COMMEMORATION ADDRESSES 409 



power. Such was Mrs. Agassiz, delightful in life and 

 in memory to all who enjoyed the blessing of her 

 friendship. Whatever tradition may, in the course of 

 centuries, gather around her person, she will surely 

 stand as a noble figure of ever contemporaneous 

 womanhood, modest, sympathetic, wise, sufficient for 

 whatever duty. 



PRESIDENT ELIOT 



It was fourteen years ago next spring that I saw Mrs. 

 Agassiz appear before a singularly hostile audience 

 attending a hearing before the Committee on Educa- 

 tion of the Massachusetts Legislature on a statute 

 establishing and defining Radcliffe College. Now the 

 Committee on Education is not one of the most dis- 

 tinguished committees of the Legislature. It ought to 

 be; but it is not. The ambitious and able members of 

 the Legislature prefer service on the Judiciary Com- 

 mittee, the Committee on Metropolitan Affairs, or the 

 Committee on Railroads. And so it happens almost 

 every year that the Committee on Education consists 

 of a number of remarkably plain men, or, we may say, 

 of good common citizens of Massachusetts. It was so 

 fourteen years ago next spring. Radcliffe College, 

 successor to the Society for the Collegiate Instruction 

 of Women, had come before the Legislature for its 

 first charter. 



I have said that the audience which collected in 

 that spacious committee room was singularly hostile. 

 It was largely composed of women ; but the expression 

 on their faces, as I looked at them, was not tender. It 



