June 14, 1905
Fine weather welcomed a large crowd of alumnae, families and guests to Vassar’s 39th Commencement. The college’s largest graduating class to date, 200 members of the Class of 1905 received bachelor’s degrees. Honor students Edith Clark ’05, Margaret Tucker ’05, Linda Holloway ’05, Nina Raynor ’05, Sylvia Buffington ’05 and Corliss Babson ’05 read essays. In his remarks, President Taylor made the case once again for another residence hall, which, he said, would require $200,000.
In his address to the class, Supreme Court Justice David Josiah Brewer observed that the successful assimilation of immigrants as franchised citizens suggested that enfranchisement of women might be possible and even valuable to the nation. Going further, Brewer said, to great applause, that no one could be certain that, before these graduates’ hair turned grey, “a woman like Queen Victoria should not sit in the White House to glorify this Nation as Victoria glorified England.” The following day, The New York Times, reacted to this speculation: “This sentiment, at a female college, deserves the applause with which it appears that it was received. But it is not exactly a plausible prediction. The hair of this year’s graduates of Vassar will have turned gray, barring hair dye and idiopathy, in thirty years. Nobody can really look forward to the election of a female Chief Magistrate of the United States by 1935.”
A recent custom was continued at the class dinner when “cupid’s roll call” was called. If evidence to the contrary was presented when, at the calling of her name, a member of the class indicated she was not engaged, she was given three chances to change her response. Some twenty engagements were announced in the roll call.
In an innovation, the following morning many members of the class attended the wedding of Delia Athena Shepard ’05 to Karl C. Schuyler.
The New York Times