1865-1885
In her life at Vassar College there was a great deal for Miss Mitchell to get accustomed to; if her duties had been merely as director of the observatory, it would have been simply a continuation of her previous work. But she was expected, of course, to teach astronomy; she was by no means sure that she could succeed as a teacher, and with this new work on hand she could not confine herself to original investigation—that which had been her great aim in life.
But she was so much interested in the movement for the higher education of women, an interest which deepened as her work went on, that she gave up, in a great measure, her scientific life, and threw herself heart and soul into this work.
For some years after she went to Vassar, she still continued the work for the Nautical Almanac; but after a while she relinquished that, and confined herself wholly to the work in the college.
"1866. Vassar College brought together a mass of heterogeneous material, out of which it was expected that a harmonious whole would evolve—pupils from all parts of the country, of different habits, different training, different views; teachers, mostly from New England, differing also; professors, largely from Massachusetts, yet differing much. And yet, after a year, we can say that there has been no very noisy jarring of the discordant elements; small jostling has been felt, but the president has oiled the rough places, and we have slid over them.
"… Miss —— is a bigot, but a very sincere one. She is the most conservative person I ever met. I think her a very good woman, a woman of great energy…. She is very kind to me, but had we lived in the colonial days of Massachusetts, and had she been a power, she would have burned me at the stake for heresy!
"Yesterday the rush began. Miss Lyman [the lady principal] had set the twenty teachers all around in different places, and I was put into the parlor to talk to 'anxious mothers.'
"Miss Lyman had a hoarse cold, but she received about two hundred students, and had all their rooms assigned to them.
"While she had one anxious mamma, I took two or three, and kept them waiting until she could attend to them. Several teachers were with me. I made a rush at the visitors as they entered, and sometimes I was asked if I were lady principal, and sometimes if I were the matron. This morning Miss Lyman's voice was gone. She must have seen five hundred people yesterday.
"Among others there was one Miss Mitchell, and, of course, that anxious mother put that girl under my special care, and she is very bright. Then there were two who were sent with letters to me, and several others whose mothers took to me because they were frightened by Miss Lyman'sstyle.
"One lady, who seemed to be a bright woman, got me by the button and held me a long time—she wanted this, that, and the other impracticable thing for the girl, and told me how honest her daughter was; then with a flood of tears she said, 'But she is not a Christian. I know I put her into good hands when I put her here.' (Then I was strongly tempted to avow my Unitarianism.) Miss W., who was standing by, said, 'Miss Lyman will be an excellent spiritual adviser,' and we both looked very serious; when the mother wiped her weeping eyes and said, 'And, Miss Mitchell, will you ask Miss Lyman to insist that my daughter shall curl her hair? She looks very graceful when her hair is curled, and I want it insisted upon,' I made a note of it with my pencil, and as I happened to glance at Miss W. the corners of her mouth were twitching, upon which I broke down and laughed. The mother bore it very good-naturedly, but went on. She wanted to know who would work some buttonholes in her daughter's dress that was not quite finished, etc., and it all ended in her inviting me to make her a visit.
"Oct. 31, 1866. Our faculty meetings always try me in this respect: we do things that other colleges have done before. We wait and ask for precedent. If the earth had waited for a precedent, it never would have turned on its axis!
"Sept. 22, 1868. I have written to-day to give up the Nautical Almanac work. I do not feel sure that it will be for the best, but I am sure that I could not hold the almanac and the college, and father is happy here.
"I tell Miss Lyman that my father is so much pleased with everything here that I am afraid he will be immersed!" [Footnote: Vassar College, though professedly unsectarian, was mainly under Baptist control.] Only those who knew Vassar College in its earlier days can tell of the life that the father and daughter led there for four years.
Mr. Mitchell died in 1869.
[Illustration: THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER]
"Jan. 3, 1868. Meeting Dr. Hill at a private party, I asked him if Harvard College would admit girls in fifty years. He said one of the most conservative members of the faculty had said, within sixteen days, that it would come about in twenty years. I asked him if I could go into one of Professor Peirce's recitations. He said there was nothing to keep me out, and that he would let me know when they came.
"At eleven A.M., the next Friday, I stood at Professor Peirce's door. As the professor came in I went towards him, and asked him if I might attend his lecture. He said 'Yes.' I said 'Can you not say "I shall be happy to have you"?' and he said 'I shall be happy to have you,' but he didn't look happy!
"It was with some little embarrassment that Mrs. K. and I seated ourselves. Sixteen young men came into the room; after the first glance at us there was not another look, and the lecture went on. Professor Peirce had filled the blackboard with formulae, and went on developing them. He walked backwards and forwards all the time, thinking it out as he went. The students at first all took notes, but gradually they dropped off until perhaps only half continued. When he made simple mistakes they received it in silence; only one, that one his son (a tutor in college), remarked that he was wrong. The steps of his lesson were all easy, but of course it was impossible to tell whence he came or whither he was going….
"The recitation-room was very common-looking—we could not tolerate such at Vassar. The forms and benches of the recitation-room were better for taking notes than ours are.
"The professor was polite enough to ask us into the senior class, but I had an engagement. I asked him if a young lady presented herself at the door hecouldkeep her out, and he said 'No, and I shouldn't.' I told him I would send some of my girls.
"Oct. 15, 1868. Resolved, in case of my outliving father and being in good health, to give my efforts to the intellectual culture of women, without regard to salary; if possible, connect myself with liberal Christian institutions, believing, as I do, that happiness and growth in this life are best promoted by them, and that what is good in this life is good in any life."
In August, 1869, Miss Mitchell, with several of her Vassar students, went to Burlington, Ia., to observe the total eclipse of the sun. She wrote a popular account of her observations, which was printed in "Hours at Home" for September, 1869. Her records were published in Professor Coffin's report, as she was a member of his party.
"Sept. 26, 1871. My classes came in to-day for the first time; twenty-five students—more than ever before; fine, splendid-looking girls. I felt almost frightened at the responsibility which came into my hands—of the possibletwistwhich I might give them.
"1871. I never look upon the mass of girls going into our dining-room or chapel without feeling their nobility, the sovereignty of their pure spirit."
The following letter from Miss Mitchell, though written at a later date, gives an idea of the practical observing done by her classes:
MY DEAR MISS ——: I reply to your questions concerning the observatory which you propose to establish. And, first, let me congratulate you that you beginsmall. A large telescope is a great luxury, but it is an enormous expense, and not at all necessary for teaching…. My beginning class uses only a small portable equatorial. It stands out-doors from 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. The girls are encouraged to use it: they are expected to determine the rotation of the sun on its axis by watching the spots—the same for the planet Jupiter; they determine the revolution of Titan by watching its motions, the retrograde and direct motion of the planets among the stars, the position of the sun with reference to its setting in winter and summer, the phases of Venus. All their book learning in astronomy should be mathematical. The astronomy which is not mathematical is what is so ludicrously called "Geography of the Heavens"—is not astronomy at all.
