Wellesley College - Legenda Yearbook (Wellesley, MA)

Page 18 text:

14 WELLESLEY COLLEGE LEGENDA were established; and in 1879 the Pioneers were graduated. With a dignified Alumna? once recognized the preparatory-school reached a vanishing point; but not until it had proved its efficacy, for only a tenth of the entering three hundred were prepared for college work. With this cutting of leading-strings the college waxed and increased. The original building, College Hall, no longer sufficed. The Teachers Specials were gathered together in a home provided through the munificence of Mrs. Valeria G. Stone. Poor Specials ! for it is rumored that a certain exacting Head required the furniture in each room to be placed according to one model. There would have been no difficulty then in granting Matthew Arnold ' s request to see a student ' s room. About the same time the corner-stone of the College of

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WELLESLEY COLLEGE LEGENDA 13 the knolls, tennis-courts invite, class yells reverberate. Imagine a time when there was neither the echo of song nor the rustle of pub- lication; when the life of the college was pliant, supple, unshaped; when beaten path or blazed trail was not; and zest of life gave impetus to the zeal for initial trial. An effort was made in our behalf when by legislative act (1873) our name was changed to Wellesley College in lieu of the Wellesley Female Seminary set forth in the charter signed by Gov. William Claflin, our friend. A building and a name did not suffice. The college had yet to be made ; for this our Founders, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Fowle Durant, selected as their co-operator Miss Ada L. Howard of Mt. Holyoke Seminary. Many of our customs found a beginning in those seven fledgeling years (1875-1882). At Mr. Durant ' s suggestion Flower Sunday was inaugurated, the text being then as now, God is Love. In referring to a sermon preached from those same words by the Founder himself, one of the early daughters of the college wrote home, His sermon was full of enthusiasm setting forth a high standard of true, noble womanhood. We are to be reformers, teachers. We are to mould the country. One sentence of his I remember, ' O children, I want you to remember all of your lives that God is Love. ' The death of his little son placed such high ideals in the heart of the father, and the mother joyfully furthered their realization. Strolling through the grounds, Mr. Durant stooped to pick a wee, white clover, saying, I need no higher miracle than that. ' In every way during the few years he was permitted to work he planned for his calico girls. The Zeta Alpha and Phi Sigma societies were the expression of his thought, and Shakespeare society was formed soon after. The first Tree Day [1877) belongs to this early period. The Students ' Aid Society and Teachers ' Registry

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WELLESLEY COLLEGE LEGENDA 15 Music was laid, Waban Cottage was made ready for use, and the Browning room was opened; all of them through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Durant. In connection with the Browning room, it is remembered that when Mr. Durant and four wen were placing in it The Reading Girl, a heavy statue, Mr. Durant said, She need never be accused of reading light literature. Mr. Durant died October 3, 188 1. He left to the girls of those early years a gentle sorrow; to the girls who have come after him, a reverent regret. He was bright and witty; not jolly, but wishing to see the girls happy. His favors were individual. When an epidemic of scarlet-fever filled the hospital, he arranged flowers and fruit with his own hands. The girl who received a camelia said