THE PASSING OF THE ANNEX 263 



liberal sense, should worthily serve the older insti- 

 tution by which she is adopted. This trust is yours, 

 and I hope you will hand it down to successive classes, 

 enriched by traditions of your own, such as may befit 

 association with what is best and noblest in the rec- 

 ords of Harvard University. 



Mrs. Agassiz, it is to be observed, says nothing about 

 her own part on the path up which the college had been 

 "slowly climbing,'* and her silence brings to mind a story 

 that Mrs. Curtis tells of her during her presidency . "Lizzie 

 was never hampered with any consciousness that she her- 

 self held a position demanding any special consideration. 

 I was present once at a little scene which amused me by 

 showing this trait to some people who were entirely un- 

 aware of the character they were trying to exploit. It was 

 at one of her afternoon teas at home and the visitors were 

 either English or Americans who lived abroad. I was a 

 silent looker-on, and very soon saw that she was being in- 

 terviewed entirely unconsciously. They asked all sorts of 

 questions. Had she done this? and accomplished that .^^ And 

 she would only tell of what had happened and nothing of 

 what she herself had done." 



But as we read the records given in the foregoing 

 pages of "what had happened and what she herself had 

 done," we see that the nature of Mrs. Agassiz's service to 

 the college was twofold. She was influential in deter- 

 mining the policy of the movement almost from the day 

 that she became associated with it, and she represented 

 that policy in an exceptionally effective manner to the 

 public. She was filled with a true reverence for Harvard 

 University, due first, perhaps, to her associations with 



