In this year also the gymnasium
was refitted under the supervision of Doctor D. A. Sargent of Harvard.
Miss Freeman's policy of establishing preparatory schools which
should be "feeders" for Wellesley was of the greatest importance
to the college at this time, as "in only a few high schools were
the girls allowed to join classes which fitted boys for college."
When Miss Freeman became president, Dana Hall was the only Wellesley
preparatory school in existence; but in 1884, through her efforts,
an important school was opened in Philadelphia, and before the end
of her presidency, she had been instrumental in furthering the
organization of fifteen other schools in different parts of the
country, officered for the most part by Wellesley graduates.
In this same year the Christian Association was organized. Its
history, bound up as it is with the student life, will be given
more fully in a later chapter, but we must not forget that Miss
Freeman gave the association its initial impulse and established
its broad type.
In 1884 also, we find Wellesley petitioning before the committee
on education at the State House in Boston, to extend its holdings
from six hundred thousand dollars to five million dollars, and
gaining the petition.
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