Produced by Stephanie L. Johnson. HTML version by Al Haines. THE STORY OF WELLESLEY BY FLORENCE CONVERSE ALMA MATER To Alma Mater, Wellesley's daughters, All together join and sing. Thro' all her wealth of woods and water Let your happy voices ring; In every changing mood we love her, Love her towers and woods and lake; Oh, changeful sky, bend blue above her, Wake, ye birds, your chorus wake! We'll sing her praises now and ever, Blessed fount of truth and love. Our heart's devotion, may it never Faithless or unworthy prove, We'll give our lives and hopes to serve her, Humblest, highest, noblest--all; A stainless name we will preserve her, Answer to her every call. Anne L. Barrett, '86 PREFACE The day after the Wellesley fire, an eager young reporter on a Boston paper came out to the college by appointment to interview a group of Wellesley women, alumnae and teachers, grief-stricken by the catastrophe which had befallen them. He came impetuously, with that light-hearted breathlessness so characteristic of young reporters in the plays of Bernard Shaw and Arnold Bennett. He was charmingly in character, and he sent his voice out on the run to meet the smallest alumna in the group: "Now tell me some pranks!" he cried, with pencil poised. What she did tell him need not be recorded here. Neither was it set down in the courteous and sympathetic report which he afterwards wrote for his paper. And readers who come to this story of Wellesley for pranks will be disappointed likewise. Not that the lighter side of the Wellesley life is omitted; play-days and pageants, all the bright revelry of the college year, belong to the story. Wellesley would not be Wellesley if they were left out. But her alumnae, her faculty, and her undergraduates all agree that the college was not founded primarily for the sake of Tree Day, and that the Senior Play is not the goal of the year's endeavor. It is the story of the Wellesley her daughters and lovers know that I have tried to tell: the Wellesley of serious purpose, consecrated to the noble ideals of Christian Scholarship.