Bolton Sarah Knowles
Famous Givers and Their Gifts
One month after writing in her journal, June 12, 1870, Sophia Smith passed to her reward, at the age of seventy-five. She was in her usual health till four days before her death, when she was prostrated by paralysis. She was buried in the Hatfield Cemetery under a simple monument of her own erecting. She had provided for a better and more enduring monument in Smith College, and she knew that no other was needed. The seventy-five-thousand-dollar academy at Hatfield would also keep her in blessed remembrance.
The thought of Miss Smith, after her death, began to shape itself into brick and stone. Thirteen acres of ground were purchased for the site of the college, commanding a view of the beautiful valley of the Connecticut River; and the main building, of brick and freestone, was erected in secular Gothic style, the interior finished in unpainted native woods. On the large stained-glass window over the entrance of the building is a copy of the college seal, a woman radiant with light, with the motto underneath in Greek which expressed the desire of the founder: "Add to your virtue knowledge."
The homestead which was on the estate when purchased was made over for a home for the students, as the plan of small dwellings to accommodate from twenty to fifty young women had been decided upon in preference to several hundreds gathered under one roof.
The right person for the right place had been chosen as president, the Rev. Dr. L. Clark Seelye, at that time a professor in Amherst College. He had made a careful inspection of the principal educational institutions both in this country and in Europe, and his plans as to buildings and courses of study were adopted.
Smith College was dedicated July 14, 1875, and opened to students in the following September. President Seelye in his admirable inaugural address said, "One hundred years ago a female college would have been simply an object of ridicule… You have seen machines invented to do the work which formerly absorbed the greater portion of woman's time and strength. Factories have supplanted the spinning-wheel and distaff. Sewing-machines will stitch in an hour more than our grandmothers could in a day. I need not ask you what we are to do with force which has thus been set free. The answer comes clearly from an enlightened public opinion, saying, 'Put it to higher uses; train it to think correctly; to work intelligently; to do its share in bringing the human mind to the perfection for which it was designed.'"
Dr. Seelye emphasized the fact that this college was to give women "an education as high and thorough and complete as that which young men receive in Harvard, Yale, and Amherst." "I believe," he said, "this is the only female college that insists upon substantially the same requisites for admission which have been found practicable and essential in male colleges." He disapproved of a preparatory department, and other colleges for women have wisely followed the standard and example of Smith. Secondary schools have seen the necessity of a higher fitting for their students, that they may enter our best colleges.
Greek and the higher mathematics were made an essential part of the course. To this, exception was taken; and Dr. Seelye was frequently asked, "What use have young women of Greek?" He answered, "A study of Greek brings us into communion with the best scholarship and the acutest intellects of all European countries… It would simply justify its place in our college curriculum upon the relation which it has had, and ever must have, to the growth of the human intellect."
Dr. Seelye favored the teaching of music and art, but not to the exclusion of other things, unless one had special gifts along those lines. "Musical entertainments," he said, "have generally been the grand parade-ground of female boarding-schools. All of us are familiar with the many wearisome hours which young ladies ordinarily are required to spend at the piano, – time enough to master most of the sciences and languages; and all of us are familiar with the remark, heard so frequently after school-days are over, 'I cannot play; I am out of practice.'"
President Seelye had to meet all sorts of objections to higher education for women. When he told a friend that Greek was to be studied in Smith College, the friend replied, "Nonsense! girls cannot bear such a strain;" "and yet his own daughters," says Dr. Seelye, "were going, with no remonstrance from him, night after night, through the round of parties and fashionable amusements in a great city. We question whether any greater expenditure of physical force is necessary to master Greek than to endure ordinary fashionable amusements. Woman's health is endangered far more by balls and parties than by schools. For one ruined by over-study, we can point to a hundred ruined by dainties and dances."
Another said to President Seelye, "Think of a wife who forced you to talk perpetually about metaphysics, or to listen to Greek and Latin quotations!" This would be much more agreeable conversation to some men than to hear about dress and servants and gossip.
When Smith College was opened in 1875, there were many applicants; but with requirements for admission the same as at Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Amherst, only fifteen could pass the examinations. The next year eighteen were accepted.
