THE FOUNDING OF RADCLIFFE 373 



of its doing its work and gradually winning its way to success 

 without much avowed sympathy or encouragement, indeed 

 against a certain hostility. He would add, " The Bible grew, 

 the Koran was made." 



It may be said here that Mr. Shaler presided at the council- 

 meeting held at Mr. Arthur Oilman's house which took the 

 first steps for the founding of Radcliffe College. He never 

 taught there, for the reason that he was already too heavily 

 burdened with his University work. While he believed that 

 women should enjoy the most liberal educational advantages, 

 he was not in favor of co-education, or of anything, indeed, 

 which might take away from the poetic side of social life. He 

 feared that matter-of-fact, commonplace contacts might do 

 this. He never cared to have women clerks in his office, for the 

 reason, he said, that "if there were occasion for blowing any 

 one up for neglect of duty, he preferred to blow up a man 

 rather than a woman." 



In his teaching of teachers who came to the Summer School, 

 as well as with his College students, so far from wishing to keep 

 them in leading-strings or subordinate to his will he aimed to 

 render them able to walk by themselves. He believed that the 

 usual efforts to obtain discipline and attention through habits 

 created from the will of the teacher impressed upon the youth, 

 were wrong. In his opinion these essentials can be profitably 

 won only through the exercise of the will of the pupil. If the 

 exercise of this power arises from the mere dominance of the 

 teacher the effect is to repress development. He sometimes 

 reproached the kindergarten methods for fostering a limp and 

 dependent attitude, for building up a state of mind that re- 

 quired perpetual amusement. He said he could always tell a 

 victim of the system by his inability to fix his attention long 

 on any subject or to work alone. He had far less patience with 

 such students than with men who were simply stupid, or with 

 those who could not even think of thinking. In the one case 

 he trusted to a belated awakening, in the other to some kind 



