HARRIET ISABEL BALLINTINE
1864 - 1951
The Faculty of Vassar College wish to pay tribute to
the memory of Harriet Isabel Ballintine, who died on
February 9, 1951 at the age of eighty-six.
Her early experience of rigorous farm living in LeRoy,,
near Rochester, taught Miss Ballintine habits of hard
work and the necessity of cooperation; it also inspired
in her the desire to explore openings where women could
stand on their own feet and develop their abilities.
After attending schools in LeRoy and a gymnasium for
women in Rochester, she went at twenty-five to Harvard
Sumer School for further training, and two years later
graduated one of a dozen students from Dr. Sargent's
School for Physical Training. To finance herself, she
taught at LaSell Seminary and Bennet Street Settlement
House.
She came to Vassar in 1891 as Director of the Gymnasium,
which had been built two years before, and supervised
the individual exercises for several hundred students,
teaching seven periods a day. In 1913 the college
recognized the value of her work by setting up a depart-
ment of Physical Training and according her the rank of
Assistant Professor; six years later the department was
renamed Physical Education and she was made Associate
Professor. _
Miss Beldmng, who succeeded her as chairman of the de-
partment, wrote: "Her vision and leadership made pos-
sible the introduction of those sports and activities
which are so universally accepted, but which in the
early days were innovations, and even daring experhments,
allowed only under definite restrictions." Four years
after it was invented, Miss Ballintine introduced basket
ball played in the open air. Deand for further open
air sports led to the organization of an Athletic Associa-
tion, and in November 1895 was held the first Field Day.
So successful was this that she was asked to teach
athletic training at Harvard Summer School the next sum-
mer. At about the same time, golf was introduced as a
third open air activity. And in 1901 she persuaded Miss
Applebee, whom she had met at the Harvard Summer School,
to teach the English game of field hockey to the Vassar
students. Dancing was one of her chief interests; she
enrolled in Mr. Gilbert's first Aesthetic Dancing class,
and four years later started teaching it at Vassar. In
short, when a new activity appeared, Miss Ballintine
first learned it herself, then taught it to her stu-
dents.
with the expansion of the work, the Gymnasium, which in
1889 had seemed "the best equipped Gymnasium for women
in the country" became crowded, and a section was added
for offices. Impressions of these early days are very
clearly given in Miss Ballintine's History of Physical
Trainin at Vassar Colle e publishe or e iftiet
Knniversary; except that Her characteristic modesty
prevented any mention of her own part in the advance.
In the 1920's when the department had outgrown the
Gymnasium, she planned for the new building, and then
in 1930 characteristically retired so that the building
might be built under the direction of those who were to
use its
She enjoyed her retirement, living quietly in Williams
Hall. She liked the contact with old friends who came
to look her up, and with the young people who lived near
her. From her early days at LeRoy her vision had gone
out toward progress, and all her life she did what she
could for women suffrage, for the education of the less
privileged, and for opening up opportunities for women.
She had the patience to watch quietly for the right
moment and the tact to produce results. She could always
be counted on to keep track of issues of public policy
and to perform the duties of an alert citizen.
We the Faculty of Vassar College wish to express our
appreciation of the pioneer qualities in Miss Ballintine,
which for forty years she put at the service of the col-
lege.
Maud M. Makemson
Alfreda Mosscrop
Frances A. Foster
XIII — 197-198