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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
but acknowledge that we get but a faint glimpse of her power by whatshe has in the past been able to accomplish. First in the home—we have only to point to Queen Esther, who risked her life to save her people by coming unbidden into the presence of the king. She knew the danger of incurring her husband’s displeasure, but trusted in the God of Heaven to move upon his heart, and give her power over him, which would save her oppressed people.
All through the ages illustrious men without number have attributed their greatness to the power of mother love, thus the true woman manifests her power in the home, according to the depth of her affection and the strength of her character. Lucy Webb Hayes, true to her total abstinence principles, bravely bore the criticisms of the aristocratic devotees of fashion, lifted a standard in Washington society which caused an arrest of thought, and abandonment by the best and most conscientious of our leaders in social life of the dangerous custom which has sent thousands of our brightest men and women to a drunkard’s eternity. From that day the power of her influence has been felt for good throughout the entire social fabric of this nation. Across the Atlantic our Margaret Bright Lucas, and Lady Henry Somerset, with tongue and pen, have stirred the social circles of England on the same moral question, thus banishing the wine and ale from dinner-table and banquet-hall in thousands of homes. •
In 1821 Mary Lyon became assistant principal of an academy of Ashfield, Mass., a position never before occupied by a woman. Later, at Derby, N. H., she gave the first six diplomas received by young women for a three years’ course of study. She saw the need of a seminary for women, and pleaded for an endowment. The public was apathetic and her appeals fruitless.
In 1834 she determined to found a permanent institution designed to train young women for the highest usefulness. She laid her plans before a few gentlemen in Ipswich, Mass. They were pronounced visionary and impracticable; her motives misunderstood and misinterpreted. The domestic feature of her seminary was regarded as unwise; but the peculiar features of her plan became its success, and within two ‘months she collected $1,000 from women of Ipswich. She obtained a few large gifts, but chose to gain the intelligent interest of the many with their smaller sums, and in 1836 the corner-stone of Mt. Holyoke Seminary was laid. Three years later the school opened, filled with eager students, who knew that twice their number were waiting to take their places. As the preparation required to enter this seminary was in advance of what had generally been regarded as a finished education for girls, it was feared that students could not be found to fill the building; but on the contrary, two hundred students were refused the first year for lack of room, and nearly four hundred the second vear.
Although Latin and French were taught from the first, she waited ten years before she could get Latin included in the course, such was public opinion on woman’s education. She lived, however, to realize much of the fruitage of her seed-sowing, and Mary Lyon and Mt. Holyoke Seminary will never be forgotten by the thousands who were lifted to a higher educational plane by her heroic efforts.
Within the last generation (1852) we have pointed with pride to Maria Mitchell, who was the first woman to receive the title of LL.D. from Hanover College. She was astronomer in Vassar College for twenty-three years, and was the first woman elected to the Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Alice Freeman Palmer was for six years president of Wellesley College, and has since been one of its trustees and a member of the Massachusetts board of education. When girls were first admitted to the public schools of Massachusetts in 1822, no one would have dreamed that in sixty-six years a woman would have been president of one of its most noted colleges and a member of its state board of education.
Mary H. Hunt has shaken the physiological world from center to circumference, made liquor dealers and tobacconists tremble for their deadly merchandise, has turned on the light of science, and through the W. C. T. U. set in motion influences which have convinced the legislatures in thirty-nine states, as well as our representa-