THE HARVARD ANNEX 221 



of the Executive Committee again made an appeal which 

 met with a sufficient response to enable the Annex by the 

 following September to leave Appian Way and begin the 

 year in the Fay House. 



It would have been difficult to find in Cambridge at the 

 time more suitable quarters for an institution of which Mrs. 

 Agassiz was the president. Associated with the traditions 

 of such a life as she herself represented, it made an admira- 

 ble setting for the young college that she was fostering. No 

 Radcliffe building of later days can have the indescribable 

 charm that the Fay House possessed when the Annex was 

 first domiciled there. As had been intended its character 

 as a private dwelhng remained so far as possible unaltered 

 and stimulated those qualities in the students that were 

 most desired for them by the wise administrators of the 

 simple arrangements. For a time before Judge Fay had 

 bought the house, it had been somewhat romantically 

 called "Castle Corner," but the Annex preserved the 

 name of Fay, which has been retained throughout the 

 history of the college. 



The investment in this piece of property inaugurated a 

 distinctly new phase in the development of the Annex. Its 

 importance is explained in Mrs. Agassiz 's address at Com- 

 mencement in 1886; 



I cannot meet you on this first commencement in 

 the new house which has given us all such a sense of 

 security without feeling that this has been an event- 

 ful and happy year in our little community. There 

 are some few of the students here who remember with 

 me the poverty of our earlier years. And it was per- 

 haps well that our experiment began under such bare 



