CHAPTER XV.

WOMAN'S SHARE IN EDUCATION.

LFRED, with its liberal policy, broad scope of training, and co-education, has sent out many strong, thoughtful,

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earnest women. These, as mothers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, ministers, missionaries, etc., have made the world better and their own lives a success. In earliest manhood Mr. Allen became convinced that our heavenly Father never meant that man alone should move the civilization of the world to its highest point. He had subdued the powers of nature till they were slaves to do his bidding; but, with war, intemperance, and their attendant evils still existing, man must remain a partial savage till the spiritual forces of woman's soul should equally share with him in the lifting of humanity up into the higher plane of moral and spiritual living. Everywhere, with tongue and pen, he advocated the dignity of the human soul and the brotherhood of all men. How anxious he felt that our young, talented girls should put aside all narrow, selfish views of life, and move up to that plane! How heartily he welcomed every woman in literature, on the platform, in law, in the pulpit, in fact, everywhere, when she came forward to take her rightful place beside man for the world's progress! His earnest sympathy was with such as Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Staunton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Julia Ward Howe. From time to time these and others were invited to Alfred to lecture, thus sharing our home and strengthening the influences that had made Alfred a leader in all the reformatory movements of the day. Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, for her varied talents and breadth of scholarship, early drew our attention to her work. Having (113)

cause to consult her on some point of interest to our young women, she wrote, "Go forward, take the first step, and God will show you the next.' I select from his sketch in reference to her the following:

CAROLINE H. DALL.

"Over one field of reform she has made herself a sleepless sentinel, that is, over all that concerns the interests, duties, and rights of woman. For years she has suffered no author or journal of any eminence to slur, misrepresent, or dwarf the cause without sending a word bullet whizzing in that direction. Of course such fidelity has aroused a host of antagonists, for it is a peculiarity of human nature not to like to be hit, and Mrs. Dall has a wonderful talent for hitting that at which she aims. She has probably disturbed more self-complacent conservatism, or the half insolence and half laziness which assumes that title, than any other woman now living. Her first series of lectures were sketches of female character, but were not published.

"She has probably discussed a greater variety of topics, and covered a wider range of subjects, than any other American woman, and there is certainly no other by whom her learning can be gauged, who knows so much of philology, archæology, oriental history and languages, and the results of modern Biblical criticism.

“Mrs. Dall truly holds the pen of a ready writer. Her depth of culture and versatility of talent make her perfect mistress of the English language. She never uses a word that will not strengthen or clear the thought expressed, and what she utters is from the need of its being. said, whether in the interests of learned research, or in the instruction or entertainment of the young, in matters relating to the practical economies of life, or in furtherance of the great cause to which she has especially devoted herself. She thus impresses her hearers or readers with respect, both for her subject and herself. She realizes the sufferings of humanity, and also the high possibilities of happiness within its reach, hence her earnest sympathy has been given in words and works to help every form of human woe. Mrs. Dall has been untiring in elaborating every subject to which her attention has been given, spending months in working up statistics, and when they were complete, using them to the best advantage. What would have been, in the hands of common. historians, dry, prosaic facts, became, by her masterly touch, the bold outlines of a grand panorama, in which human beings move and hearts palpitate. The most stupid and careless cannot read her pages without

becoming thoughtful, and the thoughtful are spontaneously moved to action.

"To-day her position is in the front ranks of those who labor for the elevation of woman, where she stands with a serene confidence in the onward march and final triumph of grand ideas she has so long and unfalteringly held up to the public. Her work on 'Woman's Rights' has been so exhaustive in logic and facts that it has been a golden. fountain, from which most of the later writers and lecturers have drawn, often without so much as, 'By your leave, madam.' Her labor has been very influential in opening the doors of colleges to woman.

"Mrs. Dall is endowed by nature with an exquisite sense of order and fitness that pervades her entire being and governs all her acts, thus making her life the richest, grandest volume of all that she has presented to the world. Thousands working in avenues opened by her earnest efforts will rise up to call her blessed."

