his sisters to sew a button or do repairs on his clothing without paying them a small sum for it, and he always received six cents for doing chores or running errands.  No doubt this was a practice maintained from early youth, for when Sophia Smith was born, in 1796, the family was in very moderate circumstances.  The whole community was poor for some time after the Revolution, and everyone saved pennies.

As to her education, she used to sit on the doorsteps of the schoolhouse and hear the privileged boys recite their lessons.  She also had four or five months of instruction in the schoolhouse, and was a student in Hopkins Academy for a short time and, when fourteen years old, attended school at Hartford, Connecticut, for a term of twelve weeks.

  [Illustration:  SOPHIA SMITH]

Then a long, uneventful, almost shut-in life, and in 1861 her brother Austin left her an estate of about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Hon. George W. Hubbard of Hatfield was her financial adviser.  He advised her to found an academy for Hatfield, which she did; and after Doctor Greene had caused her to decide on a college for women, Mr. Hubbard insisted on having it placed at Northampton, Massachusetts, instead of Hatfield, Massachusetts.  With her usual modesty, she objected to giving her full name to the college, as it would look as if she were seeking fame for herself.  She gave thirty thousand dollars to endow a professorship in the Andover Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts.

She grew old gracefully, never soured by her infirmities, always denying herself to help others and make the world better for her living in it.

Her name must stand side by side with the men who founded Vassar, Wellesley, and Barnard, and that of Mary Lyon to whom women owe the college of Mt.  Holyoke.

As Walt Whitman wrote: 

     I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
     And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
     And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

She was a martyr physically, and mentally a heroine.  Let us never fail to honour the woman who founded Smith College.

Extracts from a letter replying to my question:  “Is there a full-length portrait of Sophia Smith, now to be seen anywhere in the principal building at Smith College, Northampton?”

How I wish that some generous patron of Smith College might bestow upon it two thousand dollars for a full-length portrait of Sophia Smith to be placed in the large reading room, at the end of which is a full-length portrait of President Seelye.  The presence of such a commanding figure seen by hundreds of girls every day would be a subtle and lasting influence.

I like to nibble at a stuffed date, but do not enjoy having my memory stuffed with dates, though I am proud rather than sensitive in regard to my age.

Lady Morgan was unwilling her age should be known, and pleads: