Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/991

 tion 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 within the faculty as Arnold B. Chace did in the corporation. When in 1889 Elisha Benjamin Andrews (who as professor had in 1887 indorsed the woman suffrage amendment) became the president of the university, the cause of the higher education of women took a great leap forward. In October, 1891, the Women's College connected with Brown University was established and a small building hired for its home. Six young women, among them the now distinguished president of Mount Holyoke College, Miss Mary Woolley, entered the class rooms. The results of the next ten years are thus summed up in the official year-book for 1901:

The Women's College was founded in October, 1891. At first only the privileges of university examinations and certificates of proficiency were granted. In June, 1892, all the university degrees and the graduate courses were opened. In November, 1897, the Institution was accepted by the corporation and officially designated the Women's College of Brown University. The immediate charge, subject to the direction of the president, was placed in the hands of a dean. All instruction was required to be given by members of the university faculty. Pembroke Hall, which was built by the Rhode Island Society for the Collegiate Education of Women, was