My senior class, generally small, say six, is received as a class, but in practical astronomy each girl is taught separately. I believe insmallclasses. I instruct them separately, first in the use of the meridian instrument, and next in that of the equatorial. They obtain the time for the college by meridian passage of stars; they use the equatorial just as far as they can do with very insufficient mechanism. We work wholly on planets, and they are taught to find a planet at any hour of the day, to make drawings of what they see, and to determine positions of planets and satellites. With the clock and chronograph they determine difference of right ascension of objects by the electric mode of recording. They make, sometimes, very accurate drawings, and they learn to know the satellites of Saturn (Titan, Rhea, etc.) by their different physiognomy, as they would persons. They have sometimes measured diameters.
If you add to your observatory a meridian instrument, I should advise a small one.Sizeis not so important as people generally suppose. Nicety and accuracy are what is needed in all scientific work; startling effects by large telescopes and high powers are too suggestive of sensational advertisement.
The relation between herself and her pupils was quite remarkable—it was very cordial and intimate; she spoke of them always as her "girls," but at the same time she required their very best work, and was intolerant of shirking, or of an ambition to do what nature never intended the girl in question to do.
One of her pupils writes thus: "If it were only possible to tell you of what Professor Mitchell did for one of her girls! 'Her girls!' It meant so much to come into daily contact with such a woman! There is no need of speaking of her ability; the world knows what that was. But as her class-room was unique, having something of home in its belongings, so its atmosphere differed from that of all others. Anxiety and nervous strain were left outside of the door. Perhaps one clue to her influence may be found in her remark to the senior class in astronomy when '76 entered upon its last year: 'We are women studying together.'
"Occasionally it happened that work requiring two hours or more to prepare called for little time in the class. Then would come one of those treats which she bestowed so freely upon her girls, and which seemed to put them in touch with the great outside world. Letters from astronomers in Europe or America, or from members of their families, giving delightful glimpses of home life; stories of her travels and of visits to famous people; accounts of scientific conventions and of large gatherings of women,—not so common then as now,—gave her listeners a wider outlook and new interests.
"Professor Mitchell was chairman of a standing committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Women,—that on women's work in science,—and some of her students did their first work for women's organizations in gathering statistics and filling out blanks which she distributed among them.
"The benefits derived from my college course were manifold, but time and money would have been well spent had there been no return but that of two years' intercourse with Maria Mitchell."
Another pupil, and later her successor at Vassar College, Miss Mary W. Whitney, has said of her method of teaching: "As a teacher, Miss Mitchell's gift was that of stimulus, not that of drill. She could not drill; she would not drive. But no honest student could escape the pressure of her strong will and earnest intent. The marking system she held in contempt, and wished to have nothing to do with it. 'You cannot mark a human mind,' she said, 'because there is no intellectual unit;' and upon taking up her duties as professor she stipulated that she should not be held responsible for a strict application of the system."
"July, 1887. My students used to say that my way of teaching was like that of the man who said to his son, 'There are the letters of the English alphabet—go into that corner and learn them.'
"It is not exactly my way, but I do think, as a general rule, that teachers talk too much! A book is a very good institution! To read a book, to think it over, and to write out notes is a useful exercise; a book which will not repay some hard thought is not worth publishing. The fashion of lecturing is becoming a rage; the teacher shows herself off, and she does not try enough to develop her pupils.
"The greatest object in educating is to give a right habit of study….
* * * * *
"… Not too much mechanical apparatus—let the imagination have some play; a cube may be shown by a model, but let the drawing upon the blackboard represent the cube; and if possible let Nature be the blackboard; spread your triangles upon land and sky.
"One of my pupils always threw her triangles on the celestial vault above her head….
"A small apparatus well used will do wonders. A celebrated chemist ordered his servant to bring in the laboratory—on a tray! Newton rolled up the cover of a book; he put a small glass at one end, and a large brain at the other—it was enough.
* * * * *
"When a student asks me, 'What specialty shall I follow?' I answer, 'Adopt some one, if none draws you, and wait.' I am confident that she will find the specialty engrossing.
"Feb. 10, 1887. When I came to Vassar, I regretted that Mr. Vassar did not give full scholarships. By degrees, I learned to think his plan of giving half scholarships better; and to-day I am ready to say, 'Give no scholarships at all.'
"I find a helping-hand lifts the girl as crutches do; she learns to like the help which is not self-help.
"If a girl has the public school, and wants enough to learn, she will learn. It is hard, but she was born to hardness—she cannot dodge it. Labor is her inheritance.
"I was born, for instance, incapable of appreciating music. I mourn it. Should I go to a music-school, therefore? No, avoid the music-school; it is a very expensive branch of study. When the public school has taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, the boy or girl has his or her tools; let them use these tools, and get a few hours for study every day.
"… Do not give educational aid to sickly young people. The old idea that the feeble young man must be fitted for the ministry, because the more sickly the more saintly, has gone out. Health of body is not only an accompaniment of health of mind, but is the cause; the converse may be true,—that health of mind causes health of body; but we all know that intellectual cheer and vivacity act upon the mind. If the gymnastic exercise helps the mind, the concert or the theatre improves the health of the body.
"Let the unfortunate young woman whose health is delicate take to the culture of the woods and fields, or raise strawberries, and avoid teaching.
"Better give a young girl who is poor a common-school education, a little lift, and tell her to work out her own career. If she have a distaste to the homely routine of life, leave her the opportunity to try any other career, but let her understand that she stands or falls by herself.
"… Not every girl should go to college. The over-burdened mother of a large family has a right to be aided by her daughter's hands. I would aid the mother and not the daughter.
"I would not put the exceptionally smart girl from averypoor family into college, unless she is a genius; and a genius should wait some years toproveher genius.
"Endow the already established institution with money. Endow the woman who shows genius withtime.
"A case at Johns Hopkins University is an excellent one. A young woman goes into the institution who is already a scholar; she shows what she can do, and she takes a scholarship; she is not placed in a happy valley of do nothing,—she is put into a workshop, where she can work.
"… We are all apt to say, 'Could we have had the opportunity in life that our neighbor had,'—and we leave the unfinished sentence to imply that we should have been geniuses.
"No one ever says, 'If I had not had such golden opportunities thrust upon me, I might have developed by a struggle'! But why look back at all? Why turn your eyes to your shadow, when, by looking upward, you see your rainbow in the same direction?
"But our want of opportunity was our opportunity—our privations were our privileges—our needs were stimulants; we are what we are because we had little and wanted much; and it is hard to tell which was the more powerful factor….
