CHAPTER XII 
RADCLIFFE COLLEGE 
1895-1904 
HE conditions that Mrs. Agassiz found prevailing at 
Radcliffe on her return from Europe are set forth in 
the letter from Miss Irwin quoted above, and they were 
summed up more succinctly by her in her report as Dean 
to the President of Harvard University for the year 1894— 
1895. Here she stated that the two great material needs of 
Radcliffe College were “better academic accommodations 
and opportunities for physical culture.” The same necessi- 
ties were also emphasized by President Eliot at the Rad- 
cliffe Commencement exercises in the following year, when 
he pointed out that Radcliffe would not require a large 
theatre, an extensive library, a great observatory, or vast 
collections in natural history, since Harvard had acquired 
all this equipment for her; “nevertheless,” he added, 
“Radcliffe needs laboratories of the best sort for teaching 
purposes; it needs departmental libraries; it needs a gym- 
nasium and lecture halls of its own; it needs houses, not too 
large, and plenty of them, in which its students may live 
in a tranquil, wholesome way. Now all these things cost 
money; therefore Radcliffe needs great endowments, and 
needs them at once.” These words of Miss Irwin and Presi- 
dent Eliot mark the beginning of a phase in the growth of 
Radcliffe that directly affected Mrs. Agassiz in two ways. 
Hitherto she had been the protagonist of the college; it was 
she who had placed its needs before the public from time to 
