FLORENCE DONNELL WHITE
1882 - 1950
The Faculty of Vassar College expresses its deep sense
of loss in the death on December 15, 1950 of Florence
Donnell White, Professor Emeritus of French.
Miss White was born in Alna, Maine, on January 23, 1882.
She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1903, taught
for two years at the Springfield, Massachusetts, High
School, and received her M.A. degree from Mount Holyoke
in 1907. Continuing her graduate study at Bryn Mawr,
where she was a Fellow in Romance Languages, and also
at the University of Paris, she received the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy from Bryn Mawr in 1915.
She came to Vassar in 1908, and was glad to carry on her
whole career in the college which she loved and on which
she has left her distinctive mark as an educator and as
a person. The gratitude felt by Miss White's students
for what her teaching means to them was well expressed
in one letter, received at the time of her retirement
in l947, when the Florence Donnell White Fund was
established:
I felt when I left Vassar and feel even more
strongly after twenty-four years that her teach-
ing gave in fullest measure what a college educa-
tion should give: respect for scholarship,
honesty and humility in the practice of it, and
as an end result of four years of study a founda-
tion of knowledge of and interest in the subject
so well-laid that nothing can destroy it.
There were no easy short-cuts in Miss White's
courses - for herself or her students... Her stu-
dents were well-informed, because she informed them
well, with the highest standards for thorough work,
with a belief in the importance of exact knowledge
as against guesswork and good intentions, and with
a mastery of her subject which, shared with them,
gave them a fund of appreciative familiarity with
France that they would use and enjoy for the rest
of their lives.
Miss White was chairman of the department of French
from 1918 until 1946. She served on the most important
elective committees of the faculty; among those which
claimed her activity for the longest periods were the
FLORENCE DONNELL WHITE (Continued)
Committee on the Curriculum, on Students‘ Records, and
the Advisory Committee. She published a study of Vol-
taire's Essay on Epic Poetry, and in collaboration with
colleagues made translations from the French and Spanish.
She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, of the Modern Lan-
guage Association, the American Association of Teachers
of French, the American Association of University Profes-
sors, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the
Colonial Dames of America.
Outside the college she participated in the activities
of the Institute of International Education and she was
one of the originators of its program for the Junior Year
Abroad. In recognition of her constant work in further-
ance of understanding between the French and American
peofile she was made Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in
1934.
Miss White's clarity of mind, her keen wit, her absolute
justice, and her unfailing enthusiasm are qualities
recalled by all who knew her. They enabled her to carry
the responsibilities of teaching and administrative tasks
with untiring strength and without ever seeming to be
burdened. She had the tact and true sociability which
came from a generous interest in people. A staunch New
Englander, she had a deep affection for France, its
literature and its people. In France, where she spent
almost every summer, she counted many friends, one of
whom has written, characteristically, "No one could have
made the United States better respected and loved than
she did.”
The Faculty of Vassar College, who have long had Miss
White's sustaining presence among them, will keep the
memory of her distinction, her wise counsel and her
gracious company.
Mary Landon Sague
Maria Tastevin Miller
Margaret de Schweinitz
XIII - 171-172