have felt in their own experience the value | of knowledge, and have generously done what they could to give it to others. The liberal and progressive idea which Smith College embodies was conceived by a New England woman, Miss Sophia Smith.

Miss Smith was born in Hatfield, Mass., August 27, 1796, where she spent the greater part of her life. The family was not conspicuous in church or state; but it furnishes some of the best illustrations of New England character and success. Her grandfather-born in Hatfield-was a commissioned officer of the common wealth during the French and Indian wars, and his six sons also became prominent and substantial citizens of Hatfield. All of them were noted for their thrift and industry. New Englanders would call them "forehanded." One of them, Oliver Smith, never married, but amassed a large fortune and bequeathed it to establish the Smith Charities a unique system of benevolence, now holding over a million of dollars, and distinguished especially for the inducements it offers to matrimony in the form of liberal marriage portions for worthy young men and women. It is a noticeable fact that the large fortunes which were acquired by the members of this family were mainly devoted to provide for others the peculiar blessings which the donors themselves had never enjoyed.

Though Miss Smith lived in a family and community by no means devoid of intelligence, yet she shared with her generation in those deprivations which arose from the scantiness of the provision for the education of women. Her intellectual advantages were very limited, and she received little instruction beyond what the primary schools of her native town afforded. Though she faithfully improved all her opportunities for gaining knowledge, and in later life became a great reader, yet, in her youth, she knew little of books except the Bible. Her knowledge of arts was confined principally to those which were considered essential to a good housewife. The scenes and pursuits common to

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any quiet country village were the chief educating forces of her life. One who knew her well says of her: "She was a woman of discriminating, comprehensive mind; no fickleness, no visions, no vagaries; firm and decided in her natural and her Christian character, yet full of charity and good-will toward all. There was not a particle of bigotry or sectarianism about her."

There was little, however, it must be confessed, either in herself or her surroundings, which would seem prolific of great enterprises. Her father was not rich like his brother Oliver, and at his death, left the greater portion of his property to his two sons, according to a prevailing custom; but he gave enough to his two daughters to maintain. them, with close economy, in respectable circumstances After her sister's death, Miss Smith continued to live alone in the old homestead. When she was forty she became quite deaf, and that infirmity tended to make her life still more isolated; yet personal deprivation seemed to quicken rather than to deaden her benevolent im

MISS SOPHIA SMITH.

pulses, and her simple and unostentatious life was ennobled by many plans and endeavors for the good of others.

At the age of sixty-five, very unexpectedly to herself, her unmarried brother Austin bequeathed to her a large fortune, which,

like his uncle, he had amassed by industry and sagacity in his native town.

that conscientiousness which was tinctive feature of Puritan character, her chief solicitude seemed to be how she could best dispose of her property for the glory of God and the good of man.

Fortunately, her confidential adviser at this period was her pastor, the Rev. John M. Green, a cultivated gentleman, whose broad views and scholarly attainments were of great assistance. With his aid, she wrought out a scheme for the higher education of woman, which, for its faith in female capacity, and its broad and liberal provisions, marks an era in our educational history. When she was fully satisfied of the wisdom of her plans, she bequeathed the great bulk of her property for their realization; not forgetting, however, her native town, to which she left seventy-five thousand dollars for the endowment of a secondary school.

There is a good deal that is heroic in the spectacle of this lonely woman, shut out in a great measure by her infirmity and secluded life from so many human interests and pleasures, quietly elaborating a plan by which she could broaden and enrich the lives of multitudes of her sex, and give increased dignity and power to woman in the generations to come.

"Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,
Finish what I begin,

And all I fail of, win."

In her will, Miss Smith defines the object of the college to be, "the establishment

SMITH COLLEGE AND NORTHAMPTON, WITH MOUNTS
HOLYOKE AND TOM IN THE DISTANCE.

and maintenance of an institution for the higher education of young women, with the design to furnish them means and facilities for education equal to those which are afforded in our colleges to young men."

