410 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
was set, and set in opposition to the plan that Mrs. 
Agassiz was to advocate. The greater part of the 
audience was of the opinion that either there should 
be a completely separate college for women in Cam- 
bridge, with its own corporation, government, de- 
grees, and so forth, or that Harvard College should be 
opened to women on terms of complete equality with 
men. Either of these plans would have been accept- 
able to the great majority of the audience. The plan 
proposed was completely unacceptable. 
It was necessary to have a public hearing on the 
law chartering the new college. I need not say that 
Mrs. Agassiz shrank from this public meeting. She 
never felt much confidence in her capacity to speak 
before a large audience. She always told me before 
the Radcliffe Commencement how much she dreaded 
her simple and dignified part in the ceremony. She 
thought she had no gift in public speech. She thought 
that the opposition would succeed. She knew that 
some members of the Committee had been primed by 
the opponents of the bill. The Chairman of the Com- 
mittee had been the head of a Massachusetts High 
School, accustomed to treating boys and girls on an 
equality and carrying them together through the 
same programme. The plan proposed could hardly 
be congenial to him. 
I went into the room with Mrs. Agassiz. On look- 
ing at the Committee it was plain that the task before 
her was going to be a difficult one. On looking at the 
audience the task seemed more difficult still. She felt 
the situation keenly. The case was opened by a lawyer 
