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It was also believed that the associated college life, with its varied friendships, its class feeling, its society intimacies, and its loyal love for alma mater might be of very great value in the education of women. Of course, college life for women must be purified from the objectionable elements so common in our colleges for men. It was believed to be possible to furnish an almost ideal home life in a wellregulated Christian college for women, which might be and ought to be a constant training in self-control, spontaneous kindness, and mutual helpfulness. College life might be the best preparation for a future home life, for Christian social life, and for church life for young women, and also a superior professional preparation for the highest positions as teachers.

Such was, in general principles, the ideal before the minds of those who resolved to take the next step upward, from the highest and best female seminaries, of which "the Troy" and "Mount Holyoke" were types, to a true college for women. The name female college was even then becoming common at the South and West, but in no instance, so far as we can learn, did it signify a required course of study higher than that of Troy or Mount Holyoke, although to a few were granted the legal right to confer degrees. Among these were the female college at Macon, Ga., and the Wesleyan Female College at Cincinnati. Almost all grades of seminaries and joint-stock institutions adopted the title "female college," and this has been a serious obstacle in the way of the recognition of the true rank of "Elmira."

FIRST STEPS TOWARD ORGANIZATION.

In the year 1851 a number of distinguished ministers and laymen met in Albany to consider the matter of establishing a real college for women, in advance of the best female seminaries, designed to furnish a much higher systematic education, with the best methods of instruction, by a college faculty, with permanent organization into special departments, and with endowments which should secure a continued and increasing growth, with a permanent place and honorable rank among the most valuable and distinguished educational institutions of the country. After careful consideration it was resolved to establish such a college somewhere in the State of New York.

In the following year, 1852, a charter was obtained locating the institution at Auburn, with the title Auburn Female University, with an able board of trustees from all parts of the State and representing the various Christian denominations. A financial secretary was put into the field to gather subscriptions and enlist the Christian public in this new institution. This secretary was Rev. Harvey A. Sackett, whose wife, Mrs. D. E. Sackett, had been prominent among a noble band of Christian teachers in New England and New York who were earnestly devoted to the uplifting of the standard of education for women and had established a number of very superior seminaries.

It was also believed that the associated college life, with its varied friendships, its class feeling, its society intimacies, and its loyal love for alma mater might be of very great value in the education of women. Of course, college life for women must be purified from the objectionable elements so common in our colleges for men. It was believed to be possible to furnish an almost ideal home life in a wellregulated Christian college for women, which might be and ought to be a constant training in self-control, spontaneous kindness, and mutual helpfulness. College life might be the best preparation for a future home life, for Christian social life, and for church life for young women, and also a superior professional preparation for the highest positions as teachers.

Such was, in general principles, the ideal before the minds of those who resolved to take the next step upward, from the highest and best female seminaries, of which "the Troy" and "Mount Holyoke" were types, to a true college for women. The name female college was even then becoming common at the South and West, but in no instance, so far as we can learn, did it signify a required course of study higher than that of Troy or Mount Holyoke, although to a few were granted the legal right to confer degrees. Among these were the female college at Macon, Ga., and the Wesleyan Female College at Cincinnati. Almost all grades of seminaries and joint-stock institutions adopted the title "female college," and this has been a serious obstacle in the way of the recognition of the true rank of "Elmira."

FIRST STEPS TOWARD ORGANIZATION.

In the year 1851 a number of distinguished ministers and laymen met in Albany to consider the matter of establishing a real college for women, in advance of the best female seminaries, designed to furnish a much higher systematic education, with the best methods of instruction, by a college faculty, with permanent organization into special departments, and with endowments which should secure a continued and increasing growth, with a permanent place and honorable rank among the most valuable and distinguished educational institutions of the country. After careful consideration it was resolved to establish such a college somewhere in the State of New York.

In the following year, 1852, a charter was obtained locating the institution at Auburn, with the title Auburn Female University, with an able board of trustees from all parts of the State and representing the various Christian denominations. A financial secretary was put into the field to gather subscriptions and enlist the Christian public in this new institution. This secretary was Rev. Harvey A. Sackett, whose wife, Mrs. D. E. Sackett, had been prominent among a noble band of Christian teachers in New England and New York who were earnestly devoted to the uplifting of the standard of education for women and had established a number of very superior seminaries.