* * * * *
"Small aids to individuals, large aid to masses.
* * * * *
"The Russian Czar determined to found an observatory, and the first thing he did was to take a million dollars from the government treasury. He sends to America to order a thirty-five inch telescope from Alvan Clark,—not to promote science, but to surpass other nations in the size of his glass. 'To him that hath shall be given.' Read it, 'To him that hathshouldbe given.'
* * * * *
"To give wisely is hard. I do not wonder that the millionaire founds a new college—why should he not? Millionaires are few, and he is a man by himself—he must have views, or he could not have earned a million. But let the man or woman of ordinary wealth seek out the best institution already started,—the best girl already in college,—and give the endowment.
"I knew a rich woman who wished to give aid to some girls' school, and she travelled in order to find that institution which gave the most solid learning with the least show. She found it where few would expect it,—in Tennessee. It was worth while to travel.
"The aid that comes need not be money; let it be a careful consideration of the object, and an evident interest in the cause.
"When you aid a teacher, you improve the education of your children. It is a wonder that teachers work as well as they do. I never look at a group of them without using, mentally, the expression, 'The noble army of martyrs'!
"The chemist should have had a laboratory, and the observatory should have had an astronomer; but we are too apt to bestow money where there is no man, and to find a man where there is no money.
* * * * *
"If every girl who is aided were a very high order of scholar, scholarship would undoubtedly conquer poverty; but a large part of the aided students are ordinary. They lack, at least, executive power, as their ancestors probably did. Poverty is a misfortune; misfortunes are often the result of blamable indiscretion, extravagance, etc.
"It is one of the many blessings of poverty that one is not obliged to 'give wisely.'"
1866.To her students:"I cannot expect to make astronomers, but I do expect that you will invigorate your minds by the effort at healthy modes of thinking…. When we are chafed and fretted by small cares, a look at the stars will show us the littleness of our own interests.
"… But star-gazing is not science. The entrance to astronomy is through mathematics. You must make up your mind to steady and earnest work. You must be content to get on slowly if you only get on thoroughly….
"The phrase 'popular science' has in itself a touch of absurdity. That knowledge which is popular is not scientific.
"The laws which govern the motions of the sun, the earth, planets, and other bodies in the universe, cannot be understood and demonstrated without a solid basis of mathematical learning.
* * * * *
"Every formula which expresses a law of nature is a hymn of praise toGod.
* * * * *
"You cannot study anything persistently for years without becoming learned, and although I would not hold reputation up to you as a very high object of ambition, it is a wayside flower which you are sure to have catch at your skirts.
"Whatever apology other women may have for loose, ill-finished work, or work not finished at all, you will have none.
"When you leave Vassar College, you leave it thebest educated women in the world. Living a little outside of the college, beyond the reach of the little currents that go up and down the corridors, I think I am a fairer judge of your advantages than you can be yourselves; and when I say you will be the best educated women in the world, I do not mean the education of text-books, and class-rooms, and apparatus, only, but that broader education which you receive unconsciously, that higher teaching which comes to you, all unknown to the givers, from daily association with the noble-souled women who are around you."
"1871. When astronomers compare observations made by different persons, they cannot neglect the constitutional peculiarities of the individuals, and there enters into these computations a quantity called 'personal equation.' In common terms, it is that difference between two individuals from which results a difference in thetimewhich they require to receive and note an occurrence. If one sees a star at one instant, and records it, the record of another, of the same thing, is not the same.
"It is true, also, that the same individual is not the same at all times; so that between two individuals there is a mean or middle individual, and each individual has a mean or middle self, which is not the man of to-day, nor the man of yesterday, nor the man of to-morrow; but a middle man among these different selves….
* * * * *
"We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.
"There will come with the greater love of science greater love to one another. Living more nearly to Nature is living farther from the world and from its follies, but nearer to the world's people; it is to be of them, with them, and for them, and especially for their improvement. We cannot see how impartially Nature gives of her riches to all, without loving all, and helping all; and if we cannot learn through Nature's laws the certainty of spiritual truths, we can at least learn to promote spiritual growth while we are together, and live in a trusting hope of a greater growth in the future.
"… The great gain would be freedom of thought. Women, more than men, are bound by tradition and authority. What the father, the brother, the doctor, and the minister have said has been received undoubtingly. Until women throw off this reverence for authority they will not develop. When they do this, when they come to truth through their investigations, when doubt leads them to discovery, the truth which they get will be theirs, and their minds will work on and on unfettered.
[1874.] "I am but a woman!
"For women there are, undoubtedly, great difficulties in the path, but so much the more to overcome. First, no woman should say, 'I am but a woman!' But a woman! What more can you ask to be?
"Born a woman—born with the average brain of humanity—born with more than the average heart—if you are mortal, what higher destiny could you have? No matter where you are nor what you are, you are a power—your influence is incalculable; personal influence is always underrated by the person. We are all centres of spheres—we see the portions of the sphere above us, and we see how little we affect it. We forget the part of the sphere around and before us—it extends just as far every way.
"Another common saying, 'It isn't the way,' etc. Who settles the way? Is there any one so forgetful of the sovereignty bestowed on her by God that she accepts a leader—one who shall capture her mind?
"There is this great danger in student life. Now, we rest all upon what Socrates said, or what Copernicus taught; how can we dispute authority which has come down to us, all established, for ages?
"We must at least question it; we cannot accept anything as granted, beyond the first mathematical formulae. Question everything else.
"'The world is round, and like a ballSeems swinging in the air.'[1][Footnote 1: From Peter Parley's Primary Geography.]
"No such thing! the world is not round, it does not swing, and it doesn'tseemto swing!
"I know I shall be called heterodox, and that unseen lightning flashes and unheard thunderbolts will be playing around my head, when I say that women will never be profound students in any other department except music while they give four hours a day to thepracticeof music. I should by all means encourage every woman who is born with musical gifts to study music; but study it as a science and an art, and not as an accomplishment; and to every woman who is not musical, I should say, 'Don't study it at all;' you cannot afford four hours a day, out of some years of your life, just to be agreeable in company uponpossibleoccasions.
"If for four hours a day you studied, year after year, the science of language, for instance, do you suppose you would not be a linguist? Do you put the mere pleasing of some social party, and the reception of a few compliments, against the mental development of four hours a day of study of something for which you were born?
"When I see that girls who are required by their parents to go through with the irksome practising really become respectable performers, I wonder what four hours a day at something which they loved, and for which God designed them, would do for them.
"I should think that to a real scientist in music there would be something mortifying in this rush of all women into music; as there would be to me if I saw every girl learning the constellations, and then thinking she was an astronomer!
"Jan. 8, 1876. At the meeting of graduates at the Deacon House, the speeches that were made were mainly those of Dr. R. and Professor B. I am sorry now that I did not at least say that the college is what it is mainly because the early students pushed up the course to a collegiate standard.
