Famous Givers and Their Gifts

These summer schools from May to October were of comparatively little worth. All children brought their work, braiding, sewing, and knitting, and were taught to read and write, and to have "good manners," according to the accepted notions of the time. "At first arithmetic and geography were taught only in the winter, for a knowledge of numbers or ability to cast accounts was deemed quite superfluous for girls. When Colburn's Mental Arithmetic was introduced, some of our mothers who desired to study it were told derisively, 'If you expect to become widows, and have to carry pork to market, it may be well enough to study mental arithmetic.'

"The first school in New England," says Mrs. Stow, "designed exclusively for the instruction of girls in branches not taught in the common schools, is said to have been an evening school conducted by William Woodbridge, who was a graduate of Yale in 1780. His theme on graduation was, 'Improvement in Female Education.' Reducing his theory to practice, in addition to his daily occupation he gave his evenings to the instruction of girls in Lowth's Grammar, Guthrie's Geography, and the art of composition. The popular sentiment deemed him visionary. 'Who,' it said, 'shall cook our food and mend our clothes if the girls are to be taught philosophy and astronomy?' In Waterford, N.Y., in 1820, occurred the public examination of a young lady in geometry. It was the first instance of the kind in the State, and perhaps in the country, and called forth a storm of ridicule. Her teacher was Mrs. Emma Willard."

Sophia Smith's girlhood was passed during this indifference or opposition to education for women. When she was fourteen, in 1810, she went to school in Hartford, Conn., for twelve weeks; and four years later, at eighteen, she was for a short time a pupil in the Hopkins Academy in Hadley. She studied diligently with her quick, eager mind, and was thankful for these crumbs of knowledge, though she lamented through her life that her opportunities had been so limited.

Year by year went by in the quiet New England home, her sister Harriet taking upon herself the burden of household cares and business, as Sophia was frail, and at forty had become very deaf. Her mind had been broadened, and her heart kept tender to every sorrow, by her Christian faith and devotion to duty. The town of Hatfield had capable ministers, who were intellectual as well as spiritual helpers, and Sophia Smith enjoyed cultivated minds.

"By reading mostly," says the Rev. John M. Greene of Lowell, Mass., "she kept herself familiar with the common events and occurrences of the day. Probably what she and others called a calamity was a blessing to her. She had fortitude to bear the trial, and the wisdom to improve the reflective and meditative powers of her mind, far beyond what the fashionable and gossiping woman attains. Deafness is an admirable remedy for insincerity, shallowness, and foolish talking. It sifts what we hear, and compels us to try to say what is worth attention."

Miss Smith attended the services of the Congregational Church, of which she was a member; and though she could not hear a word of the sermon perhaps, she felt accountable for the influence of her presence. She loved the Bible, and would quote the words of Sir William Jones: "The Bible contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they have been written." She had the strength of character of the typical New England woman, yet possessing gentle manners and most refined tastes.

She loved nature; and in Hatfield, with its magnificent elms and beautiful river, Miss Smith had much to enjoy. Some of these great elms measure twenty-eight feet in circumference, three yards from the ground.

In this charming scenery, reading her books, and doing good as she had opportunity, Miss Smith was growing old. Her sister Harriet had died a little before the time of our Civil War, and the lonely woman bent her energies towards helping other aching hearts. She worked with her own hands to aid the soldiers and their families, and when she had the means used it generously.

Her brother Austin died March 8, 1861; and very unexpectedly Sophia Smith became the possessor, through his gift, of over $200,000. "God permitted him," says the Rev. Mr. Greene, to "gather the gold, preparing all the while the heart of a devout and Christlike sister to dispense it."

Miss Smith at once felt her great responsibility. Some persons living all their lives most carefully would have rejoiced at the opportunity to buy comforts, – a carriage for daily riding, attractive clothes, more books, or take a journey to the Old World or elsewhere. But Miss Smith said at once, "This is a large property put into my hands, but I am only the steward of God in respect to it." She very wisely sought the advice of her pastor, the Rev. John M. Greene, a man of broad scholarship and generous nature. Dr. Greene was a lover of books; and finding so much happiness for himself in a student's life, he rightly thought that woman should have the bliss of possessing knowledge for her own sake, as well as for her increased influence in the world.

Miss Smith desired so to give as would accord with the wishes of her brother Austin were he alive, but could not be sure what were his preferences. She wished to give the money for education; for that was her great joy, mingled with regret that her way, as that of every other woman at that time, had been so hedged up by mistaken public opinion.

She longed to build a college for women, even when learned doctors wrote books to show that girls would be ruined in health by study, and that they were mentally inferior to the other sex. It was said that women would not care for higher education; that if they went to college they would not marry, and would cease to be attractive to men; that in any event the intellectual standard would be lowered if women were admitted to any college.

