October 10, 1915

On the first day of the college’s 50th anniversary celebration, a Sunday, Poughkeepsie churches commemorated the founding of the college, and in the afternoon Brown University President William H. P. Faunce gave the opening sermon in the Chapel. Faunce pointed to the importance of colleges and universities in furthering international cooperation: “The gift most needed today from all the colleges is in the realm of international relations.…  If the roots of war are ideal, the remedy for war is in the ideal realm also, in the renovated sprit of man,” a transformation he believed occurred in places like Vassar.  “If we can through the American college convey some such gift to the world we shall fulfill the most ardent hopes of those who laid their foundations in sacrificial toil and undying faith.”

—Constance Mayfield Rourke, ed., The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Opening of Vassar College: October 10 to13, 1915

Later, student delegates were welcomed by Vassar student representative in the Circle, and in the evening the Chapel was filled to overflowing for a recital by British organist T. Tertius Noble of Saint Thomas’s Church in New York City.