"Jan. 25, 1876. It has become a serious question with me whether it is not my duty to beg money for the observatory, while what I really long for is a quiet life of scientific speculation. I want to sit down and study on the observations made by myself and others."
During her later years at Vassar, Miss Mitchell interested herself personally in raising a fund to endow the chair of astronomy. In March, 1886, she wrote: "I have been in New York quite lately, and am quite hopeful that Miss —— will do something for Vassar. Mrs. C., of Newburyport, is to ask Whittier, who is said to be rich, and —— told me to get anything I could out of her father. But after all I am a poor beggar; my ideas are small!"
Since Miss Mitchell's death, the fund has been completed by the alumnae, and is known as the Maria Mitchell Endowment Fund. With $10,000 appropriated by the trustees it amounts to $50,000.
"June 18, 1876. I had imagined the Emperor of Brazil to be a dark, swarthy, tall man, of forty-five years; that he would not really have a crown upon his head, but that I should feel it was somewhere around, handy-like, and that I should know I was in royal presence. But he turns out to be a large, old man,—say, sixty-five,—broad-headed and broad-shouldered, with a big white beard, and a very pleasant, even chatty, manner.
"Once inside of the dome, he seemed to feel at home; to my astonishment he asked if Alvan Clark made the glass of the equatorial. As he stepped into the meridian-room, and saw the instruments, he said, 'Collimators?' I said, 'You have been in observatories before.' 'Oh, yes, Cambridge and Washington,' he replied. He seemed much more interested in the observatory than I could possibly expect. I asked him to go on top of the roof, and he said he had not time; yet he stayed long enough to go up several times. I am told that he follows out, remarkably, his own ideas as to his movements."
In 1878, Miss Mitchell went to Denver, Colorado, to observe the totaleclipse of the sun. She was accompanied by several of her former pupils.She prepared an account of this eclipse, which will be found in ChapterXI.
"Aug. 20, 1878. Dr. Raymond [President of Vassar College] is dead. I cannot quite take it in. I have never known the college without him, and it will make all things different.
"Personally, I have always been fond of him; he was very enjoyable socially and intellectually. Officially he was, in his relations to the students, perfect. He was cautious to a fault, and has probably been very wise in his administration of college affairs. He was broad in his religious views. He was not broad in his ideas of women, and was made to broaden the education of women by the women around him.
"June 18, 1881. The dome party to-day was sixty-two in number. It was breakfast, and we opened the dome; we seated forty in the dome and twenty in the meridian-room."
This "dome party" requires a few words of explanation, because it was unique among all the Vassar festivities. The week before commencement, Miss Mitchell's pupils would be informed of the approaching gathering by a notice like the following:
The annual dome party will be held at the observatory on Saturday, the 19th, at 6 P.M. You are cordially invited to be present.
[As this gathering is highly intellectual, you are invited to bring poems.]
It was, at first, held in the evening, but during the last years was a breakfast party, its character in other respects remaining the same. Little tables were spread under the dome, around the big telescope; the flowers were roses from Miss Mitchell's own garden. The "poems" were nonsense rhymes, in the writing of which Miss Mitchell was an adept. Each student would have a few verses of a more or less personal character, written by Miss Mitchell, and there were others written by the girls themselves; some were impromptu; others were set to music, and sung by a selected glee-club.
"June 5, 1881. We have written what we call our dome poetry. Some nice poems have come in to us. I think the Vassar girls, in the main, are magnificent, they are so all-alive….
"May 20, 1882. Vassar is getting pretty. I gathered lilies of the valley this morning. The young robins are out in a tree close by us, and the phoebe has built, as usual, under the front steps.
"I am rushing dome poetry, but so far show no alarming symptoms of brilliancy."
A former student writes as follows about the dome poetry:
"At the time it was read, though it seemed mere merry nonsense, it really served a more serious purpose in the work of one who did nothing aimlessly. This apparent nonsense served as the vehicle to convey an expression of approbation, affection, criticism, or disapproval in such a merry mode that even the bitterest draught seemed sweet."
"1881, July 5. We left Vassar, June 24, on the steamer 'Galatea,' from New York to Providence. I looked out of my state-room window, and saw a strange-looking body in the northern sky. My heart sank; I knew instantly that it was a comet, and that I must return to the observatory. Calling the young people around me, and pointing it out to them, I had their assurance that it was a comet, and nothing but a comet.
"We went to bed at nine, and I arose at six in the morning. As soon as I could get my nieces started for Providence, I started for Stonington,—the most easy of the ways of getting to New York, as I should avoid Point Judith.
"I went to the boat at the Stonington wharf about noon, and remained on board until morning—there were few passengers, it was very quiet, and I slept well.
"Arriving in New York, I took cars at 9 A.M. for Poughkeepsie, and reached the college at dinner-time. I went to work the same evening.
"As I could not tell at what time the comet would pass the meridian, I stationed myself at the telescope in the meridian-room by 10 P.M., and watched for the comet to cross. As it approached the meridian, I saw that it would go behind a scraggy apple-tree. I sent for the watchman, Mr. Crumb, to come with a saw, and cut off the upper limbs. He came back with an axe, and chopped away vigorously; but as one limb after another fell, and I said, 'I need more, cut away,' he said, 'I think I must cut down the whole tree.' I said, 'Cut it down.' I felt the barbarism of it, but I felt more that a bird might have a nest in it.
"I found, when I went to breakfast the next morning, that the story had preceded me, and I was called 'George Washington.'
"But for all this, I got almost no observation; the fog came up, and I had scarcely anything better than an estimation. I saw the comet blaze out, just on the edge of the field, and I could read its declination only.
"On the 28th, 29th, and July 1st, I obtained good meridian passages, and the R.A. must be very good.
"Jan. 12, 1882. There is a strange sentence in the last paragraph of Dr.Jacobi's article on the study of medicine by women, to the effect thatit would be better for the husband always to be superior to the wife.Why? And if so, does not it condemn the ablest women to a single life?
"March 13, 1882, 3 P.M. I start for faculty, and we probably shall elect what are called the 'honor girls.' I dread the struggle that is pretty certain to come. Each of us has some favorite whom she wishes to put into the highest class, and whom she honestly believes to be of the highest order of merit. I never have the whole ten to suit me, but I can truly say that at this minute I do not care. I should be sorry not to see S., and W., and P., and E., and G., and K. on the list of the ten, but probably that is more than I ought to expect. The whole system is demoralizing and foolish. Girls study for prizes, and not for learning, when 'honors' are at the end. The unscholarly motive is wearing. If they studied for sound learning, the cheer which would come with every day's gain would be health-preserving.
