The early history of Smith college, 1871-1910

Preface

Tue Trustees of Smith College at their annual meeting, June 16, 1913, voted: “To request President L. Clark Seelye to prepare a history of Smith College from the time Dr. Greene leaves it to the close of his administration . . .”

The request was declined, because I did not feel equal to the task, and it was not until the autumn of 1915 that I was persuaded to undertake the work. Had I foreseen how many things would conspire to hinder and to prolong the work, I should have persisted in my declination. The postponement did not lessen the limitations of old age, and the absorbing events of the war made it increasingly difficult

and irksome to fix the mind on unrelated subjects.

On account of impaired eyesight, I was forced to dictate the entire history, and could not give it the critical su- _pervision and revision essential to satisfactory literary composition. Moreover, during my administration I kept no journal, for I had no intention of writing a history, and I was therefore obliged to resort often to my annual reports to the Trustees for the requisite information. Consequently, the work has become more of a chronicle than a history, and lacks the interest of a more closely connected narrative.

It was difficult to sketch the growth of an institution, in which for thirty-seven years pars magna fui, without making it more or less of an autobiography. Nor could I freely describe the men and women still living — many of whom I have not mentioned even by name — who were associated with me in upbuilding the College, and to whom vi PREFACE

I was inestimably indebted for valuable assistance. I decided, therefore, to make the history as far as possible impersonal, although conscious in doing so, I should fail to delineate the composite personality that differentiates a college from a business organization, and gives it its most distinctive character and highest value. We may forget what we have been taught; the buildings in which we received our instruction may be destroyed; but the influence exerted upon us by those with whom we were associated in the intimacy and fellowship of a collegiate family becomes an imperishable part of ourselves that is of superlative worth. If what I have written may revive memories of the most precious things I have not mentioned, and increase the loyalty of the alumnz to their Alma Mater for what she has done to keep alive and to strengthen the best qualities of mind and heart, I shall feel the work has not been entirely in vain.

I am much indebted to the alumnz who have reminded me of facts which I had forgotten; to Mrs. Samuel F. Clarke and Professor H. M. Tyler for their interesting monographs appended as Postscripts; and to Miss Mary Dunham, the Librarian of Smith College, for compiling the index. I would also express my grateful appreciation of the excellent service which has been rendered by Miss Jessie A. Parsons in stenography and typewriting, and of the friendly and valuable assistance of Professor Robert Withington in revising and preparing the manuscript for publication. ©

L. CuarkK SEELYE.

May, 1923

Contents

The funeral of Miss Smith — The matter of the location of the College — The terms of the will — The charter granted in 1871 — Contemporary attitude toward the education of women — The question of co-education — The semi-centennial of Amherst and the discussion of this question — The first meeting of the new Board of Trustees — The presidency offered to Mr. Seelye — The prospectus of the College issued in 1872 — An increase of the endowment sought through additional subscriptions — Mr. Seelye again offered the presidency — He accepts, and is elected in 1873 — The opening of the College deferred to 1875 — The entrance requirements of men’s colleges adopted — Other problems faced — Plans for the first building and the campus chosen — The prospectus of 1874— The ideals of the College.

The first buildings completed and occupied — Dedication of College Hall, and inauguration of President Seelye — Dissatisfaction with the policies of the College — The first class admitted — Devotional exercises of the College — The opening service — The schedule of the early days — The Faculty — The students — Mrs. Elizabeth Hopkins at Dewey House — The financial statement of the College at the end of the first year — Smith College and the Centennial Exhibition — Smith and Girton compared — The opening of the second year — Mr. Tyler appointed Professor of Greek — The study of art and music — The art collection begun — Special students — The Hatfield House — The Washburn House — Four classes totaling 113 students — The first reference library — The first Commencement — Financial status of the College.

Cuapter III. 1879-1889

Chapter II 1875-1879

TuE President’s house was finished in May, 1875, at a cost of $19,000. College Hall, the first academic building, was completed, at an expense of $76,876, and dedicated July 14, 1875, when the President was formally inaugurated into the office which practically he had filled for two years.

