that day when midst the kine visions and sweet sounds awoke thy sleeping powers." And Caedmon sings: "iVow must we praise the Guardian of Heaven : The power ^ the plan^ the work fully wrought Of the Shaper^ the Father of Glory. Each wonder Emerged and waxed strong ''neath His hand., the Eternal. He earliest shaped for the service of mortals The heavens as roof He., the Holy Creator. Then the Lord of Mankind., the Maker eternal., The Almighty God., established and dowered With loveliness.. Earth., for the children of men.'*'* As Hilda speaks of the wondrous gift of Gaedmon, a porter comes to announce that Oswy, King of Northumbria, seeks an audience with her, and Oswy's thanes appear on the crest of the hill far to the left, their spears and helmets and sober colors 232 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION gleaming in the sun. At a sign from Hilda a mes- senger goes to give entrance to Oswy, the nuns drop their veils and stand aside, and Caedmon withdraws. The thanes march quickly down into the cloister court, Oswy and his little daughter Elfleda leading. They kneel before the Abbess, who blesses them, and as they rise Oswy speaks to her of the wise counsel which she had once given him, then of the lands which he and his thanes have won in holy conquest and which he now bestows upon her for her holy minster. Last of all he speaks of his daughter Elfleda, whom he gives into Hilda's keeping, that she may grow like Hilda in holiness, steadfastness, and virtue ; he places the child's hand in Hilda's. The Abbess smiles at the Httle Elfleda, thanking Oswy for his trust, and promising him that the child shall learn to love wisdom and to glorify God, as becomes his servant. Again she blesses Oswy and his thanes as they depart, solemnly bidding them hew out of the wilderness with their swords a pathway for the com- ing of the Son of God. The monastery bell tolls, the nuns cross themselves, and singing the Gregorian chant Magnificat they leave, a black-robed proces- sion, Hilda and the child walking before them. THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 233 Marie de France Those to whom God has given a gift of comely speech, should not hide their light beneath a bushel, but should willingly show it abroad. If a great truth is proclaimed in the ears of men, it brings forth fruit a hundred fold ; but when the sweetness of the telling is praised of many, flowers mingle with the fruit upon the branch. Prologue to THE Lays of Marie de France. TWO sergeants-at-arms in chain mail guard the entrance at the right. As music begins — 2i gav- otte — groups of lords and ladies of the court of King Henry and Queen Eleanor enter, in rich satins and velvets, plum-colored, deep turquoise, green, gold, and lavender, the ladies wearing the flowing head- dress of the period, the lords in full-skirted coats, gor- geously embroidered. The king and queen, crowned and jeweled, robed in white satin with capes of pale blue and rose, make a royal entrance, walking under a fringed canopy borne by pages. They mount the dais and turn to the court, which bows low. At the king's bidding again there is music, and all the court takes part in a stately pavane. When the dance is over, the court breaks into groups, and the murmur of conversation is heard. Then with a sign at which all turn, the king speaks: ''Pleasure has reigned within our court this day. The feast has passed in merriment; the dance has brought delight to all. But to crown the day's festivities, we have a keener 234 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION joy than these, one not yet known within the court. From over sea, Marie de France has come. Even now she waits to do us pleasure. Summon her, page ; let music bring her thither. ' ' Strings are heard play- ing a gigue, and Marie enters, shyly but eagerly, in white satin and silver, with pearls in her hair, two pages carrying her train. She glances at the court, then quickly approaches the dais and curtseys low, rising only when the king speaks to welcome her. There is a courtly exchange of words, in which the king declares it passing strange for a woman to be a scribe and a poet, and Marie answers him, saying, "Indeed, if any one would keep himself from sin, he should study and learn and undertake a weari- some task : in this way he may spare himself great sorrow. Thus I bethought me of the lays that I had heard sung in remembrance of adventure, and since I would not leave them forgotten in the world, I rhymed them into verse. And as I set them down on parchment, the words inscribed themselves upon my heart." The king then begs that she tell one of her lays. So Marie tells the ' ' Lay of the Honeysuckle, ' ' the story of Tristram and of the queen, and of their faithful love that brought manifold woes upon them, and at length death itself. She tells how when King Mark, bitterly wroth, had banished Tristram from the realm, and Tristram had returned into Cornwall THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 235 distraught for love, he one day cut a hazel branch in the forest along the road by which he knew the queen must come, and stripped it four-square, and wrote his name upon it, that the queen should know the mark for her lover's. This was the import of the writing that he set upon it : that he had been there long, waiting to catch a glimpse of her, or to know how he might see her, for without her he could not live. For the twain of them were like the hazel and the honeysuckle clinging to it : when they are all in- tertwined and clasped together, they thrive well, but if they be parted, the hazel dies at once, and likewise the honeysuckle. Marie tells how the queen came riding in her cavalcade, until she saw the hazel, when she bade her knights to halt, which they did, and calling her maiden Brenguin, wandered from her folk, and as she turned aside from the wood a little, she found him whom she loved more than any living thing. Gladness dwelt with them while he spoke with her at his will, and for the joy which he had in his lady, whom he saw by means of the writing on the hazel, Tristram, who was skilled in harping, made a new lay for the remembrance of her words. This is called Gotelefm English, and Chievrefoil in French. **It is the truth I have told you in this lay," says Marie. The court show their great pleasure by hearty applause, and Marie turns 236 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION to the king and queen and curtseys low. As they rise, the sound of a distant trumpet is heard which heralds the king's cousin. Again music is played, and the court goes forth, the queen with Marie walking under the canopy, the ladies of the court and the king with his courtiers in train. Isabella d'Este Behold Ercole's daughter, Isabella, for whose birth Ferrara shall hold herself far more blessed than for all other gifts which a benign and prospering Fortune shall bestow on her, as the years run their swift course. Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. A BURST of gay music announces the entrance of the guests who have come to the Court of the Fountain in the Gonzaga Villa at Mantua for Isabella's golden fete, to be held in honor of her name-day. The fountain plays, the guests fling con- fetti, showering one another, — a brilliant throng, all rich yellows, golds, russets, and saffrons. Isabella enters with a following of illustrious artists, Leo- nardo, Ariosto, Mantegna, Bellini, and others. Pages carry rich gifts, which Isabella shows gayly, — a jeweled casket of Florentine workmanship fromCas- tiglione, a painting by Mantegna, a bas-relief by Leonardo, and a book of poetry by Ariosto. She ral- lies Castiglione on his talent for courtly words and re- proaches Bellini for his failure to bring her 2i fantasia THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 237 she has ordered, but Leonardo in turn reproaches her, speaking earnestly of Bellini as the master. Leo- nardo's own work calls forth warm praise. The gifts shown and admired, Isabella announces a pantomime, to be given by the Fedeh, who serve the house of Mantua. Servants bring in long gilt benches, which they place at each side of the stage and spread with blue velvet coverings and cushions ; the guests are seated, and the players enter . They are Flaminio, Flaminio's father, Pantalone, Flaminio's servant, Brighella, and Arlecchino, the former ser- vant of Pantalone ; Flaminia, Flaminia's father, Dr. Gratiano, and Flaminia's maid, Franceschina ; a Spanish Desperado, and Scappino, his servant. The company presents a varied effect of black and white and scarlet, except for the Spanish Desperado, who appears in black slashed with green, with high boots and a feathered hat ; and his servant, who is dressed in green and black. Flaminio and Flaminia wear black velvet with a touch of white ; Arlecchino is in a diamond-patterned clown's costume of red, black, and white. The players range themselves in a formal row, bow, and retire. Two of them re-enter immediately, each carrying blue paper trees in blue boxes, upon which are fastened red paper flowers; these they place to the right and left of the stage. A litde group of minstrels stands in the background 238 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION and accompanies the action which follows with fit- ting music. The lovers, Flaminio and Flaminia, enter, happy and languishing, but Flaminio is soon summoned away, and Flaminio 's father, Pantalone, speedily makes love to Flaminia, while Arlecchino capers about making love to Flaminia 's maid. Pres- ently Pantalone and Arlecchino go off, plotting. Meanwhile Flaminia accepts a string of pearls from the Spanish Desperado, and Scappino and Frances- china mimic the love scene; but the Spanish Des- perado is frightened off by Dr. Gratiano. Pantalone and Arlecchino enter disguised in each other's clothes. Flaminio returns, discovers the disguise, angrily beats Pantalone off the stage, and quarrels with Flaminia. The Spanish Desperado comes back to continue his suit and is sent packing by Flaminio. Enter Pantalone and Arlecchino armed to the teeth. Pantalone attacks Flaminio, but Flaminia and Ar- lecchino separate the two, and Flaminio and Fla- minia are quickly reconciled. Franceschina and Ar- lecchino coquette and are likewise reconciled, and the four dance merrily together and disappear. The guests applaud, showing great amusement, and the players all troop back at once. Isabella throws a purse to a page, who in turn throws it to Arlecchino. Arlecchino skips about, tossing the purse in the air, and the players troop out again, bearing their prop- THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 239 erties with them. Whereupon Isabella rises, bidding her guests to a feast. The music starts up boldly, and Isabella leads the way, the court following with laughter and conversation. Lady Jane Grey Before I went into Germanic, I came to Brodegate in Leicestershire, to take my leaue of that noble Ladie lane Grey, to whom I was exceding mochbehdldinge. Hir parentes, the Duke and Duches, with all the houshold, Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, were hunting in the Parke : I founde her, in her Chamber, readinge Phaedon Platonia in Greeke, and that with as moch delite, as som ientlemen wold read a merie tale in Bocase. ... I remember this talke gladly, both bicause it is so worthy of memorie, and bicause also, it was the last talke that euer I had, and the last tyme that euer I saw that noble and worthie Ladie. Roger Ascham's Scholemaster. A PAGE runs into the courtyard at Bradgate carrying a mounting-block, and a hunting- horn sounds in the distance. The Marquess and Marchioness of Dorset enter in riding costume. The marquess commands that the horn again be sounded to summon the laggards, and the marchioness calls imperiously for her falcon, while at her impatient bidding a page runs in haste for the Lady Jane, who has failed to join the hawking party. Jane enters with a timid air, clothed in a house-dress of soft blue, which becomes her, and carrying a big leather- bound book ; she is followed by old Ellen, the nurse. 240 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Her mother chides Jane sharply because she has not made ready for the hunt, and the marquess com- mands that she go prepare to join them, in spite of her pleading that she be left to read through one long quiet day. As the marquess and marchioness speak their harsh words and Jane turns away bitterly dis- appointed, a page announces Master Roger Ascham. Ascham comes forward, — a small dark figure in wine-colored velvet, with a shrewd, kindly face, — saying that he has neared Bradgate on his way into Germany as the king's envoy. Before he is able to explain further he is brusquely interrupted by the marchioness, who declares that he shall join the company in the hunt, and speak to them as they go forth. Ascham, however, insists that he has only an hour to spend, and that he wishes to spend that hour in converse with the Lady Jane, whose learning and whose wit he has come greatly to admire. The mar- quess yields reluctantly, a horn is again sounded, horses in rich trappings are brought, the party mounts, and other riders enter on horseback. They all sweep off the stage to the left, disappear behind the trees as they turn upon the road below, are heard to clatter over the bridge, and presently are seen galloping along the further side of the lake and up the slope of the hill. Grooms and pages follow running, and "The Hunt is Up" is heard from a THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 241 distance. Lady Jane and Ascham watch the party through an open space in the trees, and Ascham asks how it is that she will lose such pleasure in the park, to which she replies earnestly that all their sport is but a shadow to the pleasure she finds in Plato. She confides to him at length, hesitatingly, that she seeks her books as a refuge ; daily they bring to her more and more of pleasure. Ascham then tells her that ever his hope has been that learning might become a house of play and pleasure, not of fear and bond- age: now his hope has become a truth, for learn- ing in her is freedom and delight. Lady Jane gains courage as they talk of Plato, and she tells him of a little treatise which she has made bold to write — in Greek — which she will show to him if he will put his wit into a comment upon it. As they pre- pare to go to her closet, Ascham begs that she will give him as a token in return for his commentary, a letter written by her own hand in Greek, when he shall be gone into Germany. They go off deep in conversation, old Ellen following them, picking up the scarf and handkerchief which Lady Jane has dropped, and shaking her head in despair as. she hobbles away. The faint sound of a hunting-horn is heard in the distance. 