... I very rarely see the B----s; they go to a different church, and you know with that class of people "not to be with us is to be against us." Indeed, I know very little of Lynn people. If I can get at Mr. J., when you come to see me I'll ask him to tea. He has called several times, but he's in such demand that he must be engaged some weeks in advance! Would you, if you lived in Lynn, want to fall into such a mass of idolaters? I was wretchedly busy up to December 31, but have got into quiet seas again. I have had a great deal of company--not a person that I did not want to see, but I can't make the days more than twenty-four hours long, with all my economy of time. This week Professor Crosby, of Salem, comes up with his graduating class and his corps of teachers for an evening. They remained in Lynn until Miss Mitchell was called to Vassar College, in 1865, as professor of astronomy and director of the observatory. CHAPTER IX 1865-1885 LIFE AT VASSAR COLLEGE In her life at Vassar College there was a great deal for Miss Mitchell to get accustomed to; if her duties had been merely as director of the observatory, it would have been simply a continuation of her previous work. But she was expected, of course, to teach astronomy; she was by no means sure that she could succeed as a teacher, and with this new work on hand she could not confine herself to original investigation--that which had been her great aim in life. But she was so much interested in the movement for the higher education of women, an interest which deepened as her work went on, that she gave up, in a great measure, her scientific life, and threw herself heart and soul into this work. For some years after she went to Vassar, she still continued the work for the Nautical Almanac; but after a while she relinquished that, and confined herself wholly to the work in the college. "1866. Vassar College brought together a mass of heterogeneous material, out of which it was expected that a harmonious whole would evolve--pupils from all parts of the country, of different habits, different training, different views; teachers, mostly from New England, differing also; professors, largely from Massachusetts, yet differing much. And yet, after a year, we can say that there has been no very noisy jarring of the discordant elements; small jostling has been felt, but the president has oiled the rough places, and we have slid over them. "... Miss ---- is a bigot, but a very sincere one. She is the most conservative person I ever met. I think her a very good woman, a woman of great energy.... She is very kind to me, but had we lived in the colonial days of Massachusetts, and had she been a power, she would have burned me at the stake for heresy! "Yesterday the rush began. Miss Lyman [the lady principal] had set the twenty teachers all around in different places, and I was put into the parlor to talk to 'anxious mothers.'