UC-NRLF 
 
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GIFT OF 
 

 
 trailer* Centennial JWe$$ 
 
 Delivered at the Commencement of 
 mills College, may 26th, mi, by 
 Olm. C. Bartlett, CL D. * 
 
QUARTER-CENTENNIAL ADDRESS 
 
 Delivered at the Commencement of Mills College, Cal., May 26, 
 1897, by Wm. C. Bartlett, LL. D. 
 
 When a German naturalist in exploring the valley 
 of the Amazon came suddenly upon the Victoria Regia, 
 he saw for the first time amid the uncultured affluence of 
 nature, the one supreme blossom of the world. We have 
 come alter a quarter of a century into this valley, rimmed 
 by these encircling hills, where art and culture have 
 touched the landscape and a nobler inspiration has 
 touched many hearts, molding thern to inward and out- 
 ward grace, to find our Victoria Regia here. For in the 
 closing days of the nineteenth century, the one supreme 
 blossom of our civilization is in that culture and higher 
 education of women which this institution illustrates to- 
 day. 
 
 A quarter of a century ago, or more, the site of this 
 institution was little more than a cow-pasture. The 
 coyotes barked in the hills, the note of the wild dove 
 accentuated the isolation ; birds sang among the alders 
 and the brook rippled its undertones as it went down to 
 the sea. So it had been for a thousand years. When 
 the founders came with anointed eyes, they took account 
 of all this beauty of environment. The hill sides bour- 
 geoned in gold, and the valley blushed in many shades 
 of pink and scarlet. But there was no Victoria Regia 
 here. There were long years of patient toil. There was 
 not a college dedicated to the higher education of women 
 from the Rocky Mountains to the shores of the Pacific. 
 It is not less a marvel to-day that two consecrated per- 
 sons working as a unit should, with no large fortune, and 
 with no large gifts from outside sources, have founded a 
 college, given it to the public, and have witnessed a 
 maturity which elsewhere might have been the slow 
 ripening of a century. 
 
 363! 
 
Said Daniel Webster in his famous argument for 
 Dartmouth College, with suffused eyes, " Sir, it is a small 
 college, but we love it. ' ' If to-day there are some to say 
 this is a small college, there are more to say, But we love 
 it for what it has been, what it is now, and what it will 
 be in the unfolding future. We love it also for all its 
 associations. For the granite monument that crowns 
 yonder hill top the symbol of the imperishable work of 
 Mills, and for the associations of Haight and Kldridge, of 
 Hells, Dwinelle, Bryant and Meek of Harmon and 
 Pearce, who having accomplished their work in this be- 
 half, have gone home in the ripeness of their years to 
 eternal rest. 
 
 It falls in with the spirit of the day to group with 
 the names of Atkin and Mills, those other pioneers of 
 education Durant and Brayton, Veeder and Sill, and to 
 say of this noble brotherhood what one has uttered of 
 another : 
 
 Oh, my comrades ! Oh, my friends ! 
 
 If this parting be the end, 
 
 Then will I count my life divine 
 
 That I have known such souls as thine. 
 
 It is related that in one of the fiercest battles of the 
 civil war fought by General Thomas, as that patient and 
 invincible soldier saw one of his brigades as it was march- 
 ing up a hill in the face of a withering fire, their ranks 
 melting away, exclaimed for once in the bitterness of his 
 soul: "They can't do it! They can't reach that hill 
 top ! ' ' When one of his staff approached , laid his hand 
 on the General's shoulder and said : "Time, General ; 
 give them time." And then his eyes filled with tears as 
 he saw his brave men stand victoriously on the summit. 
 Some of our friends have fallen by the way, but the hill 
 top has been reached. Time, patience and an over- 
 mastering faith have been the elements of victory. The 
 days of small things have made up an aggregate of great 
 things. 
 
