Lecturer and Author
It is easy to give a lecture on suffrage where the arguments are manifest and the illustrations furnished by every day's experience, but it is quite a different thing to give a lecture on "Bergson's Philosophy," or "Rudolph Eucken and the New Religious Idealism." The list of her subjects indicates that she must have spent long days in hard labor at the various libraries to which she had access. Of her lectures Mr. B. 0. Flower says: "Mrs. Colby has long been recognized as one of the most brilliant lecturers among the more thoughtful American women," and of her Whitman readings one has said, "to lovers of the noble poet Mrs. Colby's reading was a joy and an inspiration."
However, these philosophical lectures were the smallest of her undertakings. Her lectures on woman's suffrage and kindred subjects were the chief part of all her public work.
They began when she was a young woman just leaving the university, and continued during her entire life. They have contributed more than can now be estimated to the advancement of the cause of woman's emancipation. She was an advocate of peace and took part in the great peace conference at San Francisco during the exposition. She also spoke in behalf of the soldiers of the Spanish War. We have the following notice of a meeting held during the war which ap 45
