“Oct. 31, 1866.  Our faculty meetings always try me in this respect:  we do things that other colleges have done before.  We wait and ask for precedent.  If the earth had waited for a precedent, it never would have turned on its axis!

“Sept. 22, 1868.  I have written to-day to give up the Nautical Almanac work.  I do not feel sure that it will be for the best, but I am sure that I could not hold the almanac and the college, and father is happy here.

“I tell Miss Lyman that my father is so much pleased with everything here that I am afraid he will be immersed!” [Footnote:  Vassar College, though professedly unsectarian, was mainly under Baptist control.] Only those who knew Vassar College in its earlier days can tell of the life that the father and daughter led there for four years.

Mr. Mitchell died in 1869.

[Illustration:  THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER]

“Jan. 3, 1868.  Meeting Dr. Hill at a private party, I asked him if Harvard College would admit girls in fifty years.  He said one of the most conservative members of the faculty had said, within sixteen days, that it would come about in twenty years.  I asked him if I could go into one of Professor Peirce’s recitations.  He said there was nothing to keep me out, and that he would let me know when they came.

“At eleven A.M., the next Friday, I stood at Professor Peirce’s door.  As the professor came in I went towards him, and asked him if I might attend his lecture.  He said ‘Yes.’  I said ’Can you not say “I shall be happy to have you"?’ and he said ‘I shall be happy to have you,’ but he didn’t look happy!

“It was with some little embarrassment that Mrs. K. and I seated ourselves.  Sixteen young men came into the room; after the first glance at us there was not another look, and the lecture went on.  Professor Peirce had filled the blackboard with formulae, and went on developing them.  He walked backwards and forwards all the time, thinking it out as he went.  The students at first all took notes, but gradually they dropped off until perhaps only half continued.  When he made simple mistakes they received it in silence; only one, that one his son (a tutor in college), remarked that he was wrong.  The steps of his lesson were all easy, but of course it was impossible to tell whence he came or whither he was going....

“The recitation-room was very common-looking—­we could not tolerate such at Vassar.  The forms and benches of the recitation-room were better for taking notes than ours are.

“The professor was polite enough to ask us into the senior class, but I had an engagement.  I asked him if a young lady presented herself at the door he could keep her out, and he said ‘No, and I shouldn’t.’  I told him I would send some of my girls.

“Oct. 15, 1868.  Resolved, in case of my outliving father and being in good health, to give my efforts to the intellectual culture of women, without regard to salary; if possible, connect myself with liberal Christian institutions, believing, as I do, that happiness and growth in this life are best promoted by them, and that what is good in this life is good in any life.”