Radcliffe College

“ Indeed, I have had her continue several of her studies; but she owes something to society, and college cuts a girl off so from social life.”
“But we have social life here—and masculine society, too,” she concluded with a smile.
“Yes, indeed,” responded Mrs. Gostar, glancing around the room, in which Harvard students were almost as numerous as Radcliffe girls. Standing in corners, seated on divans, walking toward the refreshment tables, were youths and maidens enjoying one another’s society to the same extent as if in a crowded ball-room. ”

“ Each Senior, too, looked her very best in her simple white gown, and the crowds of Harvard students who were in attendance testified that socially at least Radcliffe was in no way unpopular with the older college. So weary were the Seniors as the evening advanced that they had little strength left to dance in the new Gymnasium. But the undergraduates and their other guests made up for their own lack in this respect. ”

“ Under the popular name of "The Harvard Annex," invented by one of its students, the institution grew and flourished. Twice was the Fay House enlarged. In 1894, by act of the State Legislature, the name of The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women was changed to Radcliffe College, the bill receiving the signature of Governor Greenhadge, March 23, 1894. It authorized Radcliffe to confer on women, with the approval of the President and Fellows of Harvard, all honors and degrees as fully as any university or college in the Commonwealth. ”

“ Comparatively few of her classmates, however, were without some bit of philanthropic work. Several taught Sunday-school classes. Several others gave an evening a week to some Boys’ or Girls’ Club in Boston or Cambridge. The Emmanuel Society, so named for John Harvard’s College, had regular meetings before which appeared various organizations, who made clear their claims to the support of thoughtful young women. The College Settlements appealed strongly to the undergraduate, and a chapter to raise money for the work had been formed at Radcliffe. ”

“ Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, the first President of Radcliffe College and its constant benefactress, is destined, through the scholarship that bears her name and the hall which is to be erected in her honor on the college grounds, to be held in grateful, lasting remembrance as a pioneer advocate and promoter in the nineteenth century of the higher education of women. ”

“ Now, Polly Porson, you must admit that it’s a trifle slow here for a college town.”
“Most of us were not looking for fun when we undertook to come to Radcliffe. Cambridge never had the reputation of being very amusing. But I’ll tell you something to raise your spirits. Rumors of the charm and wit of the Idler theatricals have begun to penetrate the brick walls of Harvard, and last year we heard of sorrow in college halls because men were not admitted to the performances. What we couldn’t attain through our work we have accomplished by our play. ”

“ How I passed my Entrance Examinations for Radcliffe College. On the 29th and 30th of June, 1899, I took my examinations for Radcliffe College. The first day I had elementary Greek and advanced Latin, and the second day Geometry, Algebra and advanced Greek. The college authorities would not permit Miss Sullivan to read the examination papers to me; so Mr. Eugene C. Vining, one of the instructors at the Perkins Institution for the Blind, was employed to copy the papers for me in braille. Mr. Vining was a perfect stranger to me, and could not communicate with me except by writing in braille. ”

“ I suppose they are Radcliffe girls. But I could see that you looked as up-to-date as Edith.”
Philip, almost out of breath with the exertion of explaining himself, was disconcerted by the laughter that greeted his words.
“It is greatly to be feared,” said Ruth, “that the typical Radcliffe girl would be as hard to find as the average Harvard student. I haven’t seen either of them yet. But it’s really too funny for you to have expected Julia and me to develop our college peculiarities so soon. Give us time and we may become typical.” ”

“ Adjoining Cambridge Common is Radcliffe College, for women, named in honor of the English Lady Anne Radcliffe, afterwards Lady Moulson, the first woman giving a scholarship to Harvard (in 1640) . Some four hundred women receive instruction here from Harvard professors, and the graduates are granted the college degrees. Near by, in Brattle Street, is the Craigie House, dating from 1759, which was Washington's headquarters in 1775-6, and later, for 64 nearly a half century, was the home of Henry W. Longfellow, until he died in 1882. ”

“ Each class had a room to itself, similarly decorated, and there was one for the Specials. Downstairs the officers of the Idler, the Dean of the college, and the Secretary received the guests, who were introduced individually by ushers. There was a table with refreshments in the parlor; there were refreshments and an orchestra in the Auditorium; there were, as Polly said, “tête-à-têtes unlimited” in the Library and in the recitation rooms; and any one whose knowledge of Radcliffe was obtained first through an “Open Idler” would have pronounced it the most frivolous of institutions. ”

“ Weren’t you frightened to death at the preliminaries?”
3
“I barely survived,” replied Julia, entering into the other’s mood. “There’s an art in taking examinations that I’m only beginning to learn.”
“Well, the worst is over! Harvard, they say (and of course it’s the same with Radcliffe) , is the hardest college to enter and the easiest to graduate from. That’s why I left my happy Western home. I don’t mind struggling to get in, but I want an easy time after I’ve once entered college.” ”

“ The Harvard Bulletin, a weekly, and the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine (1892) , a quarterly, are published chiefly for the alumni.
In 1908–1909 there were 743 officers of instruction and administration (including those for Radcliffe) and 5250 students (1059 in 1869) , the latter including 2238 in the college, 1641 in the graduate and professional schools, and 1332 in the summer school. Radcliffe College, for women, had 449 additional students. ”

“ That the young girls for whom it is written may see in “Brenda’s Cousin” a clear picture of Radcliffe College undergraduate life is the sincere wish of the author, who hopes also that her fellow-graduates may overlook the one or two slight anachronisms necessary to a contemporary picture. ”

“ A petition has been presented to the Overseers of Harvard University touching the issuance of degrees to women graduating from Radcliffe College. The petitioners, all residents of New-York City, and most of them men well known throughout the country, ask that the Radcliffe graduates shall receive the ordinary degrees of Harvard University, in place of diplomas of Radcliffe College, with the seal of Harvard University and the signature of its President affixed. ”

