262 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
gree worthy of it. She has opened to us new courses 
with a liberal hand; perhaps no University, either in 
this country, or elsewhere, opens a nobler course of 
instruction to women, than Harvard offers to her 
Radcliffe students of today; and while we are as- 
sembled here, on the last day of our present college 
year, knowing that the next term will open under new 
conditions, is it not well to take counsel together? to 
consider what the new aspect of our college instruc- 
tion imposes upon us, as our most important aca- 
demic duty? 
It is no small gain to have a high standard held up 
before us. We all know what it is to follow a flag, if it 
represents to us a noble ideal. This is what Harvard 
has done for us, and it is a better gift even than the 
enlarged field of study, the higher grades of instruc- 
tion which she offers us. In associating us so nearly 
with herself, — in sharing with us the wealth of her 
traditions gathered during more than two centuries 
and a half, she gives us a new stimulus to upright 
aims and conscientious achievement. In saying this, I 
do not think of scholarship alone, but of its uses, as 
helping toward a well-rounded character. Our schol- 
arship will not be worth much if it does not lend 
itself in gracious service to whatever path in life it 
may be our lot to follow. 
. .. [tis my dearest wish for you all that Radcliffe 
College by her bearing (for institutions as well as in- 
dividuals may have a dignified and noble bearing), 
by her simplicity and refinement of manners, by her 
fidelity to scholarship in its more comprehensive and 
