I was one of the pupils upon whom her freedom from all the shams and self-deceptions made an impression that elevated my whole standard, mental and moral....

The influence of her own personal character sustains its supreme test in the evidence constantly accumulating, that it strengthens rather than weakens with the lapse of time.

Her influence upon her pupils who were her daily companions has been permanent, character-moulding, and unceasingly progressive." President Taylor, in his address at her funeral, said: "If I were to select for comment the one most striking trait of her character, I should name her _genuineness_.

There was no false note in Maria Mitchell's thinking or utterance....
"One who has known her kindness to little children, who has watched her little evidences of thoughtful care for her associates and friends, who has seen her put aside her own long-cherished rights that she might make the way of a new and untried officer easier, cannot forget the tenderer side of her character....
"But if would be vain for me to try to tell just what it was in Miss Mitchell that attracted us who loved her.

It was this combination of great strength and independence, of deep affection and tenderness, breathed through and through with the sentiment of a perfectly genuine life, which has made for us one of the pilgrim-shrines of life the study in the observatory of Vassar College where we have known her _at home_, surrounded by the evidences of her honorable professional career.