248 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
been mistaken in trusting ourselves to the guardian- 
ship of the University. This is always supposing that 
our act passes the Legislature, and that we really be- 
come Radcliffe College. Otherwise I am afraid there 
would be great depression in our ranks and we should 
find it hard to keep up our courage. 
Believe me always 
Your old and affectionate friend,, 
Eizaspetu C. Acassiz 
As may be expected from the concluding paragraph of 
the above letter, remonstrances did not avail to check the 
efforts of the Society to obtain an act of legislature for its 
incorporation as a college with the right to confer degrees 
and to change its name to that of Radcliffe College. A 
hearing before the Committee of Education was held at 
the State House in Boston on February 28, 1894. The 
Committee on Endowment of Colleges of the Association 
of Collegiate Alumnae, who were the principal opponents 
of the act, were represented by Mr. G. W. Anderson and 
Mr. G.S. Hale. Their objections were, first, that the peti- 
tioners brought “‘no adequate guarantee that the new 
college is able to maintain the high character which it is 
the duty of the State to require of all institutions which it 
charters to grant degrees,” inasmuch as “the essential basis 
of such guarantee is an adequate endowment fund”; sec- 
ond, that “it is expressly provided that Harvard Univer- 
sity may at any time withdraw its visitatorial power and 
decline to countersign the degrees,” and, third, that “the 
fact that it is proposed that the degrees of the new college 
shall be countersigned by the President of Harvard Uni- 
versity is in itself a confession that alone the new college 
