254 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



library containing several thousand volumes, and 

 beside this a fair spending income and a moderate 

 surplus for emergencies, — all this will perhaps reas- 

 sure you as to the practical management of our af- 

 fairs. Neither must it be forgotten that if our endow- 

 ment is small, the active and cordial cooperation of 

 the professors and teachers of Harvard is better than 

 money for us, — it would be so for any young and 

 growing college. Without that support the $280,000 

 which now represents our whole property (inclusive 

 of certain legacies) would perhaps be an insufficient 

 capital for the maintenance on a high standard of a 

 new college without other support. But the true 

 builders of the Annex have been and are the Harvard 

 professors. They have brought it to its present promi- 

 nent position. They represent its true wealth and its 

 strength, — not a bad substitute for endowment 

 funds though measured by other standards. 



I must not take your time with details about the 

 instruction given or the work done at the Annex. The 

 friends who are here with us from the college will do 

 that better than I can. Still I should be sorry to close 

 without a word of our students. My own relation with 

 them is one of affectionate personal intercourse 

 rather than any immediate direction of their studies, 

 — a duty which belongs to our academic board, made 

 up of officers of the college, and to the professors and 

 teachers themselves. But I have constant evidence 

 of their deep gratitude for the opportunities offered 

 them at Cambridge. They are fully sensible of the 

 liberal and comprehensive quality of the instruction 



