VASSAR COLLEGE.
The late Matthew Vassar, “recognizing in woman the same intellectual constitution as in man,” resolved to give a fair chance to girls for a liberal education, under conditions in every way favorable to health. To this end he erected college and dormitory buildings in the midst of a lawn of two hundred acres, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., with careful provision for pure air, good water, abundant sunshine, and good sewerage. He provided a gymnasium and provided for out of door sports. He instituted a professorship of physiology and hygiene, and made its incumbent “resident physician” and supervisor of sanitary arrangements.
In September, 1865, the institution received, upon examination, about 350 young women as students to a course of study and mode of life determined by the trustees, who believed that “the larger the stock of knowledge, and the more thorough the mental discipline a woman attains, the better she is fitted for any womanly position, and to perform any womanly duty of home and in society,” a position which the subsequent experience of this and kindred institutions has abundantly illustrated.
Up to 1890, Vassar College has conferred the degree of A.B. upon between 800 and 900 graduates.
It has included in its corps of professors several women of distinguished ability—of whom we may name the late Prof. Braislin of the department of mathematics, and the late Prof. Maria Mitchell, who had not only a national, but a European reputation, as an astronomer. From the opening of the institution till near the time of her death, in 1889, she was the head of the department of astronomy and in charge of the excellent observatory. Three women are serving on the Vassar board of trustees, and three on standing committees.