Ever since Darwin's "Origin of Species" turned the trend of the world's thought into new channels, it has been more and more the fashion to study everything with reference to its development. Among the questions with sufficient data to make their evolution interesting is the rise of the college idea as it affects the education of women. Essential links in this evolution are Mount Holyoke and Mary Lyon's work for it.
There has been a dark age for women, even in good old Massachusetts, and that hardly more than a century ago, when educational advantages for children were construed to mean boys, when grammar schools fitted for college, and colleges for the ministry, as the colonists dreaded leaving "an illiterate ministry to the churches when our ministers shall lie in the dust." The reading of the Bible by both boys and girls, among a people who cared enough for their own conceptions of it to be exiles from a land they loved, was speedily provided for. This with the catechism learned from the New England Primer was for decades almost the sum total of book lore for girls. Such knowledge was all that was needed for good listeners at the Sunday sermons, and could be acquired at the wheel and loom. Those were days when all that was worn by the family must be produced at home, and girls were necessarily busy. True, there were occasional dame's schools, out of which girls came with samplers and manners, and for years they were content; but about 1790 Boston girls began to attend the public schools - in summer - and Boston fads then as now would creep into the suburban districts. Soon girls as far away as the Connecticut Valley began to sit on the schoolhouse doorsteps to hear the boys recite, and one town which, in 1788, had voted "not to be any expense for schooling girls" was obliged by law to recant. About the same time the increase of public schools made the legal recognition of women as teachers necessary, though all they were required to teach was reading, writing (if stipulated) and manners. Then as now every true woman who became a teacher longed to be a better teacher, and the demands for facilities brought in the academies, seminaries and private schools which late in the last century and early in the present one arose sustained by private capital. The first academy for both sexes was incorporated in 1761, at South Byfield.
The first for women was Adams Academy in Derry, New Hampshire, in 1823; the first in Massachusetts, Ipswich, in 1828. The seminary of Rev. Joseph Emerson at Byfield from 1818 to 1824 was the school which perhaps more than any other had to do with the rise of the Mount Holyoke idea. Among Mr. Emerson's one thousand pupils, mainly teachers, the two whom he considered the most remarkable were Miss Grant, early the principal of Ipswich and of Barre, and Mary Lyon, so closely associated with her.
There were many reasons why a new school, one of a different type, was needed. The only institutions sufficiently endowed to give them permanence, having property in buildings, libraries and apparatus, were the colleges. Of these, the only one open to women, the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in Ohio, founded in 1833, was practically closed to almost all New England girls because of its remoteness. Unendowed schools to pay expenses must charge high rates. This made everything beyond the limited public school education for girls, in the eyes of those who did not consider it an absurdity, a luxury to be enjoyed only by the rich; for the price of a girl's board and tuition for a year was often twice that of a whole college course for her brother. Results, too, were discouraging, as in many private schools what was taught was so superficial and aimless as to make the acquirers vain, frivolous and discontented, or, as one put it, "less healthy, less domestic, less useful." The demand for schools and teachers was constantly increasing, and with the responsibility for the right teaching of students. Then came Mary Lyon's part in the history of education.
A deserted spot in Buckland, in the hill country of Massachusetts, to which Holyoke girls make summer pilgrimages, is now marked by a bronze tablet with this inscription: "Mary Lyon, the founder of Mount Holyoke Seminary, was born here February 28, 1797." Known to the world mainly as the woman of faith and good works, whose life has been called an added verse to the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, a picture of her at home and at school will not be uninteresting. [From the admirable history of Mount Holyoke Seminary, by Mrs. Sarah D. (Locke) Stowe, and her sketch of Higher Education in Massachusetts, the material for this sketch of Mary Lyon's life has been largely drawn.]
