graduation and discipline. In a university, the dean of a department is practically the president of that department. In the different American colleges for women where the office has been established, the duties vary greatly. In some institutions of learning for women the office seems to follow closely the model of a purely disciplinary and administrative post; in others these functions have been combined with those of the teacher. The duties of a dean do not seem to demand in all colleges the establishment of a distinctive office, the responsibilities being sometimes shared, as at Vassar, by the woman principal and the secretary. The woman principal in this case assumes charge of the social side of life, of permissions for absence, and of the chief portion of the discipline. The secretary has in hand the management of the educational machinery, the arranging of classes, consultation with students in regard to their courses, deficiencies, etc. Both officers are voting members of the faculty, though having no class-room duties. In carrying the responsibility for the direction and management of a woman's college, Miss Agnes Irwin, as dean of Radcliffe, assumes all the responsibilities of a college president. Though Mrs. Louis Agassiz, honorary president, is still interested in the work, her advanced years and ill health combine to prevent active service. Miss Irwin has proved to be the right person in the right place, in the supervision of the students, in the fulfilment of the functions inhering in the governing boards of all of which the dean is a member- and in carrying out the duties of the president in her absence or illness. Miss Irwin's remarkable intellectuality and her notable ancestry give her unusual prestige. Her father, Hon. William Wallace Irwin, was appointed minister to Denmark by President Polk, where the family removed when Miss Irwin was one year old. Her mother was a member of the noted Bache family, direct descendants of Benjamin Franklin. On the maternal side is a long list of names, including well-known American statesmen, authors, men prominent in military and naval service, and in the professions. The influence of her association during her youth in Washington with men and women of affairs has not only contributed to a wide culture, but also has had its broader influence on Miss Irwin's work as an educator. Miss Irwin's teaching career began in New York in 1862 in a private school. In 1869 she MRS. MARTHA FOOTE CROW, Dean of Woman's Department, Northwestern University. keen mentality, and deep spiritual nature undoubtedly make her peculiarly fitted to set the educational standard at Radcliffe on a plane with the requirements of a national university for men. The function of the dean at Radcliffe is not to teach. The lectures are delivered by the corps of instructors at Harvard. As a director to young women in their choice of studies, as an exemplar to them of rare. scholarship combined with womanly charm, as a guide to lead them to higher concepts. of life and to the higher planes of living to which intellectual acquirements are only the stepping-stones, Miss Irwin is filling a great place and reflecting credit upon the noble body of American women educators. There is no better known coeducational institution in all the middle west than Northwestern University. The first dean of its woman's department was the late Frances MISS MARGARET J. EVANS, Dean of the Woman's Department, Carleton College. Willard, LL. D., who had completed there a brilliant educational career before entering upon the reform and philanthropic work to which she devoted her later life. Northwestern has had other able women deans, but none of greater scholarship than the present occupant of the deanship, Mrs. Martha Foote Crow, Ph. D., who has a reputation as a Shakespearean scholar which is international. Dr. Crow is a daughter of a Methodist divine, the Rev. J. B. Foote of Syracuse, New York. Her husband was a well-known archæologist. One of the most talented women upon whom Syracuse University has ever conferred a degree, Dr. Crow has since her graduation in 1876 been a very busy woman as teacher, writer, and lecturer. She has been associated with many colleges, including Wellesley. At Iowa College she was woman principal, and was assistant professor of English literature at the University of Chicago before accepting the deanship of Northwestern in 1900, which also includes the chair of English literature. Mrs. Crow is unique as a student, extending her studies through a broad range. She in the Shakespearean period, in which she is recognized as an authority, her assistance as associate editor being asked by the English editor of the Warwick edition of Shakespeare, recently published in Edinburgh. On commission from the Bureau of Education at Washington some years ago, she made a report of her investigation into the university education of women in Europe, which was published by the government. In addition to her work as dean and instructor, Dr. Crow is continually putting forth literary products in both poetic and dramatic form. For several years she has devoted considerable time to an edition of the "Elizabethan Sonnet Cycle," the most important of her works. Miss Mary Alma Sawyer of the Western College for Women, Oxford, Ohio, is a noble woman, an admirable officer, and a fine type of dean of a woman's college. She is of both Revolutionary and Puritan stock, her family having settled in Massachusetts about 1632. She was born in Windsor county, Vermont, and grew up in the wholesome atmosphere of a New England village. Her college preparatory work was done at Black River Academy, Ludlow, Vermont. After several years of study and of teaching Miss Sawyer entered Mt. Holyoke College with advanced credit procured by examinations. Her record was a brilliant one. In three years has done research work at the British Museum she completed the course, graduating in 1879. and the Bodleian library. Her specialty lies Miss Sawyer taught at Northampton, Mas sachusetts, and at Demill College, Ontario, To Miss Ellen Pendleton has lately come the honor of being elected dean of Wellesley, although she will not begin her duties until next September. Her appointment is a merited recog nition of ability. Miss Pendleton is at present secretary of Wellesley, from which she was graduated in 1886. She became instructor of mathematics in 1888, and has been a member of the faculty ever since. In 1889-90 she studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, England. She received her degree of master of arts in 1891, and was appointed secretary in 1897. Miss Pendleton was born in Westerly, Rhode Island, where she received her early education and preparation for college. During her college course, she held prominent positions and was elected to several posts of honor, displaying marked executive ability. At the beginning of the past college year Miss Pendleton succeeded Miss Woolley, who was called to the presidency of Mt. Holyoke, as head of College Hall. The office of dean at Wellesley, it