"… I have seven advanced students, and to-day, when I looked around to see who should be called to help look out for meteors, I could consider onlyoneof them not already overworked, and she was the post-graduate, who took no honors, and never hurried, and has always been an excellent student.
"… We are sending home some girls already [November 14], and —— is among them. I am somewhat alarmed at the dropping down, but —— does an enormous amount of work, belongs to every club, and writes for every club and for the 'Vassar Miscellany,' etc.; of course she has the headache most of the time.
"Sometimes I am distressed for fear Dr. Clarke [Footnote: Author of "Sex in Education."] is not so far wrong; but I do not think it is the study—it is the morbid conscientiousness of the girls, who think they must work every minute.
"April 26, 1882. Miss Herschel came to the college on the 11th, and stayed three days. She is one of the little girls whom I saw, twenty-three years since, playing on the lawn at Sir John Herschel's place, Collingwood.
"… Miss Herschel was just perfect as a guest; she fitted in beautifully. The teachers gave a reception for her, —— gave her his poem, and Henry, the gardener, found out that the man in whose employ he lost a finger was her brother-in-law, in Leeds!
"Jan. 9, 1884. Mr. [Matthew] Arnold has been to the college, and has given his lecture on Emerson. The audience was made up of three hundred students, and three hundred guests from town. Never was a man listened to with so much attention. Whether he is right in his judgment or not, he held his audience by his manly way, his kindly dissection, and his graceful English. Socially, he charmed us all. He chatted with every one, he smiled on all. He said he was sorry to leave the college, and that he felt he must come to America again. We have not had such an awakening for years. It was like a new volume of old English poetry.
"March 16, 1885. In February, 1831, I counted seconds for father, who observed the annular eclipse at Nantucket. I was twelve and a half years old. In 1885, fifty-four years later, I counted seconds for a class of students at Vassar; it was the same eclipse, but the sun was only about half-covered. Both days were perfectly clear and cold."
1873
In 1873, Miss Mitchell spent the summer in Europe, and availed herself of this opportunity to visit the government observatory at Pulkova, in Russia.
"Eydkuhnen, Wednesday, July 30, 1873. Certainly, I never in my life expected to spend twenty-four hours in this small town, the frontier town of Prussia. Here I remembered that our little bags would be examined, and I asked the guard about it, but he said we need not trouble ourselves; we should not be examined until we reached the first Russian town of Wiersbelow. So, after a mile more of travel, we came to Wiersbelow. Knowing that we should keep our little compartment until we got to St. Petersburg, we had scattered our luggage about; gloves were in one place, veil in another, shawl in another, parasol in another, and books all around.
"The train stopped. Imagine our consternation! Two officials entered the carriage, tall Russians in full uniform, and seized everything—shawls, books, gloves, bags; and then, looking around very carefully, espied W's poor little ragged handkerchief, and seized that, too, as a contraband article! We looked at one another, and said nothing. The tall Russian said something to us; we looked at each other and sat still. The tall Russians looked at one another, and there was almost an official smile between them.
"Then one turned to me, and said, very distinctly, 'Passy-port.' 'Oh,' I said, 'the passports are all right; where are they?' and we produced from our pockets the passports prepared at Washington, with the official seal, and we delivered them with a sort of air as if we had said, 'You'll find that they do things all right at Washington.'
"The tall Russians got out, and I was about to breathe freely, when they returned, and said something else—not a word did I understand; they exchanged a look of amusement, and W. and I, one of amazement; then one of them made signs to us to get out. The sign was unmistakable, and we got out, and followed them into an immense room, where were tables all around covered with luggage, and about a hundred travellers standing by; and our books, shawls, gloves, etc., were thrown in a heap upon one of these tables, and we awoke to the disagreeable consciousness that we were in a custom-house, and only two out of a hundred travellers, and that we did not understand one word of Russian.
"But, of course, it could be only a few minutes of delay, and if German and French failed, there is always left the language of signs, and all would be right.
"After, perhaps, half an hour, two or three officials approached us, and, holding the passports, began to talk to us. How did they know that those two passports belonged to us? Out of two hundred persons, how could they at once see that the woman whose age was given at more than half a century, and the lad whose age was given at less than a score of years, were the two fatigued and weary travellers who stood guarding a small heap of gloves, books, handkerchiefs, and shawls? Two of the officials held up the passports to us, pointed to the blank page, shook their heads ominously; the third took the passports, put them into his vest pocket, buttoned up his coat, and motioned to us to follow him.
"We followed; he opened the door of an ordinary carriage, waved his hand for us to get in, jumped in himself, and we found we were started back. We could not cross the line between Germany and Russia.
"We meekly asked where we were to go, and were relieved when we found that we went back only to the nearest town, but that the passports must be sent to Konigsberg, sixty miles away, to be endorsed by the Russian ambassador—it might take some days. W. was very much inclined to refuse to go back and to attempt a war of words, but it did not seem wise to me to undertake a war against the Russian government; I know our country does not lightly go into an 'unpleasantness' of that kind….
"So we went back to Eydkuhnen,—a little miserable German village. We took rooms at the only hotel, and there we stayed twenty-four hours. Before the end of that time, we had visited every shop in the village, and aired our German to most of our fellow-travellers whom we met at the hotel.
"The landlord took our part, and declared it was hard enough on simple travellers like ourselves to be stopped in such a way, and that Russia was the only country in Europe which was rigid in that respect. Happily, our passports were back in twenty-four hours, and we started again; our trunks had been registered for St. Petersburg, and to St. Petersburg they had gone, ahead of us; and of the small heap of things thrown down promiscuously at the custom-house, the whole had not come back to us—it was not very important. I learned how to wear one glove instead of two, or to go without.
"We had the ordeal of the custom-house to pass again; but once passed, and told that we were free to go on, it was like going into a clear atmosphere from a fog. We crossed the custom-house threshold into another room, and we found ourselves in Russia, and in an excellent, well-furnished, and cheery restaurant. We lost the German smoke and the German beer; we found hot coffee and clean table-cloths.
"We did not return to our dusty, red-velvet palace, but we entered a clean, comfortable compartment, with easy sofas, for the night. We started again for St. Petersburg; we were now four days from London. I will omit the details of a break-down that night, and another change of cars. We had some sleep, and awoke in the morning to enjoy Russia.
"And, first, of Russian railroads. When the railroads of Russia were planned, the Emperor Nicholas allowed a large sum of money for the building. The engineer showed him his plan. The road wound by slight curves from one town to another. This did not suit the emperor at all. He took his ruler, put it down upon the table, and said: 'I choose to have my roads run so.' Of course the engineer assented—he had his large fund granted; a straight road was much cheaper to build than a curved one. As a consequence, he built and furnished an excellent road.
