a digest of all that has occurred during the last six years. What I have to say will refer chiefly to the events of the last two.
EDUCATION.
I wish it were in my power to furnish you with reports of the present condition of all the female colleges in the United States; but, while I receive from various foreign sources such reports, and am promptly informed of any educational movement in Europe, it never seems to occur to the government of such institutions in the United States that there is any necessary connection between them and the interests which this Convention represents. We are, consequently, dependent upon newspapers for our information.
The most important educational movement of the last year has been the formation of au American Social Science Association, with four departments, and two women on its Board of Directors. Subsequently, the Boston Social Science Association was organized, with seven departments, and seven women on its Board of Directors, one woman being assigned to each department, including that of law. Any woman in the United States can become a member of this Association. If the opportunities it offers are not seized, it will be the fault of women themselves.
During the past winter the Lowell Institute, in Boston, in connection with the government of the Massachusetts Technological Institute, took a step which deserves our public mention. They advertised classes for both sexes, under the most eligible professors, for instruction in French, mathematics, and natural science. As the training was to be thorough, the number of pupils was limited, and the women who applied would have filled the seats many times over. These classes have been wholly free, and have added to the obligation which the free Art School for women had already conferred.
Elmira College showed its enterprise last summer by a visit to Massachusetts, and Vassar College was organized and commenced its operations in September, with Miss Mitchell in the Chair of Mathematics, and Miss Avery in that of Physiology. I attempted to visit this institution last summer for the purpose of investigating the facilities its buildings and proposed courses might offer to foreign students. The reluctance of the Trustees to subject it to observation so early in its career interfered with my plan, but I have since received a letter from Miss Mitchell speaking of it in the most encouraging terms. I have a class," she says, "of seventeen pupils, between the ages of 16 and 22, They come to me for fifty minutes every day. I allow them great freedom in questioning, and I am puzzled by them daily. They show more mathematical ability and more originality of thought than I had expected. I doubt whether young men would show as deep an interest. Are there seventeen students in Harvard College who take mathematical astronomy, do you think?'? So Mr. Vassar's magnificent donation is drawing interest at last.
On the 25th of June, 1865, the Ripley College, at Poultney, Vermont celebrated its commencement. Seventeen young ladies were graduated. Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the literary address, and two days were devoted to the examination of incoming pupils. Feeling very little satisfaction in the success of Colleges intended for the separate sexes, I take more pleasure in speaking of the Baker University in Kansas, which was chartered by the Legislature of that State in 1857 as a University for both sexes. It has now been in active operation for seven years. A little more than a year ago Miss Martha Baldwin, a graduate of the Baldwin University at Berea, Ohio, was appointed to the chair of Greek and Latin. She is but twenty-one years of age, but was elected by the government to make the address for the Faculty at the opening of the commencement exercises, and seems to have given entire satisfaction during her professors' year. In France, the Imperial Geographical Society, which is in a certain sense a college, has lately admitted to membership Madame Dora D'Istra as the successor to Madame Pfeiffer. Madame D'Istra had distinguished herself by researches in the Morea.
On the 26th of October, 1864, a a Workingwomen's College was opened in London, with an address from Miss F. R. Malleson. It is governed by a council of teachers. In addition to the ordinary branches, it offers instruction in Botany, Physiology, and Drawing. Its fee is four shillings a year, and the coffee and reading-room, about which its social life centres, is open every evening from 7 to 11. But by far the most interesting