With the sagacity and unselfish foresight which marked her decisions, Miss Smith determined not to make the college merely subsidiary to her native town, but selected for its location Northampton, that famous old town whose beauties have often been remarked, and which one of our poets thus describes:

"Queen-village of the meads, Fronting the sunrise and in beauty throned, With jeweled homes around her lifted brow, And coronal of ancient forest trees

Northampton sits, and rules her pleasant realm."

In addition to its remarkable natural attractions, Northampton has peculiar advantages as a location for such a college. Grouped about it, within short distance, are Amherst College, the Massachusetts Agricultural College, Mount Holyoke Seminary, and Williston Seminary. Through the proximity of these different literary institutions, their extensive art and scientific collections, libraries, and other educational resources may be so combined and practically used as to secure many of the advantages of a large and well-endowed university without

INTERIOR OF STUDY-ROOM.

for practical uses which mark their construction; while the preparation of the curriculum bears an equally strong impress of broad and liberal ideas as to what a thorough education for women should comprise.

Perhaps we cannot indicate more clearly the character of the intellectual culture which this college is designed to furnish, than by giving a few quota

a truly collegiate training.

After this wise choice of a location for the college, Miss Smith finished her work by appointing a board of trustees to execute the provisions of her will. These she selected with great care, endeavoring to bring together a body of men, who by their experience and skill in educational and practical affairs should be able successfully to realize her ideal in the organization of the new college. Soon after these arrangements were perfected, Miss Smith quietly passed to her rest, June 12, 1870, aged seventy-four years.

The following year Smith College received its charter with full powers "to grant such honorary testimonials, and confer such honors, degrees and diplomas, as are granted or conferred by any university, college, or seminary in the United States." This was the first charter of the kind ever issued by the commonwealth of Massachusetts to an institution for the education of women.

In 1873 Rev. L. Clark Seelye, D. D., at that time Professor in Amherst, was elected President of Smith College. After a careful inspection of the principal educational institutions in this country and in Europe, and consultation with leading educators and architects, he reported to the trustees plans for building, and courses of study, which were adopted. In the erection of the buildings, his constant and wise supervision, together with the suggestions of a fine artistic taste, aided greatly in producing the happy combination of elegance with fitness

address.

He thus emphasizes the fact that Smith College is not to be a preparatory school, or to be encumbered with one.

"I believe this is the only female college that insists upon substantially the same requisites for admission which have been found practicable and essential in male colleges. Long

experience has already taught male colleges the necessity if they would be true to their ideal, of We do not see how female colleges can be exempt insisting upon thorough preparation for their work. from this necessity, if they are to give young women similar advantages. Women, they say, jump to conclusions; but can they jump over grammars, begin, on an equal footing with our best gifted sex, spelling-books, arithmetics, and geometries, and the study of the higher branches of literature and science? If the female intellect be subject to the ordinary laws which control the acquisition of knowledge, then it must have the lower before it can receive the higher education. requirements for admission be determined, not by the number of the 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.

Let the

"It has been the custom in most female colleges to combine preparatory and collegiate work. This may at times be necessary; but there are obvious disadvantages in this plan Children

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of either sex, at the age when their preparatory collegiate work should commence, are in special Where the want of parental influence and care. home, they need, we think, an institution differently lack of good schools necessitates their absence from constituted from a college. They require greater restraints and more personal supervision. It is difficult to wisely adjust the requirements of one institution to the varied ages and capacities of preparatory and collegiate classes. The regulations which are beneficial to the one are injurious to the

other. The greater number of preparatory students are apt to tax disproportionately the energies of the teachers, and the advanced scholars suffer in consequence of it. Great as are the objections on the score of government and personal care, there is a still greater objection to the plan in its effect on the popular estimate of a higher education. It directly fosters the notion that the name of culture is sufficient. Young people, who are apt to be easily satisfied with the semblance of things, frequently feel that a few months of preparatory work in a college are sufficient, and retire to enjoy their honors."

Referring to the fact that Smith College gives to the classics and mathematics that prominence they long have had in the higher mental culture, President Seelye maintains that their place in a college curriculum is not due to chance or custom, but to a true philosophy of the growth of the

human intellect.

