complicated by the
presence of the latter.

After much discussion at other meetings it was decided to form a
committee, representing several organizations interested in the
advancement of women, to work more definitely in this direction. On
Feb. 20, 1886, a number of ladies assembled at the home of Mrs. Rachel
Fry, a prominent member of the suffrage association, and, after
discussion and advice from Mr. Chace, appointed a committee.[432]
Three days later it met at the home of Mrs. R. A. Peckham, organized
and elected Miss Sarah E. Doyle chairman and Mrs. Fanny Purdy Palmer
secretary. It met again March 14, to hear reports on the conferences
of the members with professors of the university, and the result
showed a considerable number of them in favor of the project. To
influence public opinion the committee published statistics showing
that thirty young women of Rhode Island were attending colleges
outside the State, and argued that most of these who now were "exiles"
would gladly receive the higher education at home.

The movement was accelerated by the act of four young girls, Elizabeth
Hoyt, Henrietta R. Palmer, Emma L. Meader and Helen Gregory, who took
by permission the classical course in the Providence High School, at
that time limited to boys; and in 1887 addressed a petition prepared
by David Hoyt, the principal, to the president of the university,
urging that when their preparation was complete they might be allowed
to share the educational privileges of Brown. They received a
discouraging response and all turned to other colleges.

Up to this time friends on the faculty and in the corporation of the
university were working up a scheme for the unofficial entrance of
women and their instruction in the class-rooms, and the committee had
engaged itself with the practical details connected with this plan.

On Feb. 4, 1889, this somewhat informal committee organized an
association and adopted a constitution which declared its object, "to
secure the educational privileges of Brown University for women on the
same terms offered to men." Of the thirty-two original signers to this
constitution eighteen were members of the State Suffrage Association
and the number included the president, two vice-presidents, secretary,
treasurer and four members of the executive committee. The same
officers were continued.

Prof. Benjamin Franklin Clarke was from the first an earnest supporter
of the claims of the women, and worked