was arranged for the morning of December 28, a small admission fee was charged, and the proceeds, $46, were sent to the Fund. We wish to extend our hearty thanks to Miss Miller and the other members of the Bryn Mawr team for their courtesy in presenting their share of the proceeds to Smith. It is a pleasant instance of intercollegiate sympathy, one that Smith will wish to return whenever opportunity offers. These and various other items are given in the report below together with the usual tabulated statement of contributions by classes. As matters now stand, including all returns, we have in round numbers $85,000. Certainly there is every reason to feel encouraged with these results. $15,000, the remaining sum, seems small compared to $85,000 and relatively easy to raise. But it is just here that the strain is likely to come. Most of those who are best able to give responded early in the day. The appeal is no longer fresh in the minds of friends and alumnæ. The enthusiasm felt when the gift was first announced has died away somewhat. Those who have had experience know well that the last few thousands of any fund are generally the most difficult to raise. Altogether we feel that this is precisely the point where we must exert ourselves with additional zeal. It may be well to bear in mind that the Seelye Library Fund was only $20,000 and that it took us four years to raise it. Compared to this, 15,000 with but four months in which to raise it, looks and is a large sum. So few of our 2,051 alumnæ responded to the original appeal that the local committees and class helpers have recently made a second appeal to those not heard from. Many not represented in the lists below have doubtless expressed their interest in some form by this time. It is earnestly hoped that all who have not yet responded will come to our aid now. The President is doing his utmost; let us make a vigorous effort on our part.. In closing, a few words about the undergraduate contributions. Two pledges, amounting to $550, have been reported from the first, as they were sent in before the classes commenced their canvass. They appear as usual this month but will be credited in the final report to the classes of the donors. This report will be deferred for the present as the returns are not all in. The response of the undergraduates has been generous far beyond our expectations. President Seelye, appreciating this generosity, authorises the committee to say that should there be any surplus in the hands of the trustees when accounts are closed it will be devoted to the Students' Building Fund for which the undergraduates of the college have worked so faithfully these last seven years. ELIZABETH LAWRENCE CLARKE, Chairman. February 3, 1901. PAYMENTS AND PLEDGES TO DATE, JANUARY 25, 1901. Gifts secured by President Seelye from friends of the college, 60,000 00 Total, $85,604 51 The faculty visiting in Washington during the holidays were entertained by the alumnæ and students in the District at a buffet luncheon given in the new Willard Hotel, December 30. The members of the faculty present were Professor Czarnomska, Miss Cook, Miss Williams, Professor Dennis, Professor Pierce, and Dr. Sioussat, who were received by Mrs. Robert T. Hill (J. J. Robinson) '80, Mrs. Damon (Georgia Mason) '01, and Miss Helen Manning '02. Others who attended were Miss Clark '80, Miss Locke '80, Miss Bailey '88, Miss Jenkins '90, Miss Hartwell '94, Mrs. Busbey (K. O. Graves) '94, Miss Parsons '92, Miss Richardson '01, Miss Chickering, and of the undergraduates Miss Wead '02, Miss Denham and Miss Alice B. Wright '04, Miss Richardson '05. President Seelye sent his greetings by Professor Pierce. The Chicago Association of Smith Alumnæ held a meeting Saturday morning, December 28, in the Fine Arts Building of Chicago. After a brief business meeting, Josephine Dodge Daskam '98 read one of her charming little college sketches, and Bertha Nixon '96 sang several songs. The attendance, which included undergraduates, was full, and the meeting was a great sucThe association tried to arrange to have Harriet A. Boyd '92 lecture before them, but were unable to secure a date. They were, however, admitted by special arrangement to Miss Boyd's lecture before the Archælogical Society in the Art Institute, January 22. The subject of the lecture was "American Excavations in Crete in 1901". cess. In order to complete files of the publications of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ requested by several libraries, the secretary is Wanted anxious to secure a few copies of the Magazine issued in February 1901, Series III, Number 4. The regular price of the Magazine and