“In loving memory of my mother I shall some day found a college for young women after my own heart. I have not much faith in polite female academies. My mind leans toward colleges for young women, conducted in precisely the same manner as are colleges for young men. Nor does it seem to me that the faculty of such institutions of learning should needs be composed entirely of women. The professors in our colleges for young men are far more proficient in learning than the majority of the women engaged to teach girls in the few seminaries and academies of the United States.
“In these painful, formative days of our republic young women should receive the same educational advantages as young men. Let us train them so that they in their turn may become competent instructors. Let not their budget of learning consist of a few polite ologies, lightly learned, to be as lightly forgotten. I believe men have better brains than women. Yet they lack in intuition. Women are keener of perception. Thus it would appear——”
Miss Susanna looked up from the paper. “That’s all,” she said abruptly. “I suppose he made a copy of this letter, finished it and sent it to the Marquis. I wished to read it to you because, in looking among his papers and letters, this is the first mention he made of his dream of building a college for women.”
For a moment no one spoke. The spell of the unfinished letter of long ago gripped the hearers. The generous, purposeful personality of its writer made itself felt across the years.
Jonas, trundling a tea wagon into the study, brought them out of the historic past.
“How I wish we knew the rest of it,” Marjorie said, her brown eyes childishly wistful.
“I wish you knew, but you never will,” was Miss Susanna’s crisp reply. “I’ve hunted for what might be a continuation of that letter on another, similar sheet of paper, but have never found it.”
“It’s a glorious letter, even if it isn’t complete. It is full of hope and courage and resolve and conviction!” Katherine’s tones rang with admiration.
“How beautifully he wrote of his mother,” supplemented Vera.
“How well he wrote it all,” was Leila’s sweeping praise. “Too well not to have——” She paused. Carried away by impulse she had forgotten for the time the reason why the world could not have the history of a great man and his great work.