would furnish cream of tartar sufficient to make the Royal Baking Powder required to raise a dozen tea biscuits. The most wholesome, highly efficient baking powder is made from cream of tartar, the product of grapes. There are inferior baking powders sold at a lower price than Royal; but they are made from materials which cost but a trifle and are not economical at any price. The label on the can, which shows what the baking powder is made of, should say "Cream of Tartar" to entitle it to your favor. Royal Baking Powder con- ROYAL BAKING POWDER CO. New York POWDE These advertisemerts are the best VOL. VI JULY, 1915 No. 4 Entered as second-class matter August 6, 1913, at the Post Office at Northampton, Mass., under the Act of March 3, 1879. THE SOPHIA SMITH BIRTHPLACE The possibility of purchasing the Sophia Smith birthplace was brought before the Board of Directors of the Alumnae Association last year. The board however did not feel that it could take any action before submitting the matter to the general association. Just before the meeting of the Alumnae Council in February the property was bought by a resident of Hatfield to protect his own adjoining property from undesirable neighbors. He expressed himself as willing to sell the birthplace to the association and at the Council meeting a committee, of which Miss Mary Thayer, 1890, was chairman, was appointed to investigate the matter thoroughly. Miss Thayer's report was received so favorably by the Council in June that it recommended that the subject be referred to the alumnae at the annual meeting, with the highly satisfactory result that the birthplace has passed into the hands of "Sophia Smith's daughters." Further details of the enthusiastic purchase will be found on page 290. A committee with Miss Martha Wilson, 1895, chairman, and Miss Mary Thayer, 1890, Miss Lois James, 1904, Miss Marguerite Wells, 1895, and Mrs. Dwight Morrow, 1896, among its members has been appointed to arrange the details of the purchase, to furnish the house, and to formulate plans for its ultimate use and disposition. It is a matter of rejoicing to all Smith graduates that the birthplace and home of Sophia Smith in Hatfield was acquired as a permanent possession by the alumnae of the college at Commencement this year. The details of the alumnae meeting, at which the suggestion of this purchase was made and the money for it enthusiastically subscribed within fifteen minutes afterward, is given in another column of this issue. There could certainly be no greater evidence of the feeling of the alumnae toward the founder of the college than the spontaneous enthusiasm of that meeting. The moment's hesitation when the suggestion was first made betokened only a prudence that Sophia Smith herself would surely have commended. Was the house within our means? Could it be used and how? Had we a right to spend a large sum for something the college did not immediately need when its wants were so numerous and so pressing? Such considerations were, however, at once overwhelmed by the unanimous desire of the alumnae to honor the memory of the founder and to link the college for all time closer with her life. This house was undoubtedly the birthplace of the idea of Smith College. Here more than half a century ago Sophia Smith had the courage to plan a college for women and to endow it in the face of doubt and difficulty. To many of us, also, one of the greatest blessings of Smith College is its heritage of what is best in the traditions of early New England—traditions of high ideals and of frugal daily living. The towns and farms of the Connecticut valley express the rugged, dignified simplicity of early New England life. We welcome the closer connection with those traditions, which we shall have in owning one of the old houses of Hatfield. By its very austerity this house speaks to us not only of the life of Sophia Smith, but of hundreds of similar lives of piety and earnest purpose led in those earlier days in this valley. When a committee was first appointed to look into the matter of the purchase of the Smith homestead, the Rev. John M. Greene, to whom we always turn for counsel, wrote of his satisfaction with such a plan and gave the following facts about the house: The homestead was built by Sophia Smith's father about 1790 (the exact date is unknown). Miss Smith herself was born there in 1796. There she passed seventy years of her life, moving in 1867 into the new house which she built next door and in which she died three years later. Dr. Greene enclosed the following entry from Sophia Smith's journal made on May 11, 1867: I have passed through great scenes. I have changed my place of residence, left the house where I have passed seventy years with all those dear brothers and sisters that I have outlived, and have entered this new house. I sometimes feel as if I had done wrong. I would come and cast all my care upon God. I think He has led me. The old homestead and the new house which she entered with such misgiving stand side by side on the east side of the Hatfield street. The birthplace is a modest two story and a half wooden house, set in a comfortable patch of green with large trees in the yard and a vegetable garden and barn behind it. On both floors there are two large rooms, one on each side of a small hall, and behind is a kitchen ell, evidently more modern. Unfortunately for its appearance the house was modernized last year. We need not regret, however, such modern conveniences as electric lights and a bath, since they are consistent with the sense and progressive spirit of Sophia Smith herself, and since they do not greatly detract from the original appearance of the house. There are still the old wainscoting, the charming, wide mantels over the large fireplaces, and the cupboards, and panelled doors with the original hinges. On the first floor new hardwood flooring has been laid, but upstairs one sees the broad hand-hewn floor boards over a foot wide. One hopes that in the furnishing of the house it will be possible to remove the modern flooring and also to put in old window panes. But all these details we can happily leave to the generous class of 1896, who have promised the furnishing of the house. We are confident they will exercise a judicious restraint, and, untempted by the too great picturesqueness of spurious colonial trappings, will preserve the dignified plainness appropriate to the Smith homestead. But before the house is furnished its use must be determined. As yet that is undecided. Is it to be a carefully guarded historic monument where from behind a rope we contemplate the teacup or counterpane of our founder? Is it to be a house of rest for the tired faculty or of refreshment for the overfed undergraduates? Whatever its next use, or whether it shall be, in that sense, "used" at all, it serves a real purpose. It binds us closer to the modest beginnings of Smith College and to Sophia Smith, who dreaming there of the higher education of her sistersto-come, brought an immeasurable blessing to thousands of women. Surely in realizing her dream she must have said in her heart, "I think He has led me." THE ALUMNAE ASSEMBLY Blessings be upon the head of Ellen Emerson or whoever it was that invented the Alumnae Assembly! If somebody would only go farther in the line of invention and invent a way by which every alumna could have a seat in the first six rows of the middle section, thereby losing none of the words of speakers whose modesty and excellently low voices proclaim them the gentlewomen they should be, life would have little more to offer at Commencement time. But if language was really invented that men may conceal their thoughts thereby, then there is some balm left in Gilead; without doubt there were thoughts in John M. Greene Hall that Tuesday afternoon, and an atmosphere charged with something besides degrees of Fahrenheit. Where else, too, would the fact that half of us knew the names of only half of the people speaking to us have made no difference in our attention to and our acceptance of what they said? Who cares for her name when she says "we" and "us," after rising from her seat on the front row of the platform whereon sat also our "Presidents four," as Miss Franklin happily said. It was the fortune of 1914 to occupy all the platform except that same front row, a somewhat gayly appareled choir visible with trim red caps and capes; 1915 was there in what seemed to us elderly alumnae an overwhelming number; 1895 had an air of conscious desert, as did 1910, and not without justification, as later events proved; 1900's artists' smocks were prominent, and the various class standards caught the light all over the floor, as everybody rose at Mrs. Parsons' signal to sing Alma Mater -without notes-a frightfully difficult achievement for classes back of 1908. Mrs. Parsons herself appeared to know it, thereby increasing our admiration for her conscientious fulfillment of her presidential duties. Her opening remarks were as Macaulay in their wealth of allusion. She said: "Now at last in this Commencement season, it is our time, and with no feeling of disparagement of two other speakers, but with appreciation, I will say that this is our leisure which we want to use properly, and that this association is one which wishes to place 'first things first.' To us |