schools and academies of the country, but her teachers to be principals and college professors. ...

It is late; and if my Doctor were here, she would scold and send me to bed. So lest she should hear of it, adieu! and God bless you.

His appeal for scholarships was repeated with increasing earnestness in his annual reports to the Board. In his sixth report (1871), he says:

About twenty students have received assistance from Mr. Vassar's Auxiliary Fund, two of them to the amount of $200, the rest only to the amount of $100. The high character of these beneficiaries, the success with which they have prosecuted their work, and the promise of great usefulness which they give without exception, are such as to impress me with a profound sense of the value of this part of our Founder's philanthropic plan, and to create an earnest desire for the augmentation of means for gratuitous instruction in the College. The country is full of young women who earnestly long for such advantages, and have every qualification for turning them to good account, but who lack means and friends able to make the necessary outlay. To many the limitations imposed by Mr. Vassar's benefaction are fatal; it is as impossible for them to raise $300 or even $200 a year as $400. Indeed, the very class for whom a complete and thorough education is most necessary, those who are dependent upon their own resources, and who are fitting themselves for usefulness as teachers, are of all others most likely to find themselves in this condition. It would be sad if the prediction should even in part be realized that Vassar is destined to become a place where rich men's daughters may get a first-class education at a low rate, while those very young women-the daughters of clergymen and teachers, and others devoted to lives of professional labor-on whom the country must depend to supply its demands for thoroughly educated female teachers, are shut out through poverty.

Generous provisions are made for young men of this class who are struggling towards honorable and useful professions. Little

or nothing has thus far been done to assist young women in the same direction. Is it too much to hope that there are men and women of wealth in the community who would, if properly approached, respond to an appeal of this kind? And is It too soon to begin to inquire what practical measures can be taken at Vassar, by the endowment of professorships or of scholarships wholly or partially free, to bring the rates of tuition here within the reach of those of limited means, and so to complete the great work of benevolence which the Founder has begun?

In the tenth annual report (1875) he urges the same plea:

The twenty-four students aided by the Vassar Auxiliary Fund have all proved worthy of the encouragement thus afforded, and among them are some of the brightest minds and finest characters we have educated. Besides these, a considerable number, who otherwise would have been obliged to leave their studies, have received aid from private sources. Contributions to the amount of several hundred dollars, to my personal knowledge, have been obtained for this purpose through the private exertions of members of the Faculty.

For reasons stated in the report of the Standing Committee on Scholarships, no formal measures have been taken for soliciting scholarships this year. But the subject is not sleeping. Evidences reach me from various quarters that not a few are beginning very seriously to weigh the claims of this among other objects of enlightened philanthropy. I trust the time is not distant when it will be generally acknowledged that our daughters should share equally with our sons in opportunities for the highest intellectual training they are capable of receiving; and that a much more liberal proportion of the gifts which large-hearted men and women are constantly making to the cause of education should flow into this channel. There are colleges in our country which announce that no young man with capacity and a desire for education shall be refused admission to their classes, or allowed to leave them, for want of means to defray the expense. Why should not Vassar throw open equally wide her doors; and, while furnishing her advantages on

the most liberal terms to those who are able to pay for them, offer them freely to those who are not?--not offering a "charity education" to any, but uniting the money of the wealthy with the brains and brainwork of talented youth in an alliance honorable to both and beneficent to all mankind? The time will surely come; I believe it to be near at hand.

His faith was not disappointed, although the seed which he sowed in ceaseless efforts was slow in ripening to the longed-for harvest. He knew where to touch ready sympathies when he turned for aid to those who had themselves gathered the fruits which he longed to have multiplied a thousand-fold. Besides the sums raised by the Alumnæ as a body, there were some among the students who responded to his plea in private gifts, and thus opened to others the fountains. from which they were themselves drinking. He had corresponded with one of this number, whose generous part in such benefactions had greatly cheered him, and who writes to a college friend after his death of their common bereavement:

Surely we old girls are not selfish in measuring the loss to our college home, and passing in silence by the nearer ties that have been broken; they are sacred. We belong to that larger family circle to whom he was master and friend--we all felt sure of that. I am glad to think that I have kept some letters which he wrote me, filled with that broad earnest spirit of love for the College interests, or, I should say, by that untiring eagerness to help our worthy students-they and the College interests must always be one.

Since the clasp is broken, we must all hold tight together, and indeed I think that the college will find the old students never more ready to help than now when the days look dark ahead, because the old master is at rest.

This was the expression of a feeling which many shared, and which bore the fruit that he would have most desired. At the close of the second College year after the death of Dr. Raymond, the completion of a fund for two scholarships was announced by the alumnæ, one the "Hannah Lyman" and the other the "Raymond" scholarship. At the same time a third scholarship was founded by the Rev. Dr. Magoon, of the Board of Trustees, in memory of his lamented wife.

The sacredness with which he regarded the claims of this cause is seen in the following tribute to the beauty and worth of such "memorial scholarships," as witnesses of the love borne by the living for their dead:

What

What memorial could be selected more fitting! marble pile so enduring, or (to the mind's eye) so beautiful! No stone, or heap of stones, standing inert and silent against the sky, doing no work, bearing no fruit, refreshing no life, its only value the form impressed upon it from without, and which every hour is wasting and hurrying to decay,—but a Horeb rather, a smitten rock, from which (as from a heart made sweeter and better by the chastening rod) shall flow a perpetual fountain of beneficence, a stream not merely bearing blessings to the needy, but feeding the growth of a Christian soul, reappearing and forever renewing, and multiplying itself in the fruitful activities of a consecrated life.

Surely, to live continually on earth in such a ministry is not unworthy the desire of even a spirit in glory. Might it not add a thrill of satisfaction even to the joys of heaven, to be conscious of ever watering the roots of one such plant of righteousness, and in the progress of time of having helped multitudes of the struggling children of God to a richer, nobler, and more useful life!

CHAPTER XV.

VASSAR COLLEGE-CORRESPONDENCE.

ROM the beginning of his work at Vassar College,

FDr. Raymond had little time for family or friendly

correspondence, and we can only follow him in the occa sional glimpses which hurried letters afford. There was a most natural explanation of his apparent neglect of old and tried friends. The days of "summer rest" were numbered almost as soon as begun, his entire vacations being consumed in filling the vacancies which were al ways waiting in his list of instructors. Many of his letters are recitals of journeyings and "interviews," with the analyses of character and qualifications which show his fastidious care in filling every office. Nothing could be more trying than the conflict with these ques tions of choice which were continually presented. He sometimes came to an extremity of indecision, as when, after a long catalogue of competing claims, with all their various intrications, he exclaims, "But how can I compare these people! It is so perplexing to carry all these points in the mind at once. I get very tired try. ing to balance and reckon them, and quite discouraged of any satisfactory results except by the slow, dear process of actual trial.”

A single extract gives a hint at one principle upon which these selections were made:

Well, you see I have made a pretty strong case in favor of And the case is a strong one, better, on