"Nurtured in rural simplicity and Christian sincerity, unfettered by custom and fashion, inhaling strength with the fresh mountain air and gathering stores of wisdom from her mother's Bible, this blue-eyed girl, with fair skin, rosy cheeks, broad, high forehead and masses of curling auburn hair, was laying up invaluable resources for after years" - for those days of which her mother wrote: "Mary will not give it up; she just walks the floor, when all is so dark, and says, 'Commit thy say unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.' Women must be educated, they must be!" At school "she was of buoyant temperament and showed intense energy of body, mind and soul; she had a great warm trusting heart, a keen sense of the ludicrous, a power of humorous description combined with overflowing kindness, and although she outstripped her schoolmates in their studies they admired her more than they envied her, 'she was so full of benevolence.'" That she was skilled in the household accomplishments of her time is testified by "the two blue and white coverlets spun, dyed and woven by her own hands, with which she paid for a winter's board at Ashfield," by the "blue fulled cloth habit" she wore at Ipswich and Derry, and by the fact that she was her brother's housekeeper at fifteen.
She represented the best culture which the schools of New England and New York, at that time, could produce. After exhausting the limited advantages of her own town, we find her at Sanderson Academy, Ashfield, at Amherst, Conway, Troy, N. Y., Byfield, Derry and Ipswich, wherever the best facilities seemed to be offered for the branches in which she sought training.
Of Sanderson Academy she said: "Here I was principally educated, here my mental energies were first awakened." It was here that she performed the feat of committing to memory the Latin Grammar in three days, and that she calculated eclipses and made an almanac.
Previous to her attending Mr. Emerson's school at Byfield, the true aim of education had been in a degree lost sight of in the pure pleasure of acquiring knowledge, which she had enjoyed with all the intensity of her nature. Ever after, for herself and for others, added opportunities for culture meant only added power for usefulness; and that every woman might have this, her birthright, she labored, planned, and prayed. The plans were years in maturing. While associated with Miss Grant she was enlarging them and testing their working power, in the academies of Ipswich and Derry.
Miss Lyon has been called by a recent writer "the heroine of altruism, the last and highest type." No one can deny her this honor who catches the spirit of the words which expressed her purposes concerning Mount Holyoke: "A permanent institution consecrated to the work of training young women to the greatest usefulness . . . Designed to be furnished with every advantage that the state of education will allow. . . . To put within the reach of students of moderate means such opportunities that none can find better ones." These words are on their way to their three score and ten years, yet they need no change to make them embody the advanced thought of to-day; and Mount Holyoke can never hope to attain worthier purposes than those here expressed, of training young women for the greatest usefulness, to this end giving them every facility the state of education in this country will permit, and at such rates that even those of moderate means can enjoy them.
As a result of the forces whose history has thus been outlined, it came about that just two hundred years from the founding of the first college for men, and when one hundred and twenty such colleges existed in the United States, the first institution designed exclusively for the higher education of women was chartered by the Legislature of Massachusetts. It was known for fifty years as Mount Holyoke Seminary, became in 1888 Mount Holyoke Seminary and College, and in 1893 Mount Holyoke College.
The work was not done with the granting of the charter. "Prejudice was to be removed, indifference overcome, philanthropy roused, benevolence called into action." The names of Edward Hitchcock, Andrew Porter and Daniel Safford, who had themselves first to be won, were the names of powerful allies who gave, besides what pecuniary help they could, time and influence. The funds for the building, $27,000, were collected in sums ranging from six cents, in three instances, to $1,000, in but two, and there were eighteen hundred subscribers.
Miss Lyon's policy was threefold: to secure the funds from many people, in order to gain a wider interest in the work; to obtain teachers who, though well equipped, should from love of the work be willing to take small salaries; and to introduce among the students the idea of self-help, in giving to each a part of the economy of the household by sharing in the household work. Her reasons for this unique feature of her school were thus stated in the first catalogue: "It is no part of the design of this institution to teach young ladies domestic work. Home is the place for the daughters of our country to be taught this subject. Some may inquire what is the design of this arrangement? It may be replied that the family work must be performed, that it is difficult to find hired domestics and to retain them any considerable time when found, and that young ladies engaged in study suffer much in vigor and intellectual energy and in their future health for the want of exercise. Daughters of well-bred families in New England have independence enough to engage in any business which will promote their own best interests and the interests of those around them, and for such families this institution is designed, whatever may be their circumstances in other respects." Miss Lyon retained the system because of what it accomplished in the abolition of caste, in the dignifying of labor, in giving executive ability, habits of promptness and efficiency, and as a factor in the power of adapting one's self to circumstances, for which Mount Holyoke women at home and abroad have always been noted. So great has been the misconception of this idea that even to-day and in towns within a radius of twenty miles of the college there are occasionally found those who suppose the students are largely occupied in learning domestic accomplishments. All that Miss Lyon ever required of her pupils was seventy minutes a day, which has been gradually reduced by the use of modern appliances and by help hired for the harder and less agreeable duties till an average of thirty minutes daily from each accomplishes all that is desired.