242 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Socrates : Let us not seem to spare mind and knowledge. Let us ring their metal bravely, and see if there be unsoundness in any part, until we have found out what is purest in their natures. Plato's Philebus. A BOISTEROUS crowd of Italian students in black caps, short bright-colored jackets, and knickerbockers enter to await the ceremony of the election of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro, a Venetian, to the doctorate of the University of Padua. They dis- pute warmly as to whether a degree should be con- ferred upon a woman. Some are enthusiastic, some scornful, others fearful; they argue Elena's learning, the propriety of bestowing an honor upon her pub- licly, and its possible eifect upon other women. One student dodges out and calls mockingly, *'What is wisdom in a woman ! ' ' and there are both cheers and protests from the crowd. Suddenly all are qui- eted by the approach of Elena's father, who comes upon the scene with pride and dignity, seemingly conscious of the scrutiny which he attracts. A cathe- dral bell tolls ; and the students catch sight of the statejy procession which is appearing on the left. The name ' ' Elena Cornaro ' ' is passed from one to another, the music of a processional is heard, and the standard bearers and those who carry the insig- nia of the doctorate slowly approach. They are fol- THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 243 lowed by two doctors, then by Elena, who walks with her promoter, Rinaldini, the clerk of the uni- versity, members of the clergy, other doctors and gentlemen, two by two. Elena wears gray faced with rose, the others rich robes of green, blue, purple, and dark crimson. As the procession reaches the dais, those who precede Elena stand aside and allow her to pass as through an aisle, and she seats herself in a large chair at the centre, the music continuing until she has taken her place. The doctors stand near her chair, the clerk sits upon a low stool at the foot of the steps facing her, and the others are grouped on the dais. Rinaldini then steps forward to present Elena for public honor, as one who has devoted her whole mind to the acquirement of vir- tue and wisdom, saying that in conclusion of the usual rigorous trial which has been given to her intellectual powers, she will now read in Greek a passage chosen at random from Aristotle, and will expound the passage. The clerk brings forward a large book, which Rinaldini opens, and Elena arises amid complete silence. She reads the passage before her clearly and fluently in Greek ; then in answer to the questions of the doctors explains its meaning, and quotes another passage on the same subject. There is a mild murmur of applause from the stu- dents. ''This figure of the boat and the sailor," 244 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION asks Rinaldini,"is it consistent with the earlier one which you gave, that the body and soul may not be separated? How can you reconcile the two? " Elena speaks out clearly, with unhesitating assurance: "And how can I, or how can you, most learned doctor? And what philosopher has not tried through all the ages and in vain. Even Alexander Aphrodisi- ensis refuses to allow the analogy, unless we sub- stitute ' the art of the pilot ' for the pilot himself. ' ' The crowd cheers her answer boldly, "Cornaro," ' ' Cornaro, " ' ' a noble reply. ' ' Elena then compares the reasoning of Aristotle with that of Plato, quot- ing in Greek, and says : ** Thus we see that Aris- totle, with a more earthly reasoning, doubts the im- mortality of the soul, while Plato believes the origin of the soul to be divine." As she concludes her ar- gument the students, not to be withheld, break into loud cheers and bravas, again shouting her name, ' ' Elena Cornaro, ' " ' the Venetian, ' ' now completely won over. The doctors, too, show their appreciation of her triumph, and the insignia bearers mount the dais. At this point the entire grouping around the dais is like that in the west window of the Vassar College Library. The crowd becomes silent as Ri- naldini speaks solemnly : ' ' Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, the sacred body of doctors and philoso- phers of this great University of Padua has judged THE PAGEANT OF ATHENA 245 you most worthy to be awarded the laureate in phi- losophy, and has elected you to its doctorate, and to all the advantages and privileges which you as doctor are entitled to use and enjoy." One insignia bearer then places a laurel wreath upon EUena's head, the other sets the ermine-bordered mozetta about her shoulders, and Rinaldini places a ring upon her finger, speaking in Latin as he formally confers the degree. There is a trumpet flare of mu- sic, the students throw their caps into the air and shout boisterously, Elena's father presses forward, and amid great applause Elena and Rinaldini step down from the dais. As the procession moves away, the students break into the Gaudeamus igitur and follow singing, gathered in a close band, arms locked over shoulders. ''^Gaudeamus igitur^ Juvenes dum sumus. Gaudeamus igitur^ Juvenes dum sumus. Post jucundam juventutem.. Post molestam senectutem^ Nos habebit humus — Nos habebit humus.'''* The students soon wind off" among the trees, the stage is empty for a moment, and music is played which takes on a solemn strain. The priestesses of 246 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Athena enter, and the goddess reappears. With a majestic, compelling movement Athena raises her spear; and from the right come the first of a long procession, Sappho with her maidens and dancers, these followed by Hortensia and the Roman crowd, then Hilda and the nuns, Oswy and the thanes of Oswy, Marie de France with the court of King Henry and Queen Eleanor, Isabella with her gay party. Lady Jane Grey, Ascham, and the riders to the hunt, Elena Cornaro and the learned doctors, all making together as they pass a rich unbroken mov- ing pattern of color, the fabric of the Web of Know- ledge. Last come the band of Italian students, sing- ing. Once more they wind off among the trees, and their Gaudeamus grows faint, but now an echo rises from the top of the hill behind the audience. Athena again lifts her spear compellingly. The echo grows in power, the Gaudeamus again becomes clear, and a great throng of singing girls, bright-clad in the cos- tumes of to-day, stream down the slope and singing pass in a long procession before the goddess, their song changing to the new Alma Mater as they march . They too wind away. Their song grows faint and is lost. Dusk has fallen. The priestesses silently de- part. There is a flare of light, a cloud of smoke, and Athena vanishes, slowly and alone. Other Features of the Celebration Vassar Milestones: A Play COMPOSED BY ALUMNAE Under the direction of Elizabeth E. Wellington^ class o/"'01, and staged by the Dramatic Committee of the JSTew York Branch of Vassar Alumnae IN groups of scenes from three periods, with a prologue which entered the past before Vassar College was founded, and an epilogue which looked to the future, '* Vassar Milestones ' ' unrolled in dra- matic form much that has been significant in the development of the college. A thread of romance held the sequence of the scenes, the child Jennie in the prologue, who told Matthew Vassar that she wanted ^'to study about all sorts of things — birds and Indians and Chinamen and stars, — oh, most of all about the stars," becoming one of the first stu- dents of the college, and marrying Arthur Niles, Mr. Vassar's secretary; Jeannette Niles, their daughter, holding the centre of the scenes in the nineties ; and Jean Fairley, the daughter of Jeannette, who has married her room-mate's brother, typifying the stu- dent of the present day. The prologue shows Matthew Vassar in his study pondering the project of spending part of his for- tune as a monument to his name. He is visited by Lydia Booth, his niece, who has come to talk with 250 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION him of Jennie Brown, whose tuition she wishes Mr. Vassar to pay at her school. The discussion quickly takes a general turn. Mr. Vassar shows much of the then conventional opinion as to the education of women, saying that the oven doors are the only gates of learning that concern a woman ; but Lydia Booth is roused to what she believes to be a need, and in a glow of inspiration urges her uncle **to brave the world's opinion, and offer to women what Yale and Harvard offer to men. " Mr. Vassar is stirred by her enthusiasm; he plans to talk with Dr. Jewett, of whose sympathy with such an idea he is already aware, and to drive with his niece and Jennie Brown out to the old Mill Cove Farm. The prologue ends as he meditates, *' Vassar College! Vassar Female College! Well, why not — why not! " The period of the "great experiment" begins with a scene in the parlors of Main — then simple and bare, with curtainless windows — at the open- ing of the college fifty years ago. There arrive a min- ister and his studious daughter from Peekskill; a Mrs. Leroy who thinks it may sometime be aufait to say that her two girls have graduated from this Vassar Female College; a garrulous and reminis- cent Mrs. Wilton, whose daughter is "really not at all like other girls;" a teacher who wishes to become a student, Jennie Brown, and other young OTHER FEATURES 251 women whose serious intent is apparent. They are met by Miss Lyman , Professor Hinkel, and Profes- sor Mitchell. 'Enery enters with baggage and offers his disparaging opinion of education for women: the talk throughout reveals incongruities as well as hopefulness and purpose. ''Of course girls ought to be well educated," declares Mrs. Wilton, ''and I am especially particular about the practical things that they will be sure to need, such as French for going abroad and chemistry for housekeeping. I have always said that woman's sphere was the home circle," she rattles on, "and that 's why I ventured to speak about the lace curtains." Miss Lyman is stately and quiet; she possesses a shrewdness of insight which becomes apparent in her replies to Mrs. Leroy and Mrs. Wilton. The curtain falls, and rises again on the same room in the evening of the same day, showing Dr. Raymond, Miss Ly- man, Miss Mitchell, and Professor Hinkel. They are weary, aware that a great task lies before them, yet exalted. "It is a beautiful chaos," says Dr. Ray- mond. "The problems are all new and strange; there are no precedents." "True," replies Miss Mitchell characteristically. "But if the earth had waited for a precedent, it would never have turned upon its axis." The second scene shows a ' ' dome-party ' ' in the 252 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Observatory, at which rhymes are read, stories ex- changed, and a song sung to Miss Mitchell to the tune of ' ' The Battle Hymn of the Republic. ' ' Even in the lighter turns of the talk Miss Mitchell is revealed as direct, a little austere, with a fine and sim- ple breadth of understanding. ' ' Mingle the starlight with your lives, ' ' she counsels the girls at one point, "and you won't be fretted by trifles." The period closes with a scene representing the first Founder's Day. An evergreen arch which bears the words ' ' Welcome to the Founder ' ' is set up in front of Main, 'Ejiery assisting. When all is arranged, and Miss Lyman has made her inspection of costumes, observing the length of skirts and the manner in which gloves have been put on, the groups of stu- dents form a wide circle about the arch, and Mr. Vassar enters with Dr. Raymond. * ' Gladly we wel- come thee. Father and honored guest," the song composed for the occasion, is sung. A girl steps for- ward, curtseys, and speaks a greeting to the Founder in verse. Dr. Raymond then formally addresses Mr. Vassar, telling him that by vote of the faculty the anniversary of the Founder's birthday is to be annu- ally observed with commemorative exercises, and that the students have asked to have the celebration of this day left in their hands. Mr. Vassar is sur- prised and deeply touched ; he tells those gathered OTHER FEATURES 253 before him that Vassar College is now theirs, theirs to elevate, theirs to beautify, theirs to honor, theirs to adorn ; but his voice breaks, and he turns aside, saying that this is more happiness than he can bear. Leaning on Dr. Raymond's arm, he walks away. The students hesitate, but follow, singing the first Alma Mater. ' ' In the Nineties ' ' shows the room of Jeannette Niles and Dorothy Fairley on the morning of the first Field Day. Jeannette bursts in, wearing gym- nasium bloomers and blouse, having made a record for the one hundred and twenty yard hurdles, and finds her mother (Jennie Brown), who has arrived unexpectedly. Mrs. Fairley does not understand the new forms of exercise which her daughter has been practicing ; she recalls the simple swings which Mr. Vassar caused to be put on the lawns, and the pleas- ant excursions in tricycles which the students of a later day used to take. There are certain activities, she thinks, in which it is not suitable for young wo- men to engage. She is interrupted by Oshima San, a Japanese girl, who comes to consult her friends, dis- tressed because after she has read all the books which the honorable professor has assigned, she has become a socialist * ' by true religion ' ' — and she is to marry a prince. *' Chuck him," says Dorothy. ''Fklucate him, ' ' says Jeannette, and the girls break into a mock 254 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION argument, Jeannette jumping upon a table and ha- ranguing quotations from a recent debate, ''Does " the higher education unfit man for matrimony ? ' ' "We maintain that it does," shouts Dorothy, and goes on quickly, "Will knowledge of Greek help him to understand the furnace? Will differential cal- culus pay the butcher? Or will philosophy convince the butcher that he is better off unpaid? No. He and the butcher will both remain dissatisfied." The hilarious fun shocks Mrs. Niles, and the outburst subsides. There is talk about the new economics courses, about the "Antigone," which is soon to be given in Greek, and the new Alumnae Gymnasium. Girls enter dressed in black and white to represent