Representative women of New England/Elizabeth C. Agassiz
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ELIZABETH C. AGASSIZ Biographical.
Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, the first President of Radcliffe College and its constant benefactress, is destined, through the scholarship that bears her name and the hall which is to be erected in her honor on the college grounds, to be held in grateful, lasting remembrance as a pioneer advocate and promoter in the nineteenth century of the higher education of women. In former years, as the wife and helpmeet of a naturalist of world-wide reputation, and later as the editor of his Life and Correspondence, she was well known in literary and scientific circles. Her subsequent work as an educational leader brought her name more directly before the public; and the celebration in December, 1902, in Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, of the eightieth anniversary of her birth was widely reported in the papers as an occasion of general interest.
Born in Boston, December 5, 1822, daughter of Thomas Graves and Mary (Perkins) Cary, she comes of long lines of New England ancestry, and personally bears witness to gentle blood and breeding. Her father, Thomas Graves Cary, A.M. (Harv. Coll. 1811), was son of Samuel5 and Sarah (Gray) Cary and grandson of Samuel4 and Margaret (Graves) Cary, all of Chelsea, Mass. His grandfather, Samuel4 Cary, was descended from James1 Cary, of Charlestown, through Jonathan2 and Samuel.3 James1 Cary came from England and settled in Charlestown in 1639. He was the seventh son of William Cary, who was Mayor of the city of Bristol, England, in 1611.
Samuel Cary, A.M., born in 1713, was graduated at Harvard College in 1731. He became a sea-captain, making long voyages. He married in 1741 Margaret Graves, daughter of Thomas3 Graves, of Charlestown (Harv. Coll. 1703), Judge of the Superior Court; grand-daughter of Dr. Thomas2 Graves (Harv. Coll. 1656); and great-grand-daughter of Thomas1 Graves, who settled in Gharlestown about 1637, was master of various vessels, and at the time of his death, in 1653, was a Rear-Admiral in the English navy.
Mary Perkins, wife of Thomas G. Cary and mother of Elizabeth, was a daughter of Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins, merchant and philanthropist of Boston (born 1764, died 1854), who in 1833 gave his estate on Pearl Street to be the seat of the school for the blind taught by Dr. Samuel G. Howe. This act of public-spirited generosity is commemorated in the name which the school—now in South Boston, marvellously increased in size and equipment—bears to this day, "The Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind." Colonel Perkins was also a liberal contributor to the funds of the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Mercantile Library Association, and the Boston Athenæum, and a helper of many other worthy causes. One of his sisters was the wife of Benjamin Abbot, LL.D., for fifty years principal of Phillips Exeter Academy; another, Margaret, wife of Ralph Bennett Forbes and mother of the late Hon. John Murray Forbes, of Milton. They were children of James and Elizabeth (Peck) Perkins, and doubtless inherited some of their sterling traits of character from their mother, who, early left a widow, showed herself a woman of "great capacity in business matters" and a friend to the needy. Colonel Perkins was named for his maternal grandfather, Thomas Handasyd Peck. His paternal grandparents were Edmund and Esther ! (Frothingham) Perkins, the former, son of Captain Edmund Perkins, the first of the family to settle in Boston (in the latter part of the seventeenth century). Colonel Perkins married the daughter of Simon Elliott, of Boston, and had two sons—Thomas H., Jr., and George C.—and five daughters.
Elizabeth Cabot Cary (now Mrs. Agassiz) was educated at home, pursuing her studies under the direction of a governess. She was one of a family of seven children. Her younger brother, Richard Cary, Captain of Company G, Second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, commissioned May 24, 1861, fell, mortally wounded, in the battle of Cedar Mountain, Va., August 9, 1862. Her elder sister, Mary Louisa, who married Cornelius C. Felton (President of Harvard University 1860-62), died in 1864, having survived her husband two years.
In the spring of 1850 Elizabeth C. Cary became the wife of Louis Agassiz, professor of zoology and geology in Harvard University, and went with him to his house in Oxford Street, Cambridge, to make a home for him and his son and the two daughters soon to come from Switzerland, and "to be," as said his biographer, Mr. Marcou, writing years after, "the guardian angel of Louis Agassiz and his whole family of children and grandchildren. Mrs. Agassiz not only directed with discretion the affairs of her household, but interested herself in natural history and particularly in zoological studies, and served as her husband's secretary and literary assistant, taking copious notes of his lectures and preparing manuscript for the printer.
Lifelong student, reverently intent to
"Head what was still unread
In the manuscripts of God."
unwearied teacher, rarely equalled in enthusiasm and fitness for his vocation. Professor Agassiz, as everybody knows, had "no time to spare to make money." His salary, however, fell far short of enabling him to meet both domestic and scientific expenses. Hence the establishment in 1855 (the idea originating with his wife) of the Agassiz School for young ladies, which had a prosperous existence of eight years, its pupils, attracted by the fame of the great naturalist, coming from near and from far. The elder Agassiz children, Alexander and Ida, were helpers from the first. Mrs. Agassiz, who did not teach, held the responsible position of director, and had the general management of the school.