Tuition during the first twenty years of the institution was about sixty dollars. It has been successively raised to eighty dollars; one hundred and twenty-five, during the war, when decreased numbers made the struggle for existence the closest; one hundred and fifty; one hundred and seventy-five; two hundred dollars; and, in 1892, two hundred and fifty dollars. This covers all expenses of board and tuition, except for music, which is the only extra.
On account of a debt contracted in war times and which in 1868 had become $25,000, the trustees asked aid of the State, which was granted for the following reasons: "The high standard of scholarship and of character; the great number of teachers trained; the value of the household work in honoring labor and forming habits of system, fidelity and self-help; the low charges for so superior advantages; and the liberality of the State toward its colleges for men, - citing, as late instances, Tufts, Williams, Amherst, and the State Agricultural College."
The first entrance requirements were Arithmetic, Geography, History of the United States, English Grammar and Watts "On the Mind." Those interested feared that sufficient numbers could not be found to pass the examinations, as they were beyond what was generally considered a finished education for girls. But in the senior, middle and junior classes of that first year were one hundred and sixteen students, of whom four were seniors. The second year four hundred were refused for lack of room.
Up to five years ago students entered, as at first, only by examination. At present certificates are received from the best preparatory schools.
Latin and French were taught every year after the first, and Miss Lyon looked forward to the addition of Greek and Hebrew, though the former was first included in the curriculum in 1872 and the latter not till 1895, nearly fifty years after her death.
The requirements for admission have been steadily increased, with corresponding changes in the curriculum, for which the way has been paved by the following policy: work beyond requirements has been offered as elective and readily taken by those who either added a year to their course or took post-graduate work. In 1885, eighty were in such work; in 1886, one hundred. Members of the faculty also, seeing the direction of affairs, were asking leave of absence for advanced work in the colleges and universities of this country and of Europe - this while Mount Holyoke was yet under a Seminary charter. Then came the demand from the alumnae for recognition by degrees of work done, as a necessary help toward further professional study upon which they wished to enter and to which, though they were otherwise prepared, the lack of a degree presented a hindrance - for in later years colleges for women had risen and the name Seminary had come to represent a secondary culture. Mount Holyoke could not be true to her birthright in giving or seeming to give anything but the best. It was not found difficult to include in the curriculum work already being done outside it and to make the further requirements necessary to warrant asking the Legislature for the change of name, and with it power to give degrees. This was granted during the blizzard of March 8, 1888, when it took the news two days to reach South Hadley.
There were those to whom the name Mount Holyoke Seminary, and the culture it had given, seemed sufficient, who said: "Secure the power to grant degrees for your higher course, but keep also the old course for those who prefer it." As a compromise the name of the charter read Mount Holyoke Seminary and College. But the Seminary course in time died a natural death, being used merely as a stepping-stone to the broader work; and as no preparatory school attachment was desired, the Legislature again responded to a petition to cut out the "Seminary" from the title, and Mount Holyoke again stepped out upon the platform of "the best culture the state of education in the country will allow." Mount Holyoke Seminary graduated about two thousand students. Mount Holyoke will, in June, 1897, have given degrees to two hundred and ninety. There have been connected with the institution, in the sixty years of its history, eight thousand students.
Among the names of those who will always be remembered in this important change for the College, and who gave all their energy to its accomplishment, in arranging the schedule of studies for students, in securing funds for extra study, and most especially in planning for work of advanced character by the faculty, are those of Miss Elizabeth Blanchard and Miss Anna Edwards. The former was principal from 1883 to 1888, the last year acting president; the latter was vice-principal.