 Emerson somewhere relates that his greatest ven- 
 eration was for an old Quaker lady who said, yea ; and 
 when all the world said nay, she still said, yea. For 
 more than a quarter of a century, while some part of the 
 
[ 3 1 
 
 community have put their doubts into a nay, the Presi- 
 dent of this College has always said yea. All things 
 worthy to go on record to-day have been done with a 
 yea. It has been supplemented, as it were, by a divine 
 affirmative. The everlasting no strikes no chord of per- 
 manent achievement. Said a noted chieftain to one of 
 his subordinates, if you are defeated, you will return by 
 such a route. I shall return, said he, by another road, 
 with God and victory. 
 
 By virtue of this yea, the landscape has become more 
 than a picture; roses climb lovingly to porch and window, 
 stone has been laid upon stone, academic walks invite 
 to high communion, and there is an annual going forth 
 of trained minds to put a nobler stamp upon the life and 
 thought of the State. 
 
 All higher culture, as represented here, exalts the 
 office of home-maker and bread-winner. The two are 
 inseparably joined; for where the one is not found, 
 neither is the other, save in some intermittent way. The 
 home is the foundation of the State, Every new and 
 well-ordered home strengthens that foundation. And the 
 supreme excellence of home is that a cultivated taste 
 therein is inseparable from morals and from religion itself. 
 And this taste is sure to find expression as well in the 
 cottage as in the most costly mansion. The most exalted 
 ministry of life goes with the educated woman, whose 
 creative genius has filled the house with sunshine and 
 song, with art and inspiration, and with beauty and love. 
 Ten thousand homes are needed in this State, molded to 
 these finer issues. 
 
 Numbers do not determine the character and greatness 
 of any educational institution. But rather the quality of 
 the training which sends men and women out to make 
 their record in the world. 
 
 There is a substantial advantage in being well born. 
 Good lineage, with a little blue blood, is never at a dis- 
 count if an ancestral name has been worthily borne. 
 
 Oberlin College, chartered in 1834, gave four years 
 later, the first collegiate diploma granted to any woman in 
 the United States. From that college a few years later 
 went Mary Atkins to Benicia, and there established the 
 
[ 4] 
 
 school which became the germ of this institution. That 
 is one line of descent. 
 
 Mary L,yon had already planned the Holyoke Sem- 
 inary and placed it in advance of all others for the facil- 
 ities it furnished for the education of young women at 
 the smallest cost. She had planned it for higher educa- 
 tion, putting on record that she " cherished the hope that 
 the school should be to young women what the college is 
 to young men. ' ' Although for many years that institu- 
 tion was content with the modest name of seminary, it 
 accomplished the essential work of a college, and was the 
 first for the exclusive training of young women in that 
 respect in all the land. Long before it took the chartered 
 name of a college its classical standard was so high that 
 it needed no advance in the final transition. Better than 
 all, it was born of water and of the spirit. From that 
 institution came the President of this college with the 
 same plans, purpose and spirit. The seminary should 
 one day, as Holyoke, slowly ripen into a college ; at the 
 same time conserving all its more elementary advantages. 
 These are the lines of descent. There could not have 
 been a better lineage. It is good enough for ancestral 
 worship. All memories are fragrant as rosemary and 
 rue. Over in western Massachusetts, in that most pictur- 
 esque county of Berkshire, hardly two hundred miles 
 from Holyoke, Mills, one of the founders of this institu- 
 tion, was preparing for his life work at Williams College. 
 He had caught the inspiration of that other Mills who a 
 few years before, with his companions, behind a haystack, 
 had prayed the American Board of Foreign Missions into 
 existence. 
 
 These associations are fitly grouped on this quarter- 
 centennial day. It may be that they count for less here 
 than they would near some of the older seats of learning. 
 They will count for more here in the fullness of years, 
 when other walls have been reared and a greater throng 
 of alumnae come here to keep the day. 
 
