406 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
first report as President of Radcliffe well show her 
appreciation of what had already been done, and of 
the wider and brighter prospect which our incorpora- 
tion as a college offered for the future: 
“I wish it were possible for me to make, in broad 
and simple language, a statement of the force and 
efficiency of the instruction given here from the be- 
ginning. The standard has always been high and in- 
spiring, and it has told upon the whole character of 
the institution. It has enabled us to accomplish the 
purpose with which we started, — that of making a 
large and liberal provision for the education of women 
according to their tastes and pursuits, and according 
also to their necessities, should it be needful for them 
to use their education as a means of support. With 
this hope we started; and the position of Radcliffe 
College today may well assure us of its final fulfil- 
ment, even in a larger sense than the present. The 
University has taken us under her charge, has made 
herself responsible for the validity of our degrees by 
the strongest official guarantees, while the liberal in- 
terpretation she puts upon her own pledges shows 
that they include more than they promise. Even in 
this first year she opens to us a greatly enlarged 
field of study, including a far larger number of ad- 
vanced courses than we had hoped for. We may well 
say that, since the opening of the institution fifteen 
years ago, no year of its history has been so important 
as the present, for it gives us what we most needed, 
security and a certain and safe future under the 
guardianship of Harvard University.” 