In 1837 there were in the faculty the principal, associate principal, two teachers and three pupil assistants. To-day, with three hundred and fifty students, the faculty numbers thirty-eight, with seven library and laboratory assistants. For many years the teachers were all chosen from Mount Holyoke graduates. At present, though all are women except the one at the head of the school of music, Professor Alfred M. Fletcher, they represent in graduate and post-graduate work the culture of Smith, Wellesley, Oberlin, Hartford Theological Seminary, the Universities of Syracuse, Chicago, Michigan, Berlin and Cambridge, and the American Classical Institute at Athens.
From Miss Lyon's love for science a stimulus was early given in this direction, which has never been lost. This was rekindled at the Agassiz school at Penikese, of which three of the Mount Holyoke teachers were members. In all those later years the presence of increasing numbers at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's Holl, where the College from the beginning of work there has been represented at an investigator's table and later with private room for research, has helped toward keeping the College in touch with latest scientific methods. These influences, with the cooperation of the trustees and alumnae in furnishing appliances for work of high grade have resulted in an equipment to which Mount Holyoke is glad to call attention. The Lyman Williston Hall, built and enlarged at a cost of $80,000, gives the departments of Zoology, Geology, Botany and Physiology everything in the way of laboratories, lecture rooms and department libraries which they at present need, with opportunity to extend the crowding museums and collections, as the new buildings planned shall offer more desirable lecture rooms to those in other lines of work, now near neighbors.
The building, costing $50,000, recently erected for the sole use of the departments of Chemistry and Physics, is in every respect up to the demands of the times. It was the proposition of the alumnae to honor Miss Lydia W. Shattuck, for forty years a teacher, by furnishing the funds for this building and calling it by her name. Miss Shattuck was best known as a botanist, but was for many years the instructor in Chemistry, and in money left by her to the college the two departments shared alike. There is no one connected with the labors of the past years who is better known or more beloved. With a sturdiness of character born of her early struggles in the New Hampshire hills, a courtesy that meant large-heartedness, making every one at ease in her presence, a genuineness born of her love of nature, and an acuteness that made nature's secrets hers, her snowy hair and kindly face were a benediction in any place. Her death, in 1890, removed from the faculty the last one who had ever seen Mary Lyon's face. Emerson's words on Thoreau paint more clearly than any others to the alumnae of Mount Holyoke the picture of Miss Shattuck:
"A lover true, who knew by heart
Each joy the mountain dales impart;
It seemed that Nature could not raise
A plant in any secret place,
In quaking bog, on snowy hill,
Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
Under the snow between the rocks,
In damp fields known to bird and fox,
But he would come in the very hour
It opened in its virgin bower,
As if a sunbeam showed the place,
And tell its long-descended race.
It seemed as if the breezes brought him;
It seemed as if the sparrows taught him;
As if by secret sight he knew
Where, in far fields, the orchids grew."
Of the John Payson Williston Observatory and the work for which it was designed, it is only necessary to say that it was planned and the instruments to make its equipment complete selected by the eminent Princeton astronomer, Dr. Charles Young, whose biennial lecture course at Mount Holyoke, in addition to the regular college requirements, is one of the treats looked forward to by the students, and for which all plan their work.
That zeal for knowledge and modern methods for obtaining it are far from being the exclusive property of the departments of Science the full elective courses along all other lines testify. Seminary methods obtain everywhere, stimulating to original work, and progress is just as evident as if in each charts, models and instruments acquired could show tangible results. In the departments of mathematics and Latin during the past year new courses were necessarily added to satisfy the demands of classes which had exhausted all those previously offered, - and these were not meager.
The school of music provides generously for those who make this branch a specialty, and shares its lectures gratuitously, with those of all courses; also its concerts, which are given throughout the year by the best artists the College can command. In the department of Art, besides opportunities for practical work, the lectures by Professor Louise Randolph, from the historical standpoint, illustrated by pictures collected in years of foreign study, are eagerly attended by the students. These afford a liberal culture and the best possible preparation for future study and travel.
The original building, erected in 1836, for all dormitory and school purposes, was ninety feet long by fifty feet wide, with four stories and a basement. This was architecturally of a type severely plain, but later it was much improved by the addition of a cupola and piazzas. In 1841 it was extended seventy feet, and a south wing one hundred feet long, also four stories high, was added. In 1853 the north wing, of similar dimensions, was finished. In 1865 the completion of the gymnasium connecting the free ends of the wings enclosed the plat of the ground known as the quadrangle. This hollow square of buildings, together with the adjoining water tower, boiler works, electric light plant and greenhouse, all later additions, constituted the fuel for the recent fire of September 26, leaving the picturesque ruin shown in one of the illustrations.
