women, for it is a misfortune for young women or young men to be educated wholly by their own kind." 1

The founder, Dr. Joseph W. Taylor, of Bryn Mawr College, decided to provide "an institution of learning for the advanced education of women which should afford them all the advantages of a college education which are so freely offered to young men." 2 The standard, therefore, for the education of women was set by the colleges established for the education of men. Their purpose was the purpose of Tennyson, when he sings:

“O, I wish

That I were some great Princess: I would build

Far off from men a college like a man's,

And I would teach them all that men are taught."

The founders of these four colleges were also alike in the slow fruition of the idea and the purpose of laying a foundation. In the year 1845, at the age of fifty-three, Matthew Vassar, when visiting Guy's Hospital in London, founded by his kinsman, decided to devote a large portion of his own fortune, in his lifetime, to some benevolent purpose. The first form of this purpose was the founding of a hospital. But the purpose took other forms in the course of the following fifteen years. William Chambers, of Edinburgh, in 1858, intimated to him that a safer investment than a college for girls would be a seminary for the blind, the deaf and dumb, or the weak in intellect. It was not until the year 1860 that the plan of establishing a higher institution for women was adopted. This plan was adopted, not only upon general grounds, but also upon grounds in part personal and domestic. Early in the year of 1865, the college was opened for giving instruction.

In the year that Vassar received its act of incorporation, Sophia Smith began to think of the establishment of a college for women. Seven years after she made her will, devoting the bulk of her property to its foundation. The college was incorporated in 1871, and four years after was opened to students.

"Smith College Quarter Centennial Anniversary," p. 91.

2" Education in the United States," by Nicholas Murray Butler, p. 337. "The Princess."

In the year 1864 Henry H. Durant lost by death an only son. Soon after, he apparently formed a plan of using a part of his estate for some philanthropic work. Later, seeing clearly that the education of the youth of the country was entrusted largely to women, he determined that his purpose should take the form of an institution for their education. In the year 1870 the institution was incorporated as the Wellesley Female Seminary. Three years after, the name was changed to Wellesley College, and in 1877 the college was authorized to grant degrees. Joseph W. Taylor, the founder of Bryn Mawr, finding his offer of marriage declined by the woman he loved, decided to use his property in the building of a college for women. He kept his own counsels. He was in no small degree the administrator of his own estate. He bought land and began the erection of college buildings.

In each of these four institutions, therefore, the purpose of the founder, from its inception to its completion, covered a period of about a score of years.

The purposes which influenced each of these founders were the purposes which Matthew Vassar expressed in the form of a statement read on the 26th of February, 1861. He said:

"It having pleased God that I should have no descendants to inherit my property, it has long been my desire, after suitably providing for those of my kindred who have claims on me, to make such a disposition of my means as should best honor God and benefit my fellow-men. At different periods I have regarded various plans with favor, but these have all been dismissed one after another, until the Subject of Erecting and Endowing a College for the Education of Young Women was presented for my consideration. The novelty, grandeur, and benignity of the idea arrested my attention. The more carefully I examined it, the more strongly it commended itself to my judgment and interested my feelings.

"It occurred to me, that woman, having received from her Creator the same intellectual constitution as man, has the same right as man to intellectual culture and development.

"I considered that the Mothers of a country mold the character of its citizens, determine its institutions, and shape its destiny.

"Next to the influence of the mother, is that of the Female Teachers, who is employed to train young children at a period when impressions are most vivid and lasting.

"It also seemed to me, that if woman were properly educated, some new avenues to useful and honorable employment, in entire harmony with the gentleness and modesty of her sex, might be opened to her.

"It further appeared, there is not in our country, there is not in the world, so far as is known, a single fully endowed institution for the education of women.

"It was also in evidence that, for the last thirty years, the standard of education for the sex has been constantly rising in the United States; and the great, felt, pressing want has been ample endowments, to secure to Female Seminaries the elevated character, the stability and permanency of our best Colleges.