"At every 'verst,' which is not quite a mile, a small house is placed at the roadside, on which, in very large figures, the number of versts from St. Petersburg is told. The train runs very smoothly and very slowly; twenty miles an hour is about the rate. Of course the journey seemed long. For a large part of the way it was an uninhabited, level plain; so green, however, that it seemed like travelling on prairies. Occasionally we passed a dreary little village of small huts, and as we neared St. Petersburg we passed larger and better built towns, which the dome of some cathedral lighted up for miles.
"The road was enlivened, too, by another peculiarity. The restaurants were all adorned by flags of all colors, and festooned by vines. At one place the green arches ran across the road, and we passed under a bower of evergreens. I accepted this, at first, as a Russian peculiarity, and was surprised that so much attention was paid to travellers; but I learned that it was not for us at all. The Duke of Edinboro' had passed over the road a few days before, on his way to St. Petersburg, for his betrothal to the only daughter of the czar, and the decorations were for him; and so we felt that we were of the party, although we had not been asked.
"We approached St. Petersburg just at night, and caught the play of the sunlight on the domes. It is a city of domes—blue domes, green domes, white domes, and, above all, the golden dome of the Cathedral of St. Isaac's.
"It is almost never a single dome. St. Isaac's central, gilded dome looms up above its fellow domes, but four smaller ones surround it.
"It was summer; the temperature was delightful, about like our October.The showers were frequent, there was no dust and no sultry air.
"There must be a great deal of nice mechanical work required in St. Petersburg, for on the Nevsky Perspective, the principal street, there were a great many shops in which graduating and measuring instruments of very nice workmanship were for sale. Especially I noticed the excellence of the thermometers, and I naturally stopped to read them. Figures are a common language, but it was clear that I was in another planet; I could not read the thermometers! I judged that the weather was warm enough for the thermometer to be at 68. I read, say, 16. And then I remembered that the Russians do not put their freezing point at 32, as we do, and I was obliged to go through a troublesome calculation before I could tell how warm it was.
"But I came to a still stranger experience. I dated my letters August 3, and went to my banker's, before I sealed them, to see if there were letters for me. The banker's little calendar was hanging by his desk, and the day of the month was on exhibition, in large figures. I read, July 22! This was distressing! Was I like Alice in Wonderland? Did time go backward? Surely, I had dated August 3. Could I be in error twelve days? And then I perceived that twelve days was just the difference of old and new calendars.
"How many times I had taught students that the Russians still counted their time by the 'old style,' but had never learned it myself! And so I was obliged to teach myself new lessons in science. The earth turns on its axis just the same in Russia as in Boston, but you don't get out of the sunlight at the Boston sunset hour.
"When the thermometer stands at 32 in St. Petersburg, it does not freeze as it does in Boston. On the contrary, it is very warm in St. Petersburg, for it means what 104 does in Boston. And if you leave London on the 22d of July, and are five days on the way to St. Petersburg, a week after you get there it is still the 22d of July! And we complain that the day is too short!
"Another peculiarity. We strolled over the city all day; we came back to our hotel tired; we took our tea; we talked over the day; we wrote to our friends; we planned for the next day; we were ready to retire. We walked to the window—the sun was striking on all the chimney tops. It doesn't seem to be right even for the lark to go to sleep while the sun shines. We looked at our watches; but the watches said nine o'clock, and we went off to our beds in daytime; and we awoke after the first nap to perceive that the sun still shone into the room.
"Like all careful aunts, I was unwilling that my nephew should be out alone at night. He was desirous of doing the right thing, but urged that at home, as a little boy, he was always allowed to be out until dark, and he asked if he could stay out until dark! Alas for the poor lad! There was no dark at all! I could not consent for him to be out all night, and the twilight was not over. You may read and read that the summer day at St. Petersburg is twenty hours long, but until you see that the sun scarcely sets, you cannot take it in.
"I wondered whether the laboring man worked eight or ten hours under my window; it seemed to me that he was sawing wood the whole twenty-four!
"W. came in one night after a stroll, and described a beautiful square which he had come upon accidentally. I listened with great interest, and said, 'I must go there in the morning; what is the name of it?'—'I don't know,' he replied.—'Why didn't you read the sign?' I asked.—'I can't read,' was the reply.—'Oh, no; but why didn't you ask some one?'—'I can't speak,' he answered. Neither reading nor speaking, we had to learn St. Petersburg by our observation, and it is the best way. Most travellers read too much.
"There are learned institutions in St. Petersburg: universities, libraries, picture-galleries, and museums; but the first institution with which I became acquainted was the drosky. The drosky is a very, very small phaeton. It has the driver's seat in front, and a very narrow seat behind him. One person can have room enough on this second seat, but it usually carries two. Invariably the drosky is lined with dark-blue cloth, and the drosky-driver wears a dark-blue wrapper, coming to the feet, girded around the waist by a crimson sash. He also wears a bell-shaped hat, turned up at the side. You are a little in doubt, if you see him at first separated from his drosky, whether he is a market-woman or a serving-man, the dress being very much like a morning wrapper. But he is rarely six feet away from his carriage, and usually he is upon it, sound asleep!
"The trunks having gone to St. Petersburg in advance of ourselves, our first duty was to get possession of them. They were at the custom-house, across the city. My nephew and I jumped upon a drosky—we could not say that we were reallyinthe drosky, for the seat was too short. The drosky-driver started off his horse over the cobble-stones at a terrible rate. I could not keep my seat, and I clung to W. He shouted, 'Don't hold by me; I shall be out the next minute!' What could be done? I was sure I shouldn't stay on half a minute. Blessings on the red sash of the drosky-man—I caught at that! He drove faster and faster, and I clung tighter and tighter, but alarmed at two immense dangers: first, that I should stop his breath by dragging the girdle so tightly; and, next, that when it became unendurable to him, he would loosen it in front.
"I could not perceive that he was aware of my existence at all! He had only one object in life,—to carry us across the city to our place of destination, and to get his copecks in return.
"In a few days I learned to like the jolly vehicles very much. They are so numerous that you may pick one up on any street, whenever you are tired of walking.
"My principal object in visiting St. Petersburg was the astronomical observatory at Pulkova, some twelve miles distant.
"I had letters to the director, Otto von Struve, but our consul declared that I must also have one from him, for Struve was a very great man. I, of course, accepted it.
"We made the journey by rail and coach, but it would be better to drive the whole way.
"Most observatories are temples of silence, and quiet reigns. As we drove into the grounds at Pulkova, a small crowd of children of all ages, and servants of all degrees, came out to meet us. They did not come out to do us honor, but to gaze at us. I could not understand it until I learned that the director of the observatory has a large number of aids, and they, with all their families, live in large houses, connected with the central building by covered ways.
"All about the grounds, too, were small observatories,—little temples,—in which young men were practising for observations on the transit of Venus. These little buildings, I afterwards learned, were to be taken down and transported, instruments and all, to the coast of Asia.
