Heroines of Service: Mary Lyon, Alice Freeman Palmer, Clara Barton, Frances Willard, Julia Ward Howe, Anna Shaw, Mary Antin, Alice C. Fletcher, Mary Slessor of Calabar, Madame Curie, Jane AddamsParkman, Mary Rosetta
History
Heroines of Service: Mary Lyon, Alice Freeman Palmer, Clara Barton, Frances Willard, Julia Ward Howe, Anna Shaw, Mary Antin, Alice C. Fletcher, Mary Slessor of Calabar, Madame Curie, Jane Addams
Parkman, Mary Rosetta
Women -- United States -- Biography
A disappointment met her at the outset. Her training at Windsor,
good as it was, did not prepare her for the university requirements.
"Conditions" loomed mountain high, and the examiners recommended that
she spend another year in preparation. Her intelligence and character
had won the interest of President Angell, however, and he asked that she
be granted a six-weeks' trial. His confidence in her was justified; for
she not only proved her ability to keep up with her class, but steadily
persevered in her double task until all conditions were removed.
The college years were "a glory instead of a grind," in spite of the
ever-pressing necessity for strict economy in the use of time and
money. Her sense of values--"the ability to see large things large
and small things small," which has been called the best measure of
education,--showed a wonderful harmony of powers. While the mind was
being stored with knowledge and the intellect trained to clear, orderly
thinking, there was never a "too-muchness" in this direction that
meant a "not-enoughness" in the realm of human relationships. Always
she realized that it is people that count, and her supreme test of
education as of life was its "consecrated serviceableness." President
Angell in writing of her said:
One of her most striking characteristics in college was her
warm and demonstrative sympathy with her circle of friends.
Her soul seemed bubbling over with joy, which she wished to
share with the other girls. While she was therefore in the most
friendly relations with all those girls then in college, she
was the radiant center of a considerable group whose tastes
were congenial with her own. Without assuming or striving for
leadership, she could not but be to a certain degree a leader
among these, some of whom have attained positions only less
conspicuous for usefulness than her own. Wherever she went, her
genial, outgoing spirit seemed to carry with her an atmosphere
of cheerfulness and joy.
In the middle of her junior year, news came from her father of a more
than usual financial stress, owing to a flood along the Susquehanna,
which had swept away his hope of present gain from a promising stretch
of woodland. It seemed clear to Alice that the time had come when she
must make her way alone. Through the recommendation of President Angell
she secured a position as teacher of Latin and Greek in the High School
at Ottawa, Illinois, where she taught for five months, receiving enough
money to carry her through the remainder of her college course. The
omitted junior work was made up partly during the summer vacation and
partly in connection with the studies of the senior year. An extract
from a letter home will tell how the busy days went:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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