the students might imitate the resolve of the founder, who believed, as
she said in her will, "that all education should be for the glory of God
and the good of man.... It is not my design to render my sex any the
less feminine, but to develop as fully as may be the powers of
womanhood, and furnish women with the means of usefulness, happiness,
and honor, now withheld from them."
One month after writing in her journal, June 12, 1870, Sophia Smith
passed to her reward, at the age of seventy-five. She was in her usual
health till four days before her death, when she was prostrated by
paralysis. She was buried in the Hatfield Cemetery under a simple
monument of her own erecting. She had provided for a better and more
enduring monument in Smith College, and she knew that no other was
needed. The seventy-five-thousand-dollar academy at Hatfield would also
keep her in blessed remembrance.
The thought of Miss Smith, after her death, began to shape itself into
brick and stone. Thirteen acres of ground were purchased for the site of
the college, commanding a view of the beautiful valley of the
Connecticut River; and the main building, of brick and freestone, was
erected in secular Gothic style, the interior finished in unpainted
native woods. On the large stained-glass window over the entrance of the
building is a copy of the college seal, a woman radiant with light, with
the motto underneath in Greek which expressed the desire of the founder:
"Add to your virtue knowledge."
The homestead which was on the estate when purchased was made over for a
home for the students, as the plan of small dwellings to accommodate
from twenty to fifty young women had been decided upon in preference to
several hundreds gathered under one roof.
The right person for the right place had been chosen as president, the
Rev. Dr. L. Clark Seelye, at that time a professor in Amherst College.
He had made a careful inspection of the principal educational
institutions both in this country and in Europe, and his plans as to
buildings and courses of study were adopted.
Smith College was dedicated July 14, 1875, and opened to students in the
following September. President Seelye in his admirable inaugural address
said, "One hundred years ago a female college would have been simply an
object of ridicule.... You have seen machines invented to do the work
which formerly absorbed the greater portion of woman's time and
strength. Factories have supplanted the spinning-wheel and distaff.
Sewing-machines will stitch in an hour more than our grandmothers could
in a day. I need not ask you what we are to do with force which has thus
been set free. The answer comes clearly from an enlightened public
opinion, saying, 'Put it to higher uses; train it to think correctly; to
work intelligently; to do its share in bringing the human mind to the
perfection for which it was designed.'"
Dr. Seelye emphasized the fact that this college was to give women "an
education as high and thorough and complete as that which young men
receive in Harvard, Yale, and Amherst." "I believe," he said, "this is
the only female college that insists upon substantially the same
requisites for admission which have been found practicable and essential
in male colleges." He disapproved of a preparatory department, and other
colleges for women have wisely followed the standard and example of
Smith. Secondary schools have seen the necessity of a higher fitting for
their students, that they may enter our best colleges.
Greek and the higher mathematics were made an essential part of the
course. To this, exception was taken; and Dr. Seelye was frequently
asked, "What use have young women of Greek?" He answered, "A study of
Greek brings us into communion with the best scholarship and the acutest
intellects of all European countries.... It would simply justify its
place in our college curriculum upon the relation which it has had, and
ever must have, to the growth of the human intellect."
Dr. Seelye favored the teaching of music and art, but not to the
exclusion of other things, unless one had special gifts along those
lines. "Musical entertainments," he said, "have generally been the grand
parade-ground of female boarding-schools. All of us are familiar with
the many wearisome hours which young ladies ordinarily are required to
spend at the piano,--time enough to master most of the sciences and
languages; and all of us are familiar with the remark, heard so
frequently after school-days are over, 'I cannot play; I am out of
practice.'"
President Seelye had to meet all sorts of objections to higher education
for women. When he told a friend that Greek was to be studied in Smith
College, the friend replied, "Nonsense! girls cannot bear such a
strain;" "and yet his own daughters," says Dr. Seelye, "were going, with
no remonstrance from him, night after night, through the round of
parties and fashionable amusements in a great city. We question whether
any greater expenditure of physical force is necessary to master Greek
than to endure ordinary fashionable amusements. Woman's health is
endangered far more by balls and parties than by schools. For one ruined
by over-study, we can point to a hundred ruined by dainties and dances."
