Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE INCEPTION OF MATTHEW VASSAR's PLAN In view of the various efforts already made, both in the North and in the South, to give a college education to girls, it might be supposed that there would be no claim to novelty or originality on the part of the plan announced by Mr. Vassar. That claim, however, was distinctly made in the literature of the time, and made also by men prominent in educational work, in some cases even by those engaged in the more advanced types of the schools and so-called colleges for young women. There can be no question as to the fact: the new college was heralded as a beginning of a new work, and its founder as the discoverer of a fresh principle. How could it be? How, — save that the work already done had not been such as to attract the attention of the world, and had not gained such proportions or been set in such an environment as to impress any but the small circle devoted to it? The interchange of ideas was not rapid, as judged by our present modes. Oberlin was remote, Georgia and Mary Sharp were local in name and influence, Elmira had just begun its work, and was generally thought of, no doubt, as another large school for girls. Moreover, a great movement often depends on a great opportunity, and the years of our bitter Civil War were really the open sesame for the budding and blossoming and fruiting of the subconscious demands for larger activities, larger public responsibilities, and a more generous education for womankind. It was one of the happy synchronisms of history which opened the doors of Vassar in the very year which closed those of the temple of Janus and gave to us a reunited country with new outlook, new necessities, and new opportunities. Nothing shows more clearly that there had been no extensive demand for college education...