Part 4

It was either that same evening or when Freeman the historian stayed with us, that two teachers going by the guest room late after a little supper party, observed the great man's shoes outside the door. Knowing that no provision for this was then thought of, and that he would find his property exactly in the same condition the next morning, they softly stole near and carried off the shoes, polishing and returning them in fine shape, boasting ever after of the honor and privilege.

Almost every American author of note has been heard from our chapel platform. Wendell Phillips gave his lecture, "The Lost Arts," at the college in 1872.

The rare privilege of seeing and hearing Ralph Waldo Emerson was also ours. He read his lecture and fumbled with his papers, meantime casting apprehensive glances to the faint far-away lights on the gallery side. "I am a student," he began slowly, "and a lover of light." The hint was speedily taken and silver candelabrum with blazing candles from the lady principal's parlor was quickly forthcoming.

In those days we knew the trustees very well, and their paternal interest in the venturesome experiment of the higher education of women was something akin to the Founder's. Fourteen of the twenty-eight on the original Board were residents of Poughkeepsie; seven of them had professions, seven were simply close business friends, including his two nephews, John Guy Vassar and Matthew Vassar, Jr. Some of these men were rather hard to persuade that so large a gift of money invested in this way was not in a perilous cause, but each lived to witness the beginning of Vassar's grand success and the Founder's triumph. Once when there was a question of extension of the Christmas vacation and the Prudential Committee--as they were then called--had met to consider its advisability, one of them opposed the measure saying, "Pretty soon our patrons will be complaining that they don't get the worth of their money. We don't give them much over forty weeks of school now." Not one member of this first Board is living, the first break coming with the death in March, '69, of James Harper, senior member of the firm of Harper & Brothers.

Dr. Elias Magoon stands out vividly in my portrait gallery. Dear, kind, eccentric man! He looked, and we all thought him in his enthusiasm, mildly crazy, but we came to appreciate him and delight in his ardor. The college bought from him his whole private art collection of pictures, folios, books, armor, etc., to stock the Vassar gallery. The books--chiefly editions de luxe--were later transferred to the library proper, and it made the librarian sore at heart to discover how much Dr. Magoon had apparently read, pencil in hand, and how much patient work in eradication must result in consequence, impossible to accomplish wholly, as traces existing to-day testify.

Dr. Magoon was a lover and student of nature as well as of art. He was a frequent visitor at the college in the spring, coming from his Philadelphia home "just to get up at five o'clock in the morning for a tramp over Sunset Hill or around the lake to hear and see the birds." My table in the dining-room was near that of the Faculty, and it was a pleasure to see him come in to breakfast with face aglow from his walk, and to mark the interest and brightness he carried with him.

Now and then he gave us a talk in chapel. The frequent eight o'clock lecture was not quite so welcome always as it should have been, and when one evening at prayers it was announced that Dr. Magoon would talk on art at the usual hour, there were many reluctant feet hitherward. As we entered, he was already on the platform behind the desk, on which rested a huge bouquet of wax flowers. Of course attention was arrested, and as the last comer was seated he leaned over the flowers and gazing in mock adoring admiration began, "Now ain't that pooty?" A great wave of laughter went over the room, and if any one present had feared to be bored and grudged the hour from other duties, she forgot it all in the charm and delight of what followed this queer introduction. A hint of the true and beautiful in art, shown by contrast with ugliness that all could recognize, gave many of us our first wonderful lesson then and there.

Dr. Magoon and Miss Mitchell were warm friends in spite of difference in religious belief and opinions. She liked his unconventionalism and independence. They used to have great discussions, and he took very meekly her ratings for not being "more progressive." "But do me the justice to say I try," he would retort, and if he had occasion to write a note to her was fond of signing himself "your ever growing E. L. M."

Some curious letters were received at the college by Matthew Vassar, and his rage over one, I happened to witness. An untactful student, who had received the benefit of a full scholarship all through her course, conceived it to be her duty as soon as she graduated to remonstrate against the way the Founder had made his money, saying, "A college foundation which was laid in beer never will prosper." "Well, it was good beer, wasn't it?" shouted Mr. Vassar to his audience in the lower office. "I wonder where that girl would have got her education if it hadn't been for beer." Then the humor of it struck him and he laughed with us most heartily.

Among other queer letters received at the college, were requests to open correspondence "with view to marriage," the demand being for promising candidates to serve in the mission field. One such letter was addressed "To the Head Lady at Vassar." The writer was not backward about stating his requirements for his wife as home missionary. For one thing, she must be able to play the melodeon in church and to contribute the instrument also.