“ In each generation,
Sophomores will be Sophomores in the same old way.”
Thus under her breath Clarissa, from her seat in the Auditorium, hummed a strain from a Radcliffe song. Girls were gathering in the room to witness an Idler play.
“Sometime,” said Clarissa, “I’ll be a Senior, and have a front seat. But if you can’t have the first, the fifth row isn’t so very bad.”
While waiting for the play to begin, the girls in Clarissa’s neighborhood chatted gaily. The play had attracted many of the Alumnæ, because it was the work of a Radcliffe girl who had been out of college a year or two. ”

“ Many Radcliffe girls, undoubtedly, took their examinations too severely. They withdrew to their rooms at the beginning of the mid-years, and came out only to get books from the library or for examinations. Yet though cramming is a bad habit, it is so firmly fixed on all students that until examinations themselves are abolished it will last. Poor students, who have wasted the lecture hours and neglected the prescribed reading, cram because otherwise they might fail outright, and so bring their college course to an untimely end. ”

“ Many of the smaller colleges are, like all the state institutions, open to both sexes. Besides these, however, there thrive certain colleges which are exclusively for women. The best known of these are Bryn Mawr, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, and Barnard. Barnard College, in New York, stands in the same relation to Columbia University as Radcliffe College does to Harvard. Every one of these leading women’s colleges has its own physiognomy, and appeals rather to its special type of young woman. ”

“ But college festivities were not the only pleasures offered the girls. Not a few of the class who lived at home in Boston or Cambridge or the suburbs entertained at their own houses. An occasional tea, an evening of private theatricals, all these things relieved delightfully the monotony of study. Yet to a popular girl they offered great temptations for wasting time, and in college life, as in the outside world, it was hard to draw the line between necessary and unnecessary amusements. ”

“ It was natural that there should be many little coteries at Radcliffe, and that some should be more devoted than others to study, and others more devoted to the lighter side of college life. Julia, now that she and Ruth were less inseparable, found herself turning more and more to Lois, and for Lois she began to feel even more sympathy than for Pamela. ”

“ The sentimental lyrics were nearly all assigned to Ruth; the comic words for the most part grew. Girls are more considerate than boys. Their jokes are seldom “grinds” on the professors, and they are even fairly tender toward the various branches of a college curriculum. The gibes, therefore, of Radcliffe plays were more apt to be directed toward local faults, such as muddy sidewalks and dusty streets.
Yet after all, the operetta was entirely secondary to regular college work. Hardly a girl in Julia’s class sought the name of “grind,” and few deserved it. ”

“ Philip, to tell the truth, was surprised to find himself encouraging the girls in their college career by even these scraps of information. He liked Julia so well that he could not reconcile himself to her going to college.
“It is different,” he had said to her magnificently one day at Brenda’s, “it is different, of course, in the case of a man. If he doesn’t go to college he doesn’t amount to much. People think it’s because he can’t get in, and that kind of thing. But for a girl, why you know that it really hurts her in the opinion of most people if she goes to college.” ”

“ Cornell, Michigan, and all the State Universities in the West, like a number of the best universities in the East, educated young women on the same terms as young men. Harvard opened its Radcliffe College for female pupils. At its commencement in 1886, Columbia College, of which the Barnard College for women became virtually a part, conferred the degree of Doctor in Philosophy upon a woman. Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania opened their graduate departments to women on the same terms as to men. ”

“ I should do all my written work on a typewriter, and if a Professor could not understand my speech, I could write out my answers to his questions and hand them to him after the recitation. Is it possible for the College to accommodate itself to these unprecedented conditions, so as to enable me to pursue my studies at Radcliffe? I realize that the obstacles in the way of my receiving a college education are very great—to others they may seem insurmountable; but, dear Sir, a true soldier does not acknowledge defeat before the battle. ”

“ The work of the writers of the junior class (average age twenty-one years) was satisfactory, but nearly all of them expressed a decided opinion that the instruction given in the preparatory schools in written English is inadequate. All but three of the seventy papers from Radcliffe College were creditable in execution; but none of them indicated any special capacity for observing, or attempted anything in pointing out defects which might be termed a thoughtful solution of them. ”

“ The main front of the college faces Radcliffe Square; the whole of this and the first quadrangle, excepting the upper storey, is of the time of the foundation; and the gateway tower is a specially fine example. The hall and the chapel, with its fine fan-tracery roof, date from 1663 and 1666, and are attributed to Sir Christopher Wren. In both is seen a curious attempt to combine Gothic and Grecian styles. Modern buildings (by T. G. Jackson) have a frontage upon High Street. Robert Burton, author of The Anatomy of Melancholy, became an undergraduate of the college in 1593 ”

“ Brenda’s disposition, too, was as volatile as Arthur’s, and she carried a blue parasol, wore blue flowers, and altogether seemed to have forgotten the existence of Harvard and her former love for Harvard red. It was hard for Julia to understand such heartlessness as this,—for so she had to regard it,—as until very lately all Brenda’s college feeling had been for Harvard. Yet Brenda herself would not admit that it was really a strong personal preference for Arthur that had made her forego her Harvard allegiance. ”

“ Old Cambridge is noted as the seat of Harvard University (q.v.) and as a literary and scientific centre. Radcliffe College (1879) , for women, practically a part of Harvard; an Episcopal Theological School (1867) , and the New Church (Swedenborgian or New Jerusalem) Theological School (1866) are other educational institutions of importance. To Cambridge also, in 1908, was removed Andover Theological Seminary, a Congregational institution chartered in 1807, opened in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1808 (re-incorporated under separate trustees in 1907) . ”