Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
earnestness and mental grasp, the readiness with which she turned
from one subject to another, and her retentive memory of every rule
and fact he gave her, was a constant surprise to the Professor.
"All her vacation she devoted to training teachers. She was the
first to suggest the normal-school system. Remembering her deep
interest in the education of women, we can honor her in no more
worthy manner than to carry on her special lifework. As we look
around at all the educated women assembled here to-day and try to
estimate what each has done in her own sphere of action, the
schools founded, the teachers sent forth, the inspiration given to
girls in general, through the long chain of influences started by
our alma mater, we can form some light estimate of the momentous
and far-reaching consequences of Emma Willard's life. We have not
her difficulties to overcome, her trials to endure, but the
imperative duty is laid on each of us to finish the work she so
successfully began. Schools and colleges of a high order are now
everywhere open to women, public sentiment welcomes them to
whatever career they may desire, and our work is to help worthy
girls struggling for a higher education, by founding scholarships
in desirable institutions in every State in the Union. The most
fitting tribute we can pay to Emma Willard is to aid in the
production of a generation of thoroughly educated women.
"There are two kinds of scholarships, equally desirable; a
permanent one, where the interest of a fund from year to year will
support a succession of students, and a temporary one, to help some
worthy individual as she may require. Someone has suggested that
this association should help young girls in their primary
education. But as our public schools possess all the advantages for
a thorough education in the rudiments of learning and are free to
all, our scholarships should be bestowed on those whose ability and
earnestness in the primary department have been proved, and whose
capacity for a higher education is fully shown.
"This is the best work women of wealth can do, and I hope in the
future they will endow scholarships for their own sex instead of
giving millions of dollars to institutions for boys, as they have
done in the past. After all the bequests women have made to Harvard
see how niggardly that institution, in its 'annex,' treats their
daughters. I once asked a wealthy lady to give a few thousands of
dollars to start a medical college and hospital for women in New
York. She said before making bequests she always consulted her
minister and her Bible. He told her there was nothing said in the
Bible about colleges for women. I said, 'Tell him he is mistaken.
If he will turn to 2 'Chron. xxxiv. 22, he will find that when
Josiah, the king, sent the wise men to consult Huldah, the
prophetess, about the book of laws discovered in the temple, they
found Huldah in the college in Jerusalem, thoroughly well informed
on questions of state, while Shallum, her husband, was keeper of
the robes. I suppose his business was to sew on the royal buttons.'
But in spite of this Scriptural authority, the rich lady gave
thirty thousand dollars to Princeton and never one cent for the
education of her own sex.
"Of all the voices to which these walls have echoed for over half a
century, how few remain to tell the story of the early days, and
when we part, how few of us will ever meet again; but I know we
shall carry with us some new inspiration for the work that still
remains for us to do. Though many of us are old in years, we may
still be young in heart. Women trained to concentrate all their
thoughts on family life are apt to think--when their children are
grown up, their loved ones gone, their servants trained to keep the
domestic machinery in motion--that their work in life is done, that
no one needs now their thought and care, quite forgetting that the
hey-day of woman's life is on the shady side of fifty, when the
vital forces heretofore expended in other ways are garnered in the
brain, when their thoughts and sentiments flow out in broader
channels, when philanthropy takes the place of family selfishness,
and when from the depths of poverty and suffering the wail of
humanity grows as pathetic to their ears as once was the cry of
their own children.
"Or, perhaps, the pressing cares of family life ended, the woman
may awake to some slumbering genius in herself for art, science, or
literature, with which to gild the sunset of her life. Longfellow's
beautiful poem, 'Morituri Salutamus,' written for a similar
occasion to this, is full of hope and promise for all of us. He
says:
"'Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,
When each had numbered more than four-score years.
And Theophrastus, at three-score and ten,
Had but begun his Characters of Men;
Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past.
These are indeed exceptions; but they show
How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow
Into the Arctic regions of our lives,
Where little else than life itself survives.
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.'"
On December 21, 1892, we celebrated, for the first time, "Foremothers'
Day." Men had celebrated "Forefathers' Day" for many years, but as women
were never invited to join in their festivities, Mrs. Devereux Blake
introduced the custom of women having a dinner in celebration of that
day. Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker spent two days with me, and together
we attended the feast and made speeches. This custom is now annually
observed, and gentlemen sit in the gallery just as ladies had done on
similar occasions.
