CHAPTER IX 



THE SOCIETY FOR THE COLLEGIATE INSTRUCTION 

 OF WOIVIEN: THE HARVARD ANNEX 



1879-1893 



IN Mrs. Agassiz s diary for 1879 the note for Febru- 

 ary 11 reads: "At home, morning. Meeting about Har- 

 vard Education for Women, afternoon." This, the first rec- 

 ord of her connection with a work of which she became a 

 large part and of which Radcliffe College is the outcome, is 

 supplemented by a slender sheaf of papers in the possession 

 of the college, consisting of the copies of notes made in the 

 form of a diary by Mr. Arthur Oilman, a well-known liter- 

 ary man and author, deeply interested in education, and a 

 familiar figure in Cambridge from 1870 to his death in 

 1909. In this diary he jotted down day by day from No- 

 vember, 1879, to June, 1882, the activities of the httle 

 group of earnest enthusiasts, a self -constituted committee, 

 with whom Mrs. Agassiz first met on that February after- 

 noon in 1879. These papers containing information that 

 only Mr. Oilman, as secretary of the committee, could sup- 

 ply, he gave to the Library of Radcliffe College in 1904, 

 saying in his letter of presentation, " I thought that if some 

 one in 1636 or thereabouts, had made such notes and had 

 preserved such printed and written matter about the Col- 

 lege now called Harvard, he would have been a benefactor. 

 Perhaps somebody will thank me, even in 2172." Apprecia- 

 tion of his labors, however, has tarried till no such distant 

 date, for his little collection of documents is in fact our 