The exercises were characterized by unusual simplicity. There was no imposing procession of representatives from other colleges and no display of academic gowns. His Excellency, the Governor, was present, and the uniforms of his staff were the only visible signs of official rank. The devotional exercises were conducted by Professor E. A. Park, D.D., of Andover Theological Seminary, and the pastors of the Congregational and Unitarian churches — the Reverend W. S. Leavitt and the Reverend C. B. Ferry. Professor William S. Tyler, D.D.— President of the Board of Trustees — presided, and in his introductory address, after defining the higher education in relation to a woman’s college, he thus expressed the determination of the Trustees:

We mean it shall be a whole college, and, for the present, nothing but a college. If we cannot make it such, we are ready to resign our places and give way to others. If there is not a demand for one such institution in all New England — in all these United

1 The addresses at the Inauguration were published by the Trustees of the College and may be found in the volume, Addresses at the Inauguration . of L. Clark Seelye as President of Smith College and at the Dedication of its Academic Building, June 14, 1875. The limitations of this history will only permit enough extracts from them to show the policy which was to shape the administration of the College.

THE PRESIDENT’S INAUGURATION = 2%

States — if the public mind is not yet elevated to this standard, and cannot be so educated up to it as to fill with pupils this one college edifice, then I for one say, let it stand empty as a perpetual monument of what was offered by the Founder and Trustees of this institution, and declined by the community — a perpetual monument to a noble effort, and a magnificent failure!

Instead of following the usual ceremony of giving the president-elect a copy of the charter and the keys of the College, he said:

Usage would, perhaps, require that I, as President of the Board of Trustees, should now deliver to you, sir, as President of the College, the keys of the College edifice. That, however, in the present circumstances would not only be an idle ceremony — it were almost a farcical performance. From corner-stone to turret, this edifice, planned by your wisdom and taste, has been reared under your eye — from the vestibule to the innermost penetralia it has been finished by your hand. The keys have been and are still in your possession, and it would be for you to hand them over to us, instead of our delivering them to you. But in the name and by the authority of the Corporation, I do now entrust to your care and keeping all those great interests of education and religion of which these keys are the symbol, with full confidence in your character and qualifications for the important office to which you have been chosen. And while I charge you to be faithful to the will of the Founder, to the principles and spirit of the Corporation, and to the sacred trust which is committed to you, I promise you our entire confidence, sympathy and support in the faithful discharge of your responsible duties; and I invoke on you the blessing of Him, to whom, in common with the older colleges of the Commonwealth, Smith College is dedicated, and “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

President Seelye responded:

Much more precious, Mr. President, than any empty symbols of office, are your words of confidence and encouragement; although I fear your personal friendship has led you to indulge in encomiums of which I am not worthy....To the wise counsel and judicious management of the Corporation, of which you are the honored head, is really due the success which may thus far have attended our undertaking. Indeed, sir, I should not have ventured to accept a position so responsible, but for the consciousness that I should be sustained and guided by a body of men, whose ability and wisdom have long been conspicuously manifest in the highest posts of public trust. Upon their wisdom I shall continue to rely, and I assure you it will be my earnest endeavor, both to execute faithfully the will of the Corporation you represent, and to preside over the interests which you have thus entrusted to my charge, so that the College may not disappoint the high expectations of its guardians and friends.

A few extracts from the inaugural address may here be given:

. It may seem less in consonance with the popular mood, if I remind you that, a little more than a century ago, a petition was sent to the General Court of Massachusetts by the leading citizens of Northampton, asking for a college in this vicinity. In answer to that petition, a charter was actually made out by Governor Barnard, in 1762, incorporating “‘certain citizens of Hampshire County into a body politic to be known as Queen’s College.” According to the provisions of the charter, the college must be located in Northampton, Hatfield, or Hadley, and must give an education equal to that of Harvard. The jealousy of Harvard thwarted the undertaking then; its originators died with little encouragement that their project would ever succeed... .

With that poetic justice for which history is celebrated, we, to-day, carry forward their unfinished work. ...

Time at least has vindicated their sagacity in thus early selecting this spot as a college site. Again and again have the trustees of other collegiate institutions been impressed with its manifold attractions. Amherst College was almost persuaded to come here; would have come, I think, but for the superior zeal of Amherst citizens. Williams College, when the question of its removal was agitated, after carefully examining Western Massachusetts, selected Northampton as the best site for a college, and actually voted to remove here, if the Legislature would permit. One hundred years have not lessened the attractions of this favored spot. ... It would be difficult to find a locality, which combines, not only so many elements of natural beauty, but offers also as numerous and varied illustrations of the natural sciences. ...

