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. l came here to take a college course, and not to dabble
in a little of every insignificant thing that comes up. More
than half of my time is taken up in writing essays, practicing