cosines; they have come to show their costumes for the ' ' trig ' ' ceremonies. The curtain falls as they begin to rehearse their dance. The second scene "in the nineties" shows Tom Fairley and his wife Jeannette awaiting Dorothy Fairley, now an instructor, in her room on the night when Dr. Taylor is to announce his decision. Dr. Taylor has received a call to the presidency of Brown . Tom thinks that a woman's college cannot hold him in the face of so great an honor, and Jeannette is disconsolate. A reporter comes in to make sure that he may send off his article announcing Dr. Tay- lor's acceptance of the call; he quotes his headlines: OTHER FEATURES 255 * ' Oldest and Best-Known Woman's College Cannot Hold Prominent Educator against Call of Man's University." Even Professor Ely, who stops for a moment to see Jeannette, thinks the probabilities are that Dr. Taylor will go. But at that moment the sound of enthusiastic clapping and cheering bursts into the corridors as the girls pour out from the old chapel, and Dorothy Fairley flings open the door breathlessly announcing that Dr. Taylor is to stay. He has said that the greatest need and the greatest opportunity lie at Vassar; and that he will devote the rest of his working life to the cause of women's education. A hearty song in serenade is heard, and Professor Ely remarks emphatically: "Well, young man, we have seen the 'Female' come oiF the col- lege at last." The scene of the modern period, '*The New Springtime," is laid out of doors. A group of girls are taking down Republican and Democratic post- ers to make room for Socialist placards. Hamilton Spencer, a young business man, enters, and meets Dorothy Fairley, now a warden : he wishes to en- gage a young college graduate for an important po- sition in his establishment. An anti-suffrage parade marches across the stage, bearing signs which read : ** Woman's place is in the home!" A socialist band follows, with Jean Fairley, a senior, haranguing the 256 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION crowd. They pass on, and Mrs. Fairley and her mother, Mrs. Niles, arrive, having caught sight of Jean in the distance making a stump speech. Mrs. Fairley is shocked; she thinks the whole proceeding improper and unwomanly; but her mother is re- minded that she herself had been shocked when she found Mrs. Fairley — in the nineties — wearing gymnasium bloomers and shouting from a table in mock argument. "Unwomanly," adds Mrs. Niles speculatively. ''That is what they called me too." Dorothy Fairley, Jean, and Hamilton Spencer re- enter ; to the amazement of her mother and grand- mother Jean promises to consider the position which Mr. Spencer offers; and Mr. Spencer leaves. Mrs. Fairley speaks despairingly of the changes which have taken place in the college; it was all different in her day. She believes in a certain amount of free- dom, but certainly not in ''ranting on street corners about the vote," or in "this absurd effort to com- pete with men in their own fields." Dorothy Fairley insists that it is a good thing for Jean and others like her to go out and see what society is made of, and that the new age will be one of co-operation rather than of competition; she thinks, too, that it is into this new era that Vassar, with her new presi- dent and her old traditions, will lead. They all move away at length to watch the spring dance which is OTHER FEATURES 257 to take place on the lawn where they are standing. Dancers enter, the figure of Spring leading a train of fauns and nymphs, and there follows a dance of spring characteristic of modern out-of-door May festivals. Jean is one of the fauns. The stage dark- ens as the dancers disappear, and the girl Jean, still as a faun, comes back with Mrs. Niles. Jean declares that she would rather be a faun than a secretary, but Mrs. Niles cannot be wholly reconciled either to fauns or to secretaries : she quotes the motto of the anti-suffrage parade. Jean quickly rejoins that she feels to-day as if the whole world were her home ; and Mrs. Niles grants that people have come by habit to say to women: *'Thus far shalt thou go, and no further. " " We are going as far as we can, ' ' says Jean enthusiastically. *' Something stronger and greater than we is pushing us." She is be- coming argumentative when her mother calls. She jumps up. ''Yes, mother, yes, grandmother," she answers, running off*. "I'll be with you in a little while." Mrs. Niles, alone, murmurs: ''Ah, what changes! Great changes in this old Mill Cove Farm. . . . I can see him now. I can see him now." The Historical Exhibition of Physical Training UNDER THE DIRECTION OF HARRIET ISABEL BALLINTINE Director of Physical TYaining at Vassar College It is settled, therefore, as a maxim in the administration of the college, that the health of its students is not to be sacrificed to any other object whatever : and that, to the utmost possible extent, those whom it educates shall become physically well-developed, vigorous, and graceful women, with enlightened views and wholesome habits in regard to taking care of their own health and others under their charge. From the first Catalogue, 1865. ON Tuesday afternoon, October twelfth, at two o'clock there was given in the Athletic Circle an exhibition which illustrated the development of physical training in the college from the time of its opening to the present day. The various features of indoor gymnastics were exhibited upon a broad plat- form which faced bleachers erected on the south- west side of the Circle. The outdoor sports were shown upon the open field. A parade first passed along the running-track, led by a group of riders mounted side-saddle and wear- ing the long full habits of the sixties ; after these marched a class of students in ankle-length gray flan- nel suits with scarlet sashes, representing the earli- est period, and a longer modern procession, some in bloomers with sailor waists or middy blouses. OTHER FEATURES 259 some in accordion-pleated class-dancing nostumes. At the end of the parade rode a modern group, cross-saddle, in close-fitting coats, knickerbockers, and high boots. Music began as the last of the mod- ern riders galloped away ; and the class in gray and scarlet took their places on the platform, where they showed such simple gymnastics as were practiced in the early Calisthenium. A light wand-drill of restrained, exact movements and easy variations was performed, and a series of rhythmic dumb-bell exercises — the * ' disappearing dumb-bell ' ' — fol- lowed, set to the ''Anvil Chorus." Croquet, one of the ' ' healthful feminine sports ' ' to which ' ' all pos- sible encouragement" was to be given, according to the first ''Prospectus," was played upon the lawn by young ladies in crinolines. In contrast to these early forms of physical train- ing came the active indoor gymnastics and field sports introduced at Vassar in the nineties and still popular at the present time. A skillful, rapid drill in class fencing was executed. Vigorous exercises on parallel bars and the vaulting-horse exemplified modern indoor gymnastics with apparatus. On the field beyond the running-track games of hockey and basket-ball were played with full teams, and a large group of students taking part in the running and standing broad-jumps, the fence vault, hurdle 260 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION races, and a fifty yard and one hundred yard dash, reproduced the sports of the modern field day. A series of muscular free exercises, typical of the hardy, elastic forms of indoor training introduced in 1906, was practiced in unison by a class. Elxamples of aesthetic dancing, which belongs to an early tradition at Vassar, closed the programme. The Founder himself sanctioned instruction in dan- cing for students of the college, writing to the Board of Trustees in 1861 : ''Years ago I made up my judgment on these great questions in the religious point of view, and came to a decision favorable to amusements. I never practiced public dancing in my life, and yet in view of its being a healthful and grace- ful exercise, I heartily approved it, and now recom- mend its being taught in the College to all pupils whose parents or guardians desire it." As early as 1877, square dancing was occasionally substituted for the required gymnastics, and ' ' fancy steps' ' and marching calisthenics ' ' were often used as part of the indoor training. The dancing exhibited was typical of the period between 1898, when aesthetic dancing was formally introduced, and the present day. An interpretative solo was danced; and to the music of a ballet from Gounod's ''Faust," a polka- mazurka by Strauss, and a Russian folk-dance, three group dances were presented by a class. The Alumnae Luncheon AT half-past twelve o'clock on Monday, October -^ ^ eleventh, a procession of the classes assembled in front of the Main Building, and w^ith banners floating, singing class songs, marched around the south end of Main to the lawn between the Con- servatory and Music Hall, each class led by three of its members dressed in the fashions of its college period. Trios in hoop-skirts, panniers, and basques were followed at intervals by groups in velvets or brocades trimmed with elaborate puffings and plait- ings, by others in ruffled muslins and picture hats, in bright silks with gored skirts and leg o' mut- ton sleeves, or in high-necked jacket sweaters, golf capes, stout walking-skirts and sailors, until there finally appeared a long line in the familiar costumes of recent years. The procession broke up under the trees, rugs were spread and banners planted, mak- ing a gayly picturesque scene, and a collation was served. The Alumnae Meeting AT a quarter before two o'clock on Monday a -^ A. special meeting of the Associate Alumnae was called in the Assembly Hall for the double pur- pose of considering the plan for a million dollar en- dowment fund and a proposal to establish a Vassar quarterly. Mrs. Ferris J. Meigs, President of the As- sociate Alumnae, was in the chair. President Mac- Cracken explained the plan for a million dollar fund, saying that the proposal to raise a million for endow- ment had come last year from the General Endow- ment Committee, that it had been welcomed by the Executive Committee of the Trustees, and fully ap- proved by the Board of Trustees at its annual meet- ing in June. Arrangements have been made with the General Education Board by which that Board agrees to give to the college two hundred thousand dollars, provided the remaining eight hundred thou- sand dollars is raised by the college itself, an amount which must be pledged by October 1, 1916, and actually given by October 1, 1917. According to the conditions of the Board, one hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars of the million may be used for buildings and equipment ; the remainder is to be devoted to educational endowment. President MacCracken an- nounced that, exclusive of class gifts, two hundred OTHER FEATURES 263 and seventy -five thousand dollars had already been given toward the fund. This sum includes two gifts of twenty-five thousand dollars each made by Mrs. Elon H. Hooker, class of '94, and Mrs. Avery Coon- ley, class of '96, for an alumnae house. Louise P. Sheppard, class of '96, Chairman of the General Endowment Committee, announced the gifts of the classes. The total amount pledged at that time was two hundred and eleven thousand dollars, which included a gift by the class of '70 suffi- cient to complete the Ellen H. Richards Fund, and a gift of six thousand dollars for the Department of Chemistry by Mrs. James H. Williams, class of '70. But, as Miss Sheppard said, it was impossible to make a final statement of amounts, for the pledges were rising hourly. By the end of Anniversary Week the class gifts had been increased to two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, which, with the amount announced by President MacCracken, made a total of half a million then subscribed toward the fund. And formal efforts to raise the fund had hardly begun. The meeting received all announcements of gifts with enthusiastic applause, and the loyal sup- port of the Associate Alumnae, together with their approval of the plan for the million dollar fund, was pledged to President MacCracken by a rising vote. The report of a special committee appointed to 264 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION draw up plans for an alumnae quarterly was sub- mitted by Elizabeth E. Wellington, class of '01, on behalf of that committee, which consisted of Ada Thurston, class of '80, Mrs. John A. Sanford, class of '83, Elizabeth F. Hopson, class of '05, and Miss Wellington. Miss Wellington said that an insistent demand for an alumnae periodical had come from the alumnae themselves, and that the plan was favored by editors of the ''Miscellany," past and present, who felt that a separation of the alumnae depart- ment from the undergraduate magazine was desir- able both for alumnae interests and for the interests of the ' ' Miscellany. ' ' Miss Wellington described the growth of other alumnae publications and gave a practical estimate of the cost of a quarterly similar in size and appearance to the * ' Smith College Quar- terly," also reporting that ten alumnae had pledged one hundred dollars each to secure the initial ex- penses of a quarterly. After a short discussion. Miss Wellington's recommendation was unanimously carried that the Associate Alumnae become sponsor for the publication of a quarterly periodical, with an editorial board to be appointed by the Executive Committee or by a special committee appointed by that Committee, this board to serve for three years. Several minor announcements were made and the meeting adjourned. Music Organ Recital TIUS NOBLE, Ml Of St. Thomas's Church, New York, formerly of York Minster, England Sunday, October 10, 1915 Concerto in G Minor, Camidge; Choral Prelude, Wachet Auf, Bach; Barcarolle, Stemdale Bennett; Air and Vari- ations fi-om Symphony in D, Haydn; Solemn Prelude, Elegy, Finale, Noble; Vox Angelica et Adoration, Dubois; Sonata in A Minor (Andante non troppo. Andante, Alle- gro con flioco), Borowski. Two Concerts Of the Russian Symphony Orchestra MODEST ALTSCHULER, Conductor Tuesday, October 12, 1915 Programme of Concert at 3.30 p.m. Part I Suite in D (Air, Gavottes, Bourree, Gigue), Bach; Sym- phony No. 6, Pathetique, First Three Movements (Adagio, Allegro non troppo. Allegro con grazia. Allegro molto vivace), Tschaikorusky ; Tone Poem, Finlandia, Sibelius. 