Miss Smith said, "There is no justice in denying women equal educational advantages with men. Women are the natural educators and physicians of the race, and they ought to be fitted for their work." When the foolish and untrue argument was used, that educated women do not make good wives and mothers, Miss Smith would say, "Then they are wrongly educated – some law is violated in the process."

Miss Smith had read history, and she knew that the Aspasias and the De Maintenons are the women who have had the strongest power with men. She knew that an educated woman is the companion of her children and their intellectual guide. She knew that women ought to be interested in the welfare of the state, rather than in a round of parties and amusements. She had no love for display, though she had taste in dress and in her home; and she longed to see all women have a purpose in life other than frivolity and pleasure-seeking. But Miss Smith feared that $200,000 would not be sufficient to found a college for women, and gave up the idea. Two months after her brother died she made her will, giving $75,000 for an Academy at Hatfield, $100,000 to a Deaf Mute Institution in Hatfield, and $50,000 to a Scientific School in connection with Amherst College. Six years later Mr. John Clarke provided a deaf mute institution for the Commonwealth, and Miss Smith was at liberty to turn her fortune into another channel.

The old idea of a real college for women, a project as dear to Dr. Greene as to herself, was again upon her mind. She read all she could find upon the subject. She loved and believed in her own sex, and knew the low intellectual standard of the ordinary boarding-school. She said, "We should educate the whole woman, physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual." She insisted that the education given in the college which she hoped to found should be equal to that obtained in a college for men.

"There is a good deal that is heroic," says a writer in Scribner's Monthly, May, 1877, "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."

In July, 1868, Miss Smith made her last will, stating the object for which she wished her money to be used: "The establishment 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 for young men."

"The formal wording," says M. A. Jordan in the New England Magazine for January, 1887, "hardly tells the story of self-denial, painful industry, commonplace restriction and isolation, that lies behind it in the lives of this brother and sister."

Miss Smith wished the college to be Christian, "not Congregational," she said, "or Baptist, or Methodist, or Episcopalian, but Christian." She hoped the Bible would be studied in the Hebrew and Greek in her college, so that the students could know for themselves the truth of the translations which we have to-day.

Miss Smith gave about $400,000 for the founding of Smith College, – the fortune left by her brother had increased, – with the express condition that not more than half the amount should be used in buildings and grounds. It required much urging to allow the college to bear her name. After counselling with friends, Miss Smith decided that the college should be built at Northampton, which George Bancroft thought "the most beautiful town in New England, where no one can live without imbibing love for the place," with the provision that the town should raise $25,000, which was done. Northampton seemed preferable to Hatfield, because more easy of access, and possessed of a public library and other intellectual attractions. After her brother's money came into her hands, Miss Smith continued to economize for herself, but gave generously to others. Often in her journal she wrote, "I feel the responsibility of this great property."

She subscribed $5,000 to the Massachusetts Agricultural College if it should be located at Northampton, $300 for a library for the young people's Literary Association in Hatfield, $1,000 towards the organ in the church, $30,000 for the endowment of a professorship in Andover Theological Seminary, and to many other objects. "She gave to them all," says Dr. Greene, "Home Missions and Foreign Missions, the Bible Society and Tract Society, the Seamen and Freedmen, – to all the objects presented. In her journal she writes: 'I desire to give where duty calls.' … Before her death she had great satisfaction and comfort in her Andover donation… When she was considering whether or not to make her donation to Andover Theological Seminary, Professor Park asked her if he might consult a mutual friend, an eminent lawyer and business man, about it. With uplifted hands and almost a rebuking gesture she replied, 'No, no; I'll make up my mind myself.' One of her most intimate friends, a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary, remarked, 'I never was acquainted with a person who felt more deeply than Miss Smith her accountability to God.'"

Miss Smith's life declined pleasantly and happily. In 1866 she wrote in her journal: "Sunday afternoon. It is a most splendid day; have been to church, although I have not heard. I feel the presence of Him who is everywhere, and who is all love to him that seeketh Him and serves Him… I resolve with His blessing to give myself unreservedly anew to Him, to watch over my thoughts and words, and to strive after a more perfect life in all my dealings with my fellow-men, and strive to make this great affliction [deafness] a means of sanctification, and make it a means of improvement in the divine life."

May 9, 1870, she made her last record in her journal: "I resolve to begin anew to strive to be better in everything; to guard against carelessness in talking; to strive for more patience and sense, and to strive for more earnestness, to do more good; to strive against selfishness, and to cultivate good feelings in all; to live to God's glory, that others, seeing our good works, may glorify our Father in heaven."