In the summer of 1859 Professor and Mrs. Agassiz enjoyed a trip to Europe, passing happy weeks with his mother and sister at Montagny, Switzerland. In April, 1865, they went to South America on the scientific expedition whose history is recorded in the book entitled "A Journey in Brazil.
In December, 1871, they embarked on one of the vessels of the United States Coast Survey, the "Hassler," fitted out for deep-sea dredging, which sailed through the Strait of Magellan and then northward along the Pacific coast to San Francisco, entering the Golden Gate August 24, 1872. During this voyage a journal of scientific and personal experience was kept by Mrs. Agassiz under her husband's direction. A part of it was published in the Atlantic Monthly.
The eighth decade of the nineteenth century, which witnessed in July, 1873, the opening of the School of Natural History at Penikese, and in December following, the funeral of "the Master," was the decade in which a movement was made toward securing for women in Cambridge the real Harvard education or its equivalent. The initiative appears to have been or was taken by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Oilman. A plan for instituting for women, outside the college, a duplicate course of the Harvard instruction was received with favor in December, 1878, by President Eliot and by some of the faculty who had been consulted. On February 22, 1879, was issued a circular headed "Private Collegiate Instruction for Women," setting forth the project. It was signed by Mrs. Louis Agassiz, Mi's. E. W. Gurney, Mrs. J. P. Cooke, Mrs. J. B. Greenough, Mrs. Arthur Oilman, Miss Alice M. Longfellow, Mrs. Lillian Horsford, and Arthur Oilman, secretary. Examinations for admission to the classes were held in September, and work in the lecture room began at once. Twenty-five students completed the first year's course. On October 16, 1882, it having become necessary to raise a fund to purchase the Fay House, the above-named ladies and others who had joined them legally became a corporation, with the title, "The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women."
Under the popular name of "The Harvard Annex," invented by one of its students, the institution grew and flourished. Twice was the Fay House enlarged. In 1894, by act of the State Legislature, the name of The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women was changed to Radcliffe College, the bill receiving the signature of Governor Greenhadge, March 23, 1894. It authorized Radcliffe to confer on women, with the approval of the President and Fellows of Harvard, all honors and degrees as fully as any university or college in the Commonwealth.
President of Harvard Annex from the beginning, Mrs. Agassiz was President of Radcliffe until 1900, when she tendered her resignation. The extent, character, and value of her services to the college in this long period are known only to those who have been associated with her in its management or have attended as students. She continued as Honorary President of the Associates of Radcliffe, who constitute its Corporation, and ex-officio member of the Academic Board and chairman of the Council, until the close of the academic year 1902-1903. On June 23, 1903, she presided at the Commencement exercises, and conferred degrees on ninety-nine candidates—eighty Bachelors of Arts, and nineteen Masters of Arts. In the preceding week she had resigned the acting presidency, feeling herself no longer equal to the responsibilities of the position; and Dr. Le Baron Russell Briggs, the second officer of Harvard University, had accepted the presidency of Radcliffe College, the choice being one which gave Mrs. Agassiz "much pleasure and entire satisfaction." Mrs. Agassiz's letter of withdrawal closed with these words:—
"I am grateful for the length of years which has allowed me to see the fulfilment of our cherished hope for Radcliffe in this closer relation of her academic life and government with that of Harvard. With cheerful confidence in her future, which now seems assured to me, with full and affectionate recognition of all that her Council, her Academic Board, and her Associates have done to bring her where she now stands, I bid farewell to my colleagues. At the same time I thank them for their unfailing support and encouragement in the work which we have shared together in behalf of Radcliffe College."
Released from her former responsibilities as ex-officio member of the Council and chairman of the Academic Board, Mrs. Agassiz remains (1903-04) as Honorary President of the Associates of Radcliffe.
Professor Louis Agassiz is survived by the three children above named — Professor Alexander, director of the Agassiz Museum; Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw, and Mrs. Henry Lee Higginson. Mrs. Agassiz continues to make her home on Quincy Street, Cambridge. She has also a summer cotUige at Nahant, overlooking the glacier-marked, wave-beaten cliffs of the North Shore, a short distance from the stone cottage built by her grandfather Perkins.
Going abroad with Miss Mary Felton, her niece, in 1895, Mrs. Agassiz spent a number of months in Italy, journeyed through Germany, France, and the Tyrol, and in England visited Newnham and Girton Colleges for women.
Mrs. Agassiz is the author or editor of the following named books: "A First Lesson in Natural History," by Aetata, 1859, republished in 1879 with the author's name; "Seaside Studies in Natural History," by Elizabeth G. and Alexander Agassiz, 1865; "Geological Sketches," 1866; "A Journey in Brazil," by Professor and Mrs. Louis Agassiz, 1868; "Louis Agassiz, his Life and Correspondence," in two volumes, edited by Elizabeth Gary Agassiz, 1885.