THE STORY OF WELLESLEY
BY
FLORENCE CONVERSE
ALMA MATER
To Alma Mater, Wellesley's daughters,
All together join and sing.
Thro' all her wealth of woods and water
Let your happy voices ring;
In every changing mood we love her,
Love her towers and woods and lake;
Oh, changeful sky, bend blue above her,
Wake, ye birds, your chorus wake!
We'll sing her praises now and ever,
Blessed fount of truth and love.
Our heart's devotion, may it never
Faithless or unworthy prove,
We'll give our lives and hopes to serve her,
Humblest, highest, noblest—all;
A stainless name we will preserve her,
Answer to her every call.
Anne L. Barrett, '86
PREFACE
The day after the Wellesley fire, an eager young reporter on aBoston paper came out to the college by appointment to interviewa group of Wellesley women, alumnae and teachers, grief-strickenby the catastrophe which had befallen them. He came impetuously,with that light-hearted breathlessness so characteristic of youngreporters in the plays of Bernard Shaw and Arnold Bennett. Hewas charmingly in character, and he sent his voice out on the runto meet the smallest alumna in the group:
"Now tell me some pranks!" he cried, with pencil poised.
What she did tell him need not be recorded here. Neither was itset down in the courteous and sympathetic report which he afterwardswrote for his paper.
And readers who come to this story of Wellesley for pranks willbe disappointed likewise. Not that the lighter side of theWellesley life is omitted; play-days and pageants, all the brightrevelry of the college year, belong to the story. Wellesley wouldnot be Wellesley if they were left out. But her alumnae, herfaculty, and her undergraduates all agree that the college wasnot founded primarily for the sake of Tree Day, and that theSenior Play is not the goal of the year's endeavor.
It is the story of the Wellesley her daughters and lovers knowthat I have tried to tell: the Wellesley of serious purpose,consecrated to the noble ideals of Christian Scholarship.
I am indebted for criticism, to President Pendleton who kindlyread certain parts of the manuscript, to Professor Katharine LeeBates, Professor Vida D. Scudder, and Mrs. Marian Pelton Guild;for historical material, to Miss Charlotte Howard Conant's "AddressDelivered in Memory of Henry Fowle Durant in Wellesley CollegeChapel", February 18, 1906, to Mrs. Louise McCoy North's HistoricalAddress, delivered at Wellesley's quarter centennial, in June 1900,to Professor George Herbert Palmer's "Life of Alice Freeman Palmer,"published by the Houghton Mifflin Co., to Professor MargaretheMuller's "Carla Wenckebach, Pioneer," published by Ginn & Co.;to Dean Waite, Miss Edith Souther Tufts, Professor Sarah F. Whiting,Miss Louise Manning Hodgkins, Professor Emeritus Mary A. Willcox,Mrs. Mary Gilman Ahlers; to Miss Candace C. Stimson, Miss Mary B.Jenkins, the Secretary of the Alumnae Restoration and EndowmentCommittee, and to the many others among alumnae and faculty, whoseletters and articles I quote. Last but not least in my gratefulmemory are all those painstaking and accurate chroniclers, theeditors of the Wellesley Courant, Prelude, Magazine, News, andLegenda,