Prominent among these were the seminaries in Utica, Geneva, Canandaigua, and Leroy. It was principally due to Mrs. Sackett and her husband that the idea of founding a college for women was brought to the special attention of the gentlemen who held their first conference on this subject in the consistory room of the Second Reformed Dutch Church of Albany. Dr. Wyckoff, Hon. Amos Dean, and Hon. Luther Tucker, of Albany; Dr. Beman, of Troy; Dr. Mandeville, of Hamilton College; Dr. Hickok, of Auburn; Dr. Hogarth and Professor Boyd, of Geneva; Dr. Kendrick, of Rochester, and other prominent educators gave the enterprise their hearty approval and cooperation, and actively served on the board of trustees.

CHARTER.

The new era of

Great difficulty was encountered in raising funds. large donations had not yet come. With an encouraging prospect of pecuniary help from Elmira, the question of location was reconsidered and the proposed institution transferred from Auburn to Elmira in 1853, and rechartered in 1855 as the Elmira Female College. Mr. Simeon Benjamin, an elder in the First Presbyterian Church, became warmly interested in the enterprise. He became chairman of the board of trustees and also treasurer of the college, and by his able financial management, and generous advances and gifts of much needed funds at critical times, he gained for the college its secure though moderate pecuniary success, and left a generous legacy upon condition that the synod would take the college under its care. The donations and legacy of Mr. Benjamin, extending through the first ten years of the college history, amounted to the sum of $80,000. During this period the college also received from the legislature $35,000, from the Maxwell brothers, Geneva, $10,000, and more recently from the Marquand estate, $25,000, and from local subscriptions at various times $50,000. But this all came so slowly that the college has always labored under great difficulty in putting itself in favorable, attractive comparison with the new colleges for women which began with abundant means, and which have never felt need of economy.

Elmira College has been compelled by comparatively limited means, as well as by conscientious principle, to offer excellence of instruction and the best possible training of the personal character of students as its most important attractions and elements of value, so that while waiting anxiously for donations and legacies it might become more clear that the college was unquestionably worthy of them and would surely make the best possible use of them. Two figures have been very prominent in the history of its faculty.

PRESIDENCY OF DR. COWLES.

Rev. Augustus W. Cowles, D. D., LL. D., its only president for the first thirty-five years, distinguished himself for scholarship at Union College, where he graduated in 1841. For two years thereafter he

taught. After finishing his theological course at Union Theological Seminary, he preached for ten years at Brockport, N. Y. In 1856 he was called to the presidency of Elmira College. Besides presiding over the college, he has at times filled the chairs of Latin and Greek, and all the time those of mental and moral philosophy, Christian evidences, biblical literature, and aesthetics.

The college itself and its alumnæ are the best witnesses to his worth and work. At the age of 70, and while in the full vigor of mental power, he retired from the executive work of the college to continue in his beloved work of teaching. He became president emeritus and professor of the same branches that for so many years occupied his attention, and, hale and youthful, continued to lecture with great vigor and acceptableness on the old loved themes.

Rev. Darius R. Ford, D. D., present and long time professor of the natural sciences, furnishes another instance of rare combination of gifts, great dignity, and suavity of manner and uncommon dexterity in imparting knowledge. For a generation (since 1863) he has been a mighty local force in all educational matters. Well preserved and in the ripeness of his power, on him depended no small part of the success and prosperity of the management.

PRESIDENCY OF DR. PHRANER.

In 1889, on the retirement of Dr. Cowles, Rev. Wilson Phraner, D. D., of Sing Sing, N. Y., was elected to the presidency and entered vigorously upon his office; he was, however, soon forced by failure of health to retire, but not without leaving abundant fruit of his brief administration.

PRESIDENCY OF DR. VAN NORDEN.

Late in 1889 Rev. Charles Van Norden, D. D., recently pastor of the North Church, of Springfield, Mass., where he succeeded Rev. Washington Gladden, D. D., was elected to the presidency.

STATISTICS.

Of graduates and other students passed beyond its care, Elmira College has had over 2,000, to be found everywhere, women of culture, of influence, often of wealth, not seldom of fame. Educators, artists, elocutionists, musicians, they have in every part of the country made for themselves an honorable record.

Of undergraduates, there has been from the beginning an annual average of 150. A recent increase has swollen this number to over 200. The local reputation for good behavior of these young ladies has always been deservedly high, owing no doubt to the admirable moral and religious control maintained by the former administration and to the atmosphere of self-respect and mutual good-will that has ever pervaded the college home. Few appeals have been made to any but the highest motives, the marking system has not been emphasized,

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