ellow. It reminded one of ivory, elephants' tusks and that
sort of thing. We heard afterward that he wasn't married, and
that he hoped to find a suitable helpmate here. But although
Mr. Durant introduced him to all the '79 girls I didn't think
he liked the looks of any of them. At least he didn't propose
to any of them on the spot. They're only sophomores, anyway,
when one comes to think of it, but they certainly act as if the
dignity of the whole institution rested on their shoulders.
Most of them wear trails every day. I wish I had a trail.

To complete this picture of the college woman in 1876 we need
the description of the college president, by a member of the class
of '80: "Miss Howard with her young face, pink cheeks, blue eyes,
and puffs of snow-white hair, wearing always a long trailing gown
of black silk, cut low at the throat and finished with folds of
snowy tulle." None of these writers gives the date at which the
trail disappeared from the classroom.

The following letters are from Mary Elizabeth Stilwell, a member
of that same class of '79 which wore the trails. She, like
Florence Morse, left college on account of her health. The letters
are printed by the courtesy of her daughter, Ruth Eleanor McKibben,
a graduate of Denison College and a graduate student at Wellesley
during 1914 and 1915. Elizabeth Stilwell was older and more mature
than Florence Morse, and her letters give us the old Wellesley
from quite a different angle.

Wellesley College--

Oct. 16, '75.

My Dear Mother:--

If you are at all discouraged or feel the need of something to
cheer you up you had better lay this letter aside and read it
some other time, for I expect it will be exceedingly doleful.
But really, Mother, I am exceedingly in earnest in what I am
going to write and have thought the whole matter over carefully
before I have ventured a word on the subject. Wellesley is
not a college. The buildings are beautiful, perfect almost;
the rooms and their appointments delightful, most of the
professors are all that could be desired, some of them are
very fine indeed in their several departments, but all these
delightful things are not the things that make a college....
And, Oh! the experiments! It is enough to try the patience of
a Job. I came here to take a college course, and not to dabble
in a little of eve