Perhaps this is as good an opportunity as any to tell the story of the bootjacks, about which so many conflicting statements have been made. After the Founder's death, a walnut tree on the Main Street premises had to be cut down, and Matthew Junior had a little sentiment about the use of the wood in some form for the rooms at college. Why he selected bootjacks nobody ever knew, but the lumber was sent to a factory in town to be made up in this fashion, and was distributed accordingly to the hilarious delight of all concerned.

Some friend in town chanced to remark to the Founder that the college parlors with only a few choice old engravings on the walls looked rather cold and bare; whereupon, in his eagerness to make good any deficiency, Mr. Vassar (without consulting anybody), betook himself to the leading photographer's in the city and bought the best he had in stock. The craze of the chromo was beginning, and several hundred dollars worth of these in most expensive frames were hung one evening as a grand surprise. The consternation and horror of Professor Van Ingen can be imagined, and the general amusement. However, the infliction had to be endured till after Mr. Vassar's death, and afterwards, there was Matthew Junior to be reckoned with and his sensitiveness to innovations. Professor Van Ingen was always on Founder's Day committee, and with much tactful diplomacy contrived to get consent to use the chromos in decorating the dining-room the second anniversary following. Here under a drapery of white tarletan with evergreen wreaths in profusion, the effect was really quite brilliant, and Mr. Vassar was much pleased. The art gallery was called upon to supply the places of the chromos taken from the parlor, and no one questioned that it was never convenient to change back. Gradually, in the wholesale kalsomining of walls in the summer vacations the offensive pictures disappeared, and portraits of trustees took their place.

Dr. Raymond's report at the end of the first year seems to have been printed in pamphlet form and issued to the world at large. Again press notices abound, all generally with appreciative comment.

The "Round Table," an ambitious weekly, 1863-1869, saw fit to be funny and I give a few paragraphs in illustration:

"We confess to an unfavorable impression by the style in which the Report is made. It is in bad taste, florid, turgid and pedantic. The author has written it on the back of Pegasus and the winged horse does not bound beneath him.... This modern system of female education has grown out of the miserable philosophic dogma of the mental equality of the sexes, the offspring of the combined weakness of the weaker sex and the greater weakness of the stronger sex. Woman is _not_ the equal of man. She is immeasurably his superior.... In her appointed sphere woman walks a queen, but she claims neither the prerogatives of man nor the ability to use them. Drag not the young girl into the wide orbit of Jupiter, but lead her in the narrower and more befitting sphere in which moves the silvery car of Venus. Banish the barbarous curriculum proposed by your committee! Let not the time be ruinously spent in the attempt to master the dead languages, the higher mathematics, metaphysics, political economy and similar studies. The rudiments of these branches might be taught, but for them we would have no "chairs." The belles lettres department is the appropriate field for the well educated woman.... Having thus put out of the college door four out of the nine chairs--and very deferentially and respectfully we have done it--we have a word to say regarding the occupancy of the remaining ones. We strongly object to having _men_ seated in them. The Report does indeed speak of lady assistants, but we insist on a reversal. The ladies should be the principals and the gentlemen the assistants. The proper educator of woman is woman. Vassar Female College is the sphere of Venus and no Jupiter has any business there. Who but Flora should preside in her own garden where the rosebuds and young lilies grow, inviting her choice still in their culture."

This is quite enough and unbelievable now, but absurd as it is, it voiced a large part of popular opinion then existing.

Another vexed question in the earliest days was that of health,--that women were unfitted to take the higher education and that their health would be undermined in consequence. The speakers on our commencement stage afforded convincing argument by their looks of the falsity of the argument. I remember hearing one June an enthusiastic person in the audience say of an "honor girl," of exceptionally attractive personality and vigorous health, as she left the platform,--"She had a capital essay and delivered it well, but if she had done nothing more than stand up there and let the people look at her for five or ten minutes, it would have paid, and buried this health discussion forever."

DR. AVERY.

Among those who contributed so much to the early life of the college and its success, the name of Alida C. Avery cannot afford to be overlooked. She came in 1865 as the resident physician, was a strong member of the Faculty, high in the confidence and trust of Dr. Raymond and Miss Lyman and sharing with them the responsibility of that important formative period. So close were the friendly and confidential relations among these three "powers that be"--hardly ever one appearing without the other--that some irreverent students dubbed them "The Trinity."

It was a good deal to organize and maintain such a department as hers in the face of popular opinion at that time, and I think much of her stiff professional etiquette resulted from the idea of upholding the equality of women physicians with men in the same calling, and being over sensitive to indifference and snubs. The early women pioneers in medical work did not find it a bed of roses, but they persevered. When the Boston Medical College for women was started in 1858, there was not a single graduated woman physician in the country. In 1863 there were two hundred and fifty.

