students, and several of the departments were placed upon a much higher footing. Especial progress was made in the departments of English, of Pedagogy, of Philosophy, of Biblical History; and work was begun in Philology. But the most important step of all was the adoption of the new curriculum, which the Academic Council had spent three years in perfecting, and which is substantially that in force to-day. According to its provisions more than half the work required for the B. A. degree is elective; but the courses pursued must be so related as to insure a certain continuity of effort and unity of result. This effect is obtained through the grouping of naturally affiliated subjects. The requirements for admission were altered to correspond with the new system, and there was simplification in the matter of degrees. This curriculum places Wellesley in the ranks of the more progressive American colleges.

An event of great importance occurred in the fifth year of Miss Shafer's administration, when the Board of Trustees, at the earnest recommendation of the president, offered representation in their own body to the alumnæ. It took time for the machinery of choice to be set in motion; but since the first three alumnæ elected by their peers became members of the Board, it has never lacked a strong representation from those so familiar with the affairs of the College, and so devoted to its service. About onefifth of the present trustees are alumnæ, and also a considerable proportion of the faculty, including President Pendleton herself, Professor Katharine Lee Bates of the English Literature Department, and other leading professors. Those who have the interests of Wellesley most at heart, feel that the steady, natural movement by which the College has thus passed more and more into the hands of its daughters is in all respects fortunate.

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In the year after Miss Freeman's marriage, Mrs. Durant had built a second dormitory on the Hill, which she had named in honor of the eminent ex-president. Miss Shafer's administration saw the opening of a third dormitory on the Hill, and also of the fine Art Building, one of the most satisfactory structures on the grounds.

More than one president of Wellesley has shown the quiet courage which bears responsibilities and achieves results under the handicap of physical infirmity. Miss Shafer, fighting from the start against grave pulmonary difficulties, found the uphill road constantly steeper; and the opening of the year 1894 witnessed her death in office. That the College passed calmly through so great and sudden a bereavement indicates the measure of system and stability it had now attained.

Mrs. Julia J. Irvine of Cornell, who bravely took up the responsibilities that had slipped from Miss Shafer's gallant shoulders, was ably seconded by Miss Margaret E. Stratton of Oberlin, who became the first Dean of the College. Mrs. Irvine was, like her predecessor, by preference a scholar. So great was her reluctance to give up her work as Professor of Greek, that she accepted the presidency only until the trustees could appoint a permanent executive. This appointment, however, was delayed for five years. In the meantime the College forged steadily ahead, and the new curriculum was put into thorough operation. Mrs. Louise McCoy North, in her delightful account of Wellesley written in 1900, says of this curriculum: "So extensive is the present intellectual opportunity at Wellesley that, aided by the largest library among colleges for women, numbering nearly fifty thousand volumes, and the largest faculty, one to seven and one-fourth in proportion to the number of students, an ambitious

girl, resolved to take every course and spending fifteen hours a week in the lecture-room, would require more than thirty years to exhaust the possibilities of election." And that was fourteen years ago!

During Mrs. Irvine's term of office, the system of domestic work, adopted from Mount Holyoke, which had existed since the opening of the College, with marked advantages of both discipline and economy, was found to be no longer practicable, and was reluctantly abandoned. This administration saw the completion of the beautiful and commodious Houghton Memorial Chapel. The original chapel in College Hall, the scene of so many memorable events in the first years of Wellesley's history, had long since proved entirely inadequate.

Mrs. Irvine has lately, after has lately, after years of absence, performed another signal service for the College in the same spirit of unselfish helpfulness which marked her acceptance of the presidency, by returning from her well-earned foreign leisure to help the French department through a difficult year. The unobtrusiveness of this delicate service has been as complete as its success.

Mrs. Irvine was succeeded by Miss Caroline Hazard, bringing the ease and breadth of the cultivated woman of the world, who is yet an idealist and a Christian, into an atmosphere perhaps too strictly scholastic. Miss Hazard endeared herself to Wellesley during her term of eleven years by many wise and effective measures. She strength ened many departments of the college work; but it seems peculiarly appropriate that one who so stood for gracious womanliness should have given particular attention to the Department of Music, widely enlarging its scope, especially in the direction of Musical Theory. Work in this subject was now permitted to count toward a degree. Those who heard the noteworthy sacred concert of last June, in which the

Harvard and Wellesley choirs united in the noble rendering of ancient Latin chants, can testify anew to the glory of great music as a most rightful and inspiring element of academic life.