 At the close of the last century the standard of edu- 
 cation for women was very low in this country, if, indeed, 
 there was any standard at all. Mrs. John Adams, wife 
 of one of the early Presidents herself a woman of many 
 
[ 5 1 
 
 accomplishments said that " female education in the 
 best families, went no further than writing and arithmetic, 
 and in some few and rare instances, music and dancing." 
 That condition had not essentially changed up to the first 
 quarter of the present century. Even in the New Eng- 
 land academies the preparatory schools for the colleges 
 it was not thought quite the thing that any girl in those 
 days should follow hard after her clumsy big brother in 
 the study of Greek and Latin. If by virtue of an indom- 
 itable will she went further, the college door which 
 admitted the one was barred against the other. 
 
 The first High school established for girls in Boston, 
 was closed for a time, because there were so many appli- 
 cants for admission. The public was as much astonished 
 as if an epidemic had suddenly broken out. What was 
 the world coming to when young women wanted to know 
 as much as young men ? It was an early symptom of 
 that coming recognition of the equality of educational 
 rights. One after another the barriers would be broken 
 down. Even at old Harvard there would some day be an 
 annex where young women could look over into the col- 
 lege preserves, and if after years of study they were found 
 to know as much or more than young men, they could 
 have a diploma instead of a degree. 
 
 A quarter of a century, or more, after Mary L,yon 
 had expressed the hope that Holyoke would be for young 
 women what the college was for young men, Mathew 
 Vassar, as if inspired by that very declaration, in the 
 same language, expressed the hope that in founding Vas- 
 sar College, it ' 'should accomplish for young women what 
 our colleges are accomplishing for young men." The 
 spirit of Mary I,yon finds expression in this wealthy and 
 uncultured business man. 
 
 " Our chief want in life," says Emerson, "is some- 
 body who shall make us do what we can. That is the 
 service of a friend. With him we are easily great. 
 There is a sublime attraction in him to whatever virtue 
 there is in us. How he flings wide the doors of exist- 
 ence!" 
 
 The declaration of equality of educational rights 
 was the herald of the new era in the last half of the nine- 
 
[ 6 ] 
 
 teenth century. Men and women emerged from the 
 bondage of old traditions and went out into the broader 
 fields of human activity. Equality of educational rights 
 would sooner or later evolve equality of political rights. 
 There was a time of blossoming for a new intellectual 
 fruitage. From that springtime blossoming came Holyoke 
 and Vassar, Bryn Mawer, Wellesley and Smith, and Bar- 
 nard and Mills. The newer universities adopted the 
 system of co-education. But that expedient, so far from 
 meeting the new demand, only made these separate col- 
 leges for young women a greater necessity. 
 
 You cannot tell how much light a diamond will 
 reflect until all the facets have been cut and polished. It 
 is not the half-round culture which the new era demands 
 for young women, but many-sided and symmetrical as 
 to the whole ; and every angle so polished that it makes 
 for sweetness and light. That culture consists not only 
 in having, but in being, and imparting and in working 
 up to the noblest ideals of life. It makes for the largest 
 increase of life. It takes account of gracious manners, of 
 winning conversation, of art in all its forms and colors, 
 of philosophy which gives the reason of things, of 
 the wealth of classic tongues, of the symbols which 
 represent the small dust in the balance and which may 
 stand for the measurement of a star in the heavens ; and, 
 more than all, for the friendship of God which lifts faith- 
 ful and steadfast souls up to His communion and love. 
 If there is any lower ideal so that heart culture is left out, 
 womanhood is eclipsed by a selfish isolation. 
 
 There is a symphony of Haydn full of rich expres- 
 sion at first ; but one by one the players cease and go 
 silently out until only one is left upon an empty stage, in 
 solitude and darkness. The last note is the climax of 
 emptiness and desolation. There is the literal fulfillment 
 of Haydn's symphony where isolated selfishness becomes 
 the highest ideal of life. Sympathy and love die, the 
 notes fail on many strings, and the richer music of life 
 subsides into a wail on a desolate stage. Fullness of 
 life the full orchestra of the soul responsive to human 
 interests the ministry of souls making a better world 
 
[ 7 ] 
 
 through sacrifice and love and eternal hope. That is the 
 ideal of rounded and symmetrical culture. 
 
