Part 4 (1/2)
It is for this eagerness in friendshi+p, this sympathetic and helpful interest in the lives of others that Mrs Pale days les and airls ere hampered by inadequate preparation, or by poverty Her husband tells us that, ”When a girl had once been spoken to, however briefly, her face and name were fixed on a memory where each incident of her subsequent career found its place beside the original record” And he gives the following incident as told by a superintendent of education
”Once after she had been speaking in my city, she asked raduates cahty of the to each which showed that she knew her Some she called by their first names; others she asked about their work, their families, or whether they had succeeded in plans about which they had evidently consulted her The looks of pleased surprise which flashed over the faces of those girls I cannot forget They revealed toof Miss Freeh she see unusual, and for her I suppose it was usual, her own face reflected the happiness of the girls and showed a serene joy in creating that happiness”
Her husband, in his analysis of her character, has a re this very quality of disinterestedness He says:
”Herearly, the identification of herself with others grew into a constant habit, of unusual range and delicacy Most persons will agree that sympathy is the predominantly feminine virtue, and that she who lacks it cannot ood by any collection of other worthy qualities In a true woman sympathy directs all else To find a virtue equally central in a e These also a woman should possess, as a man too should be sympathetic; but in her they take a subordinate place, subservient to omnipresent sympathy Within these limits the ampler they are, the nobler the woman
”I believe Mrs Palmer had a full share of both these hly fe huuises
Her love of plainness and distaste for affectation were forot nificance heightened by her eager emotion, and their picturesqueness by her happy artistry Of course the warmth of her sympathy cut off all inclination to falsehood for its usual selfish purpose But against generous untruth she was not so well guarded Kindness was the first thing Tact too, once become a habit, made adaptation to the mind addressed a constant concern She had extraordinary skill in stuffing kindness with truth; and into a resisting er bulk of unwelcome fact than any one I have known But that insistence on colorless statement which in our ti men, she did not feel Lapses from exactitude which do not separate person from person she easily condoned”
Surely the e could be no better exee Whether his readers, especially the woree with Professor Pale ”take a subordinate place, subservient to omnipresent syraduated froan, and 1879 when she went to Wellesley, Miss Freeht with marked success, first at a seminary in the town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where she had charge of the Greek and Latin; and later as assistant principal of the high school at Saginaw in Northern Michigan Here she was especially successful in keeping order a unruly pupils
The suree, and although she never completed the thesis for this work, the university conferred upon her the degree of PhD in 1882, the first year of her presidency at Wellesley
In this sa at Ann Arbor, she received her first invitation to teach at Wellesley Mr Durant offered her an instructorshi+p in Matheain invited, this ti, and Miss Freeinaould not leave them In June, 1879, the sister died, and in July Miss Freeman became the head of the Departe of twenty-four
Mr Durant's attention had first been drawn to her by her good friend President Angell, and he had evidently followed her career as a teacher with interest There seems to have been no abatement in his approval after she went to Wellesley We are told that they did not always agree, but this does not seem to have affected their mutual esteem In her first year, Mr Durant is said to have remarked to one of the trustees, ”You see that little dark-eyed girl? She will be the next president of Wellesley” And before he died, he made his wishes definitely known to the board
At aof the trustees, on November 15, 1881, Miss Free president for the year She was then twenty-six years of age and the youngest professor in the college In 1882 she becaroas as noranization which achieved its most important result in the evolution of the Academic Council ”In earlier days,” we are told by Professor Palmer, ”teachers of every rank s, to discuss such details of government or instruction as were not already settled by Mr Durant” But even then the faculty was built up out of depart with a coether under a head professor and constituted a single unit,” and, as Mrs Guild tells us, Miss Free the heads of departments as the abler andher plans before the whole faculty at its s From this inner circle of heads of departradually evolved It now includes the president, the dean, professors, associate professors (unless exempted by a special tenure of office), and such other officers of instruction and adiven this responsibility by vote of the trustees
Miss Free committees of the faculty on iraduate work, preparatory schools, etc”
This faculty, over which Miss Free in ree those qualities and virtues of the true pioneer: courage, patience, originality, resourcefulness, and vision There were strong groups from Ann Arbor and Oberlin and Mt Holyoke, and there was a fourth group of ”pioneer scholars, not wholly college bred, but enriched hatever a or char honor and revere”
With the organization of the faculty cae work Entrance examinations were made more severe
Greek had been first required for entrance in 1881 A certificate of ad exactly what the candidate had accoe Courses of study were standardized and sianized, and instead of the daily classes, to which no serious study had been given, two hours a week of ”examinable instruction” were substituted In this year also the gymnasiuent of Harvard
Miss Free preparatory schools which should be ”feeders” for Wellesley was of the greatest ih schools were the girls allowed to join classes which fitted boys for college”
When Miss Freeman became president, Dana Hall was the only Wellesley preparatory school in existence; but in 1884, through her efforts, an important school was opened in Philadelphia, and before the end of her presidency, she had been instruanization of fifteen other schools in different parts of the country, officered for the raduates
In this saanized Its history, bound up as it is with the student life, will be given et that Miss Freeave the association its initial impulse and established its broad type
In 1884 also, we find Wellesley petitioning before the committee on education at the State House in Boston, to extend its holdings froaining the petition
On June 22, 1885, the corner stone of the Decennial Cottage, afterwards called Noruiven by the alumnae, aided by Professor Horsford, Mr E A Goodenow and Mr Elisha S Converse of the Board of Trustees Norua was for many years known as the President's House, for here Miss Freeman, Miss Shafer, and Mrs Irvine lived In the academic year 1901-02, when Miss Hazard built the house for herself and her successors, the president's a was set free for other purposes
In 1886, Norua was opened, and in June of that year, the Library Festival was held to celebrate Professor Horsford's e These included the endowment of the Library, an appropriation for scientific apparatus, and a system of pensions
In a letter to the trustees, dated January 1, 1886, the donor explains that the annual appropriation for the library shall be for the salaries of the librarian and assistants, for books for the library, and for binding and repairs That the appropriation for scientific apparatus shall go towardthe needs of the departy And that the System of Pensions shall include a Sabbatical Grant, and a ”Salary Augment and Pension” By the Sabbatical Grant, the heads of certain departments are able to take a year of travel and residence abroad every seventh year on half salary The donor stipulated, however, that ”the offices conterants and pensions must be held by ladies”
In his memorable address on this occasion, Professor Horsford outlines his ideal for the library which he generously endowed: