I would by no means be understood as crediting myself with superior scholarship. There were doubtless far more advanced scholars there than I, but I had a drilled rudimentary knowledge which they had never had, and I had the habit of study, with a burning anxiety to make the most of lost time. So true it is that we value our privileges only when we have lost them. Miss Barton spent her vacations at the Institute. A few teachers were there, and a small group of students; and she pursued her studies and gave her reading wider range. She wanted to go home, but the distance seemed great, and she was there to learn. Her mother died while she was at Clinton. Her death occurred in July, but before the term had ended. Clara could not reach home in time for the funeral and her family knew it and sent her word not to undertake the journey. She finished her school year and her course, made a visit to her home, and then journeyed to Bordentown, New Jersey, to visit her friends, the Norton family. There the opportunity came to her of teaching the winter term of the Bordentown school. “Public schools of that day,” she wrote, “ceased with the southern boundary of New England and New York. Each pupil was assessed a certain fee, the aggregate of which formed the teacher’s salary.” [Illustration: THE SCHOOLHOUSE AT BORDENTOWN] She undertook the school on the fee basis, but in a short time changed it to a public school, open to all the children of school age in Bordentown. It was that town’s first free school. The School Board agreed to give her the opportunity to try the experiment. She tells how it came about. She looked over the little group who attended her subscription school, and then saw the much larger number outside, and she was not happy: But the boys! I found them on all sides of me. Every street corner had little knots of them idle, listless, as if to say, what shall one do, when one has nothing to do? I sought every inconspicuous occasion to stop and talk with them. I saw nothing unusual in them. Much like other boys I had known, unusually courteous, showing special instruction in that line, and frequently of unusual intelligence. They spoke of their banishment or absence from school with far less of bravado or boasting than would have been expected, under the circumstances, and often with regret. “Lady, there is no school for us,” answered a bright-faced lad of fourteen, as he rested his foot on the edge of a little park fountain where I had accosted him. “We would be glad to go if there was one.” I had listened to such as this long enough, and, without returning to my hotel, I sought Mr. Suydam, as chairman of the School Committee, and asked for an interview. By this time, in his capacity of postmaster, we had formed a tolerable acquaintance. Now, for the first time, I made known my desire to open a public school in Bordentown, teaching it myself.