 It is not many years since the proposition was boldly 
 challenged that what was good for men in the way of 
 attainment, was good for women. How can you expect 
 delicate young women to endure the hardship of college 
 study and discipline ? They will all break down or fail 
 by the way, said many a conservative holding fast to his 
 ancient traditions, It was reserved for a woman to fur- 
 nish this pungent answer : 
 
 ' ' I would like you to take thirteen hundred young 
 men, and lace them up, and hang ten to twenty pounds 
 of clothes on their waists, perch them on three-inch heels, 
 cover their heads with ripples and chignons, and stick 
 ten thousand hair pins into their scalps. If they can 
 stand all this they will stand a little L,atin and Greek." 
 
 What is most needed to-day is a new and incarnated 
 public conscience. Never before have thoughtful and 
 educated women grasped the great public questions of 
 the day as now, nor have they touched the questions of 
 social life with such plastic force. Without a ballot, they 
 are shaping legislation and furnishing new ideals of 
 citizenship. What a large place there is to-day for this 
 potential and beneficent work ! 
 
 Said a notable scholar and critic not long ago : ' ' The 
 prevailing spirit of the country as shown in its public 
 utterances, in its journals, in its poetry, and in its politics, 
 is not promising, it is not modest, it is not serious, it 
 is not large minded, and it is not high minded. It is 
 evolved from lower ideals which have made mediocrity 
 the rule, and excellence in all the walks of citizenship the 
 exception." 
 
 There is a day coming when there will be new and 
 nobler ideals of citizenship. Back of this coming revolu- 
 tion is the trained and thinking woman. Hardly a 
 recognized force in molding public opinion a quarter of a 
 century ago, to-day bringing her conscience and quick- 
 ened intelligence to the solution of some of the most vital 
 problems of the age. The new investment of civil rights 
 will come as sure as there is the slow march of a clarified 
 j ustice and a divine j udgment in the world. Social science 
 
[ 8] 
 
 is the order of the day ; but it may not illustrate its best 
 equipment by clamoring from platforms, nor by the 
 exhibition of imported freaks for the delectation of popu- 
 lar assemblies. The great moral and social forces of the 
 world are not the less potent that they work silently and 
 beyond the range of common observation. If we cannot 
 trace the rivulet in the crevices of the rocks, has it less 
 creative power when it heads in the spring and carries its 
 line of life down to the making of gardens in the desert ? 
 All higher education, as illustrated here and elsewhere, 
 is a training for leadership in thought and action. It 
 may not extend beyond the small town or village. But 
 what potency it may have there, where in many in- 
 stances the sorcery of Circe counts for more than the 
 winning power of the saint ! 
 
 Said a Greek philosopher, I dwell in a small city that 
 it may not become less. Wherever one of these who has 
 been trained here shall abide the little city or town shall 
 not be less, but more for her presence. Nor may her 
 leadership be less that it is veiled by the beauty and 
 fragrance of a life toward which the young are drawn 
 with rythmic steps for gentle ministries for words that 
 are like apples of gold in pictures of silver. 
 
 The end of all training is consecrated power. When 
 Michael Angelo became old and blind, he asked his 
 servant to lead him forth that he might touch the marble 
 torso of Phidias, Passing his hand over the statue, he 
 entered into the life, the thought and the inspiration of 
 this greatest of Grecian masters. Not the touch of any 
 marble, not the broken statue, nor the mold of divinest 
 form can inspire these highest ideals. That inspiration 
 comes when we are led forth to enter into the life and 
 spirit of Him whose ideal of citizenship is of both the 
 earth and the heavens. Working in that spirit, for 
 teacher and scholar, for singer and sayer, the horizon lifts 
 and broadens, and evermore there is the promise of the 
 life that now is, and fruit unto life eternal. 
 
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