266 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Part II Overture, Sakuntala, Goldmark; Andante cantabile for strings, Tschaikowsky ; Allegro moderato pastorale from the Symphonietta, Ippolitoff-Ivanoff; Rackozy March, Berlioz. Frogramme of Concert at 8 p.m. Part I Academic Festival Overture, Brahms; Symphonic Tableaux, The Three Palms, Spendiaro-w; Suite in D (Air, Gavottes, Bourr^e, Gigue), Bach; Two Caucasian Sketches (In the Aul, March Sardan), Ippolitoff-Ivanoff. Part II Rackozy March, Berlioz; Berceuse, Dance of the Dwarfs from the Suite, Nur and Anitra, Ilyinski ; Symphony No. 6, Path^tique, First Three Movements (Adagio, Allegro non troppo. Allegro con grazia. Allegro molto vivace) , Tschai- iozusky. Receptions TRUSTEES, officers, and friends of the college were at home on Tuesday afternoon, October twelfth, from three to six o'clock, in Taylor Hall, the Library, the Main Building, the New England Building, the Vassar Brothers Laboratory, the San- ders Laboratory, the Goodfellowship Club House, the Swift Memorial Infirmary, and the Observatory, the centre of the groups in each building being, so far as was possible, the departments of adminis- tration or instruction most closely associated with the building. Guests were given an opportunity to see the college buildings and equipment as well as to meet members and friends of the college. The Presi- dent and the President Emeritus received in Taylor Hall. Representatives of the undergraduate organiza- tions were at home to the student delegates on Tues- day evening, October twelfth, from eight to ten o'clock in Taylor Hall. The Anniversary Dinners ON Wednesday evening, October thirteenth, at six thirty o'clock a dinner was given in the Students Building for delegates to the college, rep- resentatives of the alumnae, representatives of the city, and trustees and officers of the college. At the same time dinners for the delegates to the intercol- legiate student conference and for Vassar College students were given in all of the residence halls. President MacCracken was toastmaster at the din- ner in the Students Building, and the student presi- dents of the halls acted as toastmistresses at the dinners in the residence halls. The general subject of the after dinner speeches was * * The College and the Community." That the colleges for women, since they are so highly organized, are in themselves a community, was the fact emphasized by the first speaker at the dinner in the Students Building, Ellen Fitz Pendle- ton, President of Wellesley College. In consequence of such organization these colleges constantly run the danger of thinking themselves more than a com- munity, more even than a city, — indeed, a world. But there is nothing which can bring the college so quickly to a sense of its own unimportance as to find itself faced by the regulations of the community in OTHER FEATURES 269 which it lives ; it is made to feel the pulse of the larger world, and the lesson is excellent, particularly for the undergraduate. This is the great contribution of the community to the college. On the other hand the college has a very definite contribution to offer to the community. For the teachers within the college it is a privilege constantly to be associated with those who are fresh, who are adventurous, who are ready to take the world's burdens upon their shoulders; it is also a privilege for the community to see the eagerness with which college students, both men and women, go out and face the problems of life, and to see as well the actual efficiency with which student organizations are managed. The share of the under- graduates in Vassar's celebration is itself an exam- ple of these qualities. The real contribution, then, of the college to its immediate community lies in con- vincing the ordinary citizen of the ordinary college town that the youth of this country are ready, by their training, by their magnificent team-work, by their hearty co-operation with one another, by their ability to sink individual likes and dislikes, to as- sume the responsibility of citizenship. The historic antagonism between town and gown is practically obliterated, said Edward Bliss Reed, Professor of English in Yale University ; yet misun- derstanding occasionally arises. It is plainly the duty 270 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION of the gown, because of its organization and because of its historic traditions, to take the lead in prevent- ing misunderstanding. There is a mild tolerance, perhaps, on the part of the town toward the gowns- man. The feeling may come in part because the interests of the town are financial, and in this day of big business, from the financial point of view the wearer of the gown is interesting chiefly as a curi- osity. And if the town regards us with benevolence merely, we of the gown are certainly not poor in spirit; we have our little fling at the town. We re- gard the townsman as rather weak in thought, for- getting that when we apply these terms we usually mean that the unfortunate individual does not think as we do. But it is not enough that we feel a kindly benevolence toward each other. Town and gown must of course be united. America is the greatest experiment in the world to-day ; and that experiment is not concluded. Our democracy is on trial ; our very education is on trial, and we must prove its worth. Surely, said Professor Reed, our education was not meant for self-development alone, — to send the in- vidual down the lonely path of self-culture. If edu- cation does not tend to make the whole country hap- pier and better, then certainly something is wrong with it ; if the relations between town and gown are not what they should be, then our education is not OTHER FEATURES 271 what it should be. We must join in a common ideal. Like the English peasants in Masefield's poem, col- lege and community must see a ' * city never built by hands," a city which college and community can build together. How does the theory work out? Are the college communities the best communities? Are they the model towns? Do the gownsmen do their real work in the community ? It is difficult for the gownsman to leave his task and plunge into the work of the city ; and he has a sufficient excuse. In his present position he must, to hold his post, be an inspiring teacher, a productive scholar, a capable organizer, a skilled diplomat in the matter of departmental re- lations, a magnetic personality attracting the warm heart of the undergraduate and the cold heart of the philanthropist. Who can wonder that he shrinks from civic work ! As a partial solution of his prob- lem the college must frankly release from some small portion of their academic duties those of its officers who are fitted to serve on school boards, library boards, boards of health, housing committees, and the like, that they may do their work in the commu- nity. So far as the college itself is concerned, the col- lege faculty which is broad-minded enough to send its members into the heart of the city does not make them less efficient; it makes them more efficient. 272 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Some three centuries ago, George Herbert, speaking of himself, said rather bitterly, " Whereas my birth and spirit rather took The way that takes the town^ Thou didst betray me to a lingering book^ And wrap me in a gorvny To-day the scholar with his "lingering book," wrapped in his gown, must take the road that takes the town, because he is part of it. It is never enough that town and gown, the college and the commu- nity, merely stand together; they must stand for united work and united achievement. In an account of certain outstanding changes of government proposed by the New York State Con- stitutional Convention, Jacob Gould Schurman, President of Cornell University and Vice-President of the Convention, drew comparisons between the government of the larger community, the state, and the government of the typical college or university. Many of the fundamental problems with which the state is struggling and which were discussed by the convention have already been solved by the colleges. For instance, in recommending a shortened ballot the convention followed at a distance a well-estab- lished college practice. A board of college trustees elects a president, but it does not directly choose the other officers of the college ; vacancies are filled by OTHER FEATURES 273 the nomination of the president, who has consulted with the heads of the departments concerned. In eifect the method is that of the short ballot. Again, the budget system proposed by the convention is precisely identical with that used in most colleges. Like the college president, who submits his budget yearly to the trustees, the governor would each year submit his estimate for the state's expenditures to the legislature. The new measure for extended home rule is likewise paralleled by a usual college policy. Faculties in well-ordered colleges and universities to-day exercise supreme control in all that relates to the education and discipline of students, and in all that relates to investigation and research. Just so the cities of New York State will have exclusive power to regulate and manage their own property, affairs, and government, if the amended constitution is adopted. However, with all the likenesses between the community of the state and the community of the college, there is one important difference, which entails a difference in government. The chief execu- tive of the state must be constantly responsible to the people ; with a long term he can evade respon- sibility, since the influence of the people will be felt only at intervals. A short term for the state execu- tive is therefore desirable. On the other hand we assume that the chief executive of the college will 274 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION remain in harmony with the sovereign authorities, and we demand that he have conditions favorable to efficiency. A reasonably long term is one of those conditions. Closing with congratulations, President Schurman expressed the cordial good wish that President MacCracken's administration illustrate, as that of Dr. Taylor had illustrated, the theory of the long term. In the college where he presides, the members do not think much of the community and the commu- nity does not think much of them, said Thomas Mott Osborne, Agent and Warden of Sing Sing. The prison problem has been ignored by most good people, college graduates among them, yet the con- dition of mind, body, and soul of the men who leave the prison — there are fifteen hundred a year from the four state prisons of New York alone — is of the utmost importance to the whole community. Two- thirds of the men now in these state prisons are re- cidivists ; and the fact constitutes a shocking crit- icism of the old prison system. By its brutality, its mandate of silence, its surveillance, its rigidity, this system forbade the prisoner the life of a human being ; by every possible means his initiative was destroyed. The prison should rightly be a place of education ; its essential problem is to create condi- tions through which its members may become capa- ' OTHER FEATURES 275 ble and desirous of leading useful and honest lives. But, as Gladstone once said, * ' It is liberty alone that fits men for liberty," and the men committed to the prisons cannot be educated for a free life without freedom. You must train the muscles used in the race if you are going to run the race at all. Prisoners must be exercised in the qualities necessary for them to use when they come out. In Sing Sing the men now move about freely ; there is no more lock-step ; there is plenty of chance for physical exercise ; and most important of all, there is opportunity for men- tal and spiritual regeneration. What we all need to learn when we are in train- ing, whether that training be behind the wall or in the open, is the great lesson of service ; this lesson the prisoners are learning. Come down and talk with the men in the yard, pick out any one at random, and see what reaction you will get. You will find that many in a blind way, some in a perfectly inter- ested, and some in only a half interested way, are acquiring the sense of an obligation toward society ; they are getting the notion that when their turn comes they must pay that obligation. One of the brightest and best men at Auburn, a man whose criminal career has been long and varied, said to me last summer : * * I can see clearly now that society could not do anything with me except send me to 276 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION prison." He had got that idea because he himself, in the prison, through the Mutual Welfare League, had been placed in a position where he had to deal with offenders against the discipline of society. The most living duty we can have to-day is to apply the principles of democracy to our prisons. We are a practical people, but we have dreamed a wonderful dream ; we have dared to found our social system upon the rock of the Golden Rule. No one can for a moment maintain that we have more than made an approach to a perfect democracy, but we are try- ing to translate our dream into a reality. As a part of that dream some of us have had a vision of a re-constituted prison to which men will go to be re- formed, made better, saner, wiser, more wholesome. Those of us who have dreamed that dream — we want you to dream it too ; and we want your help for its fulfilment. **The College and the Community," — the rela- tions between the two as they bear upon student life and student interests, were variously interpreted by the speakers at the dinners in the residence halls. President Hadley of Yale invited a comparison be- tween the larger community and the college com- munity, saying that the underlying principles of organization are identical. The college leads a com- plex life similar to that of the city ; in both there are OTHER FEATURES 277 individuals governed by public opinion, and using public opinion more or less skillfully as a means of pursuing various ends. One of the most valuable lessons that the student can learn as an undergrad- uate is an understanding of the practical relation be- tween individual and public opinion. It is precisely this knowledge which can make college standards useful in the communities in which we live. What the community requires from our colleges to-day is not so much higher standards as it is more intelli- gent practical means of getting those standards ac- cepted by the public, of making them effective for the welfare of the body politic ; and the man or woman who knows how to organize his or her fellow-stu- dents for effective work in college will be the one to do the same thing in the life of the city or town afterward. The college is a community. You have during these four years a chance to experiment with methods of becoming useful to your fellows ; meth- ods of bringing home whatever message you have, of gathering the power of the community behind that message. Margaret Judson, class of '03, showed with much the same emphasis that the college stu- dent is not merely preparing for life; she is actually living. Her campus activities offer her the oppor- tunity of testing the theories which she will prac- tice in the larger world after she graduates. 