A Chapter in Methodist History.

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husband, Rev. C. C. Wilbor, were my next-door neighbors on the same hall. Dr. Lindsay was greatly looked up to by us, and always seemed to me one of the noblest of men. Dr. Daniel Steele was a special friend of ours, a man of independent mind and sterling character. He had not then come to the vision of "Love enthroned." Professor Coddington, the eloquent preacher of Syracuse University, gave high promise in those early years; Professor French, honest and skilled; Professor Lattimore, the son-in-law of the lamented Professor Larrabee of Dickinson College, was the exquisite man of the faculty; the afterglow of Professor Alverson's great name still lingered on the hills; Dr. Cummings was spoken of reverently, Dr. Reid pleasantly, and an important chapter in the history of Methodism was here studied by me at first hand.

In our own seminary faculty we had in Professor Fuller a man of excellent ability, who had succeeded in the pastorate, but was hardly at his best in this new calling, a fact for which, because I thought so highly of him, I was often sorry. His wife was a true friend, whom I have not seen since, but whom I have remembered always with unchanged affection. Miss Bannister, now Mrs. Ayers, of Penn Yan, the teacher of Fine Arts, had a nature delicate as a porcelain vase, and a spirit tremulous with aspirations toward God. With her I took sweet counsel, and oftentimes we walked to the house of the Lord in company. Professor Hudson, the Latin teacher, was phenomenal in memory, and has since become one of the leading stenographers at Chautauqua. I remember he took my White Cross address with marvelous celerity and accuracy when I spoke there in 1886. Professor Locke was chief of the Conservatory, a young man of harmonious character, great activity, and zeal that his pupils should improve, and that all the students should be religious. For many years now he has held the same position in the Northwestern University, at Evanston, loved and trusted by all who know him. Prof. Delevan C. Scoville was probably the most unique man of either faculty; born among the hills of Oneida, devoted to the Adirondacks and to books, worshipful toward his mother and sister-two rare women, worthy of his devotion,— working his way to high culture, and phenomenally successful as a teacher, with a certain magnetism in look, voice and manner

that made him a universal favorite among the students, he should, to my mind, have been a minister, and I think he had this purpose, but in some way was deflected from it, went to New York City, and has become a first-class lawyer there.

I remember that Professor Scoville, who was very liberalminded on the woman question, urged me to consent to speak before the United Societies at Commencement in the College chapel, saying that if I would only agree to do this, it was the easiest thing in the world for him to secure the invitation. But I stoutly declined, saying that while I would rejoice to speak. were I a man, such a beatitude was not for women, and I would not face the grim visage of public prejudice. This was at the Commencement exercises of 1867. Something less than four years later, I was glad to accept Mr. A. E. Bishop's generous championship, and under his auspices to speak an hour and a quarter in Centenary Church, Chicago, without manuscript. So goes the world. It is always broader and better farther on.

I left Lima at the close of the school year of 1867, with the pleasantest of memories and prospects, as shown by the following correspondence:

To the Board of Trustees of Genesee Wesleyan Seminary :

July 8, 1867.

GENTLEMEN-Opportunity to visit Europe under circumstances most advantageous having presented itself since I entered upon my duties here, I have decided to avail myself of it, and therefore tender my resignation of the position of Preceptress. Wishing continued prosperity to the institution in which I have spent a year so pleasantly, I am,

Yours very respectfully,

FRANCES E. WILLARD.

This was their courteous and brotherly reply:

GENESEE WESLEYAN SEMINARY,
LIMA, N. Y., July 9, 1867.

MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD, Madam-I am directed by the Board of Trustees of Genesee Wesleyan Seminary to transmit to you the following resolution, unanimously passed by the Board as an expression of their regard for you personally, and approval of your conduct as the Preceptress of the Seminary.

Trusting that the good Lord will preserve you during your travels, I am,
Yours truly,

D. A. OGDEN, Secretary.

Resolved, That in accepting the resignation of Miss Frances E. Willard as Preceptress in Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, we feel great pleasure in

Kindly Words and Deeds.

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expressing our high appreciation and grateful acknowledgments for her valuable services during her connection with this institution.