Mrs. Dall being acknowledged as one of the finest female scholars of our times in law as well as in literature, her name was proposed to our Faculty for the title of LL.D. This was granted by them in 1878, she being the first woman in modern times to receive that title. Miss Maria Mitchell received hers in 1882, from the college at Hanover, Indiana.

The following slight extract is from President Allen's sketch of Mrs. Browning as a poet:

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

"From the earliest periods of time down through the succeeding ages there has appeared a line of kings of song, whose thrones are more permanent than those of earthly sovereigns. To whom is our allegiance more fully accorded, or sworn fealty more fully kept, than to those who have touched into activity the secret springs of sensibility? What is it that in every household makes the name of King David as familiar as that of father or mother? Is it that he was Israel's king? or that he gave to the world those divine songs which have lived and rolled through the dim aisles of buried ages, and still remain in majesty and power, shedding their rays of divine light upon the human soul? And following in the same line is grand old Homer. Blind and beggar that he was, he left on record strains that are yet echoing along the swift-revolving centuries. Thus they come-Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare. But here in these latter days comes a woman, who, in the words of her own favorite

Shelley, 'so learned in suffering what she taught in song' that the world stands wondering by whose side she shall be crowned. Sister of Tennyson, some have said; others, daughter of Shakespeare, reluctant to own the greatness of her power, yet knowing her throne is so established in the hearts of the world that it cannot be overthrown. But while these critiques are talking and writing articles of measurement, we who love her for her priceless gifts can, with a steady hand, place upon her head the sacred crown of true and complete poet.

"Mrs. Browning's mind matured young. Being, through suffering so many years, put by from all the active pleasures of life, learning seems to have been the one gift within her reach, and she grasped it with passionate earnestness. Early in life she became an accomplished scholar in ancient literature, then, with her blind tutor, Boid, she read the Greek poets with a love that has left its mark upon every page of her writings. There in that room where she was so many years the prisoner of pain, with no companions except a few chosen friends, her Hebrew Bible, a shelf full of Greek books, and several volumes of polyglot reading, she labored and suffered, gathering classic jewels with which to set her own thoughts in after years. Mrs. Browning's genius as a poet is of two kinds, lyric and dramatic. As the rank of lyric poetry lies in the power of the poet to coin his own soul in gems of song, she stands firmly with its leaders. Her pen has caught an impulse from every phase of life,— romance, chivalry, love, patriotism, humanity, divine life, and immortality, a noble collection that shall live in the future, not as empty goblets whose contents have been drained, but fountains that still flow when the traveler who drank from them has passed on.

"It was that sense of divine life in her life that has exalted her so high as a woman, that of all the works she has left her own life is the sweetest, noblest poem of them all. Looking through all the years of her life, with the exception of infirm bodily health, which in her case seems to be no hindrance but rather an aid to her spiritual growth, her external relations all present a round of perfect harmony with her highest gifts. In the benefits of early culture, in the power of poetic thought and expression, in the romance of impassioned love, and in the full fruition of domestic joys, in that Italian home, with all its appliances of art and circle of kindred spirits, her earthly course lies closed at last, like some beautiful day lily whose closing sweetness yet lingers on the evening air."

Mr. P. A. Burdick, the noted temperance evangelist, whom Alfred was proud to claim, said at the service held in memory of President Allen:-

"He was among the first to believe in woman's equality with man. He believed that she had the right to an education outside of the old established domestic lines. He believed that she had the right to think, to act, to vote. He espoused these principles in the face of centuries of prejudice. He demanded for woman the right to fill positions of trust, to become lawyers, doctors, ministers of the gospel, and at a time when it was but little less than martyrdom to promulgate such doctrine. builded better than he knew. His faith in the possibilities and capabilities of womanhood took root in other lives, and he saw established in Alfred University woman's equality with man."

Professor L. C. Rogers at the same service said:—

"In the spirit of noble knighthood he stood for woman's rights. He was an almost worshipful admirer of true womanhood. He gallantly maintained woman's equal privilege with man to win in the common struggle for maintenance, for place, and power. His sympathies were always with the cause of truth and righteousness, as he was enabled to see these issues."