First Daughter Of the College

T HE first woman to be awarded a graduate degree from Dartmouth, and the only one to have received it in person at graduation ceremonies, Miss Katharine Quint, M.A. 1896, at 84 further enjoys the distinction of belonging to the earliest Dartmouth class having a living member. Upon taking her Master's degree, she was made an honorary member of her father's class, 1846, which was having its Fiftieth Reunion that June. Thus when she attends a meeting of the Dartmouth Club of Central Florida in Orlando, as she did last April and hopes to do again this year, she represents a class which graduated 105 years ago.

Miss Quint is an outstanding example of what belonging to a Dartmouth family can do, even to daughters. Her father, the Rev. Alonzo Hall Quint, 1846, was a Trustee of the College. Her brother John '91 followed in his father's footsteps and became a minister. Wilder Dwight Quint '87, who achieved distinction as a newspaperman in Boston before his death in 1936, is well remembered by alumni today as the author of the popular Story of Dartmouth.

Miss Quint's earliest years were Dartmouth-shaped and it is not to be wondered at that even after her graduation from Wellesley in 1890 she still wanted to go to Dartmouth. The problem was, how to go about it. She decided to take direct measures and applied for permission to enter the College in 1893.

She recalls that President Tucker was in favor of accepting her as a student, but there had to be a confirmation from the Board of Trustees. "When my father, who was a senior member of the Board, heard of my application," she recalls, "he was just as surprised as the others, and refused to vote on the question."

In 1894 the faculty requested the legal committee of the Trustees to clarify the words "English youths and others" in the Charter. These were interpreted as meaning, "youths of all nations and both sexes, and stating it as a question of power merely, it is our opinion that the corporation has the power to confer degrees upon females and to admit them to the advantages of the College." Upon the basis of this interpretation, Miss Quint was enrolled.

However, custom or technicality prevented her from attending college classes. To overcome this obstacle students were "invited" to her Greek and Latin seminars. As the guest students remarked to her, "That was a royal invitation and we had to accept."

Among the men who attended seminars with her were the late Dean Emeritus Craven Laycock '96, the late Benjamin T. Marshall '97, who became president of the Connecticut College for Women, and Roland E. Stevens '95, class secretary, who last April sat beside Miss Quint at the dinner in Orlando.

Miss Quint's example was followed by other women scholars desiring graduate degrees from Dartmouth. Anna Putnam Hazen received an M.S. in 1897. From 1900 through 1917 the College conducted a summer school, and the four other women holding Dartmouth degrees received them during these years. In 1911 these were: Florence May Powers M.A., Helen Thomas M.A., and Josephine Robinson Roe M.A., aunt of Robin Robinson '24, now Professor of Mathematics at Dartmouth. The last woman to receive a graduate degree from the College was Maud G. Leadbetter, who took her Master's in 1917. So far there have been no feminine A.B. degrees, although in 1938 Amelia Peters, a member of the Wampanog tribe, tried unsuccessfully to enter the undergraduate college.

Four women have had honorary degrees bestowed upon them by Dartmouth. The Doctorate of Letters was awarded to Dorothy Canfield Fisher in 1922, to Dorothy Thompson in 1938, and to Laura Lord Scales in 1939. Sally Drew Hall was honored with a Doctorate of Humane Letters in 1947.

Miss Quint undertook the teaching profession as her career. She won a scholarship for study in the classics at Yale, where she worked from 1908 until 1910. She subsequently taught at Tabor Academy, Salt Lake Academy, Goucher College, and North High School, in Worcester, Mass. In her retirement she lives with her niece, Elizabeth Quint, in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass. Because of eye trouble,, she learned to read Braille some years ago. She maintains a lively interest in Dartmouth's football seasons, an enthusiasm she shares with Bill Cunningham '19, a faithful caller, who was her brother Wilder's colleague on TheBoston Post.

At the age of 84 Miss Quint still justifies the Trustees' faith in her as a worthy precedent, and deserves her unique place in Dartmouth's annals as first daughter of the College.

KATHARINE M. QUINT, M.A. '96