Another said to President Seelye, "Think of a wife who forced you to
talk perpetually about metaphysics, or to listen to Greek and Latin
quotations!" This would be much more agreeable conversation to some men
than to hear about dress and servants and gossip.
When Smith College was opened in 1875, there were many applicants; but
with requirements for admission the same as at Harvard, Yale, Brown, and
Amherst, only fifteen could pass the examinations. The next year
eighteen were accepted.
Each year the number has increased, till in the year 1895 there were 875
students at Smith College. The professorships are about equally divided
between men and women. The chair of Greek, on the John M. Greene
foundation, "is founded in honor of the Rev. John M. Greene, D.D., who
first suggested to Miss Smith the idea of the college, and was her
confidential adviser in her bequest," says the College Calendar.
There are three courses of study, each extending through four
years,--the classical course leading to the degree of Bachelor of Arts,
the scientific to Bachelor of Science, the literary to Bachelor of
Letters. The maximum of work allowed to any student in a regular course
is sixteen hours of recitation each week.
Year by year Miss Smith's noble gift has been supplemented by the gifts
of others.
In 1878 the Lilly Hall of Science was dedicated, the gift of Mr. Alfred
Theodore Lilly. This building contains lecture rooms, and laboratories
for chemistry, physics, geology, zoölogy, and botany. In 1881 Mr.
Winthrop Hillyer gave the money to erect the Hillyer Art Gallery, which
now contains an extensive collection of casts, engravings, and
paintings, and is provided with studios. One corridor of engravings and
an alcove of original drawings were given by the Century Company. Mr.
Hillyer gave an endowment of $50,000 for his gallery. A music-hall was
also erected in 1881.
The observatory, given by two donors unknown to the public, has an
eleven-inch refracting telescope, a spectroscope, siderial clock,
chronograph, a portable telescope, and a meridian circle, aperture four
inches.
The alumnæ gymnasium contains a swimming-bath, and a large hall for
gymnastic exercises and in-door sport. A large greenhouse has been
erected to aid in botanical work, with an extensive collection of
tropical plants.
There are eight or more dwelling-houses for the students, each presided
over by a competent woman, where the scholars find cheerful, happy
homes. The Tenney House, bequeathed by Mrs. Mary A. Tenney, for
experiments in co-operative housekeeping, enables the students to adapt
their expenses to their means, if they choose to make the experiment
together. Tuition is $100 a year, with $300 for board and furnished room
in the college houses.
Smith College is fortunately situated. Opposite the grounds is the
beautiful Forbes Library, with an endowment of $300,000 for books alone,
and not far away a public library with several thousand volumes, and a
permanent endowment of $50,000 for its increase. The students have
access to the collections at Amherst College and the Massachusetts
Agricultural College, also at Mount Holyoke College, about seven miles
distant.
There are no secret societies at Smith. "Instead of hazing newcomers,"
says President Seelye, "the second or sophomore class will give them a
reception in the art-gallery, introduce them to the older students with
the courteous hospitality which good breeding dictates."
There are several literary and charitable societies in Smith College.
Great interest is taken in the working-girls of New York, and in the
college settlement of that city.
None of the evil effects predicted for young women in college have been
realized. "Some of our best scholars," says President Seelye, "have
steadily improved in health since entering college. Some who came so
feeble that it was doubtful whether they could remain a term have become
entirely well and strong.... We have had frequently professors from male
institutions to give instruction; and their testimony is to the effect
that the girls study better than the boys, and that the average
scholarship is higher."
"The general atmosphere of the college is one of freedom," writes Louise
Walston, in the "History of Higher Education in Massachusetts," by
George Gary Bush, Ph.D. "The written code consists of one law,--Lights
out at ten; the unwritten is that of every well-regulated community,
and to the success of this method of discipline every year is a witness.