"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.

If this be its proper aim, I do not see how a college 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."

As great objection has frequently been made to the study of Greek in female colleges, and as it is not required for admission to any other, President Seelye devotes considerable space in his address to show its historic connection with the growth of our civilization. He closes his argument thus:

"I will not now insist upon that mental discipline which the mere study of the Grecian language is so well calculated to impart; upon the advantage which it has in a system of education from having so many appliances in the dictionaries, grammars, and commentaries which ingenious and able instructors have given, so that a study of Greek brings us into communion with the best scholarship, and the acutest intellects of all European countries; nor will I insist upon the testimony which comes from the great majority of the ablest educators, that the youth who have passed through classic studies make greater progress in all others than those who have had no classic training; upon the fact that the men most eminent in literature and art have been trained under classic influences; all these, and many other arguments for classic study, I pass by unnoticed. I would simply justify its place in our college curriculum upon the relation which it has had and ever must have to the growth of the human intellect. On this ground alone I maintain it must always be a prominent study in any institution which seeks to give the most extensive acquaintance with mind. We grant that Greek has often been taught so that the time of the student has been wasted, and the intellect deadened rather than quickened; we grant

that there has been a tendency to grammatical analysis in classic study and to wearisome exercises, as irksome as they are useless; we grant that classic study has not infrequently been made the end, instead of the means of a higher education. 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."

In thus advocating classical study, the importance of the modern languages is also recognized.

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66 *** While, however, we lay much stress upon the study of the classics, we are by no means disposed to give up the modern languages. Indeed, we should consider ourselves justified in holding fast to the classics on account of the facility which they give us in mastering other tongues. Through Athens and Rome is still the shortest route to German, French, or English thought; and as two ancient languages more than any other acquaint us with the human mind, so there are two modern languages, aside from our own, which stand in a similar relation. 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. Neither do we propose to leave young ladies in ignorance the sake of making them accomplished classic, or of their own language and literature for German, or French, scholars. English by all means! But that knowledge is being gained most effectually by every translation which we make from other languages, by all the insight which we gain into the meaning of those words from which so many of our own are derived, by all the light which is thrown upon the origin and construction of our speech. The English must necessarily be the study of life. more important, while we are in a state of pupilage, which are to be found in foreign languages, and to make us acquainted with those aids to its study which we can learn more readily from accomplished teachers. In addition to these aids, however, we

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Know

It is therefore the

propose to give greater attention to the direct study of English than is given in many of our male colleges; 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."

Mathematical study for young women is thus defended:

"What classic study is to literature, mathematical is to scientific. As it is impossible to thoroughly understand the mind in books without the one, so it is impossible to understand the mind in nature without the other.

"It would, indeed, be easy enough to show the increasing importance of mathematics to 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."

In contending for these distinctive features of a college course, President Seelye does not ignore the claims of the fine arts:

"A college, if it be true to its character, can make no department of knowledge a specialty. It is not a school to make musicians, painters, or sculptors, any more than it is to make poets, novelists or astron

VIEW IN THE ART GALLERY.

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training which it gives may be better fitted than any other for future eminence in any of these professions. 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. The college 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 æsthetic faculties."

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Those who appreciate the relations of collegiate studies to the great circle of knowledge and to the human intellect, will perceive at once, from the ideas which this address expresses, how great an advance in the education of women Smith College

marks.

Assuming that there is one true philosophy of mind wherever it exists, the course of study is arranged as far as possible on a philosophic basis rather than upon one of accommodation to any imagined deficiencies of women.

The position is firmly taken, that the studies of women have long enough been appointed at hap-hazard, according to fashion or foolish whim, and that if she is to receive a thorough culture, she must be educated according to those laws which

control all rational beings. It is maintained that those studies which have taken their place in the higher education of man, because philosophy and experience alike show them to be the surest and most expeditious means to reach the greatest intelligence, are just as valuable to woman in her efforts to attain the same completeness of mental development.

Smith College stands alone in this position, and is the only institution for women that insists upon substan