Through all the ages there had been exceptionally favoured women who had been specially trained, in the way that men were trained, and had left such records of intellectual achievement that the world generally regarded them as peculiar creatures, excessively endowed. There was alwavs, in the minds of the ma-

Fishkill to PouL;"hkecpsie 423 jority even of educated men, a doubt whether the whole fa]:)nc of social life would not go to pieces if women were granted equal intellectual ad\'antages with men, even supposing their brains could stand the strain. To meet such objections the only effectual reph^ must come in the way of an object-lesson, and this lesson Vassar College has furnished. It is situated two miles east of the city, on an elevation of several hundred feet, though it is not seen

TOMPKINS COVE

from the river. To offer here a mere catalogue of its extensive buildings, or such a meagre list of its advantages as our space permits, would serve no jmrpose. Its fame has gone out through all the world, and the lessons it has taught have not all been included in its regular curriculum of studies. Matthew Vassar was born in England in 1792 and was brought to America when four years old. He was

424 The Hudson River

consequently sixty-nine years of age when Vassar College was incorporated in 1861. At the old Huguenot village of New Paltz, on the opposite side of the river from Poughkeepsie, is situated the State Normal School, and here recently a number of young women from Cuba have been preparing for educational work in their own lately liberated land. Perhaps no writer who has lived on the Hudson has linked so really a generation that has passed with the men of to-day as John Bigelow, -- author, editor, man of affairs, representative of his countrymen both at home and abroad.