Each year the number has increased, till in the year 1895 there were 875 students at Smith College. The professorships are about equally divided between men and women. The chair of Greek, on the John M. Greene foundation, "is founded in honor of the Rev. John M. Greene, D.D., who first suggested to Miss Smith the idea of the college, and was her confidential adviser in her bequest," says the College Calendar.
There are three courses of study, each extending through four years, – the classical course leading to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, the scientific to Bachelor of Science, the literary to Bachelor of Letters. The maximum of work allowed to any student in a regular course is sixteen hours of recitation each week.
Year by year Miss Smith's noble gift has been supplemented by the gifts of others.
In 1878 the Lilly Hall of Science was dedicated, the gift of Mr. Alfred Theodore Lilly. This building contains lecture rooms, and laboratories for chemistry, physics, geology, zoölogy, and botany. In 1881 Mr. Winthrop Hillyer gave the money to erect the Hillyer Art Gallery, which now contains an extensive collection of casts, engravings, and paintings, and is provided with studios. One corridor of engravings and an alcove of original drawings were given by the Century Company. Mr. Hillyer gave an endowment of $50,000 for his gallery. A music-hall was also erected in 1881.
The observatory, given by two donors unknown to the public, has an eleven-inch refracting telescope, a spectroscope, siderial clock, chronograph, a portable telescope, and a meridian circle, aperture four inches.
The alumnæ gymnasium contains a swimming-bath, and a large hall for gymnastic exercises and in-door sport. A large greenhouse has been erected to aid in botanical work, with an extensive collection of tropical plants.
There are eight or more dwelling-houses for the students, each presided over by a competent woman, where the scholars find cheerful, happy homes. The Tenney House, bequeathed by Mrs. Mary A. Tenney, for experiments in co-operative housekeeping, enables the students to adapt their expenses to their means, if they choose to make the experiment together. Tuition is $100 a year, with $300 for board and furnished room in the college houses.
Smith College is fortunately situated. Opposite the grounds is the beautiful Forbes Library, with an endowment of $300,000 for books alone, and not far away a public library with several thousand volumes, and a permanent endowment of $50,000 for its increase. The students have access to the collections at Amherst College and the Massachusetts Agricultural College, also at Mount Holyoke College, about seven miles distant.
There are no secret societies at Smith. "Instead of hazing newcomers," says President Seelye, "the second or sophomore class will give them a reception in the art-gallery, introduce them to the older students with the courteous hospitality which good breeding dictates."
There are several literary and charitable societies in Smith College. Great interest is taken in the working-girls of New York, and in the college settlement of that city.
None of the evil effects predicted for young women in college have been realized. "Some of our best scholars," says President Seelye, "have steadily improved in health since entering college. Some who came so feeble that it was doubtful whether they could remain a term have become entirely well and strong… We have had frequently professors from male institutions to give instruction; and their testimony is to the effect that the girls study better than the boys, and that the average scholarship is higher."
"The general atmosphere of the college is one of freedom," writes Louise Walston, in the "History of Higher Education in Massachusetts," by George Gary Bush, Ph.D. "The written code consists of one law, – Lights out at ten; the unwritten is that of every well-regulated community, and to the success of this method of discipline every year is a witness.
"This freedom is not license… The system of attendance upon recitation at Smith is in this respect unique. It is distinctively a 'no-cut' system. In the college market that commodity known as indulgences is not to be found; and no student is expected to absent herself from lecture or recitation except for good reasons, the validity of which, however, is left to her own conscience. Knowledge is offered as a privilege, and is so received."
As Miss Smith directed in her will, "the Holy Scriptures are daily and systematically read and studied in the college." A chapel service is held in the morning of week-days, and a vesper service on Sunday. Students attend the churches of their preference in Northampton.
All honor to Sophia Smith, the quiet Christian woman, who, forgetting herself, became a blessing to tens of thousands by her gifts. At the request of the trustees of Smith College, Dr. Greene is preparing a volume on her life and character.
