The Story of Wellesley [54]
elect; but we have had to teach many years since to know how special that gift of hers was. Just as closer acquaintance with herself proved her breadth of mind and sympathy not quite understood before, so more intelligent knowledge of her methods showed them to be broader and more fundamental than we had quite comprehended. With her handling, rules and sub-rules ceased to jostle and confuse one another, but grouped themselves in a simpler harmony which we thought a very beautiful discovery, and grammar took on a reasonable unity which seemed a marvel. So we took our laborious days with cheer and enjoyed the energy, for we quite understood that our work would lead to something.
But if there could be an interchange of grace and I could take a gift from Miss Montague's personality, l would rather have what she in a matter-of-fact way would take for granted, but what is harder for us who are beginners here to come by,--I mean her altogether fine and blameless relation to her girls outside the classroom. She was a presence always heartily responsive, but never unwary, without the slightest reflection of her personality upon us, with never a word too much of praise or blame, of too much intimacy or of too much reserve. She was a figure of familiar friendliness, ready with sympathy and comprehension, but wholesome, sound and sane, without trace of sentimentality. Above all, I felt her a singularly honorable spirit, toward whom we always turned our best side, to whom we might never go with talk wanton or idle or unkind or critical, but always with our very precious thoughts on whatsoever things are eager, and honest and kindly and of good report. And so she was able to do us much good and no harm at all. She can have had no millstones about her neck to reckon with....
Miss Montague used to have a little class in Plato, and l have not forgotten how quietly we read together one day at the end of the Phaedo of the death of Socrates. After Miss Montague died, I turned to the book and found the place where the servant has brought the cup of poison, but Crito, unreconciled, wants to delay even a little:
"For the sun," said he, "is yet on the hills, and many a man has drunk the draught late."
"Yes," said Socrates, "since they wished for delay. But I do not think that I should gain anything by drinking the cup a little later."
In January, 1915, while this story of Wellesley was being written, Katharine Coman, Professor Emeritus of Economics, went like a conqueror to the triumph of her death. Miss Coman's power as a teacher has been spoken of on an earlier page, but she will be remembered in the college and outside as more than a teacher. Her books and her active interest in industrial affairs, her noble attitude toward life, all have had their share in informing and directing and inspiring the college she loved.
"A mountain soul, she shines in crystal air Above the smokes and clamors of the town. Her pure, majestic brows serenely wear The stars for crown.
"She comrades with the child, the bird, the fern, Poet and sage and rustic chimney-nook, But Pomp must be a pilgrim ere he earn Her mountain look.
"Her mountain look, the candor of the snow, The strength of folded granite, and the calm Of choiring pines, whose swayed green branches strow A healing balm.
* * * * * * * "For lovely is a mountain rosy-lit With dawn, or steeped in sunshine, azure-hot, But loveliest when shadows traverse it, And stain it not."
[From a poem, "A Mountain Soul," by Katharine Lee Bates, 1904.]
CHAPTER IV
THE STUDENTS AT WORK AND PLAY
The safest general statement which can be made about Wellesley students of the first forty years of the college is that more than sixty per cent of them have come from outside New England, from the Middle West, the Far West, and
But if there could be an interchange of grace and I could take a gift from Miss Montague's personality, l would rather have what she in a matter-of-fact way would take for granted, but what is harder for us who are beginners here to come by,--I mean her altogether fine and blameless relation to her girls outside the classroom. She was a presence always heartily responsive, but never unwary, without the slightest reflection of her personality upon us, with never a word too much of praise or blame, of too much intimacy or of too much reserve. She was a figure of familiar friendliness, ready with sympathy and comprehension, but wholesome, sound and sane, without trace of sentimentality. Above all, I felt her a singularly honorable spirit, toward whom we always turned our best side, to whom we might never go with talk wanton or idle or unkind or critical, but always with our very precious thoughts on whatsoever things are eager, and honest and kindly and of good report. And so she was able to do us much good and no harm at all. She can have had no millstones about her neck to reckon with....
Miss Montague used to have a little class in Plato, and l have not forgotten how quietly we read together one day at the end of the Phaedo of the death of Socrates. After Miss Montague died, I turned to the book and found the place where the servant has brought the cup of poison, but Crito, unreconciled, wants to delay even a little:
"For the sun," said he, "is yet on the hills, and many a man has drunk the draught late."
"Yes," said Socrates, "since they wished for delay. But I do not think that I should gain anything by drinking the cup a little later."
In January, 1915, while this story of Wellesley was being written, Katharine Coman, Professor Emeritus of Economics, went like a conqueror to the triumph of her death. Miss Coman's power as a teacher has been spoken of on an earlier page, but she will be remembered in the college and outside as more than a teacher. Her books and her active interest in industrial affairs, her noble attitude toward life, all have had their share in informing and directing and inspiring the college she loved.
"A mountain soul, she shines in crystal air Above the smokes and clamors of the town. Her pure, majestic brows serenely wear The stars for crown.
"She comrades with the child, the bird, the fern, Poet and sage and rustic chimney-nook, But Pomp must be a pilgrim ere he earn Her mountain look.
"Her mountain look, the candor of the snow, The strength of folded granite, and the calm Of choiring pines, whose swayed green branches strow A healing balm.
* * * * * * * "For lovely is a mountain rosy-lit With dawn, or steeped in sunshine, azure-hot, But loveliest when shadows traverse it, And stain it not."
[From a poem, "A Mountain Soul," by Katharine Lee Bates, 1904.]
CHAPTER IV
THE STUDENTS AT WORK AND PLAY
The safest general statement which can be made about Wellesley students of the first forty years of the college is that more than sixty per cent of them have come from outside New England, from the Middle West, the Far West, and