Such golden words might well be cut on the walls of Smith College, that the students might imitate the resolve of the founder, who believed, as she said in her will, "that all education should be for the glory of God and the good of man… It is not my design to render my sex any the less feminine, but to develop as fully as may be the powers of womanhood, and furnish women with the means of usefulness, happiness, and honor, now withheld from them."

One month after writing in her journal, June 12, 1870, Sophia Smith passed to her reward, at the age of seventy-five. She was in her usual health till four days before her death, when she was prostrated by paralysis. She was buried in the Hatfield Cemetery under a simple monument of her own erecting. She had provided for a better and more enduring monument in Smith College, and she knew that no other was needed. The seventy-five-thousand-dollar academy at Hatfield would also keep her in blessed remembrance.

The thought of Miss Smith, after her death, began to shape itself into brick and stone. Thirteen acres of ground were purchased for the site of the college, commanding a view of the beautiful valley of the Connecticut River; and the main building, of brick and freestone, was erected in secular Gothic style, the interior finished in unpainted native woods. On the large stained-glass window over the entrance of the building is a copy of the college seal, a woman radiant with light, with the motto underneath in Greek which expressed the desire of the founder: "Add to your virtue knowledge."

The homestead which was on the estate when purchased was made over for a home for the students, as the plan of small dwellings to accommodate from twenty to fifty young women had been decided upon in preference to several hundreds gathered under one roof.

The right person for the right place had been chosen as president, the Rev. Dr. L. Clark Seelye, at that time a professor in Amherst College. He had made a careful inspection of the principal educational institutions both in this country and in Europe, and his plans as to buildings and courses of study were adopted.

Smith College was dedicated July 14, 1875, and opened to students in the following September. President Seelye in his admirable inaugural address said, "One hundred years ago a female college would have been simply an object of ridicule… You have seen machines invented to do the work which formerly absorbed the greater portion of woman's time and strength. Factories have supplanted the spinning-wheel and distaff. Sewing-machines will stitch in an hour more than our grandmothers could in a day. I need not ask you what we are to do with force which has thus been set free. The answer comes clearly from an enlightened public opinion, saying, 'Put it to higher uses; train it to think correctly; to work intelligently; to do its share in bringing the human mind to the perfection for which it was designed.'"

Dr. Seelye emphasized the fact that this college was to give women "an education as high and thorough and complete as that which young men receive in Harvard, Yale, and Amherst." "I believe," he said, "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." He disapproved of a preparatory department, and other colleges for women have wisely followed the standard and example of Smith. Secondary schools have seen the necessity of a higher fitting for their students, that they may enter our best colleges.

Greek and the higher mathematics were made an essential part of the course. To this, exception was taken; and Dr. Seelye was frequently asked, "What use have young women of Greek?" He answered, "A study of Greek brings us into communion with the best scholarship and the acutest intellects of all European countries… It 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."

Dr. Seelye favored the teaching of music and art, but not to the exclusion of other things, unless one had special gifts along those lines. "Musical entertainments," he said, "have generally been the grand parade-ground of female boarding-schools. All of us are familiar with the many wearisome hours which young ladies ordinarily are required to spend at the piano, – time enough to master most of the sciences and languages; and all of us are familiar with the remark, heard so frequently after school-days are over, 'I cannot play; I am out of practice.'"

President Seelye had to meet all sorts of objections to higher education for women. When he told a friend that Greek was to be studied in Smith College, the friend replied, "Nonsense! girls cannot bear such a strain;" "and yet his own daughters," says Dr. Seelye, "were going, with no remonstrance from him, night after night, through the round of parties and fashionable amusements in a great city. We question whether any greater expenditure of physical force is necessary to master Greek than to endure ordinary fashionable amusements. Woman's health is endangered far more by balls and parties than by schools. For one ruined by over-study, we can point to a hundred ruined by dainties and dances."

Another said to President Seelye, "Think of a wife who forced you to talk perpetually about metaphysics, or to listen to Greek and Latin quotations!" This would be much more agreeable conversation to some men than to hear about dress and servants and gossip.

When Smith College was opened in 1875, there were many applicants; but with requirements for admission the same as at Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Amherst, only fifteen could pass the examinations. The next year eighteen were accepted.

Each year the number has increased, till in the year 1895 there were 875 students at Smith College. The professorships are about equally divided between men and women. The chair of Greek, on the John M. Greene foundation, "is founded in honor of the Rev. John M. Greene, D.D., who first suggested to Miss Smith the idea of the college, and was her confidential adviser in her bequest," says the College Calendar.

There are three courses of study, each extending through four years, – the classical course leading to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, the scientific to Bachelor of Science, the literary to Bachelor of Letters. The maximum of work allowed to any student in a regular course is sixteen hours of recitation each week.

Year by year Miss Smith's noble gift has been supplemented by the gifts of others.