278 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION In the collegiate education of women there has never been much chance to develop or encourage the scholar -recluse, said Elisabeth Woodbr id ge Morris, class of '92. Begun as the women's colleges were in the face of keen challenge, they were always held bound to prove a close and practical connection with life. Even the students at Vassar of the nineties felt obliged to prove this connection, but although they were more conscious than is the student of the pres- ent day of the need of such proof, they did not begin to offer it as does the modern student. They were living on the fringes of the Victorian era, and the Victorians made the mistake of thinking that a good heart and good intentions were all that were needed, especially among women, in order to help the com- munity. Good hearts and good intentions must not be underrated, but for most occasions it is also use- ful to have a good head. The people in the colleges, more deliberately and more successfully than any other large bodies of people, have set about making good heads available for the expressing of good hearts and the working out of good intentions. They are learning and teaching the limitless power of straight thinking, and the limitless power of an organized co-operation which can use without choking indi- vidual initiative. This is fundamental to all com- munity life. It is what our American communities OTHER FEATURES 279 especially, with their hit-or-miss methods, their blithe indiiFerence to the value of good planning and expert advice, need most of all to have taught them every day of every year. Helen Morris Hadley, class of '83, pictured the changes in attitude of a certain city toward return- ing Vassar graduates, showing that college women had established their right to recognition by the com- munity. The first attitude was that of awe. The earliest graduates were respected and admired, but they were felt to be something quite apart from other women. The next stage was that of scorn. One au- thoritative lady remarked firmly : '* A girl is sent to college for two reasons only, — to be able to support herself by teaching, or in the hope of improving her social position. My daughter needs to do neither, and so she will not go to college." The periods of awe and of snobbishness passed, but for a time it was still the part of wisdom to hide a college de- gree as carefully as a family skeleton, if one wished to take a natural part in the life of the community. Now the era of unconsciousness has been reached : a degree passes unnoticed; a woman is free from prejudice against it; while it stands as a guarantee of possible efficiency. The long slow growth of the idea that woman is a member of the community was traced by Dr. Mary 280 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Sherwood, class of '83, beginning with the accept- ance of the fact that woman had a soul, when, ac- cording to legend, the question came to a vote in an eleventh century church congress. The fact that she has a mind has received its triumphant admission in the past half century of higher education, and we are now living in an era which will accord her full rights as a citizen. As a member of the commu- nity there have opened to her many fields of practi- cal community work ; she can assist in civic house- keeping ; she can engage in the prevention of evils, physical and moral; she can pursue medical re- search. With the increase of recognition has come an increase in responsibility ; she must now take her active place in the community. The need of the * * so- cial mind," now that women have gained recogni- tion by the community, was also urged by Alice Bar- rows Fernandez, class of '00, Director of the Voca- tional Education Survey of New York City. Women must accept their share of civic responsibility, said Mrs. Fernandez. They must be willing actively to engage in civic work, even though that work often spells drudgery. The general training for later community service which the college can give, particularly through its curriculum, was stressed by a number of speak- ers. The first aim of the college must be to produce OTHER FEATURES 281 the educated person, declared President Burton of Smith ; to produce the individual ' ' who has ac- quired a broad outlook upon life as a whole, ' ' who feels as well as thinks correctly, who has the ability to weigh evidence, who can relate himself intimately and directly to the work of the world. Such a one has become socialized ; he has entered the mind of the race ; he is ready to take his place in the commu- nity. Katharine Blunt, class of '98, Assistant Pro- fessor of Home Economics in the University of Chi- cago, discussed the far-reaching effects of the inves- tigative habit of mind. The value of research could not be over-estimated, she believed, not only because scientific discoveries are always at some time of positive benefit to mankind, but also because the in- vestigative spirit is fundamental for all activity, whether for the work of the teacher, the house- keeper, the business person, or for pure science. President Webb of Randolph-Macon assumed that the college frankly admitted its debt to the com- munity, and insisted that the best preparation for effective leadership in future years is the steady pursuit of those things which give pertinency and meaning to college education. The great gift of the college is the gift of more abundant life ; that abun- dance can be shared in all the later contacts of the individual. 282 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION In a somewhat similar vein President MacMillan of Wells argued that preparation must be made in a broad manner for the responsibilities which the community expects the college graduate to carry, and showed that the arts curriculum develops a strength and power which can later be turned into any channel. The college must be an institution where long views of the past and of the future dom- inate life and work, where temporary whims of doc- trine are evaluated, where faculty and students are so imbued with faith in their high calling that they cannot be distracted by the popular clamor for immediate results. Such an institution may not be wholly popular in a democratic country, nor escape the charge of being exclusive or even useless, but as the years roll by it will render immeasurable ser- vice to the real college community which is the na- tion and the world. Breadth of intellectual training as the main contribution of the college was also em- phasized by Lucy Madeira, class of '96, Principal of Miss Madeira's School. The college should be the place set apart where learning is conserved, she said; the place to which the community looks for guidance in things intellectual, the flame within the shrine to which the pilgrim returns. Whatever its later uses, the culture which the college has to offer should rest upon a secure foundation of exact scholarship. OTHER FEATURES 283 As to the practical and immediate share which the college student should take in community life there was a conflict of opinion. A closer correlation of college studies with social activities was urged by Emelyn B. Hartridge, class of '92, Principal of the Hartridge School. If the chief end of education is not the development of intellectual power merely, but the formation of character, — character trained and habituated to think in terms of social obligation, then the college must give to the student in connec- tion with her studies some definite knowledge of com- munity life, before graduation ; if the gospel of the age is service, she must have her apprenticeship. Samples submitted to the city could be tested in the college laboratories, and the results would be of prac- tical community value. Students in social science could helpfully co-operate, under supervision, with workers in the Juvenile Courts, the Juvenile Protec- tive Association, and the Associated Charities. Back- ward children in the city schools could be tested as part of the work in psychology. With the aid of competent instructors classes in house sanitation or domestic art could be organized among girls in the town. Such correlation of community with college interests is directly in line with the work already independently begun by Vassar students in the churches, almshouses, and day nurseries of Pough- 284 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION keepsie and Arlington. But municipal affairs must be approached in a humble spirit. Students must realize that they are indebted to the city for the opportunity to learn citizenship at first hand. Possibilities for practical work in the community were also developed by Rossa B. Cooley, class of '93, Principal of the Penn School, and by Lida Shaw King, class of '90, Dean of the Women's College in Brown University. Miss King described the edu- cational work among the young women of Rhode Island which is now being carried on by undergrad- uates and faculty of the Women's College. Exten- sion courses have been established, and an effort is being made to see that the girls of the state gain the kind of education which they want and need. Miss Cooley traced the growth of the college-community idea through the stages of antagonism and indiffer- ence to that of co-operation, and suggested that Vas- sar students work out a practical plan for the closer relationship of the college and the town. The college must consider the whole community its field, she said. The community must become as vital a part of the college as are its students and buildings. A radically opposite view was expressed by other speakers. There are fundamental differences between the college and the town, said Marion Reilly, Dean of Bryn Mawr College, which make it undesirable OTHER FEATURES 285 for students, as students, to take part in the activities of the town, and for the townspeople, as represent- ing the town, to take part in the activities of the college. Both town and college are organized com- munities, but they are organized along different lines and for different purposes. The student community is organized along lines of the greatest possible sim- plicity, so that the four years of college life may give the maximum of opportunity for mental devel- opment; the town is organized along lines of the greatest complexity, so that the community may get a maximum of benefit from the individual, in time, money, and interest. Older people can compromise with the situation and lead both lives, but in youth compromise is undesirable. For the student, strength lies in his or her uncompromising intelligence. The world now needs first of all men and women who have the habit of clear thought and an irresistible impulse toward consistent action ; the four years of college should afford the opportunity for supreme growth in judgment and mental ability. May Lansfield Keller, Dean of Westhampton College, also expressed the belief that the best contribution of the college to the community does not consist in immediate and local connections, but in the general training which it can give its students for leadership in the community after graduation ; and the same idea was developed 286 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION by James L Wyer, Jr., Director of the New York State Library. The college will best serve the com- munity, he argued, not by formal, sometimes over- strained and hysterical efforts toward specific social service, but by sending its graduates back into the community, year by year, fit and ready for such in- formal stations as may most need them. For college women these stations and this community service will oftenest be in the home. Certain broad effects of the college upon the com- munity were reviewed by Mary E. Richmond, Di- rector of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation, who spoke, as she said, from the side of the town. The great service which the university has rendered the town in which she grew up, said Miss Richmond, was to supply it, for the first time, with a ''through draft " of ideas. With the opening of Johns Hopkins the life of Bal- timore became more flexible, more varied, more vivid. Surely no service to the community can be comparable to this one ; and the same large service is needed throughout the country, in many communi- ties. The groups of people who are often asked to act as advisers to American communities would agree that these communities are still very backward, and that nothing would further their social welfare so much as a " through draft ' ' of ideas, an overcoming OTHER FEATURES 287 of the tensions and insularities of prejudice. They would agree further that the colleges are the insti- tutions which can best fit American citizens for this service. Yet it is not alone through the study of so- ciology or economics, not alone through social ser- vice field work in the town in which the college is placed that this ** through draft" will come which can refresh the life of our cities ; but from whatever courses of study, whatever college activities develop the open mind and give it energy and tone. It would be easy to magnify the importance of any specific services rendered by undergraduates within a spe- cific area, but we cannot enlarge too much upon the significance and value of good mental habits in com- munity service. If we are pledged always to be ' ' rad- ical" in our social thinking, or always to be ** con- servative," we have inevitably a certain rigidity which makes for insulation. But if we are pledged to a habit of mind that is at once fair and thorough, then and then only are we able to give our Ameri- can communities what they most need — always pro- vided, of course, that we have also a mind to work. Over the sluggish and unbending muscles of our