All honor, too, to the Rev. John M. Greene, who for twenty-five years has been the beloved pastor of the Eliot Church in Lowell, Mass. His quarter century of service was fittingly celebrated at Lowell, Sept. 26, 1895. Out of five hundred Congregational ministers in Massachusetts, only ten have held so long a pastorate as he over one church.
Among the hundreds of congratulations and testimonies to Dr. Greene's successful ministry, the able Professor Edwards A. Park of Andover, wrote to the congregation: "The city of Lowell has been favored with clergymen who will be remembered by a distant posterity, but not one of them will be remembered longer than the present pastor of Eliot Church. He was the father of Smith College, now so flourishing in Northampton, Mass. Had it not been for him that great institution would never have existed. For this great benefaction to the world, he will be honored a hundred years hence."
JAMES LICK
AND HIS TELESCOPE
James Lick, one of the great givers of the West, was born in Fredericksburg, Penn., Aug. 25, 1796. Little is known of his early life, except that his ancestors were Germans, and that he was born in poverty. His grandfather served in the Revolutionary War. James learned to make organs and pianos in Hanover, Penn., and in 1819 worked for Joseph Hiskey, a prominent piano manufacturer of Baltimore.
One day Conrad Meyer, a poor lad, came into the store and asked for work. Young Lick gave him food and clothing, and secured a place for him in the establishment. They became fast friends, and continued thus for life. Later Conrad Meyer was a wealthy manufacturer of pianos in Philadelphia.
James Lick in 1820, when he was twenty-four, went to New York, hoping to begin business for himself, but finding his capital too limited, in the following year, 1821, went to Buenos Ayres, South America, where he lived for ten years. At the end of that time he went to Philadelphia, and met his old friend Conrad Meyer. He had brought with him for sale $40,000 worth of hides and nutria skins. The latter are obtained from a species of otter found along the La Plata River.
He intended settling in Philadelphia, and rented a house on Eighth Street, near Arch, but soon abandoned his purpose, probably because the business outlook was not hopeful, and returned to Buenos Ayres to sell pianos. From the east side of South America he went to the west side, and remained in Valparaiso, Chili, for four years. He spent eleven years in Peru, making and selling pianos. Once, when his workmen left him suddenly to go to Mexico, rather than break a contract he did all the work himself, and accomplished it in two years.
In 1847 he went to San Francisco, which had only one thousand inhabitants. He was then about fifty years old, and took with him over $30,000, which, foreseeing California's wonderful prospects, he invested in land in San Francisco, and farther south in Santa Clara Valley.
In 1854, to the surprise of everybody, the quiet, parsimonious James Lick built a magnificent flour-mill six miles from San José. He tore down an old structure, and erected in its place a mill, finished within in solid mahogany highly polished, and furnished it with the best machinery possible. It was called "The Mahogany Mill," or more frequently "Lick's Folly." He made the grounds about the mill very attractive. "Upon it," says the San José Daily Mercury, June 28, 1888, "he began early to set out trees of various kinds, both for fruit and ornament. He held some curious theories of tree-planting, and believed in the efficiency of a bone deposit about the roots of every young tree. Many are the stories told by old residents of James Lick going along the highway in an old rattletrap, rope-tied wagon, with a bearskin robe for a seat cushion, and stopping every now and then to gather in the bones of some dead beast. People used to think him crazy until they saw him among his beloved trees, planting some new and rare variety, and carefully mingling about its young roots the finest of loams with the bones he had gathered during his lonely rides.
"There is a story extant, and probably well-founded, which illustrates the odd means he employed to secure hired help at once trustworthy and obedient. One day while he was planting his orchard a man applied to him for work. Mr. Lick directed him to take the trees he indicated to a certain part of the grounds, and then to plant them with the tops in the earth and the roots in the air. The man obeyed the directions to the letter, and reported in the evening for further orders. Mr. Lick went out, viewed his work with apparent satisfaction, and then ordered him to plant the trees the proper way and thereafter to continue in his employ." Nineteen years after Mr. Lick built his mill, Jan. 16, 1873, he surprised the people of San José again, by giving it to the Paine Memorial Society of Boston, half the proceeds of sale to be used for a Memorial Hall, and half to sustain a lecture course. He had always been an admirer of Thomas Paine's writings. The mill was annually inundated by the floods from the Guadalupe River, spoiling his orchards and his roads, so that he tired of the property.