My son Theodore arrived from France in April, 1893, to attend the
Chicago Exposition, and spent most of the summer with me at Glen Cove,
Long Island, where my son Gerrit and his wife were domiciled. Here we
read Captain Charles King's stories of life at military posts, Sanborn's
"Biography of Bronson Alcott," and Lecky's "History of Rationalism."
Here I visited Charles A. Dana, the Nestor of journalism, and his
charming family. He lived on a beautiful island near Glen Cove. His
refined, artistic taste, shown in his city residence in paintings,
statuary, and rare bric-a-brac, collected in his frequent travels in the
Old World, displayed itself in his island home in the arrangement of an
endless variety of trees, shrubs, and flowers, through which you caught
glimpses of the Sound and distant shores. One seldom meets so gifted a
man as the late editor of the _Sun_. He was a scholar, speaking several
languages; an able writer and orator, and a most genial companion in the
social circle. His wife and daughter are cultivated women. The name of
this daughter, Zoe Dana Underhill, often appears in our popular
magazines as the author of short stories, remarkable for their vivid
descriptions.
I met Mr. Dana for the first time at the Brook Farm Community in 1843,
in that brilliant circle of Boston transcendentalists, who hoped in a
few years to transform our selfish, competitive civilization into a
Paradise where all the altruistic virtues might make co-operation
possible. But alas! the material at hand was not sufficiently plastic
for that higher ideal. In due time the community dissolved and the
members returned to their ancestral spheres. Margaret Fuller, who was a
frequent visitor there, betook herself to matrimony in sunny Italy,
William Henry Channing to the Church, Bronson Alcott to the education of
the young, Frank Cabot to the world of work, Mr. and Mrs. Ripley to
literature, and Charles A. Dana to the press. Mr. Dana was very
fortunate in his family relations. His wife, Miss Eunice MacDaniel, and
her relatives sympathized with him in all his most liberal opinions.
During the summer at Glen Cove I had the pleasure of several long
conversations with Miss Frances L. MacDaniel and her brother Osborne,
whose wife is the sister of Mr. Dana, and who is now assisting Miss
Prestona Mann in trying an experiment, similar to the one at Brook Farm,
in the Adirondacks.
Miss Anthony spent a week with us in Glen Cove. She came to stir me up
to write papers for every Congress at the Exposition, which I did, and
she read them in the different Congresses, adding her own strong words
at the close. Mrs. Russell Sage also came and spent a day with us to
urge me to write a paper to be read at Chicago at the Emma Willard
Reunion, which I did. A few days afterward Theodore and I returned her
visit. We enjoyed a few hours' conversation with Mr Sage, who had made
a very generous gift of a building to the Emma Willard Seminary at
Troy. This school was one of the first established (1820) for girls in
our State, and received an appropriation from the New York legislature
on the recommendation of the Governor, De Witt Clinton. Mr. Sage gave us
a description that night of the time his office was blown up with
dynamite thrown by a crank, and of his narrow escape. We found the great
financier and his wife in an unpretending cottage with a fine outlook on
the sea. Though possessed of great wealth they set a good example of
simplicity and economy, which many extravagant people would do well to
follow.
Having visited the World's Exposition at Chicago and attended a course
of lectures at Chautauqua, my daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, returned
to the city, and as soon as our apartment was in order I joined her. She
had recently been appointed Director of Physical Training at the
Teachers' College in New York city. I attended several of her
exhibitions and lectures, which were very interesting. She is doing her
best to develop, with proper exercises and sanitary dress, a new type of
womanhood.
My time passed pleasantly these days with a drive in the Park and an
hour in the land of Nod, also in reading Henry George's "Progress and
Poverty," William Morris on industrial questions, Stevenson's novels,
the "Heavenly Twins," and "Marcella," and at twilight, when I could not
see to read and write, in playing and singing the old tunes and songs I
loved in my youth. In the evening we played draughts and chess. I am
fond of all games, also of music and novels, hence the days fly swiftly
by; I am never lonely, life is ever very sweet to me and full of
interest.
The winter of 1893-94 was full of excitement, as the citizens of New
York were to hold a Constitutional Convention. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi
endeavored to rouse a new class of men and women to action in favor of
an amendment granting to women the right to vote. Appeals were sent
throughout the State, gatherings were held in parlors, and enthusiastic
meetings in Cooper Institute and at the Savoy Hotel. My daughter, Mrs.
Stanton Blatch, who was visiting this country, took an active part in
the canvass, and made an eloquent speech in Cooper Institute. Strange to
say, some of the leading ladies formed a strong party against the
proposed amendment and their own enfranchisement. They were called the