“Miss Gordon, I think,” remarked Miss Ashton, “has a distinguished future before her.
“‘Female professors and lecturers are to be introduced into the Michigan University at Ann Arbor.’
“‘Two female medical graduates have been appointed house surgeons at two English hospitals.’
“‘An Ohio girl discovered a way of transforming a barrel of petroleum into ten thousand cubic feet of gas.’
“‘Another woman has constructed a machine which will make as many paper bags in a day as thirty men can put together.’ 253
“‘An invention which you hardly would have expected from a woman, is a war vessel that is susceptible of being converted off-hand into a fort by simply taking it apart.’
“‘Chicago, March 25. Miss Sophia G. Hayden of Boston wins the one thousand-dollar prize offered for the best design for the woman’s buildings of the World’s Fair.’” (A sensation among the scholars, which pleased Miss Ashton). “‘Miss Lois L. Howe, also of Boston, was second, five hundred dollars, and Miss Laura Hayes of Chicago gets the two hundred and fifty dollars offered for the third best design.
“‘Miss Hayden is a first-honor graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Miss Howe is from the same institution. Miss Hayes is Mrs. Potter Palmer’s private secretary.
“‘As soon as the awards were made, Miss Hayden was wired to come to Chicago immediately and elaborate her plans. The design is one of marked simplicity. It is in the Italian renaissance style, with colonnades, broken by centre and end pavilions. The structure is to be 200 × 400 feet, and 50 feet to the cornice. There is no dome. The chief feature of ornamentation is the entrance.’
“I am glad to tell those of you young ladies who feel symptoms of architectural genius only waiting for development, that year by year this institute is opening its door wider and wider to admit women. This last year the ten who are new members of it were for the first time invited to a class supper, going 254 to it matronized by Mrs. Walker, the wife of the president.