The enrollment of one hundred and seventy-six girls in the session of 1888-'89, was the largest in the history of the school. At this date the President found, by careful comparison, that during the past forty-seven years, the average attendance had been greater than that of any other school for girls in the State. The session of 1889-'90 registered two hundred and nine students, and for the first time since 1864 applications had to be declined. The only minor chord that marred the general joy sounded in the troubled minds of the Trustees. In his own private reflections, Mr. Cocke had to confess that the solution offered by the Trustees looked like the obstinate, unavoidable necessity. About this time he made known to the Trustees and friends, a compliment to the Institution, recently paid by the National Bureau of Education at Washington. In a report of that body concerning schools for girls in Virginia, Hollins was named the foremost Institution for girls, the best known and the most effective in the State. The report continues: "There is an admirable foundation already laid at Hollins Institute ... for a woman's college of the type of Vassar, Smith, Wellesley and Bryn Mawr ... in a beautiful and healthful region with ample buildings for a great beginning.... An investment of a million would place here a great school of the highest type, and perpetuate the well-earned reputation of this well-known Institute,--for the past forty years one of the most notable of Southern schools." This fine appraisement, coming from an independent and impartial source, was unspeakably pleasing to the man around whom this school had grown, and he could but cherish the hope that some large-minded man of wealth would arise to follow the suggestion of endowment made in the quotation.