"This freedom is not license.... The system of attendance upon
recitation at Smith is in this respect unique. It is distinctively a
'no-cut' system. In the college market that commodity known as
indulgences is not to be found; and no student is expected to absent
herself from lecture or recitation except for good reasons, the validity
of which, however, is left to her own conscience. Knowledge is offered
as a privilege, and is so received."
As Miss Smith directed in her will, "the Holy Scriptures are daily and
systematically read and studied in the college." A chapel service is
held in the morning of week-days, and a vesper service on Sunday.
Students attend the churches of their preference in Northampton.
All honor to Sophia Smith, the quiet Christian woman, who, forgetting
herself, became a blessing to tens of thousands by her gifts. At the
request of the trustees of Smith College, Dr. Greene is preparing a
volume on her life and character.
All honor, too, to the Rev. John M. Greene, who for twenty-five years
has been the beloved pastor of the Eliot Church in Lowell, Mass. His
quarter century of service was fittingly celebrated at Lowell, Sept. 26,
1895. Out of five hundred Congregational ministers in Massachusetts,
only ten have held so long a pastorate as he over one church.
Among the hundreds of congratulations and testimonies to Dr. Greene's
successful ministry, the able Professor Edwards A. Park of Andover,
wrote to the congregation: "The city of Lowell has been favored with
clergymen who will be remembered by a distant posterity, but not one of
them will be remembered longer than the present pastor of Eliot Church.
He was the father of Smith College, now so flourishing in Northampton,
Mass. Had it not been for him that great institution would never have
existed. For this great benefaction to the world, he will be honored a
hundred years hence."
JAMES LICK
AND HIS TELESCOPE.
James Lick, one of the great givers of the West, was born in
Fredericksburg, Penn., Aug. 25, 1796. Little is known of his early life,
except that his ancestors were Germans, and that he was born in poverty.
His grandfather served in the Revolutionary War. James learned to make
organs and pianos in Hanover, Penn., and in 1819 worked for Joseph
Hiskey, a prominent piano manufacturer of Baltimore.
One day Conrad Meyer, a poor lad, came into the store and asked for
work. Young Lick gave him food and clothing, and secured a place for him
in the establishment. They became fast friends, and continued thus for
life. Later Conrad Meyer was a wealthy manufacturer of pianos in
Philadelphia.
James Lick in 1820, when he was twenty-four, went to New York, hoping to
begin business for himself, but finding his capital too limited, in the
following year, 1821, went to Buenos Ayres, South America, where he
lived for ten years. At the end of that time he went to Philadelphia,
and met his old friend Conrad Meyer. He had brought with him for sale
$40,000 worth of hides and nutria skins. The latter are obtained from a
species of otter found along the La Plata River.
He intended settling in Philadelphia, and rented a house on Eighth
Street, near Arch, but soon abandoned his purpose, probably because the
business outlook was not hopeful, and returned to Buenos Ayres to sell
pianos. From the east side of South America he went to the west side,
and remained in Valparaiso, Chili, for four years. He spent eleven years
in Peru, making and selling pianos. Once, when his workmen left him
suddenly to go to Mexico, rather than break a contract he did all the
work himself, and accomplished it in two years.
In 1847 he went to San Francisco, which had only one thousand
inhabitants. He was then about fifty years old, and took with him over
$30,000, which, foreseeing California's wonderful prospects, he invested
in land in San Francisco, and farther south in Santa Clara Valley.
[Illustration: JAMES LICK.
(Used by courtesy of "The Overland Monthly.")]
In 1854, to the surprise of everybody, the quiet, parsimonious James
Lick built a magnificent flour-mill six miles from San José. He tore
down an old structure, and erected in its place a mill, finished within
in solid mahogany highly polished, and furnished it with the best
machinery possible. It was called "The Mahogany Mill," or more
frequently "Lick's Folly." He made the grounds about the mill very
attractive. "Upon it," says the San José _Daily Mercury_, June 28, 1888,
"he began early to set out trees of various kinds, both for fruit and
ornament. He held some curious theories of tree-planting, and believed
in the efficiency of a bone deposit about the roots of every young tree.
