The Story of Wellesley by Florence Converse
page 123 of 220 (55%)
page 123 of 220 (55%)
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be complete that held no records of their devotion and continuing
influence. Among the pioneers, there was no more interesting and forceful personality than Susan Maria Hallowell, who came to Wellesley as Professor of Natural History in 1875, the friend of Agassiz and Asa Gray. She was a Maine woman, and she had been teaching twenty-two years, in Bangor and Portland, before she was called to Wellesley. Her successor in the Department of Botany writes in a memorial sketch of her life: "With that indefatigable zeal so characteristic of her whole life, she began the work in preparation for the new position. She went from college to college, from university to university, studying the scientific libraries and laboratories. At the close of this investigation she announced to the founders of the college that the task which they had assigned to her was too great for any one individual to undertake. There must be several professorships rather than one. Of those named she was given first choice, and when, in 1876, she opened her laboratories and actually began her teaching in Wellesley College, she did so as professor of Botany, although her title was not formally changed until 1878. "The foundations which she laid were so broad and sure, the several courses which she organized were so carefully outlined, that, except where necessitated by more recent developments in science, only very slight changes in the arrangement and distribution of the work in her department have since been necessary.... She organized and built up a botanical library which from the first was second to that of no other college in the country, and is |
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