Gertrude, possessing a more active mind and ambition, resolved to obtain
an education as good as her brother Alfonso had had at Harvard. She had
read of a prominent benefactor who believed that woman had the same right
as man to intellectual culture and development, and who in 1861 had
founded on the Hudson, midway between Albany and New York, an institution
which he hoped would accomplish for women what colleges were doing for
men.
So Gertrude applied for enrollment and was admitted to Vassar College.
Rooms were assigned her in Strong Hall. She liked Vassar's sensible way
of hazing, a cordial reception being given to freshmen by the sophomores.
She was glad to be under both men and women professors, for this in part
fulfilled her idea of the education that women should receive.
At Vassar were several girls from Harrisville whom Gertrude knew, but no
boys. She wrote her mother that she would be better pleased if Vassar had
less Greek and more boys. She could not understand why co-education at
the high school in Harrisville, that worked perfectly, should stop at the
threshold of Vassar, or other women's and men's colleges.
The two following years on the beautiful Hudson were happy years for
Gertrude.
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