appears, has been vacant for two years since the withdrawal of the former dean, Miss Margaret Stratton. Another graduate of Wellesley, Dr. Alice H. Luce, has recently been promoted to a deanship, having been called to fill the place at the head of the Woman's Department of Oberlin College. Miss Luce was prepared for college in the Edward Little High School, Auburn, Maine, and entered Wellesley in 1880, graduating with the degree of bachelor of arts three years later. She taught in the high schools of Putnam, Connecticut, and of Wellesley, and later at the Girls' Latin School in Boston, where she was instructor in English and mathematics for eight years. From 1893 to 1895 she studied philosophy and English philology and literature at the University of Leipsic and then matriculated at the University of Heidelberg, from which MISS ALICE H. LUCE, Dean of the Woman's Department, Oberlin College. Dr. Luce is possessed of teaching powers businesslike and accurate in her dealings with others." These traits, combined with perfect health and adaptability, peculiarly fit Dr. Luce for the responsible office of dean. Since 1892 the graduate department in Brown University has placed women on exactly the same footing as men. In respect to instruction, examinations, and degrees, the two sexes are treated precisely alike. Pembroke, like Radcliffe and Barnard, gives a type of collegiate education which has the advantages both of separation and coeducation. These coördinate colleges, as they have been well designated, offer to women the best that is given to men and under the best conditions, it is claimed. Pembroke, until last October, had always had a man as dean. For the first time a woman now occupies that post-Miss Annie Crosby Emery, Ph. D. At her inauguration Pembroke was filled with alumni and friends of the college and a number of distinguished guests participated, among whom were Miss Caroline Hazard, president of Wellesley, and Miss M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr. Dr. Emery is a native of New England, having been born at Ellsworth, Maine. Her father is Hon. L. A. Emery, a justice of the state supreme court. Her record as a student is a notable one. She has won successively every honor in the gift of the faculty or students of her alma mater, Bryn Mawr--bachelor of arts, master of arts, doctor of philosophy, European fellow of her year, first holder of the then newly created academic office of secretary to the president of the college, one of the signers of the original charter of self-government granted by the trustees, and by the unanimous vote of fellow students, first president of the self-government itself during the first and most critical year of its existence. Her European year was passed at the University of Leipsic. Dr. Emery received her degree of doctor of philosophy in 1896, and in 1897 she became dean of women and assistant professor of classical philology in the University of Wisconsin. By inaugurating as dean a woman who has completed a long course of academic study, the trustees of Brown University have given evidence of their belief that educated women are needed in women's education. MISS MARION TALBOT, Dean of the Woman's Department, Chicago University. woman of great learning and literary ability. She did postgraduate work in Columbia and Cornell, receiving her degree of doctor of philosophy from the latter in 1894. For six years Dr. Washburn was professor of psychology and ethics at Wells, and during that time published many original articles in psychological journals on various phases of "It has been recognized from the first," her special theme, as well as two volumes of translations of Wundt's Ethick. In view of all that women have accomplished as educators, it was not surprising that the trustees of Chicago University, in looking about for a chief executive for the woman's department of that institution, should have given woman's ability due recognition. Miss Marion Talbot, the present of the great northwest is Miss Margaret Evans, dean of Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, a position she has held for a quarter of a century. In point of seniority by length of office, Miss Evans would become the dean of women deans in the United States if such an office could be conceived. Loyalty to the institution in which she has been so potent a factor for so long, has held her to the post despite the many tempting offers from larger and better known educational institutions. Miss Evans's training at Lawrence University has been supplemented by two years of study abroad, in Paris and Berlin, Oxford and Heidelberg. Miss Evans's first experience as a teacher was at Downer College, Wisconsin, where she taught German and history. The next year she became woman principal and instructor in Latin, Greek, and German at her alma mater. In 1894 she was made dean of Carleton College. The busy life of dean has not prevented Miss Evans's participation in the wider interests of women through the great organizations. She has specially interested herself in the various lines of work having for their object the betterment of social conditions, the uplifting of humanity, and the spread of Christianity. Her interest in missionary work appropriately recognized by the American board when, two years ago, it chose her as one of the two women first elected to corporate membership in that august body. As chairman of the educational committee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, Miss Evans wields a wide influ was ence in promoting educational work throughout the country. She has been for four years president of the Minnesota State Federation of Women's Clubs and was at the last biennial elected second vice-president of the General Federation. MISS MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN, Dean of the Woman's Department, Cornell University. dean, was educated at Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in Switzerland and Germany. Her professional record includes that of teacher at Lasell Seminary, and instructor in domestic science at Wellesley. In 1892 she became dean of women and associate professor of sanitary science at Chicago University. In the work of sanitary science she has been recognized as an expert. Miss Talbot is representative of a high type of the educational executive. Her splendid organizing powers, clear brain, and originality find vent in the great western institution where she has full authority in the direction of all the varied interests of the women students. Among the best known women educators Possessed of ability as a writer and speaker, Miss Evans frequently responds to calls for platform duty. She is a woman of remarkably strong character, high Christian principles, and is thoroughly devoted to her profession. Miss Laura D. Gill is the new dean of Barnard College, which has had no regular dean for the past year owing to the resignation of Miss Emily James Smith, now Mrs. Putnam. Miss Gill is a thoroughbred college woman, a graduate of Smith College, where she after |