256 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 



out of this agreement it seems far the best educa- 

 tional opportunity ever offered to women in this 

 country. But should this new departure, so full of 

 hope and promise, be met by a check now, by a 

 refusal or even a postponement of our right to give 

 degrees under the authority of Harvard, it would take 

 the heart out of our enterprise. We should be thrown 

 back upon our old lines, upon the position of insecurity 

 and doubt which we have held for so long, and which 

 has been the chief hindrance to our progress. 



We therefore hope that our petition for a college 

 charter, supported as it is by the governing boards of 

 Harvard and approved by her professors and teach- 

 ers who have served us so long and so faithfully, will 

 not be denied us by the Legislature. 



j The effect of Mrs. Agassiz's words and above all of her 

 presence is described by President Eliot in the address at 

 the Commemoration Service published below, and is there- 

 fore not dwelt upon here. There was no doubt in the minds 

 of those present, as they watched the faces of the Commit- 

 tee, that her influence upon them was securing the desired 

 legislation, yet Mrs. Agassiz herself with her usual modesty 

 attributed the clinching of the arguments not to herself but 

 to another. In the note on Professor Goodwin at the time 

 of his resignation, which has been quoted above in part, 

 she speaks of his influence at the hearing. "One of the 

 grounds of the opposition of the remonstrants was our pov- 

 erty. They asserted that the right of giving degrees should 

 not be conferred upon an institution so poor, the future of 

 which was therefore so insecure. To this plea Mr. Goodwin 

 replied, 'The remonstrants are right as to the material 