The Founder of the College has fixed the standard for us.... That standard makes it clearly our duty as Trustees to provide for young women a higher collegiate education. If they do not need it, cannot bear it, then certainly Miss Smith made a great

THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS 27 mistake in the disposition of her fortune. Permit me to say, however, that the Trustees are not troubled as yet with misgivings on that pomt. We believe there is a steadily increasing number of young women who not only give evidence of the highest order of mental talent but desire most earnestly the best means for its cultivation. Those means we seek to furnish. As far as possible with the funds at our disposal, we shall endeavor to organize a college in which women may have the same facilities for mental culture which men enjoy in New England colleges. ...

I believe this is the only college for women which insists upon substantially the same requisites for admission which have been found practicable and essential in colleges for men.... Unless a college insist upon enough preliminary work to carry out its design, it must soon be encumbered by many who might spend their time more profitably in ordinary schools.

We see no other way to secure a higher education which is not a sham except by requiring enough preliminary work to make that education feasible. Let the requirements for admission be determined, not by the number of students desired, but by the demands of the highest intellectual culture, and you have done much to put an end to the lack of system and many of the shams which have been the bane of female education... .

We have been guilty of another innovation, by adopting substantially the classical and mathematical training which has long characterized the higher education of young men....

A college, as I understand it, aims to educate by giving a student the freest access to the best thought of the best minds. It seeks to make one familiar, not merely with that portion of the human intellect which is represented in the comparatively narrow range of popular thought and tradition, but with the growth of the human intellect as a whole. Human knowledge is not fragmentary, without cohesion. You cannot take a portion of it, and thoroughly understand it separated from all other portions. You must know something of its antecedents, its connection, its growth....

If this be its proper aim, I do not see how a college for either sex can eliminate or materially abridge the study of the classics. For the languages of no other peoples have had so potent an influence in developing the human mind, or can interpret for us so clearly the varied stages of its growth....

Let us have less grammar and more Greek, less writing Greek verse, and more study of Greek poetry, but let us not in our higher institutions of learning give up the study of that language which more speedily and effectually than any other ushers us into the best thinking of the ages. ...

We have said nothing concerning the study of the Latin, because its place in female education is not so often disputed, and the advantages which it gives are more obvious. The two languages are so closely connected with human thought that the study of either cannot be omitted without serious loss in any institution which aims at the highest mental culture.

While, however, we lay such stress upon the study of the classics, we are by no means disposed to give up the modern... . In German and French we find the best thinking which any foreign literature of modern origin can offer us. These languages, therefore, enter appropriately into our curriculum. They are to be studied, not for any vain display of conversational fluency in a foreign tongue, but for the acquaintance which they give us with human thought; while, side by side with all these linguistic studies, we carry forward that study of our own mother tongue, dearer and more important to us than all the rest, and acquiring greater richness and force from the knowledge which we thus obtain of other forms of speech. We do not propose to leave young ladies in ignorance of their own language and literature for the sake of making them accomplished classic or German or French scholars. ... We propose to give still greater attention to the direct study of English than is given in many of our colleges for men. Special studies will be given in its literature; the student will be made familiar with its masterpieces and its origin; and appropriate exercises devised to give both a clearer understanding and a better expression of thought in our native tongue. ...

It would, indeed, be easy enough to show the increasing importance of mathematics in practical life; the assistance it gives the sailor and the engineer; our indebtedness to it for the most highly-prized comforts of our civilization. But it is not for its practical utility that I advocate its place in the higher education; that utility indeed, is due to the study which had no thought of practical results. Nor does it owe its place to its importance as a mental discipline, although the testimony of many generations of educators bears witness to its value as an intellectual exercise.

Rather would I justify the prominence of mathematics in the higher education, because it is the study, above all others, which gives us a knowledge of the mind in nature. To it, more than to any other source, we are indebted for what we know of physical sciences. ...

Our aim has been to so arrange the course in natural sciences

THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS 29 that young ladies may become sufficiently well acquainted with their general principles and leading facts to feel an interest in the progress of science; to make, afterward, in some chosen field, original investigations. ...

Poetry and oratory, as parts of literature, come naturally within the scope of that literary training which the college ordinarily gives, but the rest of the fine arts have usually been ignored in collegiate education. ...

In the fine arts, as in literature and science, the College should simply aim to give that broad and thorough acquaintance with mind which is in itself the best preparation for special work in any calling. If this be its aim, however, it cannot be true to its character and ignore art. Too many of the grandest creations of the human intellect are embodied in the fine arts to remain unnoticed by an institution which seeks the highest mental culture. ...

