Cambridge sketches
Estelle M. H. Merrill, Ed.

[195] arrangement with Harvard College might at some time be dissolved, and that it would not allow a development of the highest education of woman to the utmost. These fears were settled in two ways. Firstly, at a hearing before the committee on Education of the Legislature, President Eliot said in positive terms that though Harvard College had in the course of its long history begun many new lines of educational work, it had never been known to retreat from any such enterprise after it had been begun. Secondly, when the new list of courses of study was issued it was found that the scope of the work had been enlarged far beyond the promises that had been made before the passage of the act. The Legislature was most liberal in the permissions given in the act, for its provisions ensure to Radcliffe College the power and the authority to accomplish all that can be attained for the highest education of woman. It grants this power and these privileges to the younger institution in conjunction with Harvard University, thus allowing the new college to enter upon the heritage of the traditions and opportunities which it has been the good fortune of the elder institution to attain through its life of more than two and a half centuries.

At the time that Radcliffe College was brought into being by the Legislature of Massachusetts, an important step was taken by the creation of a new officer, that of Dean, and filling it by the election of Miss Agnes Irwin. Miss Irwin had been connected with the direction of educational movements in Philadelphia for many years and was especially interested in the education and training of girls, having been at the head of an important school which numbered among its students many of the women of Philadelphia prominent in social life. When Miss Irwin was chosen Dean of Radcliffe College several