postage for remitting will be sent to any one who can supply a copy in good order. ELIZABETH LAWRENCE CLARKE, Secretary-Treasurer, Williamstown, Mass. All alumnæ visiting the college are requested to register in a book kept for that purpose in the reading room. The list of visitors since the last issue is Contributions to this department are desired by the last of the month in order to appear in the next month's issue and should be sent to Gertrude Tubby, Tenney House. '84. Vida D. Scudder is publishing a series of papers on Movement" in the Atlantic Monthly this year. '92. Edith Baker Brown is to have a paper on "Moral Hesitations of the Novelist" in the Atlantic Monthly this year. '94. Mary King Humphrey and Mr. Burton A. Adams of Springfield, Mass., were united in marriage at Amherst, Mass., December 31, 1901. J. C. Crowell '95 was maid of honor, and one of the guests was A. W. Moore, ex-'95. '97. Anna D. Casler is teaching in the Normal Collegiate Institute, Asheville, '98. Lucia Wheeler Hall is slowly recovering from a three months illness of typhoid fever. Present address: 2513 Auburn avenue, Mt. Auburn, Cincinnati, O. 99. Mary Dean Adams and Maude L. White are studying at the University of Berlin Germany. Georgianna Brackett has announced her engagement to Mr. Frank C. Edith H. Hall is studying Greek and Archæology in Bryn Mawr College. Gertrude Marie Hasbrouck has announced her engagement to Mr. C. Ida F. Sargent announces her engagement to Dr. John George Meiden- '00. Helen Gager announces her engagement to Mr. John Quincy Brown of Oakland, Cal. Gertrude Henry of Amherst, Mass., announces her marriage to Mr. Edwin Marion A. Perkins is teaching botany in the Wadleigh High School, New 01. Marie de Rochemont is teaching French and English in the Somersworth, N. H., High School. Alison N. Locke is at home. Her address for the winter is 1718 Main Gertrude Weil is at home this winter studying and practising domestic economy and music. BIRTH '94. Mrs. Amos Burt Thompson (Jeannie Lockwood) a son, Lockwood, born July 4, 1901. ABOUT COLLEGE In the discussions which take place here and there and everywhere about college, the subject of self-government is occasionally brought shyly and tentatively forward, only to be dismissed generCollege Independence ally, after rather perfunctory consideration, with 66 some such word as unpopular", "impracticable". It might be interesting to advance a step, and ask why it is that the idea of self-government should be so unpopular with us-why the system should be so impracticable of application. That the secret of any government must be looked for in the temper of its subjects is, of course, a truism. A democratic people is not found under despotic rule, nor do slavish races exist in a republican state. Governments, like individuals, are subject to the laws of evolution and natural selection, and when a community becomes so equipped, mentally and morally, as to merit and demand self-government, self-governed it will of necessity become. If we have not, as yet, self-government, it is because our instincts and habits of self-reliance and independence are not sufficiently developed to fit us for that state. An examination of our social and academic relationships should support this hypothesis; and does it not, in fact, do precisely this? For what is the position of the average student in the class-room? Is it not one of dependence, rather upon the results of book-recitation than on the self-consciousness of adequate and valuable effort? Does there exist between the student and the professor that frankness of intercourse which would prompt the former, for example, to request a temporary exemption from class work in order to devote time to this or that special branch of research? Do we assume the initiative in our methods either of study or recitation? I think I may safely reply for the majority, no. Or turning to the social aspect of our college life, is there any one who has failed to observe the prominence of "rings" and coteries in our midst, or the willingness to lead and be led by the fatal, the incorrigible "mob" spirit? What is indicated by that "left-out feeling", so much discussed in reference to our literary societies, but a perverted and inefficient public sentiment? That most effective of all our weapons-healthy adverse criticism-is so far captive to a general timidity and suspicion that it forms not even a respectable opposition. It is safe to predict that if, for a single day, every student in college were to speak the truth, as she sees it, a social revolution would be accomplished. In the meantime it is worse than futile to talk of a change. When our social |