WOMAJV SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 227 



strongly in contrast with the conduct of Mrs. Willard or any of 

 the great educators. Miss Anthony gave no reason for her belief 

 that the entrance of woman upon the other professions would 

 raise either the status or the wages of those engaged in the teach- 

 er's profession, and as a matter of fact it has not done so. It 

 was not the society that cast scorn at woman's " lack of brains " 

 which assisted to remove the natural prejudice against her assum- 

 ing duties that had been deemed unsuited to her physique and her 

 necessary work. 



Meantime, one year before the Rochester meeting was held, 

 the first college for women had been chartered at Auburn, N. Y., 

 under the name of " Auburn Female University." In 1853 it was 

 transferred to Elmira, and it was formally opened in 1855. It was 

 placed under the care of the Congregational Church, but its char- 

 ter required that it should have representative trustees from five 

 other denominations. Its course of study for the degree A. B. 

 was essentially the same that was then pursued in the men's col- 

 leges of the State. It was expected to rely upon endowment, 

 which put woman's education upon a new and more secure 

 footing. 



Suffrage leaders lose no opportunity to represent the Church 

 as an enemy to woman's advancement. Nothing can be further 

 from the truth ; and in striking evidence stand the colleges, 

 which, while unsectarian in spirit and in method, have been es- 

 tablished and cared for by special religious denominations. Dr. 

 Jacobi, in her book Common Sense, takes up the tale and says, 

 *' The Mount Holyoke Seminary, the immediate successor of that 

 at Troy, was opened in 1837 by Miss Lyon, in spite of the opposi- 

 tion of the clergy." Many besides the clergy were opposed to the 

 plan for which Miss Lyon was endeavoring to raise money. Her 

 idea that the entire domestic work of the establishment could be 

 done by pupils and teachers was thought unwise and hopeless; 

 and it was simply this feature that they disapproved, not the 

 school itself. In that noble school, where thousands of women 

 have been educated, a great number have become missionaries. 

 When a suffrage convention in session in Worcester wrote to Miss 

 Lyon, asking her to interest herself in the wrongs of her sex, she 

 answered, " I can not leave my work." Neither was Vassar Col- 

 lege founded from any impulse or suggestion of suffrage agitators, 

 but in a spirit exactly the opposite. The real impetus to its found- 

 ing came from Milo Parker Jewett. He suggested to Mr. Vassar 

 an endowed college for women, and visited the universities and 

 libraries of Europe with a plan of organization in mind. Mr. 

 Vassar gladly accepted this great enlargement upon an idea that 

 had lain dormant in his own mind, and Vassar College was 

 founded, Dr. Jewett becoming its first president in 1862. 



