recording. They make, sometimes,
very accurate drawings, and they learn to know the satellites of
Saturn (Titan, Rhea, etc.) by their different physiognomy, as
they would persons. They have sometimes measured diameters.

If you add to your observatory a meridian instrument, I should
advise a small one. _Size_ is not so important as people
generally suppose. Nicety and accuracy are what is needed in all
scientific work; startling effects by large telescopes and high
powers are too suggestive of sensational advertisement.

The relation between herself and her pupils was quite remarkable--it was
very cordial and intimate; she spoke of them always as her "girls," but
at the same time she required their very best work, and was intolerant
of shirking, or of an ambition to do what nature never intended the girl
in question to do.

One of her pupils writes thus: "If it were only possible to tell you of
what Professor Mitchell did for one of her girls! 'Her girls!' It meant
so much to come into daily contact with such a woman! There is no need
of speaking of her ability; the world knows what that was. But as her
class-room was unique, having something of home in its belongings, so
its atmosphere differed from that of all others. Anxiety and nervous
strain were left outside of the door. Perhaps one clue to her influence
may be found in her remark to the senior class in astronomy when '76
entered upon its last year: 'We are women studying together.'

"Occasionally it happened that work requiring two hours or more to
prepare called for little time in the class. Then would come one of
those treats which she bestowed so freely upon her girls, and which
seemed to put them in touch with the great outside world. Letters from
astronomers in Europe or America, or from members of their families,
giving delightful glimpses of home life; stories of her travels and of
visits to famous people; accounts of scientific conventions and of large
gatherings of women,--not so common then as now,--gave her listeners a
wider outlook and new interests.

"Professor Mitchell was chairman of a standing committee of the American
Association for the Advancement of Women,--that on women's work in
science,--and some of her students did their first work for women's
organizations in gathering statistics and filling out blanks which she
distributed among them.

"The benefits derived from my college course were manifold, but