The work was overwhelming
and sometimes her one assistant would urge her, late in the
evening, to nibble a bite from a tray which, to save time, had
been sent in to her room at the dinner hour, only to remain
untouched.... No wonder that professors often left their lectures
to be written in the wee small hours, to help in uncongenial
administrative work, which was not in the scope of their recognized
duties."
The pathos of her death in Paris, in December, 1902, came as a
shock to hundreds of people whose lives had been brightened by
her eager kindliness; and her memory will always be especially
cherished by the college to which she gave her youth. The beautiful
memorial in the college chapel will speak to generations of
Wellesley girls of this lovable and ardent pioneer.
III.
Wellesley's debt to her third president, Helen A. Shafer, is
nowhere better defined than in the words of a distinguished alumna,
Sophonisba P. Breckenridge, writing on Miss Shafer's administration,
in the Wellesley College News of November 2, 1901. Miss
Breckenridge says:
It is said that in a great city on the shore of a western
lake the discovery was made one day that the surface of the
water had gradually risen and that stately buildings on the
lake front designed for the lower level had been found both
misplaced and inadequate to the pressure of the high level.
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