community life — how sluggish and how unbend- ing you can hardly realize in this atmosphere — it is pleasant to think of the free play of ideas, the spirit of flexible and comprehending participation that will 288 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION come back to our cities, to relax and to stimulate, with each return home of a class of graduates from this college. Exhibits THE female character should possess the mild and retiring virtues rather than the bold and dazzling ones ; great eminence in almost anything is sometimes injurious to a young lady ; whose temper and disposition should be made to appear to be pliant rather than robust ; to be ready to take impressions rather than to be decidedly marked ; as great appar- ent strength of character, however excellent, is liable to alarm both her own and the other sex ; and to cre- ate admiration rather than aiFection." So Erasmus Darwin in an essay on *'The Female Character," contained in his ' ' Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools;" and much the same view is expressed by Hannah More in her Accomplished Lady, ' ' implied in her * ' Coelebs in Search of a Wife, ' ' and argued by certain early Vic- torians. To be sure, ' ' the importance and necessity of Female Education were admitted." Chemistry in particular was thought useful to women, "suited to their talents and their situation," but even this science must be offered with limitations, according to Mrs. Phelps in "The Female Student." "From the nature of chemical experiments^ which in most cases require either firmness of nerve, unshrink- ing courage, or physical strength, and sometimes all 290 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION these qualities combined, woman may not aspire to add to the stock of chemical science discoveries of her own ; but, gifted with the intellectual power to trace the relations of cause and effect, and to compre- hend the wonderful properties of matter which sci- ence reveals, she may dare to raise the curtain which conceals the operations of nature, and entering her laboratory, behold the grand experiments there ex- hibited : nor should it be considered a small privi- lege that she is permitted to share in the sublime discoveries of science, and to feast on the banquet of knowledge, prepared by others." These and other like quotations from early and mid-nineteenth century writers on the mind and proper education of women formed a preface for the historical exhibits shown in the Library and in the Students Building during Anniversary Week. In plain contrast followed Matthew Vassar's often quoted opinion: '*It occurred to me that woman, having received from her Creator the same intellect- ual constitution as man, has the same right as man to intellectual culture and development." And the testimony of actual practice at Vassar in the first years was added in a statement from Professor Orton's ' ' Liberal Education of Women. ' ' ' ' Very likely some may say the Vassar course of study is well enough in theory," he writes, "but too strong OTHER FEATURES 291 in practice. But the 'impossible' is done. And the facuhy has yet to receive a petition for a lower stan- dard. The voice of womankind is, 'Give us un- diluted knowledge. We can digest anything, up to least squares; but we cannot feed forever on gruel prepared expressly for the female mind. ' ' ' Material of many kinds in the exhibit illustrated the progress of the ' ' impossible ' ' in official and student life at Vassar from the earliest days to the present time. Personalities which shaped both practice and the- ory in the college during its first years held an initial place in the Library. Several portraits of the Founder were shown, conspicuous among them the original Fxiouart silhouette, taken at Saratoga in 1843 ; and a sketch of Mr. Vassar's life as well as an indirect but firmly drawn self-portrait could be found in his short autobiography. "A few reminiscences of my life," he called it. "And would not have written these ^ but at the request of several friends with refer- ence to the Institution of which I am the Founder." The Founder's diary, in four small compact vol- umes, kept during the construction of the college buildings, a number of his letters, and an account of his death at the college, completed the suggested outlines of life and character. President and Mrs. Raymond, Maria Mitchell, Hannah W. Lyman, and other members of the first faculty were recalled 292 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION by groups of photographs, with which were arranged a selection from letters written by Miss Mitchell and Miss Lyman, the account of the award to Miss Mitchell of the King of Denmark's comet medal, and the correspondence relating to the award. Pam- phlet memorials to Miss Lyman, Miss Mitchell, and Milo P. Jewett gave contemporary tributes and the essential elements of biography. The thoroughness and care with which plans were formulated for ' ' the grand and novel enterprise, ' ' as it was called in a report of a committee of trustees, were revealed by a small collection of official docu- ments and publications. A first stage in actual pro- gress was suggested by the printed charter, granted in 1861. The series of communications of Mr. Vas- sar to the trustees showed both his deep concern for the complex matters of college policy and his far-reaching, well-considered judgments; while the broad solicitude of the first trustees was recorded in ' ' The Proceedings of the Trustees at their First Meeting" and the "Report on Organization by the Committee on Faculty and Studies. ' ' The ' ' Report ' ' was printed, according to a characteristic prefatory resolution, because "in a matter of so vital conse- quence as the organization of the college, it is due to the responsibilities surrounding the position held by the members of this Board before the world, that OTHER FEATURES 293 every Trustee should have ample time for mature deliberation and intelligent action," and also that the Board ' ' should have the benefit of the generous criticism and friendly suggestions of the public journals, and of eminent teachers and educators throughout the country." The first paragraph ends with a conscious distinction and emphasis : ' ' It is not to be, then, an ordinary academy for young ladies; or, simply a seminary of high order; it is to be a College. "Further proof of thoroughness ap- peared in the account of Dr. Jewett's visit to Europe in 1862, undertaken with a view to amplifying the general scheme ; and as a conclusion to the period of preparation was exhibited the '* Prospectus of the Vassar Female College," issued in May, 1865, w hich set forth in full the purposes of the new in- stitution. To the evidence of growth in educational policies were added glimpses of external development and early signs of public recognition. The Founder's memoranda noting requisitions for the site of the col- lege, interesting architectural plans by T. A.TefFt, submitted but not used because of the death of the architect, printed specifications by the architect ac- tually chosen, JohnRenwick, Jr., and photographs of the first buildings, reproduced essentials of pro- gress and accomplishment. A long and glowing 294 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION account of the new project printed in the *' Pough- keepsie Telegraph" for July 9, 1861, was shown, together with an important article entitled *'Vas- sar Female College," by Moses Coit Tyler, which appeared in **The New Englander " for October, 1862, and contained a full outline of plans for the college, an enthusiastic discussion of the possibilities of college education for women, and as well, a bio- graphical sketch of the Founder. An open volume of the Poughkeepsie Directory for 1864-65 gave a de- tailed description of the college grounds and build- ings ; and the graphic reproduction of the early col- lege was completed by a group of quaintly drawn views of the campus and buildings, taken from an article entitled *'What are They Doing at Vas- sar?" by H. H. McFarland, published in *'Scrib- ner's Monthly" for August, 1871. Official life within the college was variously indi- cated from its earliest beginnings. A formal printed letter showed the admission of Maria L. Dickinson, class of '67, probably the first student actually re- corded for entrance, and the diploma of one of the first four graduates, simply and briefly phrased in English, told its special story. Something of the strict and simple social and moral regimen of the early days could be reconstructed from President Raymond's printed sermons on *' The Sin of Judg- OTHER FEATURES 295 ing" and ''The Mission of Educated Women," and from Miss Lyman's "Hints to Students," copies of which were placed in the students' rooms in September, 1865. The beginnings of the prob- lem of student government appeared in a number of manuscripts which enumerated the duties of the "corridor teachers," these evidently written out at the request of Miss Lyman. A "Student's Man- ual" for 1872, with a later and fuller edition of the "Manual" for 1862, testified to growing changes and modifications in social rules. Not less vivid were the glimpses of college life from the student side. The small leather-covered, iron-bound trunk in which Maria L. Dickinson brought her books to college, and which ' ' served as a divan in our room, wrapped about with Hattie Warner's blanket shawl," conjured up a train of suggestions, as did the books themselves, these rang- ing from Wayland's ' ' Moral Science, ' ' Wayland's ' ' Mental Science ' ' (Volume I , " Intellect ; ' ' Volume II, "SensibiHties"), and Randall's "Reading and Elocution, ' ' to Gray's ' ' Botany. ' ' One of the boot- jacks known to college tradition was exhibited ; and pictures of student rooms and of Senior Parlors, photographs of individual students and of groups and classes, memorabilia and certain personal relics, combined to people and define the general scene. 296 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Copies of the ' ' Vassariana, ' ' the ' ' Transcript, ' ' the "Vassar Transcript," showed the beginning and partial evolution of the student publication, and gave as well a fairly definite sequence of important student events. A booklet called ''The First Epistle on Matthew," by Elizabeth Williams, class of '69, which was considered sacrilegious by Miss Lyman and suppressed, offered a bit of early fun. Class insig- nia of 'all the classes from the beginning to the pres- ent day made a conspicuous sequence, and the cere- monials of Class Day and Commencement Day in the late seventies and early eighties were repro- duced by illustrated accounts in such periodicals as ' ' The Daily Graphic" and "Frank LesHe's. ' ' Pro- grammes of all sorts from 1866 to 1900 showed the ever-increasing number and scope of extra-curric- ulum activities; indeed, through all the material which suggested the picture, could be traced the steady growth of independent student interests. The history of these interests from 1900 to 1915 was the special subject of the exhibits in the Stu- dents Building. A preliminary chart, arranged in decades, dated the beginning of each organization and noted significant changes in purpose and pol- icy; and the outlines were supplemented by an abun- dance of graphic material. For Philaletheis, photo- graphs of Hall Play casts, grouped according to OTHER FEATURES 297 the dates of play production, showed the ambitious range of dramatic effort as well as experiments tried and effects achieved in the way of costuming and staging ; while scenes from plays given by the Club Frangais, the Deutscher Verein, and the Hellenic Society illustrated the varied dramatic interests of the language clubs. Photographs of the Founder's Day plays and pageants of recent years took impor- tant place, the May Day Revels of 1914, with their lovely "Masque of the Four Seasons" memorable among them, and other typical effects in pageantry were reproduced by photographs of the sophomore tree ceremonies from 1911 to 1915. Commencement Day and Class Day processions, photographs of classes, scenes from sophomore and junior plays, cir- cuses, and parties. Class Day books and joke books, indicated the many activities of class organizations. Through programmes for the inter-class and inter- collegiate debates could be traced an evolution in subject-matter and even in committee method. Field Day programmes, records, trophies, and a collection of banners represented athletics. The many interests of the Christian Association, including its financial campaigns, its social and religious work in Pough- keepsie, the founding of the Student Employment Bureau (later given over to the Students Associa- tion), its mission and Bible study classes and its 298 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION social service bulletin board, were outlined by special programmes, reports, posters, and notices. The ac- tivities of the Students Association were similarly illustrated, and a further exhibit touching work of the Students Association was arranged in the Good- fellowship Club House, where posters, programmes, and photographs showed characteristic occupations and entertainments. As a kind of special exhibit appeared a fully docu- mented critical survey of student life and student activities through the fifty years of Vassar's history, in the anniversary number of the ' ' Vassar Miscel- lany, ' ' issued at the beginning of Anniversary Week . An essay on ' ' The Social Life of Vassar Students ' ' creates a vivid background for the more special- ized articles, picturing in lively detail changes in customs, manners, dress, room decoration, frolics, and even in college vocabulary. The history of the Students Association is traced under the defining caption, "An Experiment in Democracy," and the character and purposes of all the more important ac- tivities, including that of the "Miscellany" itself, are separately developed. Typical press comments on student life at Vassar as they have appeared through the years are made to open a suggestive view of current opinion in an article called * ' Vassar in the Newspapers ; ' ' and chronological lists of Philale- OTHER FEATURES 299 thean plays, debates, and athletic records, a list of the speakers at Founder's Day celebrations, a list of all minor clubs with a brief definition of purpose, arranged in the order of their foundation, complete the survey. The essays are illustrated by cuts taken from Lossing's '^ Vassar College and its Founder," and by modern photographs . Carefully organized and interestingly handled, reaching out for its sources to official publications of the college, unpublished letters, and a large collection of student minutes, records, programmes, and publications, the special number of the ^'Miscellany" not only possesses a peculiar historical value, but serves to put in perma- nent and accessible form much of the material which formed the exhibits in the Library and in the Stu- dents Building during Anniversary Week. The Semi-Centennial Series Published for Vassar College by the Houghton Mif- flin Company under the Editorship of Margaret Floy Washburn Elizabethan Translations from the Italian By Mary Augusta Scott, Ph.D. (^.5., Vassar 1876), Professor of English in Smith College Social Studies in English Literature By Laura Johnson Wylie, Ph.D. (^.5., Vassar 1877), Professor of English in Vassar College The Learned Lady in the Eighteenth Century By Myra Reynolds, Ph.D. (J.5., Vassar 1880), Pro- fessor of English in Chicago University The Custom of Dramatic Entertainment in Shake- speare's Plays By One Latham Hatcher, Ph.D. (^.5., Vassar 1888), Sometime Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Elizabethan Literature in Bryn Mawr College Introduction to the Study of Variable Stars By Caroline Ellen Fumess, Ph.D. {A.B.