If our higher schools are to fulfill their mission, they must see to it that no unusual artistic gift be impoverished from lacking the nutriment of that broad and generous thinking on which alone it can grow to its greatest strength and beauty... . Not less, however, should the College see to it that artistic tastes are not starved and dwarfed from want of proper culture. It should have its gallery of art, where the student may be made directly familiar with the famous masterpieces; it should have facilities for musical culture in good instructors and instruments. Lectures, models, and special exercises should keep alive and develop the esthetic faculties equally with other mental talents... .

Our art gallery, we trust, will ere long be amply provided with all the material requisite for such a work....

Whatever their individual talents may be, we would have the students go forth from this institution, with broad sympathies and minds fully responsive to mental worth, wherever it exists... .

We wish it to be distinctly understood, that it is neither the aim nor the tendency of the higher education to make woman less feminine, or less attractive in those graces peculiar to her sex. It is to preserve her womanliness that this College has been founded; it is to give her the best opportunities for mental culture, and at the same time, the most favorable conditions for developing those innate capacities which have ever been the glory and charm of true womanhood....

We admit it would be an insuperable objection to the higher education of woman, if it seriously endangered her health. We admit also that many requirements of our schools have been directly opposed to known physical laws. All this we grant and still maintain there is no more danger in an intelligently arranged system of higher education for women than there is for men. Imprudence in study is subject to the same penalty as imprudence in other things, but study properly pursued is healthy. Intelligence is a benefit to the body. Educated men are the longest lived. Students, as a class, are less exposed to disease... .

While claiming for the students here no exemption from those diseases incident to human life, we are confident with the provisions we have made, they will not only be able to meet with safety all our requirements of study, but will be benefited physically, as well as mentally, by their work....

The chief business of the College, as I have stated, is mental culture. It is neither a sanitarium nor a sanctuary. It usurps neither the functions of the hospital nor the church. Its distinctive object is mental perfection. That perfection, however, can never be secured, if the College pay no attention to physical and spiritual soundness. ... There are forms of vice which are worse foes to learning than any disease which physical imprudence engenders.... For its own integrity, therefore, for the proper accomplishment of its end, the College must care for the spiritual condition of its students... .

I believe, in order to secure the best intellectual work, the College should seek directly the highest morality of its students. I believe that Christ and his words are the highest sources of virtue and spiritual life. For the sake, therefore, of the spiritual health of its students, to promote their virtue, to add to their amiability and teachableness, we would have the College distinctively and unequivocally Christian in its character. Never forgetting that its chief work is intellectual perfection, that it is not the church, but its auxiliary, we would have it, with the utmost charity for individual opinions, seek those instructors whose influence shall be on the side of Christ, and not against him, we would have it arrange, with even greater solicitude than it provides for physical health, appropriate exercises which shall tend to strengthen and increase spiritual life. Broad as the truth itself, the College should take no part in sectarian wrangles; it should be free from all denominational partisanship. Rather in the unity of the truth, which it is its aim to discover, it should receive with equal favor all who love the truth, whatever be their views concerning Hem

Religion is far more than the auxiliary of science or literature. Good morals are more than desirable aids to scientific investiga-

ADDRESS OF REV. JOHN M.GREENE 31 tion. Sound health we may consider as subordinate to mental culture, and to be sought as a means to a higher good, but we must not look at morality in this light. Morality is, indeed, an essential aid to culture, but to seek it simply for the aid it furnishes, is to destroy its power. Did the College take no other attitude with regard to Christianity and virtue than to seek them as needed restraints in the development of intellectual life, it would seek them in vain. Religion and virtue cannot exist as secondary or subordinate. If they exist at all, they must be supreme. ...

Tell us not that knowledge is all we need, or that close discrimination and keen analysis are to be valued more than faith in high ideals and lofty spiritual endeavor. Virtue is ever the crown of humanity. Only through a loyal recognition of its superior claim can the highest education be secured and perpetuated. “To virtue knowledge”’ is the sentiment upon our College seal. May the time never come when the spirit of this institution shall reverse the order of these words and make knowledge first and virtue secondary. May he whose Spirit is the strongest inspiration to virtuous living, and whose Mind is the chief stimulus to mental culture, inspire all our efforts, so that the knowledge which is here acquired may be for His glory and the advancement of His kingdom. Him we would reverently acknowledge as our greatest Teacher, as our Supreme Authority. In Him we trust; to Him we dedicate this College; and to Him be the glory and the honor forever, Amen.

