Note 32 — Front matter

The first American affiliated college was the so-called Harvard annex, which was brought into existence by the devoted efforts of a small number of influential professors of Harvard college, who voluntarily formed themselves into a “Society for the collegiate instruction of women,” and repeated each week to classes of women the lectures and class work they gave to men in Harvard college. The idea first occurred to Mr. Arthur Gilman in 1878. Girton college, Cambridge, England, after which the annex was modeled, had then been in successful operation for nine years. Mrs. Louis Agassiz, the widow of the famous naturalist, agreed to become the official head of the undertaking, and she associated with herself other influential Boston and Cambridge women. Mr. Arthur Gilman became the secretary of the society. The president of Harvard college declared that, so far as the university was concerned, the professors were free to teach women in their leisure hours if they chose. The annex was opened for students in 1879 in a rented house near the Harvard campus with 25 students.