An agent of the Boston Society went to California, sold the mill for $18,000 cash, and carried the money back to Boston. Mr. Lick was displeased that the property which had cost him $200,000 should be sold at such a low price, and without his knowledge, as he would willingly have bought it in at $50,000.
It is said by some that Mr. Lick built his mill as a protest against the cheap and flimsy style of building on the Pacific Coast, but it is much more probable that he built it for another reason. In early life it is believed that young Lick fell in love with the daughter of a well-to-do miller for whom he worked. When the young man made known his love, which was reciprocated by the girl, the miller was angry, and is said to have replied, "Out, you beggar! Dare you cast your eyes upon my daughter, who will inherit my riches? Have you a mill like this? Have you a single penny in your purse?"
To this Lick replied "that he had nothing as yet, but one day he would have a mill beside which this one would be a pigsty."
Lick caused his elegant mill to be photographed without and within, and sent the pictures to the miller. It was, however, too late to win the girl, if indeed he ever hoped to do so; for she had long since married, and Mr. Lick went through life a lonely and unresponsive man. He never lived in his palatial mill, but occupied for a time a humble abode near by.
After Mr. Lick disposed of his mill, he began to improve a tract of land south of San José known as "The Lick Homestead Addition." "Day after day," says the San José Mercury, "long trains of carts and wagons passed slowly through San José carrying tall trees and full-grown shrubbery from the old to the new location. Winter and summer alike the work went on, the old man superintending it all in his rattletrap wagon and bearskin robe. His plans for this new improvement were made regardless of expense. Tradition tells that he had imported from Australia rare trees, and in order to secure their growth had brought with them whole shiploads of their native earth. He conceived the idea of building conservatories superior to any on the Pacific Coast, and for that purpose had imported from England the materials for two large conservatories after the model of those in the Kew Gardens in London. His death occurred before he could have these constructed; and they remained on the hands of the trustees until a body of San Francisco gentlemen contributed funds for their purchase and donation to the use of the public in Golden Gate Park, where they now stand as the wonder and delight of all who visit that beautiful resort."
Mr. Lick also built in San Francisco a handsome hotel called the Lick House. With his own hands he carved some of the rosewood frames of the mirrors. He caused the walls to be decorated with pictures of California scenery. The dining-room has a polished floor made of many thousand pieces of wood of various kinds.
When Mr. Lick was seventy-seven years old, and found himself the owner of millions, with a laudable desire to be remembered after death, and a patriotism worthy of high commendation, he began to think deeply how best to use his property.
On Feb. 15, 1873, Mr. Lick offered to the California Academy of Sciences a piece of land on Market Street, the site of its present building. Professor George Davidson, then president of the academy, called to thank him, when Mr. Lick unfolded to him his purpose of giving a great telescope for future investigation of the heavenly bodies. He had become deeply interested from reading, it is said, about possible life on other planets. It is supposed by some that while Mr. Lick lived his lonely life in Peru, a priest, who gained his friendship, interested him in astronomy. Others think his mind was drawn towards it by reading about the Washington Observatory, completed in 1874, and noticed widely by the press.
Mr. Lick was not a scientist nor an astronomer; he had been too absorbed in successful business life for that; but he earned money that others might have the time and opportunity to devote their lives to science.
Mr. Lick appears to have had a passion for statuary, as shown by his gifts. At one time he thought of having expensive memorial statues of himself and family erected on the heights overlooking the ocean and the bay, but was dissuaded by one of his pioneer friends, according to Miss M. W. Shinn's account in the Overland Monthly, November, 1892.
"Mr. D. J. Staples felt it his duty to tell Mr. Lick frankly that his bequests for statues of himself and family would be utterly useless as a memorial; that the world would not be interested in them; and when Mr. Lick urged that such costly statues would be preserved for all time, as the statues of antiquity now remained the precious relics of a lost civilization, answered, almost at random, 'More likely we shall get into a war with Russia or somebody, and they will come around here with warships, and smash the statues to pieces in bombarding the city.'"
