During the next six years, Wellesley's growth was as normal as
it was rapid. This is a period of internal organization which
achieved its most important result in the evolution of the Academic
Council. "In earlier days," we are told by Professor Palmer,
"teachers of every rank met in the not very important faculty
meetings, to discuss such details of government or instruction as
were not already settled by Mr. Durant." But even then the faculty
was built up out of departmental groups, that is, "all teachers
dealing with a common subject were banded together under a head
professor and constituted a single unit," and, as Mrs. Guild tells
us, Miss Freeman "naturally fell to consulting the heads of
departments as the abler and more responsible members of the
faculty," instead of laying her plans before the whole faculty at
its more or less cumbersome weekly meetings. From this inner
circle of heads of departments the Academic Council was gradually
evolved. It now includes the president, the dean, professors,
associate professors (unless exempted by a special tenure of
office), and such other officers of instruction and administration
as may be given this responsibility by vote of the trustees.

Miss Freeman also "began the formation of standing committees
of the faculty on important subjects, such as entrance examinations,
graduate work, preparatory schools, etc."

This faculty, over which Miss Freeman presided, was a notable one,
a body of women exhibiting in marked degree those qualities and
virtues of the true pioneer: courage, patience, originality,
resourcefulness, and vision. There were strong groups from
Ann Arbor and Oberlin and Mt. Holyoke, and there was a fourth