236 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 



. . . Here was an institution, to use a neutral term, 

 so strong that it could boast with justice of giving an 

 education equal to any in the country, and yet so fee- 

 ble that it could not give its students the recognition 

 which every other collegiate institution, good or bad, 

 gave, a degree. 



The solution of the difficulty which it was easiest 

 to propose was that Harvard University should give 

 the degrees. But this solution, easy to propose, was 

 difficult, nay, impossible to carry out. . . . Many wise 

 men, and by no means unfriendly to Radcliffe, felt 

 that a great trust had come into the hands of the 

 University rulers, that its organization and resources 

 were already greatly strained, and that the strain 

 ought not to be increased. 



Then came a time of depression and anxiety. Some 

 of the sincerest friends of Radcliffe, who in the days 

 of small things had not spared time or money thought 

 that the College should sit still and wait. But the 

 authorities of the College felt that this state of things 

 could not continue indefinitely; that the College could 

 not drag along in this maimed and humiliating con- 

 dition, unable to grant what every other college of 

 men or women was granting: it must assert its com- 

 petence to confer degrees; yet how to insure that the 

 degree should have the weight and character that a 

 degree granted to students trained as hers were, ought 

 to have? How to be independent of Harvard Univer- 

 sity and yet have her degrees as valuable as those of 

 the University? That was the problem. 



And now you must pardon me if I give a bit of per- 



