since the time when women began to attend the Lowell Institute lectures! Then it was thought almost disgraceful to go to a public meeting without male protection, and they went with veiled faces, as if ashamed to be seen of men. The "Annex" has some advantages, but they cannot compare with Girton and Newnham of Cambridge, England.
The treasurer of the "Harvard Annex" declares the great need that exists for funds to provide a suitable building, etc., for the numerous women who continue to apply there for admission; and he appeals to the generosity of the public for contributions of money to be used for this purpose. The casual observer might suggest that those women who will hereafter become the benefactors of this university should remember the needs of their own sex, and leave their donations or bequests so that they can be used for the benefit of the "Harvard Annex," which is a wholly private enterprise, conducted by the University instructors and supervised by a committee of ladies.
Colleges for women have also been founded. Wellesley and Smith have long been doing good university work. Thirty years ago there was no college in the country, except Oberlin, to which women were admitted. To-day, even conservative Harvard begins to melt a little under this regenerating influence, and invites women, through the doors of its "Annex," to come and enjoy some of the privileges found within its sacred halls of learning. This was a late act of grace from a college whose inception was in the mind of a woman[1] longing for a better opportunity
- ↑ This lady was Lucy Downing, a sister of the first governor of Massachusetts. She was the wife of Emanuel Downing, a lawyer of the Inner Temple, a friend of Governor Winthrop and afterward a man of mark in the infant colony. In a letter to her brother, Lucy Downing expresses the desire of herself and husband to come to New England with their children, but laments that if they do come her son George cannot complete his studies. She says: "You have yet noe societies nor means of that kind for the education of youths in learning. It would make me goe far nimbler to New England, if God should call me to it, than otherwise I should, and I believe a colledge would put noe small life into the plantation." This letter was written early in 1636, and in October of the same year the General Court of the Massachusetts colony agreed to give £400 towards establishing a school or college in Newtowne (two years later called Cambridge). Soon afterwards Rev. John Harvard died and left one-half of his estate to this "infant seminary," and in 1638 it was ordered by the General Court that the "Colledge to be built at Cambridge shall be called Harvard Colledge." Early in 1638 Lucy Downing and her husband arrived in New England, and the name of George Downing stands second on the list of the first class of Harvard graduates in 1642. The Downings had other sons who do not seem to have been educated at Harvard, and daughters who were put out to service. The son for whom so much was done by his mother, was afterwards known as Sir George Downing, and he became rich and powerful in England. Downing street in London is named for him. In after life he forgot his duty to his mother, who so naturally looked to him for support; and her last letter written from England after her husband died, when she was old and feeble, tells a sad story of her son's avarice and meanness, and leaves the painful impression that she suffered in her old age for the necessaries of life. It is hard to estimate how much influence the earnest longing of this one woman for the better education of her son, had in the founding of this earliest college in Massachusetts. But for her thinking and speaking at the right time the enterprise might have been delayed for half a century. It is to be
