f stated religious services. She is the authority referred
to in all cases of ordinary discipline, and is the chairman of
the committee which includes heads of houses and permission
officers, all these officers are directly responsible to her."

Regarded from an intellectual and academic point of view, the
administrations of Miss Shafer and Mrs. Irvine are a unit.
Mrs. Irvine developed and perfected the policy which Miss Shafer
had initiated and outlined. By 1895, all students were working
under the new curriculum, and in the succeeding years the details
of readjustment were finally completed. To carry out the necessary
changes in the courses of study, certain other changes were also
necessary; methods of teaching which were advanced for the '70's
and '80's had been superseded in the '90's, and must be modified
or abandoned for Wellesley's best good. To all that was involved
in this ungrateful task, Mrs. Irvine addressed herself with a
courage and determination not fully appreciated at the time. She
had not Mrs. Palmer's skill in conveying unwelcome fact into a
resisting mind without irritation; neither had she Miss Shafer's
self-effacing, sympathetic patience. Her handling of situations
and individuals was what we are accustomed to call masculine; it
had, as the French say, the defects of its qualities; but the
general result was tonic, and Wellesley's gratitude to this firm
and far-seeing administrator increases with the passing of years.

In November, 1895, the Board of Trustees appointed a special
committee on the schools of Music and Art, in order to reorganize
the instruction in these subjects, and as a result the fine arts
and music were put upon the same footing and made regular electives
in the academic course, counting for a degree. The heads of these
departments were made members of the Academic Council and the terms
School of Music and School of Art were dropped from the calendar.
In 1896, the title Director of School of Music was changed to
Professor of Music. These changes are the more significant, coming
at this time, in the witness which they bear to the breadth and
elasticity of Mrs. Irvine's academic ideal. A narrower scholasticism
would not have tolerated them, much less pressed for their adoption.
Wellesley is one of the earliest of the colleges to place the fine arts
and music on her list of electives counting for an academic degree.

During the year 1895-1896, the Academic Council revie