Harvard had no such laboratory for students. In chemistry also,
the Wellesley students had unusual opportunities for conducting
their own experimental work. Mr. Durant also began the collection
of scientific and literary periodicals containing the original
papers of the great investigators, now so valuable to the college.
"This same idea of original work led him to purchase for the
library books for the study of Icelandic and allied languages, so
that the English department might also begin its work at the root
of things. He wished students of Greek and Latin to illuminate
their work by the light of archeology, topography, and epigraphy.
Such books as then existed on these subjects were accordingly
procured. In 1872 no handbooks of archeology had been prepared,
and even in 1882 no university in America offered courses in
that subject."

His emphasis on physical training for the students was also an
advance upon the general attitude of the time. He realized that
the Victorian young lady, with her chignon and her Grecian bend,
could not hope to make a strong student. The girls were encouraged
to row on the lake, to take long, brisk walks, to exercise in the
gymnasium. Mr. Durant sent to England for a tennis set, as none
could be procured in America, "but had some difficulty in persuading
many of the students to take such very violent exercise."

But despite these far-seeing plans, he was often, during his
lifetime, his own greatest obstacle to their achievement. He brought
to his task a large inexperience of the genus girl, a despotic
habit of mind, and a temperamental tendency to play Providence.
Theoretically, he wished to give the teachers and students of
Wellesley an opportunity to show what women, with the same