Perhaps nothing could testify better to the continuous growth of Mount Holyoke in temporal things than a rapid survey of the acquisitions of the last thirty years in buildings and in the improvements made in them. The "steam letters" written by the students soliciting funds, with some aid received from other sources, resulted, in 1868, in the abolition of Franklin stoves and the anxiety attendant upon the care of them and in the introduction of steam heating. In 1870, the library was erected, costing $18,000, from funds raised because of the promise of Mr. and Mrs. Henry F. Durant of Boston, afterwards the founders of Wellesley College, to give $10,000 worth of books when a fireproof building was ready to receive them. That this was all which the architects planned was lately proven by its standing unharmed when the four stories of brick walls with which it was connected by a wooden corridor melted in fervent heat.
In 1876, the Lyman Williston Hall was erected, at a cost of $50,000. What this was in its provision for the intellectual progress of the college, the elevator and the artesian well, the products of 1880, were to the physical comfort of the household. In 1881, the Observatory, costing $10,000, provided amply for the needs of the department of astronomy. The greenhouse given by the Misses Dickinson of the class of '66, in 1882, added much to the facilities of the botanical department and enabled the botanic garden to include specimens from floras needing winter protection. In 1883, the pressure for more dormitory room led to the purchase of the Dwight homestead, adjoining the library, which was named North College. In 1884, the Pavilion in the park and many other improvements in walks and drives made the grounds more attractive. In 1887 the library doubled its size, and the addition of West Hall, from the Allen estate opposite, provided more generously for the growing numbers of students. 1892 brought the electric light plant; 1894 the hall for Chemistry and Physics, costing $50,000; 1895 the skating rink, the gift of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, and 1896 the Estabrook house, now South Cottage.
The original ten acres of land, purchased when the offer of $8,000 by the town of South Hadley led the first trustees to locate there, have increased almost entirely since 1880, to about one hundred acres. This has been in large measure due to the generosity of Hon. E. A. Goodnow of Worcester, for whom the park, containing about forty acres, is named. His gift, besides this land, includes a fund whose income is to be used in caring for it. The grounds include, outside the park and botanic gardens, lawns, tennis courts, cycling and coasting grounds, and Lake Nonotuck for skating and rowing, though the use of the Rockefeller skating rink in the last winters has made the lake look lonely. A lady who has traveled much, and whose opinions in her writings the world respects, said while enjoying the view from Goodnow Park: "Why do you not say more about your grounds? There is not a college in the country which has such views from its campus."
The College expenses have been mainly met by the tuition fees, with no Department endowment before the semi-centennial gift in 1887 endowing the President's chair to the extent of $20,000. Latterly a small fund has been accumulating which before the present movement to secure the Pearsons fund amounted, all told, to less than two hundred thousand dollars. This includes scholarship funds approaching sixty thousand dollars, the income of which is for deserving students of limited means.
The statements concerning recent acquisitions would hardly be complete without appreciative mention of the untiring labors of one who, as treasurer of the Board of Trustees, has had to meet the questions connected with the financial situation of the College. The buildings recently destroyed were the only ones upon the campus not erected or purchased under his personal supervision, and even these had been so remodeled for comfort and convenience at the suggestion or with the approval of himself or Mrs. Williston, that they were as conversant with every part as if they had helped plan the foundations. The observatory in memory of their son was their gift, as were ten thousand dollars to begin Williston Hall. These and other investments in almost every enterprise started by the College since their connection with it testify, as do the time and thought they give to all plans for improvement, the depth of their interest.
The present administration, that of President Elizabeth Storrs Mead, has been remarkable for its liberality. Beginning as the institution was entering on full College work, there was opportunity for decided changes and improvements, for which Mrs. Mead has been ready. Among those of vital importance have been the broadening of the curriculum by the adoption of many electives, the introduction of the group system of studies, and the granting of the one degree, B. A., for all courses, in place of the three degrees formerly given. The semester plan has succeeded that of three terms of work, and the larger liberty with which older students of higher training may well be trusted has not been withheld. The recently added chairs are those of "Biblical Instruction and Semitic Languages," and "Constitutional History and Civics." Teachers' courses have been planned to meet the demands of those who wish to use a leave of absence from their schools for preparation along special lines.
