V.

On March 8, 1899, the trustees announced their election of Wellesley's
fifth president, Caroline Hazard. In June, Mrs. Irvine retired,
and the new administration dates from July 1, 1899.

Unlike her predecessors, Miss Hazard brought to her office no
technical academic training, and no experience as a teacher. Born
at Peacedale, Rhode Island, June 10, 1856, the daughter of Rowland
and Margaret (Rood) Hazard, and the descendant of Thomas Hazard,
the founder of Rhode Island, she had been educated by tutors and
in a private school in Providence, and later had carried on her
studies abroad. Before coming to Wellesley, she had already won
her own place in the annals of Rhode Island, as editor, by her
edition of the philosophical and economic writings of her grandfather,
Rowland G. Hazard, the wealthy woolen manufacturer of Peacedale,
as author, through a study of life in Narragansett in the eighteenth
century, entitled "Thomas Hazard, Son of Robert, called College Tom",
and as poet, in a volume of Narragansett ballads and a number of
religious sonnets, followed during her Wellesley years by "A Scallop
Shell of Quiet", verses of delicate charm and dignity.

Mrs. Guild has said that Miss Hazard came, "bringing the ease and
breadth of the cultivated woman of the world, who is yet an idealist
and a Christian, into an atmosphere perhaps too strictly scholastic."
But she also brought unusual executive ability and training in
administrative affairs, both academic and commercial, for her
father, aside from his manufacturing interests, was a member of
the corporation of Brown University. Hers is the type of intelligence
and power seen often in England, where women of her social position