y students of the highest scholarship, I never knew
the mental friction and the averaging up and down of those accustomed
to large classes. I gained far more there than I gave, for I learned
my limitations, or some of them, and to try to stick closely to my own
work, to be less impulsive, and not offer opinions and suggestions,
unasked, undesired, and in that early stage of the college,
objectionable. Still, President Seelye writes to me: "I remember you
as a very stimulating teacher of English Literature, and I have often
heard your pupils, here and afterwards, express great interest in your
instruction."

The only "illuminating" incident in my three years at Smith College
was owing to my wish to honour the graduating reception of the Senior
class. I pinned my new curtains carefully away, put some candles in
the windows, leaving two young ladies of the second year to see that
all was safe. The house was the oldest but one in the town; it
harboured two aged paralytics whom it would be difficult, if not
dangerous, to remove. Six students had their home there. As my
fire-guards heard me returning with my sister and some gentlemen of
the town, they left the room, the door slammed, a breeze blew the
light from the candles to the curtains, and in an instant the curtains
were ablaze.

And now the unbelievable sequel. The room seemed all on fire in five
minutes. Next, the overhead beam was blazing. I can tell you that the
fire was extinguished by those gentlemen, and no one ever knew we had
been so near a conflagration until three years later when the kind
lady of the house wrote to me: "Dear Friend, did you ever have a fire
in your room? In making it over I found some wood badly scorched." I
have the most reliable witnesses, or you would never have believed it.
In the morning my hostess said to the girls assembled at breakfast:
"Miss Sanborn is always rather noisy when she has guests, but I never
did hear such a hullabaloo as she made last evening."

It is certain that President Seelye deserves all the appreciation and
affectionate regard he received. He has won his laurels and he needs
the rest which only resignation could bring. The college is equally
fortunate in securing as his successor, Marion LeRoy Burton, who in
the coming years may lead the way through broader paths, to greater
heights, always keeping President Seelye's ideal of the truly womanly
type, in a distinctively woman's college.

As the Rev. Dr. John M.