Many are the stories told by old residents of James Lick going along the
highway in an old rattletrap, rope-tied wagon, with a bearskin robe for
a seat cushion, and stopping every now and then to gather in the bones
of some dead beast. People used to think him crazy until they saw him
among his beloved trees, planting some new and rare variety, and
carefully mingling about its young roots the finest of loams with the
bones he had gathered during his lonely rides.
"There is a story extant, and probably well-founded, which illustrates
the odd means he employed to secure hired help at once trustworthy and
obedient. One day while he was planting his orchard a man applied to him
for work. Mr. Lick directed him to take the trees he indicated to a
certain part of the grounds, and then to plant them with the tops in the
earth and the roots in the air. The man obeyed the directions to the
letter, and reported in the evening for further orders. Mr. Lick went
out, viewed his work with apparent satisfaction, and then ordered him to
plant the trees the proper way and thereafter to continue in his
employ." Nineteen years after Mr. Lick built his mill, Jan. 16, 1873, he
surprised the people of San José again, by giving it to the Paine
Memorial Society of Boston, half the proceeds of sale to be used for a
Memorial Hall, and half to sustain a lecture course. He had always been
an admirer of Thomas Paine's writings. The mill was annually inundated
by the floods from the Guadalupe River, spoiling his orchards and his
roads, so that he tired of the property.
An agent of the Boston Society went to California, sold the mill for
$18,000 cash, and carried the money back to Boston. Mr. Lick was
displeased that the property which had cost him $200,000 should be sold
at such a low price, and without his knowledge, as he would willingly
have bought it in at $50,000.
It is said by some that Mr. Lick built his mill as a protest against the
cheap and flimsy style of building on the Pacific Coast, but it is much
more probable that he built it for another reason. In early life it is
believed that young Lick fell in love with the daughter of a well-to-do
miller for whom he worked. When the young man made known his love, which
was reciprocated by the girl, the miller was angry, and is said to have
replied, "Out, you beggar! Dare you cast your eyes upon my daughter, who
will inherit my riches? Have you a mill like this? Have you a single
penny in your purse?"
To this Lick replied "that he had nothing as yet, but one day he would
have a mill beside which this one would be a pigsty."
Lick caused his elegant mill to be photographed without and within, and
sent the pictures to the miller. It was, however, too late to win the
girl, if indeed he ever hoped to do so; for she had long since married,
and Mr. Lick went through life a lonely and unresponsive man. He never
lived in his palatial mill, but occupied for a time a humble abode near
by.
After Mr. Lick disposed of his mill, he began to improve a tract of land
south of San José known as "The Lick Homestead Addition." "Day after
day," says the San José _Mercury_, "long trains of carts and wagons
passed slowly through San José carrying tall trees and full-grown
shrubbery from the old to the new location. Winter and summer alike the
work went on, the old man superintending it all in his rattletrap wagon
and bearskin robe. His plans for this new improvement were made
regardless of expense. Tradition tells that he had imported from
Australia rare trees, and in order to secure their growth had brought
with them whole shiploads of their native earth. He conceived the idea
of building conservatories superior to any on the Pacific Coast, and for
that purpose had imported from England the materials for two large
conservatories after the model of those in the Kew Gardens in London.
His death occurred before he could have these constructed; and they
remained on the hands of the trustees until a body of San Francisco
gentlemen contributed funds for their purchase and donation to the use
of the public in Golden Gate Park, where they now stand as the wonder
and delight of all who visit that beautiful resort."
Mr. Lick also built in San Francisco a handsome hotel called the Lick
House. With his own hands he carved some of the rosewood frames of the
mirrors. He caused the walls to be decorated with pictures of California
scenery. The dining-room has a polished floor made of many thousand
pieces of wood of various kinds.