Mr. Lick conferred with his friends, but had his own decided wishes and plans which usually he carried out. On July 16, 1874, he conveyed all his property, real and personal, over $3,000,000, by deed of trust to seven men; but becoming dissatisfied with some members of the Board of Lick Trustees, he made a new deed, Sept. 21, 1875, under which his property has been used as he directed. A year later he changed some of the members, but the deed itself remained as before.
One of the first bequests under his deed of trust was for the telescope and observatory, $700,000. Another, to the Protestant Orphan Asylum of San Francisco, $25,000.
For an Orphan Asylum in San José, "free to all orphans without regard to creed or religion of parents," $25,000.
To the Ladies' Protective and Belief Society of San Francisco, $25,000.
To the Mechanics' Institute of San Francisco, "to be applied to the purchase of scientific and mechanical works for such Institute," $10,000.
To the Trustees of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of San Francisco, $10,000, with the hope expressed by him, "that the trustees of said society may organize such a system as will result in establishing similar societies in every city and town in California, to the end that the rising generations may not witness or be impressed with such scenes of cruelty and brutality as constantly occur in this State."
To found in San Francisco "an institution to be called The Old Ladies' Home," $100,000. For the erection and the maintenance of that extremely useful public charity, Free Public Baths, $150,000. These baths went into use Nov. 1, 1890.
For the erection of a monument to be placed in Golden Gate Park, "to the memory of Francis Scott Key, the author of 'The Star-Spangled Banner,'" $60,000. This statue was unveiled July 4, 1888.
To endow an institution to be called the California School of Mechanical Arts, "to be open to all youths born in California," $540,000.
For statuary emblematical of three important epochs in the history of California, to be placed in front of the San Francisco City Hall, $100,000.
To John H. Lick, his son, born in Pennsylvania, June 30, 1818, $150,000. The latter contested the will; and a compromise was effected whereby he received $533,000, the expense of the suit being a little over $60,000. This son, at his death, founded Lick College, Fredericksburg, Penn., giving it practically all his fortune. It is now called Schuylkill Seminary, and had 285 pupils in 1893, according to the Report of the Commissioner of Education. A family monument was erected at Fredericksburg, Penn., Mr. Lick's birthplace, at a cost of $20,000.
Mr. Lick set aside some personal property for his own economical use during his life. After all these bequests had been attended to, the remainder of his fortune was to be given in "equal proportions to the California Academy of Sciences and the Society of California Pioneers," to be expended in erecting buildings for them, and in the purchase of a "suitable library, natural specimens, chemical and philosophical apparatus, rare and curious things useful in the advancement of science, and generally in the carrying out of the objects and purposes for which said societies were respectively established." Each society has received about $800,000 from the Lick estate. These were very remarkable gifts from a man who had been a mechanic, brought up in narrow circumstances, and with limited education.
The California School of Mechanical Arts was opened in January, 1895, and now, in the spring of 1896, has 230 pupils. The substantial brick buildings are in Spanish architecture, and cost, with machinery and furniture, about $115,000, leaving $425,000 for endowment. The Academic Building is three stories high, and the shops one and two stories. The requirements for pupils in entering the school are substantially the same as for the last of the grammar grades of the public schools. There is no charge for tuition.
Mr. Lick in making this bequest stated its object: "To educate males and females in the practical arts of life, such as working in wood, iron, and stone, or any of the metals, and in whatever industry intelligent mechanical skill now is or can hereafter be applied."
In view of this desire on the part of the giver, a careful survey of industrial education was made; and it was decided to "give each student a thorough knowledge of the technique of some one industrial pursuit, from which he may earn a living."
The school course is four years. At the beginning of the third year the student must choose his field of work for the last year and a half, and give his time to it. Besides the ordinary branches, carpentry, forging, moulding, machine and architectural drawing, wood-carving, dressmaking, millinery, cookery, etc., are taught. It is expected that graduates will be able to earn good wages at once after leaving the school, and the teachers endeavor to find suitable situations for their pupils.