"The director of the observatory is Otto Struve—his father, WilhelmStruve, preceded him in this office. Properly, the director is Herr VonStruve; but the old Russian custom is still in use, and the servantscall him Wilhelm-vitch; that is, 'the son of William.'
"When I bought a photograph of the present emperor, Alexander, I saw that he was called Nicholas-vitch.
"Herr Struve received us courteously, and an assistant was called to show us the instruments. All observatories are much alike; therefore I will not describe this, except in its peculiarities. One of these was the presence of small, light, portable rooms, i.e., baseless boxes, which rolled over the instruments to protect them; two sides were of wood, and two sides of green silk curtains, which could, of course, be turned aside when the boxes, or little rooms, were rolled over the apparatus. Being covered in this way, the heavy shutters can be left open for weeks at a time.
"Everything was on a large scale—the rooms were immense.
"The director has three assistants who are called 'elder astronomers,' and two who are called 'adjunct astronomers.' Each of these has a servant devoted to him. I asked one of the elder astronomers if he had rooms in the observatory, and he answered, 'Yes, my rooms are 94 ft. by 50.'
"They seem to be amused at the size of their lodgings, for Mr. Struve, when he told me of his apartments, gave me at once the dimensions,—200 ft. by 100 ft.
"The room in which we dined with the family of Herr Struve was immense. I spoke of it, and he said, 'We cannot open our windows in the winter,—the winters are so severe,—and so we must have good air without it.' Their drawing-room was also very large; the chairs (innumerable, it seemed to me) stood stiffly around the walls of the room. The floor was painted and highly varnished, and flower-pots were at the numerous windows on little stands. It was scrupulously neat everywhere.
"There was very little ceremony at dinner; we had the delicious wild strawberries of the country in great profusion; and the talk, the best part of the dinner, was in German, Russian, and English.
"Madame Struve spoke German, Russian, and French, and complained that she could not speak English. She said that she had spent three weeks with an English lady, and that she must be very stupid not to speak English.
"I noticed that in one of the rooms, which was not so very immense, there was a circular table, a small centre-carpet, and chairs around the table; I have been told that 'in society' in Russia, the ladies sit in a circle, and the gentlemen walk around and talk consecutively with the ladies,—kindly giving to each a share of their attention.
"They assured me that the winters were charming, the sleighing constant, and the social gatherings cheery; but think of four hours, only, of daylight in the depth of the winter. Their dread was the spring and the autumn, when the mud is deep.
"Everything in the observatory which could be was built of wood. They have the fir, which is very indestructible; it is supposed to show no mark of change in two hundred years.
"Wood is so susceptible of ornamentation that the pretty villages of Russia—and there are some that look like New England villages—struck us very pleasantly, after the stone and brick villages of England.
"I try, when I am abroad, to see in what they are superior to us,—not in what they are inferior.
"Our great idea is, of course, freedom and self-government; probably in that we are ahead of the rest of the world, although we are certainly not so much in advance as we suppose; but we are sufficiently inflated with our own greatness to let that subject take care of itself when we travel. We travel to learn; and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own—as in the art of Italy, the learning of England, and the philosophy of Germany.
"Let us take the scientific position of Russia. When, half a century ago, John Quincy Adams proposed the establishment of an astronomical observatory, at a cost of $100,000, it was ridiculed by the newspapers, considered Utopian, and dismissed from the public mind. When our government, a few years since, voted an appropriation of $50,000 for a telescope for the National Observatory, it was considered magnificent. Yet, a quarter of a century since (1838), Russia founded an astronomical observatory. The government spent $200,000 on instruments, $1,500,000 on buildings, and annually appropriated $38,000 for salaries of observers. I naturally thought that a million and a half dollars, and Oriental ideas, combined, would make the observatory a showy place; I expected that the observatory would be surmounted by a gilded dome, and that 'pearly gates' would open as I approached. There is not even a dome!
"The central observation-room is a cylinder, and its doors swing back on hinges. Wherever it is possible, wood is used, instead of stone or brick. I could not detect, in the whole structure, anything like carving, gilding, or painting, for mere show. It was all for science; and its ornamentations were adapted to its uses, and came at their demand.
"In our country, the man of science leads an isolated life. If he has capabilities of administration, our government does not yet believe in them.
"The director of the observatory at Pulkova has the military rank of general, and he is privy councillor to the czar. Every subordinate has also his military position—he is a soldier.
"What would you think of it, if the director of any observatory were one of the President's cabinet at Washington, in virtue of his position? Struve's position is that of a member of the President's cabinet.
"Here is another difference: Ours is a democratic country. We recognize no caste; we are born 'free and equal.' We honor labor; work is ennobling. These expressions we are all accustomed to use. Do we live up to them? Many a rich man, many a man in fine social position, has married a school-teacher; but I never heard it spoken of as a source of pride in the alliance until I went to despotic Russia. Struve told me, as he would have told of any other honor which had been his, that his wife, as a girl, had taught school in St. Petersburg. And then Madame Struve joined in the conversation, and told me how much the subject of woman's education still held her interest.
"St. Petersburg is about the size of Philadelphia. Struve said, 'There are thousands of women studying science in St. Petersburg.' How many thousand women do you suppose are studying science in the whole State of New York? I doubt if there are five hundred.
"Then again, as to language. It is rare, even among the common people, to meet one who speaks one language only. If you can speak no Russian, try your poor French, your poor German, or your good English. You may be sure that the shopkeeper will answer in one or another, and even the drosky-driver picks up a little of some one of them.
"Of late, the Russian government has founded a medical school for women, giving them advantages which are given to men, and the same rank when they graduate; the czar himself contributed largely to the fund.
"One wonders, in a country so rich as ours, that so few men and women gratify their tastes by founding scholarships and aids for the tuition of girls—it must be such a pleasant way of spending money.
"Then as regards religion. I am never in a country where the Catholic or Greek church is dominant, but I see with admiration the zeal of its followers. I may pity their delusions, but I must admire their devotion. If you look around in one of our churches upon the congregation, five-sixths are women, and in some towns nineteen-twentieths; and if you form a judgment from that fact, you would suppose that religion was entirely a 'woman's right.' In a Catholic church or Greek church, the men are not only as numerous as the women, but they are as intense in their worship. Well-dressed men, with good heads, will prostrate themselves before the image of the Holy Virgin as many times, and as devoutly, as the beggar-woman.
"I think I saw a Russian gentleman at St. Isaac's touch his forehead to the floor, rise and stand erect, touch the floor again, and rise again, ten times in as many minutes; and we were one day forbidden entrance to a church because the czar was about to say his prayers; we found he was making the pilgrimage of some seventy churches, and praying in each one.