Dr. Avery began her medical studies in 1857 at the Pennsylvania Medical College, and finished them at the New England Medical College in Boston, taking her degree from that institution. She seemed to take, in the practice of her profession, an antagonistic attitude as granted, and, indeed, she had much reason for doing so. None of us would have dared to approach her professionally out of her office hour, or to make the slightest personal wish as to treatment. She was as inflexible to her peers as to the students in her uncompromising adherence to discipline and hygienic regulations. Her seat at table was next to Miss Mitchell, who asked at dinner one day what to do for an inflamed eye. Without looking, the Doctor replied, "My office hour is at half past two." "Oh, come now," said Miss Mitchell, "you don't mean that you would make an old woman like me go way up to the fourth floor to your office hour?" The answer came same as before. "My office hour is at half past two," and that closed the incident.

To those who came to know her well she showed a lovable human side, a big heart, capable of most generous affection. She upheld the cause of woman as zealously even as Miss Mitchell, and their personal relations were most friendly and pleasant. She was passionately fond of flowers and an expert in their cultivation. Under her direction the Floral Society was established and the flower garden laid out and carried on.

Three years after Miss Lyman's death the Doctor resigned to go to practice her profession in Denver, later removing to California. With her death last September, and that of Professor Knapp quite recently, has gone the last one of that first Board of Faculty and Instruction, over forty years ago.

PROFESSOR BACKUS.

Truman J. Backus succeeded Henry B. Buckman as head of the English department in 1867, and for sixteen years held this position. It was said of him, "He is a born educator," and this was true. He had been educated for the ministry, but had never been ordained, and his first sermon was preached in the college chapel.

He was only twenty-six years old when appointed to this post, had little or no experience, claiming only great enthusiasm and love for the work of his choice. If age has the courage of convictions, there is also the indispensable courage of youth. Unhampered by ruts of traditional methods of education, he dared to try experiments hazardous often in the estimation of his older, more conservative colleagues, and much of the progressive, far-seeing policy that insured the success of that early period is due in large measure to him. There were no smooth paths beaten out for safe walking in the higher education of women in the beginning of his career, and President Raymond relied a good deal for counsel and help on this youngest member of the Faculty, who was quick to see and quick to act. Professor Backus appreciated this trust, and always warmly acknowledged it.

He felt the restraint of constant association with others so much older than himself, and a certain whimsical humor would sometimes break out, defying all convention, putting him often in a place to be severely criticised, and which he rarely troubled himself to explain away.

He had a genius for discovering latent and unsuspected talent and the best work that one could do, and never grudged generous recognition when another overtopped him. He had a dislike for the obvious answer to the obvious question; liked to mystify, keep you in doubt as to his real opinion. An essay was once brought in at department meeting with great pride by one of the critics as especially clever, and far above the average in grace and felicity of diction. Perhaps the teacher showed too plainly her counting upon his approval, for he read the paper aloud, slowly, critically, without the faintest sign of appreciation, rather as if deadly bored. At the end, when her enthusiasm had ebbed and she supposed herself entirely mistaken, he remarked, "If I could write as well as that girl writes, I should be proud, and I would never do another stroke of teaching as long as I lived."

Interest was aroused by him in current topics, and I well remember one day in his English literature class, when walking up and down with head bent, as was his wont, listening to a brilliant recitation, he said to the student as she finished, "That is fine. Now can you name the three men most prominent to-day in the political life of this country?" She hesitated, faltered. "Can any one of you in the class?" Still silence. "How many of you are in the habit of reading carefully a daily newspaper?" No response. Then followed a lecture such as no one ever forgot and which prompted the formation of clubs which exist to-day. There were no dry bones of any subject he handled. He made it fresh, living, vital.

"I suppose these young women have some difficulty in keeping up to the high college grade?" said a visitor in classroom one day. "On the contrary," replied Professor Backus, "the students are the ones who make us all work hard to keep pace with _them_."

His knowledge of civic affairs led him often to be asked to stand as candidate for some desirable public office, to leave college for what promised higher promotion. "No, I have but one ambition, and that is to be a good teacher."

In 1872, he began giving an interesting course of lectures to the seniors and juniors on the national and political topics of the day. His Chaucer readings were very popular, and he gave several before the Literary Society of Poughkeepsie, awakening as much enthusiasm in his crowded town audience, as among his students in Room J. It pleased him to get the many inquiries as to the best editions of Chaucer, and how to study this author, from those whose acquaintance with English literature had hitherto been very limited, and who he knew would never bring to the subject the love he did, or find in it the same beauties.

