The islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1891-1899, 1895-03-07
woMeN,s GIFTS TO COLLEGES.
What Massachusetts, Women Have Done
For Educational Institutions.

and the bound volume of historical ana
educational monOgrams contributed Dy
the women of Massachusetts to the Chl-
cago fair will gain new idea OF what
women have done for the cause OF higher
education. The facts contained will be
a revelation to most people, who have
only an inadequate idea of what women
have accomplished in this way. One OF
the most extraordinary showings Is the
table containing list of the sums OF
money given to Massachusetts, colleges
by women. 1t is as follows:
Harvard university ...... ,........$l,O l,oS %
Institute of Technology. .......".. AS'o1o w
Williams college. ........".......... Ia@'o.i 90
Boston university .............." $3.50 VI
Amherst college. 1900 90
Smith COLLAGE " Al 90
Harvard annex " 100000 &C
Mount HoIvoke " 1880 &C
Tufts college. Ioo''oo w
wellesley college. @'I,Uo W
*Combined gifts of Mr.. and Mrs. Durant.
Here is total of s., 1928, O7S. IS, mu-
nifcent sum, and larger by many thou
sands than the total gifts made to all
the colleges in some of the older states
Harvard university received more than
half of this amount, and yet that instl-
tuition has only recently admitted young
women to it's courses and even now does
not give them the same advantages as
young men. To President Eliot's request
that women contribute $500, 900 to en-
dow the wOman's annex of Harvard uni
versity it might be pertinent to ask why
it would not be right to use for this ptlr-
pose a part of the 81 .200,O given by
women in past years to the funds OF the
university. The scholarships, the botanic
garden, the divinity school, the library
and the departments that have been en-
riched by this bounty of women show
how well they can discriminate in their
gifts.
This does not include all, however,
that women have done for education in
Massachusetts,. Public libraries have re-
ceived gifts amounting to 1861, 1856, and
public and industrial schools have been
given $122 Goo Another way in which
education has been aided by women Is
by gifts to the free kindergartens, which
have received 1914, $40. Even this does
not cover all the money women have
given to aid others in getting an educa-
ton, many being too modest to allow the
amount Of their gifts to be known, but
it is enough to show how strong an inter
est women have taken in colleges and
education. This interest is not of recent
origin either. AS early as 1864 Bridget
WINDS gave Harvard college Ga, and in
171S Nine. Hutchinson gave the same in
stitution $40. These sums look small
beside the recent requests to Harvard of
1920 600 by Mrs. Elizabeth Fogg and
$169,925 by Mrs. Ellen Quincy. But it
is the spirit and the ability and not the
size of the donation that measure the
value of the gift.
1t is long call from the earliest of
these expressions of woman's interest in
education to the present time, when col
leges are opening their doors to female
students and placing them on the same
level with male students. All have not
done this, but some have, and others will
be compelled to follow. The results of
college training for women have more
than justified the efforts made and swept
away most Of the prejudice that once ex-
listed against the higher intellectual
training of women. The New York Sun
not long ago gave the following illustra-
ton of what college bred woman can
do. 1t said: "One college woman in
New York, wife of busy physician
does all her husbands reading for him
both of current literature and medical
publications. With the trained intelli-
gence peculiar to the thoroughly educat-
ed woman she grasps the salient points
of the articles, and in few words gives
them to him at dinner or in the after
noon drive"
With such proof of how college bred
woman can enter into an intelligent part
nership with her husband and the proofs
given in the exhibit at Chicago of the lib
crafty Of women toward colleges there
will be general agreement that the day
has passed when the demand for equal
facilities for the higher education of wo-
men can be brushed aside as unworthy OF
notice. Philadelphia Press.