"And now, gentlemen, influenced by these and similar considerations, after devoting my best powers to the study of the subject for a number of years past; after duly weighing the objections against it, and the arguments that preponderate in its favor; and the project having received the warmest commendations of many prominent literary men and practical educators, as well as the universal approval of the public press, I have come to the conclusion that the establishment and endowment of a College for the education of young women is a work which will satisfy my highest aspirations, and will be, under God, a rich blessing to this city and State, to our country and the world."1

More than three years after, in June, 1864, at the time when the question of the appointment of professors was discussed by the Board of Trustees, Mr. Vassar said:

"It is my hope-it was my only hope and desire-indeed, it has been the main incentive to all I have already done, or may hereafter do, or hope to do, to inaugurate a new era in the history and life of woman. The attempt you are to aid me in making fails wholly of its point if it be not an advance, and a decided advance. I wish to give one sex all the advantages too long monopolized by the other. Ours is, and is to be, an institution for women-not men. In all its labors, positions, rewards, and hopes, the idea is the development and exposition, and the marshaling to the front and the preferment of women-of their powers on every side, demonstrative of their equality with men-demonstrative, indeed, of such capacities as in certain fixed directions surpass those of men. This, I conceive, may be fully accomplished within the rational limits of true womanliness, and without the slightest hazard to the attractiveness of her character. We are indeed already defeated before we commence, if

"Vassar College and Its Founder," p. 97.

such development be in the least dangerous to the dearest attributes of her sex. We are not the less defeated, if it be hazardous for her to avail herself of her highest educated powers when that point is gained. We are defeated if we start upon the assumption that she has no powers save those she may derive, or imitate, from the other sex. We are defeated if we recognize the idea that she may not, with every propriety, contribute to the world the benefits of matured faculties which education evokes. We are especially defeated if we fail to express, by our acts, our practical belief in her preeminent powers as an instructor of her own sex."

The purpose which influenced Mr. Durant in the founding of Wellesley College was more conspicuously religious than obtained in the case of certain other colleges. Mr. Durant's own type of religion developed an almost ascetic form. In the first days, the college seemed to be, in certain respects, a convent. Self-examination and prayer were a part of the academic routine. He desired especially to educate the daughters of ministers and of missionaries and for the service which their parents had rendered. In other colleges, the religious purpose was not less fundamental, but it was less conspicuous.

In the establishment of these colleges, the leadership, in time at least, belonged to Vassar. The difficult problems which emerge in the education of women appeared with special significance in the beginning of the college at Poughkeepsie. The problems were complex and imperative. Indeed, in the middle of the seventh decade, the kind of an education which a man should receive was beginning to be debated. The physical sciences were coming into the field of education as well as into the field of knowledge. Educational theories were beginning to abound. Opinions were divided. Some believed that the physical strength of women would not allow them to undertake severe study. Education should therefore be ornamental or elementary. Others held that in mind there is no sex; therefore women should receive the same education which men receive. Between these two extremes, others held that as the intellectual nature of woman is akin to that of man, she should receive essentially the same intellectual culture and the opportunity of develop

"Vassar College and Its Founder," p. 108.

ment. But it was also held that as women were women, intellectual culture and training should be adjusted to their constitution. It was believed that education should be for men human and manly; for women also human and womanly. For both it should be liberal and liberalizing.

It was a happy circumstance that the first great college for women had as its president one nobly fitted to undertake the duties of the great office. A student at Columbia, at Union, and at Hamilton Theological Seminary, a professor at the new University of Rochester and the president of the Brooklyn Polytechnic, John Howard Raymond brought to the office a lengthy and somewhat diverse experience. He had been a trustee of Vassar from the organization of the corporation. His mind was large, comprehensive, judicial. His heart was warm, yet without excess of emotion. He united strength and sweetness. His purposes were of the highest, and untouched by conscious prejudice. He had a capacity for growth. Maria Mitchell said of him that he was not broad when he became president, but the women who were about him made him broad. He felt his way in the new course like a steamer in a fog, and his instinct seldom misled him. His standards of education were of the highest, his interpretations sound. He avoided many pitfalls which were spread before him. The college was made neither a convent nor a huge boarding school; neither an industrial establishment nor a seminary of professional training. It was a college for the liberal education of women.

Dr. Raymond died in the year 1878. His term of thirteen years was shorter by a single year than that of another pioneer -Arnold of Rugby. The impression he made on the people regarding the sanity and desirableness of the higher education for women is to be compared to the influence of the Master of Rugby on the public-school education of England.

The opening of Vassar College was significant in at least two general respects. It proved the poverty and superficiality of the education given in the ordinary school for girls. The examinations for admission made clear that the preliminary education, though high in aim and earnest in effort, was confused, wasteful, and barren. The content of learning was small, the

7