Wellesley has had her share of inspiring teachers, and among these
Mrs. Irvine was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant.
The new president assumed her office reluctantly, and with the
understanding that she should be allowed to retire after a brief
term of years, when "the exigencies which suggested her appointment
had ceased to exist." She knew the college, and she knew herself.
With certain aspects of the Wellesley life she could never be
entirely in accord. She was a Hicksite Quaker. The Wellesley
of the decade 1890-1900 had moved a long way from the evangelical
revivalism which had been Mr. Durant's idea of religion, but it was
not until 1912 that the Quaker students first began to hold their
weekly meetings in the Observatory. About this time also, through
the kind offices of the Wellesley College Christian Association,
a list of the Roman Catholic students then in college was given
to the Roman Catholic parish priest. That the trustees in 1895
were willing to trust the leadership of the college to a woman
whose religious convictions differed so widely from those of the
founder indicates that even then Wellesley was beginning to outgrow
her religious provincialism, and to recognize that a wise tolerance
is not incompatible with steadfast Christian witness.
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