^ Vassar 1891), Professor of Astronomy in Vassar College Movement and Mental Imagery By Margaret Floy Washburn, Ph.D. (^.^., Vassar 1891), Professor of Psychology in Vassar College The Life of Brissot de Warville By Eloise Ellery, Ph.D (^.5., Vassar 1897), Associate Professor of History in Vassar College General Programme of the Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of The Opening of Vassar College October i o to 1 3 1915 Programme of the Celebration Sunday, October lo At 10.45 o'clock Morning Services in commemoration of the opening of Vassar College, held at Churches in Poughkeepsie. At 3.30 o'clock. In the Chapel Religious Service: Sermon by William Herbert Perry Faunce, President of Brown University. Music by the College Choir. From 5 to 6 o'clock. In the Circle Informal Welcome to the Student Delegates. At 8 o'clock. In the Chapel Organ Recital: By T. Tertius Noble, of Saint Thomas's Church, New York City, formerly of York Minster, England. Monday, October 1 1 At 10 o'clock. In the Chapel Alumnae Commemoration. Invocation: By James Monroe Taylor, President Emeritus of Vassar College. Addresses: ''Spacious Days at Vassar," by Mary Augusta 304 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Jordan, Class of '76, Professor of English in Smith College. ''Geographical Research as a Field for Wo- men," by Ellen Churchill Semple, Class of '82, of Louisville, Kentucky. "The Highest Education for Women," by Julia Clifford Lathrop, Class of '80, Chief of the Chil- dren's Bureau, United States Department of La- bor. Louise Lawrence Meigs, Class of '91, President of the Associate Alumnae of Vassar College, pre- sided. Also at 10 o'clock. In the Students Building Intercollegiate Student Conference on "The Func- tion of Non- Academic Activities." Greeting: By Phebe Briggs, Chairman of the Inter- collegiate Student Conference Committee. Addresses : * * Extra Curriculum, " by a representative of Vas- sar College. ' ' Types of Non- Academic Activities : ' ' "Dramatics," by a representative of Harvard University ; ' * Pageantry, " by a representative of Wellesley College; "College Publications," by representatives of Smith College and Yale Univer- sity ; "Town Press Work," by a representative of New York University; "Political Clubs," by GENERAL PROGRAMME 305 representatives of RadclifFe College and Williams College; "Religious Organizations," by a rep- resentative of Oberlin College ; * ' Student Self- Government," by a representative of Barnard College. Open Discussion, with leading speeches, on *'The Ideal Function of Non- Academic Activities." Irmarita Kellers, President of the Vassar College Students Association, presided. At 12.30 o'clock. On the Lawn between the Conservatory and Music Hall Costume Procession and Singing. Informal Alum- nae Luncheon. At 1.45 o'clock. In the Assembly Hall Business Meeting of the Associate Alumnae. Address: By President MacCracken, on *'The An- niversary Endowment." At 3 o'clock. In the Out-of-Door Theatre ' ' The Pageant of Athena, ' ' composed and presented by Vassar College Students, under the direction of Hazel MacKaye, of Washington. For Delegates, in- vited Guests, and Alumnae. At 8 o'clock. In the Students Building * ' Vassar Milestones. ' ' A Play, written by Alumnae, and staged by the Dramatic Committee of the New 306 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION York Branch of Vassar Alumnae. For Delegates, invited Guests, and Alumnae. Tuesday, October 12 At 10 o'clock. In the Chapel Academic Commemoration. Addresses: "Vassar's Contribution to Educational Theory and Practice," by James Monroe Taylor, Presi- dent Emeritus of Vassar College. "Women and Democracy," by Emily James Putnam, Associate in History in Barnard College. "New Aspects of Old Social Responsibilities," by Lillian D. Wald, of the Henry Street Settle- ment, New York City. Henry Noble MacCracken, President of Vassar Col- lege, presided. Also at 10 o'clock. In the Students Building Intercollegiate Student Conference on * ' The Func- tion of Non- Academic Activities." Open Discussion, with Leading Speeches, on * * Pro- fessional or Semi-Professional Coaching," "The Basis of Membership for Undergraduate Organi- zations," "Academic Credit* for Non-Curricular Work." GENERAL PROGRAMME 307 Irmarita Kellers, President of the Vassar College Students Association, presided. At 2 o'clock. In the Circle Historical Exhibition of Physical Training at Vas- sar College, under the direction of Harriet Isabel Ballintine, Director of Physical Training in Vassar College. From 3 to 6 o'clock Receptions to Delegates, invited Guests, and Alum- nae. In Taylor Hall, in the Library, in the Main Building, in the New England Building, in the Vassar Brothers Labora- tory, in the Sanders Laboratory, in the Goodfellowship Club House, in the Swift Memorial Infirmary, and in the Obser- vatory At 3.30 o'clock. In the Students Building Orchestral Concert: By the Russian Symphony Orchestra. For Student ^Delegates and for Vassar College Students. At 8 o'clock. In the Students Building Orchestral Concert: By the Russian Symphony Orchestra. For Delegates, invited Guests, and Alumnae. From 8 to 10 o'clock. In Taylor Hall Reception to Student Delegates by Representatives of the Undergraduate Organizations. 308 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Wednesday, October i 3 At 9.15 o'clock. In the Library, in Taylor Hall, and in Rockefeller Hall Formation of the Academic Procession. At 9.45 o'clock The Academic Procession, in the following order : First Division: Grand Marshal, John Leverett Moore; the Presiding Officer, the President, the President Emeritus, the Speakers of the Day. Second Division: Marshal, Ida Carleton Thallon; the Board of Trustees of Vassar College, the Regents of the University of the State of New York. Third Division: Marshal, Margaret Floy Wash- burn ; Delegates from institutions in countries other than the United States, Delegates from institutions in the United States. Fourth Division: Marshal, Aaron Louis Tread well ; Representatives of the Federal Government, Repre- sentatives of the State of New York, Representa- tives of Dutchess County, Representatives of the City of Poughkeepsie, Representatives of Arlington in the Town of Poughkeepsie. Fifth Division: Marshal, Elizabeth Hazel ton Haight; Special Guests, Officers of the Associate Alumnae of Vassar College, Officers of the Branch Associa- tions of the Alumnae of Vassar College, Officers of GENERAL PROGRAMME 309 the Vassar Students Aid Society, Former Officers of Vassar College. Sixth Division: Marshal, Eloise Ellery; Officers of Government and Instruction in Vassar College. Seventh Division: Marshal, Irmarita Kellers; Del- egates to the Intercollegiate Student Conference, Representatives of Undergraduate Organizations in Vassar College. At 10 o'clock. In the Chapel The Inauguration of President MacCracken. Invocation : By Henry Mitchell MacCracken, Chan- cellor Emeritus of New York University. Addresses: "The Mystery of the Mind's Desire," by John H. Finley, President of the University of the State of New York and Commissioner of Edu- cation. "The Scholar and the Pedant," by George Lyman Kittredge, Professor of English in Har- vard University. "In the Cause of Learning," by Henry Noble MacCracken, President of Vassar College. Salutations: By Mary Emma Woolley, President of Mount Holyoke College ; by Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve, Dean of Barnard College ; by Arthur Twining Hadley, President of Yale University, Hymn: "Now Thank we All our God." 310 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Benediction : By Henry Mitchell MacCracken , Chan- cellor Emeritus of New York University. William Caldwell Plunkett Rhoades, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Vassar College, presided. At 2.30 o'clock. In the Out-of-Door Theatre *'The Pageant of Athena," Second Performance. For Delegates, and for invited Guests from Pough- keepsie. At 6.30 o'clock. In the Students Building Dinner for Delegates, Representatives of the Alum- nae and of the City, and Officers of the College. Speeches on "The College and the Community." Also at 6.30 o'clock. In the Residence Halls Dinner for Delegates to the Intercollegiate Stu- dent Conference, and for Vassar College Students. Speeches on "The College and the Community." Exhibits In the Library, main floor Material illustrating the earUer days of Vassar Col- lege from the official side. In the Library, third floor. Print Room Material illustrating the earlier days of Vassar Col- lege from the student side. GENERAL PROGRAMME 311 In the Students Building Student Publications. Illustrations of student life in recent times. Delegates Delegates From Institutions in Countries Other than the United States Cambridge University : Emily James Putnam, LL.D. , Associate in History in Barnard College ; Gertrude Mary Hirst, Ph.D. , Assistant Professor of Classical Philology in Barnard College. Central University of Spain: Lindell T. Bates, Ph.B. , LL.M. , J.D. , Docteur en Droit {France), Doctor en Derecho [Spain). University of Edinburgh: Edna Aston Shearer, Ph.D., Reader in English, Bryn Mawr College. Royal Frederick University, Christiania, Norway : Alf Baumann, LL.M., Assistant Judge of the Royal Probate and Bankruptcy Court of Chris- tiania. Toronto Unrtersity : Alfred Baker, M. A., LL.D., Dean of the Faculty of Arts. Syrian Protestant College, Beirut : Edwin St. John Ward, M.D., Professor of Surgery. Huguenot College, Wellington, Cape Colony : Su- san B. Leiter, M.A., Professor of Physics. Constantinople College: Ellen Deborah Ellis, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History and Polit- ical Science in Mount Holyoke College. 316 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Delegates From Institutions in the United States Harvard University : George Lyman Kittredge, LL.D., Litt.D., Professor of English. Yale University : Arthur Twining Hadley, Ph.D., LL.D., President; Edward Bliss Reed, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of English. Princeton University : Howard McClenahan , M . S . , LL.D., Dean of the College; Robert McNutt McElroy, Ph.D. , Professor of American History. Columbia UNivERsrrY: Edward Delavan Perry, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Greek ; Virginia C. Gildersleeve, Ph.D., Dean of Barnard College; Willy stine Goodsell, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education in Teachers College. University of Pennsylvania: Edgar Marburg, C.E., Sc.D., Professor of Civil Engineering. Brown Unrtersffy : William Herbert Perry Faunce, A.M., D.D., LL.D., President; Lida Shaw King, A.M., Litt.D., LL.D., Dean of the Women's College. Rutgers College : William Henry Steele Demarest, A.M., D.D., LL.D., President. Dartmouth College: Homer Eaton Keyes, A.M., Business Director. DELEGATES 317 Phi Beta Kappa: Oscar McM. Voorhees, D.D., Secretary of the United Chapters. American Philosophical Society : William W . Keen, M.D., Ph.D., Sc.D., LL.D., President. University of the State of New York: John H. Finley, A.M., LL.D., President; Charles B. Alexander, M.A., LL.D., Litt.D., Regent; Abram L Elkus, D.C.L. , Regent ; Albert Vander Veer, M.D., Ph.D., LL.D., Regent; James L Wyer, Jr., M.L.S., Director of the New York State Library. St. John's College: Thomas Fell, Ph.D., LL.D., D.C.L. , President. University of Vermont : Guy Potter Benton, A.M. , D.D., LL.D., President. Williams College : Theodore Clarke Smith, Ph . D . , Professor of American History. BowDoiN College : Frank Edward Woodruff, A.M., Professor of Greek. Union College: Charles Alexander Richmond, A.M., D.D., LL.D., President, and Chancellor of Union University; Edward Everett Hale, Ph.D., Professor of English. MiDDLEBURY College: Johu Martin Thomas, A.M., D.D., LL.D., President. United States Military Academy : Colonel Gustav 318 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION J. Fiebeger, Professor of Civil and Military En- gineering. Allegheny College: William Henry Crawford, A.M., D.D., LL.D., President. Auburn Theological Seminary : The Reverend George Black Stewart, A.M., D.D., LL.D., President; Edgar C. Leonard, A.B., Member of the Board of Directors. Colgate University : Elmer Burritt Bryan, LL.D., President. University of Pittsburgh : Samuel Black McCor- mick, A.M., D.D., LL.D., Chancellor; Samuel Black Linhart, A.M., D.D., Secretary, and Pro- fessor of Ethics and Biblical Literature. University of Virginia : Charles Baskerville, Ph . D . , Professor of Chemistry in the College of the City of New York ; Alumnus. HoBART College: Lyman Pierson Powell, A.B., President; Anne Dudley Blitz, A.M., Dean of William Smith College. TRiNrrY College: Caroline M. Hewins, M.A., Li- brarian of the Hartford Public Library. Miami University: Elizabeth H. Hamilton, A.B., Dean of Women. Amherst College: Alexander Meiklejohn, Ph.D., DELEGATES 319 LL.D., President; George Daniel Olds, A.M., LL.D., Dean, and Professor of Mathematics. Lafayette College : John Henry MacCracken, Ph.D., LL.D., President; Samuel Albert Mar- tin, A.M. , D.D. , Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy. Western Reserve University : Charles F. Thwing, D.D., LL.D., President ; Helen Mary Smith, B.L., Dean of the College for Women. Indiana University : The Reverend James Millard Philputt, D.D., Alumnus. New York University : Henry Mitchell MacCrack- en, D.D., LL.D., Chancellor Emeritus. Wesleyan University: William Arnold Shanklin, A.M., D.D., LL.D., L.H.D., President. Denison University: Clark Wells Chamberlain, Ph.D., President. Richmond College: May Lansfield Keller, Ph.D., Dean of Westhampton College. Haverford College: Albert S. Bolles, Ph.D., LL.D. , Lecturer on Commercial Law and Bank- ing. Oberlin College: Florence G. Jenney, Ph.D., In- structor of German in Vassar College; Alumna. Union Theological Seminary : The Reverend G. A. Johnston Ross, M.A., Professor of Homiletics. 