When Mr. Lick was seventy-seven years old, and found himself the owner
of millions, with a laudable desire to be remembered after death, and a
patriotism worthy of high commendation, he began to think deeply how
best to use his property.
On Feb. 15, 1873, Mr. Lick offered to the California Academy of Sciences
a piece of land on Market Street, the site of its present building.
Professor George Davidson, then president of the academy, called to
thank him, when Mr. Lick unfolded to him his purpose of giving a great
telescope for future investigation of the heavenly bodies. He had become
deeply interested from reading, it is said, about possible life on other
planets. It is supposed by some that while Mr. Lick lived his lonely
life in Peru, a priest, who gained his friendship, interested him in
astronomy. Others think his mind was drawn towards it by reading about
the Washington Observatory, completed in 1874, and noticed widely by the
press.
Mr. Lick was not a scientist nor an astronomer; he had been too absorbed
in successful business life for that; but he earned money that others
might have the time and opportunity to devote their lives to science.
Mr. Lick appears to have had a passion for statuary, as shown by his
gifts. At one time he thought of having expensive memorial statues of
himself and family erected on the heights overlooking the ocean and the
bay, but was dissuaded by one of his pioneer friends, according to Miss
M. W. Shinn's account in the _Overland Monthly_, November, 1892.
"Mr. D. J. Staples felt it his duty to tell Mr. Lick frankly that his
bequests for statues of himself and family would be utterly useless as a
memorial; that the world would not be interested in them; and when Mr.
Lick urged that such costly statues would be preserved for all time, as
the statues of antiquity now remained the precious relics of a lost
civilization, answered, almost at random, 'More likely we shall get into
a war with Russia or somebody, and they will come around here with
warships, and smash the statues to pieces in bombarding the city.'"
Mr. Lick conferred with his friends, but had his own decided wishes and
plans which usually he carried out. On July 16, 1874, he conveyed all
his property, real and personal, over $3,000,000, by deed of trust to
seven men; but becoming dissatisfied with some members of the Board of
Lick Trustees, he made a new deed, Sept. 21, 1875, under which his
property has been used as he directed. A year later he changed some of
the members, but the deed itself remained as before.
One of the first bequests under his deed of trust was for the telescope
and observatory, $700,000. Another, to the Protestant Orphan Asylum of
San Francisco, $25,000.
For an Orphan Asylum in San José, "free to all orphans without regard to
creed or religion of parents," $25,000.
To the Ladies' Protective and Belief Society of San Francisco, $25,000.
To the Mechanics' Institute of San Francisco, "to be applied to the
purchase of scientific and mechanical works for such Institute,"
$10,000.
To the Trustees of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of
San Francisco, $10,000, with the hope expressed by him, "that the
trustees of said society may organize such a system as will result in
establishing similar societies in every city and town in California, to
the end that the rising generations may not witness or be impressed with
such scenes of cruelty and brutality as constantly occur in this State."
To found in San Francisco "an institution to be called The Old Ladies'
Home," $100,000. For the erection and the maintenance of that extremely
useful public charity, Free Public Baths, $150,000. These baths went
into use Nov. 1, 1890.
For the erection of a monument to be placed in Golden Gate Park, "to the
memory of Francis Scott Key, the author of 'The Star-Spangled Banner,'"
$60,000. This statue was unveiled July 4, 1888.
To endow an institution to be called the California School of Mechanical
Arts, "to be open to all youths born in California," $540,000.
For statuary emblematical of three important epochs in the history of
California, to be placed in front of the San Francisco City Hall,
$100,000.
To John H. Lick, his son, born in Pennsylvania, June 30, 1818, $150,000.
The latter contested the will; and a compromise was effected whereby he
received $533,000, the expense of the suit being a little over $60,000.
This son, at his death, founded Lick College, Fredericksburg, Penn.,
giving it practically all his fortune. It is now called Schuylkill
Seminary, and had 285 pupils in 1893, according to the Report of the
Commissioner of Education. A family monument was erected at
Fredericksburg, Penn., Mr. Lick's birthplace, at a cost of $20,000.