Miss Caroline Willard Baldwin, at the head of the science department, who is herself a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, and a Doctor of Science from Cornell University, writes me: "The grade of work is much the same as that given in the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and the entire equipment of the school is excellent."
The Lick Bronze Statuary at the City Hall in San Francisco was unveiled on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 29, 1894. Mr. Lick had specified in his deed of trust that it should "represent by appropriate designs and figures the history of California; first, from the early settlement of the Missions to the acquisition of California by the United States; second, from such acquisition by the United States to the time when agriculture became the leading interest of the State; third, from the last-named period to the first day of January, 1874." He knew that there is no more effective way to teach history and inculcate love of city and nation than by object-lessons. A great gift is a continual suggestion to others to give also. The statue of a noble man or woman is a constant educator and inspirer to good deeds.
The Lick Statuary is of granite, surmounted by bronze figures of heroic proportions. The main column is forty-six feet high, with a bronze figure twelve feet high, weighing 7,000 pounds, on the top, representing Eureka, a woman typical of California, with a grizzly bear by her side. Beneath are four panels, depicting a family of immigrants crossing the Sierras, a vaquero lassoing a steer, traders with the Indians, and California under American rule.
Below these panels are the heads in bronze of James Lick, Father Junipero Serra, Sir Francis Drake, and John C. Frémont; and below these, the names of men famous in the history of California, – James W. Marshall, the discoverer of gold at Sutter's mill, and others. There are granite wings to the main pedestal, the bronze figures of which represent early times, – a native Indian over whom bends a Catholic priest, and a Spaniard throwing his lasso; a group of miners in '49, and figures denoting commerce and agriculture. The artist was Mr. Frank Happersberger, a native of California. Members of the California Pioneers made eloquent addresses at the unveiling of the beautiful statue, the band played "The Star-Spangled Banner," and the children of the public schools sang "America."
"The benefactions of James Lick were not of a posthumous character," said the Hon. Willard B. Farwell in his address. "There was no indication of a desire to accumulate for the sake of accumulation alone, and to cling with greedy purpose and tenacity to the last dollar gained, until the heart had ceased its pulsations, and the last breath had been drawn, before yielding it up for the good of others. On the contrary, he provided for the distribution of his wealth while living… There was no room for cavil then over the manner of his giving. He fulfilled in its broadest measure the injunction of the aphorism, 'He gives well who gives quickly.'"
The gift nearest to Mr. Lick's heart was his great telescope, to be, as he said in his deed of trust, "superior to and more powerful than any telescope yet made, with all the machinery appertaining thereto, and appropriately connected therewith."
This telescope with its building was to be conveyed to the University of California, and to be known as the "Lick Astronomical Department of the University of California."
Various sites were suggested for the great telescope. A gentleman relates the following story: "One of the sites suggested was a mountain north of San Francisco. Mr. Lick was ill, but determined upon visiting this mountain; so he was taken on a cot to the station; and on arriving at the town nearest the mountain, the cot was removed to a wagon, and they started towards the summit. By some accident the rear of the wagon gave way, and the cot containing the old gentleman slid out on the mountain-side. This so angered him that he said he would never place the telescope on a mountain that treated him in that way, and ordered the party to turn back towards San Francisco."
During the summer of 1875 Mr. Lick sent Mr. Fraser, his trusted agent, to report on Mount St. Helena, Monte Diablo, Mount Hamilton, and others. In many respects the latter, in sight of his old mill at San José, seemed the best situated of all the mountain peaks. "Yet the possibility that a complete astronomical establishment might one day be planted on its summit seemed more like a fairy-tale than like sober fact," says Professor Edward S. Holden, Director of the Lick Observatory. "It was at that time a wilderness. A few cattle-ranches occupied the valleys around it. Its slopes were covered with chaparral or thickets of scrub oak. Not even a trail led over it. The nearest house was eleven miles away." It was and is the home of many rattlesnakes. They live upon squirrels, and small birds and their eggs, and come up to the top of the mountain in quest of water.
