Wellesley College - Legenda Yearbook (Wellesley, MA)

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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

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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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16 WELLESLEY COLLEGE LEGENDA proudly, I know he did not give anybody else one. Flowers were favorites with Mr. Durant. He had crocus bulbs, snow-drops, and English violets planted over the ground, enough for each girl to pick three a day, in an effort to have the girls share his love for nature. The Silent Time, twenty minutes for self-communion morning and evening, was his adaptation of Emerson ' s Know thyself ! Domestic service was adopted from Mt. Holyoke because Mr. Durant wished each girl to have a part in the work of the household and to appreciate the dignity of labor. With his death ended the first epoch of our history, President Howard resigning soon afterward because of ill health. With her successor, Miss Alice E. Freeman, of Michigan University, came growth. The days of pleasing lack of constraint were passing