In 1878 the Lilly Hall of Science was dedicated, the gift of Mr. Alfred Theodore Lilly. This building contains lecture rooms, and laboratories for chemistry, physics, geology, zoölogy, and botany. In 1881 Mr. Winthrop Hillyer gave the money to erect the Hillyer Art Gallery, which now contains an extensive collection of casts, engravings, and paintings, and is provided with studios. One corridor of engravings and an alcove of original drawings were given by the Century Company. Mr. Hillyer gave an endowment of $50,000 for his gallery. A music-hall was also erected in 1881.

The observatory, given by two donors unknown to the public, has an eleven-inch refracting telescope, a spectroscope, siderial clock, chronograph, a portable telescope, and a meridian circle, aperture four inches.

The alumnæ gymnasium contains a swimming-bath, and a large hall for gymnastic exercises and in-door sport. A large greenhouse has been erected to aid in botanical work, with an extensive collection of tropical plants.

There are eight or more dwelling-houses for the students, each presided over by a competent woman, where the scholars find cheerful, happy homes. The Tenney House, bequeathed by Mrs. Mary A. Tenney, for experiments in co-operative housekeeping, enables the students to adapt their expenses to their means, if they choose to make the experiment together. Tuition is $100 a year, with $300 for board and furnished room in the college houses.

Smith College is fortunately situated. Opposite the grounds is the beautiful Forbes Library, with an endowment of $300,000 for books alone, and not far away a public library with several thousand volumes, and a permanent endowment of $50,000 for its increase. The students have access to the collections at Amherst College and the Massachusetts Agricultural College, also at Mount Holyoke College, about seven miles distant.

There are no secret societies at Smith. "Instead of hazing newcomers," says President Seelye, "the second or sophomore class will give them a reception in the art-gallery, introduce them to the older students with the courteous hospitality which good breeding dictates."

There are several literary and charitable societies in Smith College. Great interest is taken in the working-girls of New York, and in the college settlement of that city.

None of the evil effects predicted for young women in college have been realized. "Some of our best scholars," says President Seelye, "have steadily improved in health since entering college. Some who came so feeble that it was doubtful whether they could remain a term have become entirely well and strong… We have had frequently professors from male institutions to give instruction; and their testimony is to the effect that the girls study better than the boys, and that the average scholarship is higher."

"The general atmosphere of the college is one of freedom," writes Louise Walston, in the "History of Higher Education in Massachusetts," by George Gary Bush, Ph.D. "The written code consists of one law, – Lights out at ten; the unwritten is that of every well-regulated community, and to the success of this method of discipline every year is a witness.

"This freedom is not license… The system of attendance upon recitation at Smith is in this respect unique. It is distinctively a 'no-cut' system. In the college market that commodity known as indulgences is not to be found; and no student is expected to absent herself from lecture or recitation except for good reasons, the validity of which, however, is left to her own conscience. Knowledge is offered as a privilege, and is so received."

As Miss Smith directed in her will, "the Holy Scriptures are daily and systematically read and studied in the college." A chapel service is held in the morning of week-days, and a vesper service on Sunday. Students attend the churches of their preference in Northampton.

All honor to Sophia Smith, the quiet Christian woman, who, forgetting herself, became a blessing to tens of thousands by her gifts. At the request of the trustees of Smith College, Dr. Greene is preparing a volume on her life and character.

All honor, too, to the Rev. John M. Greene, who for twenty-five years has been the beloved pastor of the Eliot Church in Lowell, Mass. His quarter century of service was fittingly celebrated at Lowell, Sept. 26, 1895. Out of five hundred Congregational ministers in Massachusetts, only ten have held so long a pastorate as he over one church.

Among the hundreds of congratulations and testimonies to Dr. Greene's successful ministry, the able Professor Edwards A. Park of Andover, wrote to the congregation: "The city of Lowell has been favored with clergymen who will be remembered by a distant posterity, but not one of them will be remembered longer than the present pastor of Eliot Church. He was the father of Smith College, now so flourishing in Northampton, Mass. Had it not been for him that great institution would never have existed. For this great benefaction to the world, he will be honored a hundred years hence."

JAMES LICK

AND HIS TELESCOPE

James Lick, one of the great givers of the West, was born in Fredericksburg, Penn., Aug. 25, 1796. Little is known of his early life, except that his ancestors were Germans, and that he was born in poverty. His grandfather served in the Revolutionary War. James learned to make organs and pianos in Hanover, Penn., and in 1819 worked for Joseph Hiskey, a prominent piano manufacturer of Baltimore.

One day Conrad Meyer, a poor lad, came into the store and asked for work. Young Lick gave him food and clothing, and secured a place for him in the establishment. They became fast friends, and continued thus for life. Later Conrad Meyer was a wealthy manufacturer of pianos in Philadelphia.