CHAPTER IX 
THE SOCIETY FOR THE COLLEGIATE INSTRUCTION 
OF WOMEN: THE HARVARD ANNEX 
1879 —1893 
N Mrs. Agassizs diary for 1879 the note for Febru- 
I ary 11 reads: “At home, morning. Meeting about Har- 
vard Education for Women, afternoon.” This, the first rec- 
ord of her connection with a work of which she became a 
large part and of which Radcliffe College is the outcome, is 
supplemented by a slender sheaf of papers in the possession 
of the college, consisting of the copies of notes made in the 
form of a diary by Mr. Arthur Gilman, a well-known liter- 
ary man and author, deeply interested in education, and a 
familiar figure in Cambridge from 1870 to his death in 
1909. In this diary he jotted down day by day from No- 
vember, 1879, to June, 1882, the activities of the little 
group of earnest enthusiasts, a self-constituted committee, 
with whom Mrs. Agassiz first met on that February after- 
noon in 1879. These papers containing information that 
only Mr. Gilman, as secretary of the committee, could sup- 
ply, he gave to the Library of Radcliffe College in 1904, 
saying in his letter of presentation, “I thought that if some 
one in 1636 or thereabouts, had made such notes and had 
preserved such printed and written matter about the Col- 
lege now called Harvard, he would have been a benefactor. 
Perhaps somebody will thank me, even in 2172.” Apprecia- 
tion of his labors, however, has tarried till no such distant 
date, for his little collection of documents is in fact our 