He took keen interest in the development of the Philalethean Society, and was one of the early speakers chosen to give the address at an anniversary meeting, having for his subject, "Evolution in the purpose of education." His lecture on Alexander Hamilton brought him into notice, and he was often called upon to give it in various places; but it was more his originality and power in the treatment of public questions that caused him to be invited far and wide, and to which invitation he oftenest responded. His Garfield eulogy was a most beautiful and fitting tribute with its eloquent, impressive close.

His hold on his old Vassar friends never weakened, as scores of loving testimonials after his death abundantly testify.

Into the dusk and snow One fared on yesterday; No man of us may know By what mysterious way. He had been comrade long; We fain would hold him still; But, though our will be strong, There is a stronger will. Beyond the solemn night He will find morning-dream; The summer's kindling light Beyond the snow's chill gleam. The clear, unfaltering eye, The inalienable soul, The calm, high energy,-- They will not fail the goal. Large will be our content If it be ours to go One day the path he went Into the dusk and snow.

PROFESSOR VAN INGEN.

Dear Professor Van Ingen! Why does everybody who knew him well say this at the mere mention of his name?

He was a Hollander who had come to this country in the studio of an artist friend in Rochester about the time the college was completed, and was the accepted candidate in 1865 for the art professorship. A clever artist; an inspiring teacher; a true gentleman; a good friend. Tennyson's lines once quoted of him express most nearly the common sentiment concerning him,--"One too wholly true to dream untruth."

He was here at the opening of the college, and made one of the resident (unmarried) members of the Faculty that year. In the summer vacation of 1866, he returned to Holland to be married, and brought his wife back with him.

He had rooms in the north wing the first year of his coming, and used to relate in his characteristic quiet, humorous way many amusing anecdotes of that chaotic time. One I recall enjoying keenly. It was midwinter and intensely cold weather. His room was on the west side in the north wing, and one night the high wind and raging snow storm combined to make his quarters uninhabitable. Towards morning he could stand it no longer but got up and dressed himself, and putting on hat and overcoat thought he would spend the rest of the time before breakfast in the college parlors, trusting to find some heat in the registers. Making his way through the dark corridors two flights down, he reached the parlor, where in the dawning light he saw a group of students huddled close to the register that happened still to have comfortable warmth remaining. The experience of cold and discomfort in the students' rooms had matched his, so they had anticipated him in dressing and with shawls and cloaks were spending the rest of the night down stairs. He knew them all, had a cordial welcome, and the party began in subdued tones to talk and laugh and have a merry time. An hour, perhaps, went on this way, when a timid cough from the doorway arrested their attention. Winnie--Miss Lyman's maid--stood there. "If you please, Miss Lyman heard the voices in her room above, and sent me down to inquire what was the matter." The situation was explained briefly and the maid retired. With Miss Lyman's strict notions, how she was going to take this independence of action was the question, but they had begun to forget it when the jingling of spoons and cups heralded approach of Winnie a second time,--"Miss Lyman sends her compliments, and as you have been up so long, she had me make a little hot coffee for you which she hopes you may enjoy." There was a big tray with equipment of her own lovely china and silver service, and a heaped up plate of crackers, and this was all the notice the gracious lady ever took of the matter.

His studio and lecture room were in the old art-gallery on the fourth corridor and here, surrounded by his devoted disciples, he held sway. He had a large band of followers all his life here, and every one of them will testify he taught them more and higher than the art he loved so well.

Dr. Taylor in his remarks at the funeral service of Maria Mitchell said aptly that the word "genuineness" conveyed the truest impression of her. Transfer the same characterization to Henry Van Ingen, and you have the perfect expression also of the man.

Professor Van Ingen continued in the service of the college for thirty-six years, or until his death in November, 1898.

"He scarce had need to doff his pride or slough the dross of earth; E'en as he trod that day to God, so walked he from his birth, In simpleness and gentleness and honor and clean mirth."

PROFESSOR MITCHELL.

It was a privilege to know her, and the highest praise one could have would be that Maria Mitchell called her--friend.

The outline facts of Maria Mitchell's life, written by her sister, Mrs. Kendall, together with selections from journals and letters appeared in 1896, and leave nothing to be desired further in that direction. But everybody who knew her at Vassar finds in that record much left out of the dear, delightful, original, human side, and it is impossible to live over the portion of time spent here with her without putting into these random recollections some hitherto unpublished fragments about her. I trust she will forgive me.