Among other proofs of the qualification of President Mead for her position should not be forgotten her labors that the inner and outer life of the students may develop symmetrically. Every morning at chapel the fundamental truths of religion are presented in an earnest way, emphasizing the worth of character and the high privileges and duties of every conscious child of God.
An increase of holidays and especially the observance of Founder's Day have been pleasant features of these later years. The object of the latter has been to keep up the traditions of Mount Holyoke and to acquaint the students with the work of the founder. Two speakers have been appointed yearly, one from the alumnae, another representing some phase of advanced educational thought. This year, President G. Stanley Hall represented the educational world and Mrs. Moses Smith of Chicago, President of the Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior, the National Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association. Twice the laying of a cornerstone has added pleasant features to the exercises; on the first occasion the new building was for Chemistry and Physics, and this year the Mary Brigham Hall.
To make college life combine other features with the intellectual, and to make these both delightful and profitable, are the problems of the various organizations in which college girls band themselves together. The Young Women's Christian Association in its inter-collegiate and home relations, gives enlarged views of life and work, is a rebuke to selfishness, and an introduction to interests in which out in the world the students will concern themselves. The members conduct Bible classes, hold services in remote districts, and lead the college prayer-meetings. They also enhance social features in their domain, and the first reception of the year is given by them to the Freshman class. Other organizations working in harmony with them are the Somerset Y., the Mount Holyoke Missionary Association, and the Student Volunteer Band. Delegates are sent yearly to the North field Conference, with inspiring results.
The literary societies are the Sigma Theta Chi, Chi Phi Delta, the Shakespeare Club, and the Journal Club. The first two are the more thoroughly organized and have done much to further the interests of the College. The Sigma lately furnished the reading-room handsomely, and both are working heroically in the interests of endowment. Among the social organizations, for mixed purpose, but especially for good fellowship and mutual help, are the clubs which, from the "Pine Tree Club" to the "We Westerners," represent the different states. Of similar aims, but not sectional in membership, is the Anti-Monotony Club.
The college spirit could hardly thrive in these days without athletic interests; and that this is felt at Mount Holyoke is testified by the General Athletic Association, the Polo, Rinkle Polo, Basket Ball, Tennis and Boating Clubs, and no less by the "Views Afoot Club" and "The Pedestrians." The Gorge, the Bluffs, Bittersweet Lane, Indian Head, the Pass of Thermopylae, Titan's Pier, the Ferry, the Mountain Pasture, as well as the higher view points of Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke, have asleep in them echoes of cheery voices and good times which are food for happy meditation all the years.
Among the most prominent factors in the well-being of the College are the Alumnae Associations, or "The College in the World." Their purpose is provision for the increased well-being of their Alma Mater. If there is an endowment fund to be raised, the Alumnae speed it; if there is a new measure that will affect deeply the interests of the College, the Alumnae discuss it. They are represented by three members on the Board of Trustees. Among their larger gifts are the Mary Lyon fund, as endowment of the President's chair, for something over twenty thousand dollars; fifteen thousand dollars toward the Lydia Shattuck Hall, which they are laboring to make thirty thousand; and besides the effort for funds for immediate rebuilding, in which every Mount Holyoke woman is interested, they are striving toward the one hundred and fifty thousand dollar endowment for the Professors' chairs, to which when secured Dr. Pearsons offers to add fifty thousand dollars. Nearly ninety thousand of this sum are already promised. The Turkish Alumnae have for some time sent a yearly contribution to the botanic garden in memory of Mrs. Millingen, one of their cherished members. A chair of pedagogy is the object toward which the Philadelphia Alumnae are now working. Although the dollars come in slowly, the College will never be poor while the loyalty of the true hearts of her daughters continues.