Hoping for a pleasant tour and safe return from her journeyings abroad, we will pray for her safety, her continued success, prosperity and happiness in any sphere of labor and usefulness she may be called to fill in the future. [Unanimously adopted.] D. A. OGDEN, Secretary.

My generous Senior girls gave me a beautiful ring like their own, with my favorite motto from Goethe, which they had adopted, Ohne hast, ohne rast; the under-graduates gave me nearly one hundred dollars with which to buy a dressing-case.

CHAPTER VIII.

PRESIDENT OF EVANSTON COLLEGE FOR LADIES.

The circumstances that led to my being elected president of a new college, and the first woman to whom that honorable title was accorded, though so many others have deserved it better, are thus narrated by my mother to the stenographer :

In 1868 Frank went to Europe. Her good friend, Kate Jackson, paid all the expenses of their trip, which cost about $12,000 in gold, at the time when gold was at a premium. We rented Rest Cottage to Rev. Mr. Safford and family, friends of ours from Oberlin, and I boarded with them for a year. The next year my son and his family moved into our house, and I boarded with them a year. Then we closed the house, and I went to Churchville to visit our relatives and await my daughter's coming. Frank and Kate returned in September of 1870, and we three reopened Rest Cottage, where I have lived ever since.

That winter we did all of our own work, not because we could not have a girl, for Kate had no lack of money, but after such a tremendous outing as those two had been through, they seemed to enjoy hugely the idea of hiding away out of sight and hearing, and keeping house for themselves. Frank occupied herself chiefly with the outdoor part, chopping kindling, bringing in wood and coal, and doing the rougher work, while Kate and I attended to the culinary and ornamental departments. One day when Frank was busy nailing down the stair-carpet, Mrs. Dr. Kidder, whose husband was then leading professor in the Theological Seminary, came from her home across the street, and taking a seat on the stairs, said, "Frank, I am amazed at you. Let some one else tack down carpets, and do you take charge of the new college." "Very well," answered Frank; "I shall be glad to do so. I was only waiting to be asked."

Comparing the opportunities for womanhood then and now, the old Persian proverb comes instinctively to mind, "More kingdoms wait thy diadem than are known to thee by name." Coincident with the advance of woman into an unknown realm, began another epoch in my life, as I was made President of the Evanston College for Ladies.

On St. Valentine's day, 1871, I was elected to this position, and at once entered on my duties.

Our college was, indeed, something new under the sun. Its beginning was on this wise: Mrs. Mary F. Haskin, wife of the kind friend who gave me my first financial send-off, was a woman of decidedly progressive thought. She believed that women should be a felt force in the higher education, not only as students, but as professors and trustees. She believed that to have men only in these positions, was to shut up one of humanity's eyes, and that in the effort to see all around the mighty subject of education with the other, a squint had been contracted that was doing irreparable damage to the physiognomy of the body politic. Therefore, Mrs. Haskin ordered her handsome carriage and notable white horses one fine day, and calling on half a score of the most thoughtful women in Evanston, proposed to them to found a woman's college, in which women should constitute the board of trustees, a woman should be president and confer diplomas, and women should be, for the first time, recognized and proved as the peers of men in administrative power. She pointed out that even at Vassar College the president and all the trustees were masculine, while at Mt. Holyoke, where one would think the spirit of Mary Lyon would have left more liberal traditions, men only were trustees, and a man always conferred the diplomas that young women's study and older women's teaching had combined to earn. Evanston is the paradise of women, and Mrs. Haskin found abundant preparation of heart and answer of tongue among the earnest Christian matrons to whom she addressed herself. A meeting of ladies was appointed in her own home, at which measures were instituted to secure a charter and empower Mrs. Bishop Hamline with fourteen other ladies, and their successors, as trustees.

Our genial townsman, Hon. Edward S. Taylor, was in the Legislature that winter [1869-70], and through his influence the Charter was secured. Meanwhile, my own beloved Alma Mater, the "Northwestern Female College," was in full career, for although its founder, Prof. Wm. P. Jones, had been consul in China for several years, he had placed the institution in 1862-63 under care of Mrs. Lizzie Mace McFarland, and, later, that admirable College president, Rev. Dr. Lucius H. Bugbee, had