After President Seelye’s address, the Reverend John M. Greene gave a brief biography of Sophia Smith, and expounded her idea and purpose in founding the College:

There never was, in Miss Smith’s design of a college, any hostility to existing institutions for the education of young women. She aimed at a real college, where women should be educated, according to their nature and needs, in the most perfect manner. She intended to furnish something above and beyond the ordinary ladies’ school, more generous and extensive in culture, more selfreliant and spontaneous in government, more home-like and natural in watch and discipline, more thorough and comprehensive in its instruction, with the greatest elegance and refinement in manners, delicacy and purity of taste, as well as benevolence and consecration of spirit, yet not unnecessarily restrictive and repressive, not gregarious. ...

She would have this College create a new era in woman’s education, and always occupy the van to lead up the steeps of knowledge higher and explore the fields wider. Its spirit should be progressive. It should teach not only what has been discovered, but ‘‘such other studies as coming times may develop or demand for the education of women and the progress of the race.”

His Excellency, Governor Gaston, then gave the congratulations of the Commonwealth:

I did not come here for the purpose of participating by speech in the exercises of this occasion, for I know that those who have devoted their lives to the cause of learning could better do it. But I did come here for the purpose of testifying, by my presence, that I look upon the establishment of this institution as an important event in the history of education in Massachusetts, and that I recognize the potent influence it must have on the cause of learning throughout the country....

The education and elevation of woman are the natural result of the progress of Christian civilization. And especially, I think, it is quite natural and quite in accordance with the logic of events, that institutions like this should grow up in Massachusetts soil. I should not represent Massachusetts, unless I expressed my approval of it....

The Reverend Andrew P. Peabody, S.T.D., as a representative of Harvard College, made the closing address, and said in part: \

I will detain you by a very few words. But I wish to have it felt that education for man or woman has its prime importance in the quantity of mind, or soul, of character with which it endows the person educated....

The least things, the ordinary work of everyday life, the common domestic duties which it is the office and privilege of woman to perform, are all made great and noble by whatever enlarges the mind and elevates the character. There is nothing of Latin or Greek, or classical learning, nothing of high mathematical, of esthetic, or scientific culture, which cannot be absorbed into everyday life, which will not render the offices and duties of everyday life more pleasant, which will not make the woman more in every respect. 6 ,

But here let it be said, that comparatively little is done for character, unless the character be conformed to the motto:

AN ANONYMOUS CRITIC 83

“To virtue add knowledge.” This expresses the whole, — faith, Christian integrity, high Christian purpose, then knowledge. Knowledge is a valuable and precious addition; but without virtue and piety, there is no knowledge that is not less than half knowledge. And it is these alone that can give balance to mind and character, and that can make the man or woman a multiplier for every word and every deed, a multiplier on whose largeness and fullness the quantity and value of the life-work must depend.

But I have already occupied too much time at this late hour, and I would only express my earnest hope that the promise of this hour may be richly fulfilled, and offer congratulations and good wishes from our oldest seminary of learning, which I represent, to this new seminary just entering upon its career.

Whether the great expectations and promises of the inaugural and dedicatory addresses would be fulfilled was a question which few were disposed to answer affirmatively. To some they seemed absurdly pretentious. In a series of anonymous letters published during that summer in the Northampton Journal the writer thus addresses President Seelye:

To begin with, I remonstrate against your continuance in the position of a President of a female college. You are a masculine impertinence. I mean no personal disrespect. I only apply the logic of current ideas, together with my own knowledge of the fact that there are women who, as scholars and educators, are much more equal to it than you are. I say the same of Professor Josiah Clarke, though he is the most excellent of men and capable of teachers. The inexorable fact will not down, that he is not a woman. Both you and he are absurdly out of place at the head of a female college. ... :

Do what you will with the very limited means at your disposal, you can with difficulty take more than a second-rate position, and your subjection to the demands of the students, which cannot be escaped anywhere, is likely to put you even lower than that. In no respect have you the means to do what you propose, and the pretension with which you speak on the strength of the little with which you start, seems to me wholly unwarranted.

He objected still more strongly to the courses of study as unsuitable for women.

In the same newspaper, the letters of this anonymous critic were endorsed by a female physician, who criticizes the higher education of women on physiological grounds:

Their nervous systems are wrecked by a process of stimulation for examinations, exhibitions, and prizes, and by a régime which ignores the great natural laws which make them, between the ages of fifteen and forty-five, essentially a separate and higher order of beings than men, destined for a purpose wholly feminine; and just so far does she fail in her subsequent years, as mother, to do her allotted work in contributing to the number of strong, healthy, well-trained, temperate, and well-mothered men.