There are few whose records are more carefully kept than are those in the College Quinquennial of the eight thousand students whose names have for a longer or shorter time been enrolled at Mount Holyoke. This catalogue is the outgrowth of the old Memorandum Society publication of the first fifty years. The publications of the undergraduates are The Llamarada, an annual, by the junior class, and the Mount Holyoke, issued monthly. The alumnae as an organization are represented in the College Settlement work to which they subscribe annually; they also give to the College the privileges of the American School at Athens by contributing yearly to its support. This is a great incentive to work in the department of Greek, as graduates have free tuition there.
The names of Mount Holyoke women on the lists of those interested in philanthropic and benevolent work have been many; nor have they been wanting in professional life. Among prominent educators are Miss Sarah Eastman, the principal of Dana Hall, Wellesley; Miss Helen Peabody, founder of the Western Female Seminary, now the Western College, Oxford, Ohio, the first school founded after the pattern of Mount Holyoke; Miss Laura Watson, principal of Abbott Academy, Andover; Caroline Yale, principal of Clark Institute for Deaf Mutes, Northampton; Miss Mary Evans, principal of Lake Erie Seminary, Painesville, Ohio; Mrs. Susan Tolman Mills, president of Mills College, Cal., and Mrs. Alice Gordon Gulick, the founder of the International Institute of Spain, from which, during the last three years, the students have received the degree of B. A. from the Government Institute. Among those who have made a name as physicians are Dr. Mary Smith, prominent as a surgeon, connected with the New England Hospital in Boston; Dr. Elizabeth Peck, once resident physician at Mount Holyoke, now consulting physician of the Woman's Department of the Philadelphia Hospital and on the faculty of the Woman's Medical College, and Dr. Mary Dole, one of the first to receive a degree from Mount Holyoke, who after some time in the New England Hospital and in study in Germany and in the Pasteur Institute in Paris, returned in 1895 to Greenfield, where she has a large practice and is connected with the Greenfield Hospital. Among those known to literature are Mary O. Nutting, librarian at Mount Holyoke, whose fame as an author rests principally on her carefully written histories, including "William the Silent" and "The Days of Prince Maurice"; Ellen C. Parsons, the editor of "Woman's Work for Woman"; Miss Mary Henry, a writer of girl's books, among which "Quiet Corners" and "Hope Reed's Upper Window" are remembered; Edna Dean Proctor; Anna Reed of "A Single Strand" fame; Marietta Kies, whose latest work, "Institutional Ethics," shows her line of thought; Miss Mary Wilkins - at Mount Holyoke in 1871, and Mrs. Lucy Wright Mitchell, whose "History of Sculpture" still lives, though she has passed away.
Sixty years of Mount Holyoke's life have passed away, and with the last days of them the building whose cornerstone Mary Lyon laid. But the forces for good that have here had their origin live in results that can only be known when we see as He does, to whom causes and results read in succession as from an open book
But the future. Already three dormitories are planned. The Mary Brigham Hall even now raises its walls, the gift of the New York and Brooklyn Alumnae, in memory of a cultivated and consecrated woman, elected to the first presidency of the College, but whose death, before she entered upon the duties of her office, came as a providence inexplicable and so difficult to receive. Dr. Pearsons of Chicago, than whom Mount Holyoke has no truer friend, besides ten thousand dollars toward the latter cottage, has given forty thousand dollars for another; and his promise of fifty thousand dollars toward permanent endowment - already made half good waits till the Alumnae shall have one hundred and fifty thousand dollars ready to put with that sum.
For all the rest, dormitories, chapel, gymnasium, reading rooms and greenhouse, all of which recently disappeared, for added art gallery, lecture rooms and music hall, which before seemed necessary and now are imperative, - all these are to be secured and furnished and in part the land on which they are to stand secured, from the one hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars, the insurance on the old building and its contents.
The Alumnae are loyal, but they are women; and whatever may be said of the rights of women in these days they have not always the power to turn the keys in the larger treasuries of the world. There are those, however, who can make this, Mount Holyoke's extremity, as it is also her opportunity, an occasion to erect memorials of good women with the confident expectation of making all women who use them better. Work may increase at Mount Holyoke, methods may change, but ideals must remain the same while on the College seal is written: "That our daughters may be as cornerstones, polished after the similitude of a palace"; and while the students still sing:
"Holyoke, Holyoke, tried and true,
We will love her ever,
Alma Mater and the blue
We'll forsake, no, never."