But the pressing problem which confronted Miss Hazard was monetary. The financial history of Wellesley College would be a volume in itself; as those familiar with the struggles of unendowed institutions of like order can well realize. It would include the unwearying generosity of the founders, quietly making up a yearly deficit for the first six years, after having already spent the bulk of their fortune on the original building and grounds. It would include also the heroic efforts of Mrs. Durant, during her long term as treasurer, to make both ends meet, while nobly determined to keep the tuition low, and at the same time pressed on every hand by the multitudinous needs of a growing college. Again, it would include the unceasing struggles of every president, from Miss Freeman down, to secure the progress absolutely essential to the healthy life of the institution, and yet to keep clear of debt. As was to be expected, the latter did not. always prove possible; though in time the trustees were forced to raise the price of board and tuition again and again, until now it stands at an average figure. The appointment during Mrs. Irvine's administration of a professional treasurer, and the gradual accumulation of small special endowments, were helps in the right direction. The alumnæ had early begun a series of concerted efforts to aid their Alma Mater in solving her ever-present financial problem. Miss Hazard, in generous co-operation with them and with the trustees, did especially valiant and successful work in clearing the College from its burden of debt; and during her administration the treasurer's report shows an increase in the college funds of $830,000.

Copyright by A. F. Nichols

Large developments in building also marked Miss Hazard's term of office. A fourth dormitory was added to those already on the Hill. The four quadrangle dormitories were built. A particularly urgent need was met by the erection of the Mary Hemenway Gymnasium. This admirable structure marks the transfer of the institution of that name from Boston to Wellesley, where it was incorporated into the College as the Department of Hygiene and Physical Education, remaining under the expert direction of Miss Amy Morris Homans. During this period also the College came into possession of its longdesired Astronomical Observatory; and best of all, its beautiful, great Library, which is a joy to every Wellesley heart. The opening of

the Library on June 13, 1910, the seventy-eighth birthday of Mrs. Durant, was one of the most noteworthy Wellesley occasions of recent years. The president's house was built by Miss Hazard herself, and given by her to the College, as was also a fine additional music building.

During the later years of Miss Hazard's administration, she was obliged to be absent from the College much of the time on account of ill health. It was with great regret that the trustees accepted her resignation in 1910.

No president of Wellesley has ever come to her high office with anything approaching the special preparation of Miss Ellen F. Pendleton. A graduate of the College, as as been said, Miss Pendleton served

special interest to the neighboring public as well as to the College. This is the opening of the kindergarten, for which a beautiful little building has been erected just inside one of the entrances to the college grounds. The kindergarten is conducted by the Department of Education as a practice school for its graduate students, and is free to all Wellesley children of suitable age. So generous an opportunity is made possible by the co-operation of the Wellesley Village Improvement Association with the college authori

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cheer. The appalling fire which broke out a few hours later has been too recently and too fully described to need repicturing now. Readers all over the country have thrilled at the story of the brave, swift gathering of the students for their fire drill, the quiet heroism. with which the drill was conducted and performed, and its magnificent result. Not one life was lost, not one person injured. Wellesley women. will not soon forget that those in charge of the drill were themselves graduates of the College, and

ties. This novel and widely helpful undertaking was originated and worked out by Professor Katharine Coman, for many years the distinguished head of the Department of History, and later of Economics.

On the evening before the sudden visitation which changed Wellesley's joy into dismay, the College was at the full tide of life and pros perity. A concert was given that evening in the old Chapel, and the beautiful Centre of College Hall reverberated for the last time with the unique and melodious Wellesley

that their glory is, therefore, in a special sense, her glory. But the courage and womanliness required to meet the conditions created by that disastrous night, have been no less than those called out by the fire itself. College Hall was literally what it has frequently been called of late, the Heart of the College. It had been built to supply all the needs of the institution for what promised to be an extended term. It thus had contained not only the offices of administration, together with accommodation for three hun