320 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION De Pauw University : George Richmond Grose, A.M., D.D., President. Knox College: George A. Lawrence, LL.D., Vice-President; Mrs. George A. Lawrence. University of Michigan : Lucy Maynard Salmon, A.M., L.H.D., Professor of History in Vassar College; Alumna. Ohio Wesleyan University : Herbert Welch , A . M . , D.D., LL.D., President. TuscuLUM College: CO. Gray, D.D., President. Beloff College : Henry Raymond Mussey, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics in Columbia University. BucKNELL University : John Howard Harris, Ph.D., LL.D., President. Grinnell College: John Hanson Thomas Main, A.M., Ph.D., LL.D., President. Otterbein University : Walter G. Clippinger, B.D., President. University of Wisconsin : Edwin Campbell Wool- ley, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of English. Rochester Theological Seminary: The Reverend Clarence Augustus Barbour, D.D., President. University of Rochester: Rush Rhees, A.M., D.D., LL.D., President. DELEGATES 321 Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania : Clara Marshall, M.D., Dean. Milwaukee-Downer College : Frances E. Durand, Trustee. Northwestern University: Abram Winegardner Harris, A.M., Sc.D., LL.D., President. Tufts College: Hermon Carey Bumpus, Ph.D., Sc.D., LL.D., President. College of the City of New York: Carleton L. Brownson, Ph.D. , Dean of the Faculty, and Pro- fessor of Greek. Elmira College: M. Anstice Harris, Ph.D., Dean and Acting President. Alfred Universffy : Boo the C. Davis, Ph.D.,D.D., President. Cornell College : Senator Edgar T . Brackett, LL . D . Washington University: Louise M. Kueffner, Ph.D., Instructor of German in Vassar College; Alumna. Earlham College: Martha Doan, D.Sc, Acting Dean of Women. Saint Stephen's College: William C. Rodgers, M.A., D.D., President. Massachusetts Institute of Technology : Charles M . SpofFord, S.B., Professor of Civil Engineering. 322 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION University of Maine: Robert J. Aley, Ph.D., LL.D., President. National Academy of Sciences: Thomas Hunt Morgan, Ph.D., Professor of Experimental Zo- ology in Columbia University. Bates College: Clara L. Buswell, A.B., Dean of Women. University of Kansas: Kate Stephens, A.M., Alumna. Cornell University : Jacob Gould Schurman , A . M . , D.Sc, LL.D., President. Johns Hopkins University: Edward Bennett Ma- thews, Ph.D., Professor of Mineralogy and Pe- trography. Lehigh University: Natt M. Emery, M.A., Vice- President. West Virginia UNiVERsrrY: Frank B. Trotter, A.M., Acting President. University of California : Benjamin Ide Wheeler, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D., President. University of Minnesota : Gertrude E. Ballard, A.M., Instructor of EngHsh in Vassar College; Alumna. Wells College : Kerr Duncan Macmillan, S.T.D., President. American Museum of Natural History : Mary Cyn- DELEGATES 323 thia Dickerson, B.S., Curator of the Department of Woods and Forestry, Associate Curator of the Department of Herpetology. Pennsylvania College for Women: John Carey Acheson, M.A., LL.D., President; Cora Helen Coolidge, B.L., Dean. S WARTHMORE CoLLEGE : Joseph S waiu , M . S . , LL . D . , President. Wilson College : Mary Caroline Spalding, Ph.D., Professor of English. Metropolitan Museum of Art : Edward Robinson, LL.D., Litt.D., Director. Ohio State UNrvERsrrY: George Wells Knight, Ph.D., Dean of the College of ELducation. Smith College: L. Clark Seelye, D.D., LL.D., President Emeritus; Marion Le Roy Burton, Ph.D., D.D., LL.D., President; Mary A. Jor- dan, A.M., L.H.D., Professor of English. Syracuse University: Horace Ainsworth Eaton, Ph.D., Professor of English; Jean Marie Rich- ards, Litt.B., Dean of Women, and Professor of English ; Elizabeth G.Thorne, A.B., B.L.S., Instructor of Reference and Book Selection. Wellesley College: Ellen Fitz Pendleton, A.M., Litt.D., LL.D., President; Alice V. Waite, A.M., Dean, and Professor of English; Julia 324 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Swift Orvis, Ph.D., Associate Professor of His- tory. Lake Forest College: John S. Nollen, Ph.D., LL.D., President. Radcliffe College : Bertha M. Boody, A.M. , Dean. Association of Collegiate Alumnae: CaroHne L. Humphrey, A.B., President; Vida Hunt Fran- cis, B.Litt., Secretary. American School of Classical Studies in Athens : JuHa A. Caverno, A.M., Professor of Greek in Smith College ; Member of the Managing Com- mittee. Bryn Mawr College: M. Carey Thomas, Ph.D., LL.D., President; Marion Reilly, A.B., Dean. GoucHER College : William W. Guth, Ph.D., Pres- ident; Eleanor L. Lord, Ph.D., Dean. Leland Stanford Junior University : Lillien Jane Martin, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology. Mills College: Jane Gay Dodge, A.M., Instruc- tor of Ejiglish in Vassar College ; sometime In- structor. Universify of Wyoming: E. D. Hunton, B.S., As- sistant Professor of Commercial Subjects ; Mrs. E. D. Hunton, A.B. Pratt Institute: Isabel Ely Lord, B.L.S., Direc- tor of the School of Household Science and Arts. DELEGATES 325 Hunter College: George Samler Davis, LL.D., President; Helen Gray Cone, L.H.M., Professor of English. Mount Holyoke College : Mary E. WooUey, A.M., Litt.D., L.H.D., LL.D., President; Florence Purington , Litt . D . , Dean ; Nellie Neilson , Ph . D . , Professor of History. University of Chicago: Alonzo K. Parker, D.D., Trustee of Vassar College ; sometime Trustee and Recorder. Randolph-Macon Woman's College : William A. Webb, Litt.D., President. Western College for Women : Elizabeth Loraine Bishop, A.M., Professor of Latin and Greek. American Academy in Rome: William A. Boring, Trustee. Adelphi College: Anna E. Harvey, M.A., Dean. Oxford College for Women: Mrs. Charles L. Thompson, A.B., Alumna. Association for Maintaining the Women's Table AT THE Zoological Station at Naples, and for Promoting Scientific Research by Women: Lil- ian Welsh, M.D., Professor of Physiology and Hygiene in Goucher College; Chairman of the Committee on the Ellen Richards Research Prize. 326 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Lake Erie College : Vivian Blanche Small, A.M., Litt.D., LL.D., President. Simmons College : Frank Edgar Farley, Ph.D. , Pro- fessor of English; Sarah Louise Arnold, A.M., Dean. Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association : Elizabeth Powell Bond, A.M., Dean Emeritus of Swarth- more College; Honorary Vice-President. Sweet Briar College : Eugenie M . Morenus, A.M., Instructor of Mathematics and Latin. Agnes Scott College: Frank H. Gaines, D.D., LL.D., President. New York State College for Teachers: A. R. Brubacher, Ph.D., President. Russell Sage Foundation : Mary E. Richmond, Di- rector of the Charity Organization Department. Skidmore College of Arts : Charles Henry Keyes, Ph.D., President. Wheaton College: Samuel Valentine Cole, A.M., D.D., LL.D., President. Connecticut College for Women : Alice I. Perry Wood, Ph.D., Professor of English; Annina C. Rondinella, M.D. , Professor of Hygiene and Col- lege Physician. Women's College of Delaware: Winifred J. Rob- inson, Ph.D., Dean. DELEGATES 327 Delegates To the Intercollegiate Student Conference Amherst College: Charles B. Ames, Lewis W. Douglas. Barnard College: Carol Lorenz, Ruth Salom. Colgate Universify: Maxwell E. McDowell, Oliver A. Weppner. College of the City of New York : Norman Salit, Egbert M. Turner. Columbia University: Robert W. Watt. Connecticut College for Women: Ethel Isbell, Jessie Wells.- Cornell University : John Flanigan, Araminta Mac- Donald, Helen Spalding, Herbert A. Wichelns. Dartmouth College: Richard Parkhurst. Elmira College: Alexandra Davidson, Harriet Emerson . Goucher College: Mary Denney, Ernestine Klein. Harvard Universify: Wells Blanchard, William C. Boyden, Jr. Mount HoLYOKE College : Dorothy Kyburg, Marion Truesdell. Lafayette College: David B. Adler, Guy H. Stoutenburgh. 3^8 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Mills College: Hope Lobner. University of Michigan: Helen Humphreys. New York University: William K. Doggett, Hilda L. Lankering. Oberlin College: J. Brackett Lewis, Grace E. Mong. Princeton University: B. B. Atterbury, S. M. Shoemaker, Jr. Radcliffe College : Rosamond Eliot, Katherine A. Hodge. Smifh College : Dorothy Eaton, Elizabeth Hugus. SwARTHMORE College : Eleanor M. Neeley, John E. Orchard. Sweet Briar College: Margaret Banister, Genie Steele. Wellesley College: Edith Jones, Dorothy Rhodes. Wells College : Neva Walker, Margaret Writer. Williams College: James A. Garfield, Meredith Wood. University of Wisconsin : Helen Salsbury. Women's College in Brown University: Helen D. Hart well, Edith M. Sprague. Yale University : H. J. Crocker, Jr. , Donald Ogden Stewart. Committees Committees Trustee Committee George E. Dimock, Chairman; Henry M. Sanders, Charles M. Pratt, Henry V. Pelton, Myra Reynolds, Mrs. William R. Thompson, John E. Adriance, Florence M. Gushing. Faculty Committees General Committee Amy L. Reed, Chairman; President MacCracken, ex officio; Lucy M. Salmon, J. Leverett Moore, Charles W. Moul- ton, Ella McCaleb, William B. Hill, Margaret F. Wash- bum, Frederick A. Saunders, Jean C. Palmer. Special Aides to the Chairman Herbert E. Mills, Christabel F. Fiske, Elizabeth B. Cowley, Sophia F. Richardson, Lily R. Taylor, Violet Barbour. Committee on the Semi-Centennial Series Margaret F. Washburn, Chairman^ and Editor of the Se- ries; Aaron L. Treadwell, Rose J. Peebles. Committee on Religious Services President MacCracken, William B. Hill. Committee on Speakers Amy L. Reed, Chairman; Herbert E. Mills, Gertrude Buck, Grace H. Macurdy, Marian P. Whitney, Eloise Ellery, Oliver S. Tonks. 332 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Committee on Music J. Leverett Moore, Chairman; Charles W. Moulton, George C. Gow, Emilie L. Wells, Kate S. Chittenden. Committee on the Alumnae Celebration Caroline E. Fumess, Chah-man; Ella McCaleb, Ella M. Freeman, Helen W. Landon, Mary L. Landon, Lois Tread- well, Josephine M. Gleason, Helen Stamford. Committee on the Student Celebration Laura J. Wylie, Chairman; Emilie L. Wells, Louise D. Cummings, Fanny Borden, C. Mildred Thompson, Katha- rine Taylor, Helen E. Sandison. Committee on the Historical Exhibition of Physical Training Harriet L Ballintine, Chairman; Marianne L. King. Committee on Exhibits Adelaide Underhill. Committee on Receptions Lucy M. Salmon, Chairman; Catherine Saunders. Committee on the Anniversary Dinner Jean C. Palmer, Chairman; Mrs. J. Leverett Moore, Dr. Elizabeth B. Thelberg, James F. Baldwin, Marian P. Whitney, Christabel F. Fiske, Mary L. Landon, Helen Stamford, Louise P. Sheppard. COMMITTEES 333 Marshals for the Academic Procession J. Leverett Moore, Grand Marshal; Aaron L. Treadwell, Margaret F. Washburn, Eloise Ellery, Elizabeth H. Haight, Ida C. Thallon, Irmarita Kellers, '16. Committee on Invitations Ella McCaleb, Chairman; Zita L. Thombury, Mrs. Ralph C. H. Catterall. Committee on Printing Lucy M. Salmon, Chairman; Woodbridge Riley, Jane Gay Dodge. Committee on the Anniversary Seal William B. Hill, Chairman; Woodbridge Riley, Oliver S. Tonks. Committee on Auditoria Charles W. Moulton. Committee on Reception Rooms, Dressing Rooms, and Decorations Lilian L. Stroebe, Chairman; Ernestine W. Fuller, Ethel H. Brewster, Mary C. Catlin, Helen Morrison, Frances W. Cutler, Kathryn E. Briwa. Committee on Accounts Charles W. Moulton. Committee on Press Work Burges Johnson. 336 VASSAR COLLEGE CELEBRATION Katharine Z. Wells, '15, Gertrude H. Folks, '16, Eleanor I. Leslie, '16, Eleanor B. Taylor, '16, Josephine Sailer, '17, Mary C. Stuckslager, '17, Jeannette Baker, '18, Constance M. Rourke, Faculty adviser. Committees on the Pageant On Costumes: Helen Locke, '16, Chairman; Ruth Stanley- Brown, '15, Anna K. Stimson, '15, Katharine Barcus, '16, Janet P. Mabon, '16, Dorothy Malevinsky, '17, Carolyn C. Wilson, '17, Dorothy Cumpson, '18, Ellen D. Gailor, '18, Rosalind L. Thomas, '18, Helen E. Sandison, Faculty adviser. On Properties: Edith A. Raymer,'16, Chairman; Margaret L. Lovell, '15, Nancy C. Moore, '15, Helen Tawney, '16, Lillie V. Hathaway, '17, Laura T. Cannon, '18, Jean M. Webster, '18, Louise D. Cummings, Faculty adviser. On Dancing: Dorothy E. Holt, '15, Chairman in the spring of 1915; Agnes Rogers, '16, Chairman in the fall of 1915; Frances N. Garver, '17, C. Mildred Thompson, Faculty adviser. On Music: M. Elizabeth Johnson, '15, Chairman in the spring of 1915; Miriam M. Marsh, '16, Chairman in the fall of 1915; Ruth P. Cornwall, '16, Julia C. Bryant, '17, Dorothy Candee, '18, Emilie L. Wells, Faculty adviser. On Programmes: Lucy D. Smith, '17, Chairman; Marga- ret K. Leech, '15, Frances Fite, '16, Margaret Farley, '17, Mary P. Gans, '18, Fanny Borden, i^zcw/^i/ adviser. COMMITTEES 337 Joint Committees Committee on Hospitality Jean C. Palmer, Chairman; Mrs. John E. Adriance, Mrs. J. Leverett Moore, the Wardens, the Members of the Fac- ulty Resident in the Guest Halls, and the Wives of the Professors. Committee on Entertainment of Guests Georgianna Conrow, Chairman; Elizabeth H. Palmer, Dr. Jane N. Baldwin, Herbert R. Gumey, W! Buell Meldrum, Elinor Blackman, '14, Bessie F. Leonori, '16, Phyllis E. Ridgely, '16, Ethel L. Rose, '16, and the Student Presidents of the Guest Halls. Committee on Ushering Mary Yost, Chairman; Helen W. Evarts, '17, Grace K. Tyler, '17, Madeleine Hunt, '17. ■••.■'.A RETURN TO: CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 198 Main Stacks .OAN PERIOD 1 Home Use 2 3 4 5 6 VLL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS. Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Jooks may be renewed by calling 642-3405. )UE AS STAMPED BELOW. SENT ON ILL — at M4k«^M i ^AY 2 y 2003 J. C. BERKti.. ORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY OM 5-03 Berkeley, Califomia 94720-6000 A T.C 8jb6t UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIi\ LIBRARY