Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 65.djvu/362

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
358
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

probably to the influence of Maria Mitchell, who for nearly a quarter of a century made the college observatory her throne room, whence her magnetic personality radiated far and wide. Here was trained her able successor, Professor Mary W. Whitney, '68. Besides those teaching astronomy, who are included in the general list of teachers, and those who have published astronomical papers, four have engaged in other forms of astronomical work. In the second decade one has been a computer at the Yale observatory; in the third decade are three, a lecturer, for six years worker at the Harvard observatory, a computer at the Yale observatory and a computer on the Nautical Almanac.

No Vassar woman has yet been ordained a minister, but the legal profession is beginning to attract a few graduates. There are three in the third decade. A member of '88 has taken the degrees of LL.B. and LL.M., was admitted to the New York state bar in 1895, and is registered as a lawyer. She is also married and has two children, but her marriage occurred previous to her legal studies and soon after graduation from Vassar. A member of '89 was admitted to the Illinois bar by examination in 1896, and was thereupon married. She has one child. She is not registered in the catalogue as a lawyer, but she has published the 'Municipal Code of Macomb, Ill., Eevised and Codified.' A member of '95 is registered as a clerk and student in a law office in Chicago. Besides these three, two Vassar women have acquired the degree of LL.B., evidently for the purpose of general culture and not for legal practice. In 1887 the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon Mrs. Christine Ladd Franklin of '69 in recognition of her attainments in mathematics and logic.

We now come to the twos and ones. In the first decade are two bookkeepers; in the second decade, two lecturers; in the third decade, two regents' examiners for the state of New York. A chemist is catalogued in the first and in the third decade, and a water analyst for the Massachusetts State Board of Health in the second. Two graduates have undertaken nursing, one in the second decade becoming a trained nurse; and one, Miss Reubena H. Walworth, '96, acting as a volunteer nurse in the Spanish War, dying in the service of her country. In the second decade are a draughtsman, a government clerk and a life insurance agent; and in the third decade are a translator from the French, an actress, a kindergartner, a canvasser, a director of a gymnasium, a director of a domestic science department, and a promising student of chemistry who has been an assistant, lecturer and docent at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

An unusual record is that of a member of '83, a young woman of brilliant literary gifts, who chose the life of a Salvation Army worker. After laboring for twelve years amid the slums of London and attaining the rank of Major, she became converted to the Roman Catholic