"Christians who believe in public prayer, and who claim that we should be instant in prayer, would consider it a severe tax upon their energies to pray seventy times a day—they don't care to do it!
"Then there is thedemocracyof the church. There are no pews to be sold to the highest bidder—no 'reserved seats;' the oneness and equality before God are always recognized. A Russian gentleman, as he prays, does not look around, and move away from the poor beggar next to him. At St. Peter's the crowd stands or kneels—at St. Isaac's they stand; and they stand literally on the same plane.
"I noticed in the crowd at St. Isaac's, one festival day, young girls who were having a friendly chat; but their religion was ever in their thoughts, and they crossed themselves certainly once a minute. Their religion is not an affair of Sunday, but of every day in the week.
"The drosky-driver, certainly the most stupid class of my acquaintance in Russia, never forgets his prayers; if his passenger is never so much in a hurry, and the bribe never so high, the drosky-driver will check his horse, and make the sign of the cross as he passes the little image of the Virgin,—so small, perhaps, that you have not noticed it until you wonder why he slackens his pace.
"Then as to government. We boast of our national freedom, and we talk about universal suffrage, the 'Home of the Free,' etc. Yet the serfs in Russia were freed in March, 1861, just before our Civil war began. They freed their serfs without any war, and each serf received some acres of land. They freed twenty-three millions, and we freed four or five millions of blacks; and all of us, who are old enough, remember that one of the fears in freeing the slaves was the number of lawless and ignorant blacks who, it was supposed, would come to the North.
"We talk aboutuniversalsuffrage; a larger part of the antiquated Russians vote than of Americans. Just as I came away from St. Petersburg I met a Moscow family, travelling. We occupied the same compartment car. It was a family consisting of a lady and her three daughters. When they found where I had been, they asked me, in excellent English, what had carried me to St. Petersburg, and then, why I was interested in Pulkova; and so I must tell them about American girls, and so, of course, of Vassar College.
"They plied me with questions: 'Do you have women in your faculty? Do men and women hold the same rank?' I returned the questions: 'Is there a girl's college in Moscow?' 'No,' said the youngest sister, with a sigh, 'we are alwaysgoingto have one.' The eldest sister asked: 'Do women vote in America?' 'No,' I said. 'Do women vote in Russia?' She said 'No;' but her mother interrupted her, and there was a spicy conversation between them, in Russian, and then the mother, who had rarely spoken, turned to me, and said: 'I vote, but I do not go to the polls myself. I send somebody to represent me; my vote rests upon my property.'
"Have you not read a story, of late, in the newspapers, about some excellent women in a little town in Connecticut whose pet heifers were taken by force and sold because they refused to pay the large taxes levied upon them by their townsmen, they being the largest holders of property in the town? That circumstance could not have happened in barbarous Russia; there, the owner of property has a right to say how it shall be used.
"'Why do you ask me about our government?' I said to the Russian girls.'Are you interested in questions of government?' They replied, 'AllRussian women are interested in questions of that sort.' How manyAmerican women are interested in questions concerning government?
"These young girls knew exactly what questions to ask about Vassar College,—the course of study, the diploma, the number of graduates, etc. The eldest said: 'We are at once excited when we hear of women studying; we have longed for opportunities to study all our lives. Our father was the engineer of the first Russian railroad, and he spent two years in America."
"I confess to a feeling of mortification when one of these girls asked me, 'Did you ever read the translation of a Russian book?' and I was obliged to answer 'No.' This girl had read American books in the original. They were talking Russian, French, German, and English, and yet mourning over their need of education; and in general education, especially in that of women, I think we must be in advance of them.
"One of these sisters, forgetting my ignorance, said something to me in Russian. The other laughed. 'What did she say?' I asked. The eldest replied, 'She asked you to take her back with you, and educate her.' 'But,' I said, 'you read and speak your languages—the learning of the world is open to you—found your own college!' And the young girl leaned back on the cushions, drew her mantle around her, and said, 'We have not the energy of the American girl!'
"The energy of the American girl! The rich inheritance which has come down to her from men and women who sought, in the New World, a better and higher life.
"When the American girl carries her energy into the great questions of humanity, into the practical problems of life; when she takes home to her heart the interests of education, of government, and of religion, what may we not hope for our country!
London, 1873. "It was the 26th of August, and I had no hope that Miss Cobbe could be at her town residence, but I felt bound to deliver Mrs. Howe's letter, and I wished to give her a Vassar pamphlet; so I took a cab and drove; it was at an enormous distance from my lodging—she told me it was six miles. I was as much surprised as delighted when the girl said she was at home, for the house had painters in it, the carpets were up, and everything looked uninhabitable. The girl came back, after taking my card, and asked me if I would go into the studio, and so took me through a pretty garden into a small building of two rooms, the outer one filled with pictures and books. I had never heard that Miss Cobbe was an artist, and so I looked around, and was afraid that I had got the wrong Miss Cobbe. But as I glanced at the table I saw the 'Contemporary Review,' and I took up the first article and read it—by Herbert Spencer. I had become somewhat interested in a pretty severe criticism of the modes of reasoning of mathematical men, and had perceived that he said the problems of concrete sciences were harder than any of the physical sciences (which I admitted was all true), when a very white dog came bounding in upon me, and I dropped the book, knowing that the dog's mistress must be coming,—and Miss Cobbe entered. She looked just as I expected, but even larger; but then her head is magnificent because so large. She was very cordial at once, and told me that Miss Davies had told her I was in London. She said the studio was that of her friend. I could not refrain from thanking her for her books, and telling her how much we valued them in America, and how much good I believed they had done. She colored a very little, and said, 'Nothing could be more gratifying to me.'
"I had heard that she was not a women's rights woman, and she said, 'Who could have told you that? I am remarkably so. I write suffrage articles continually—I sign petitions.'
"I was delighted to find that she had been an intimate friend of Mrs. Somerville; had corresponded with her for years, and had a letter from her after she was ninety-two years of age, when she was reading Quaternions for amusement. She said that Mrs. Somerville would probably have called herself a Unitarian, but that really she was a Theist, and that it came out more in her later life. She said she was correcting proof of the Life by the daughters; that the Life was intensely interesting; that Mrs. Somerville mourned all her life that she had not had the advantages of education.
"I asked her how I could get a photograph of Mrs. Somerville, and she said they could not be bought. She told me, without any hint from me, that she would give Vassar College a plaster cast of the bust of Mrs. Somerville. [Footnote: This bust always stood in Miss Mitchell's parlor at the observatory.] She said, as women grew older, if they lived independent lives, they were pretty sure to be 'women's rights women.' She said the clergy—the broadest, who were in harmony with her—were very courteous, and that since she had grown old (she's about forty-five) all men were more tolerant of her and forgot the difference of sex.