Part 8

When old enough she was sent to an academy at Clinton, New York, where she graduated. She then became a teacher and opened the first free school in the State of New Jersey, at Bordentown. Here her work was very successful, her school numbering at the close of the first year six hundred pupils. But, her health failing, she gave up the school work in 1854 and obtained a position as Head Clerk in the Patent Office at Washington.

When the Civil War broke out, she offered her services as a volunteer nurse, and from the beginning of the war until its close she worked in the hospital, in the camp, and on the battle-field.

During the Peninsula campaign in 1862, Miss Barton faced horrible scenes on the field. She also served eight months in the hospitals on Morris Island during the siege of Charleston, and was at the front during the Wilderness campaign. In 1864 she was put in charge of the hospitals at the front of the Army of the James, and continued that work until the close of the war.

All this time Miss Barton persisted in aiding the wounded soldiers of _both_ armies—a practice which shocked many people and caused them to protest. But she paid no attention to the protests, nor are any such heard to-day, for Clara Barton's way of helping the suffering, regardless of the uniform they wore, is now followed over the civilized world; it is the very heart of the plan of the Red Cross Society itself.

War over, and peace assured to our land, President Lincoln requested Miss Barton to search for the eighty thousand men whose names were on the army records, but of whom no trace could be found. In the course of this work, Miss Barton visited the prison at Andersonville and helped the released prisoners to regain their health and their homes. She laid out the ground of the National Cemetery at that place, identified the dead, and caused marked gravestones to be placed over the bodies of twelve thousand nine hundred men. Four hundred tablets, marked "Unknown," were placed over the bodies of other dead soldiers.

This Work took four years to accomplish, and when it was over Miss Barton went to Switzerland for rest. Here she first heard of the Red Cross Society. The idea had originated with a Swiss, M. Henri Dunant. Each European country had signed a treaty permitting the members of this association to help all the wounded on the battle-field without interference, and without regard to religion or race, or whether they were friends or foes.

Miss Barton devoted herself to this work during the Franco-Prussian War. After the siege of Strasburg, when the people of that city were in a terrible condition, she organized a relief fund for the starving, and saw to it that the homeless were given places to sleep. Materials for garments were obtained, and the poor women were set to work at a fair price to make articles of wearing apparel for the needy.

When no longer needed in Strasburg, Miss Barton went to Paris, where the breaking out of the French Revolution after the war with Prussia had caused great distress. She entered the city on foot, for it was impossible to procure a horse, thousands having been slain to use as food for the starving inhabitants. Miss Barton immediately began relief work there, with such success that she came to be looked upon as an angel.

In 1873, on her return to America, she asked Congress to join in a treaty with the European powers to establish the Red Cross Society here. It took a long time to secure this legislation, and it was not until 1881, as stated before, that the Red Cross was established with us. Clara Barton was chosen as the first President and soon afterward she had an amendment passed widening the scope of the Society so as to include cases of suffering from floods, fires, famine, earthquake, and other forms of disaster. The amendment also gave protection to all Red Cross workers. This was agreed to at a conference of the Society held at Berne in 1882, but was not adopted by any of the European nations. At that time there was little possibility of a war in the United States, and Miss Barton thought she would have little to do unless she extended the plan of work. As it was, she found quite enough to do.

The forest fires in Michigan, the Mississippi Valley floods, 1882-1883, the Charleston earthquake, the Johnstown flood—all afforded much work for the Red Cross. During the famine in Russia, 1891-1892, Miss Barton and her Society took an active part in distributing food and clothing. When the frightful massacres in Armenia brought horror to the civilized world, again Miss Barton made an appeal to a European country to be allowed to help the sufferers. The Sultan at first objected, but public opinion was too strong for him, and he finally consented on condition that the workers should place the crescent above the cross on the badges worn by them. Miss Barton and her assistants were then pleasantly received and succeeded in giving valuable aid.

In 1898 President McKinley sent Miss Barton to Cuba to help the poor people of that country, many of whom were starving. During the Cuban War which followed, she went to the battle-fields and did heroic work there.

When the Galveston flood occurred, Miss Barton was eighty years old. Yet to Galveston she hastened. The strain, however, was more than she could endure. From that time she gave up active work and made her home in Glen Echo, a small village in Maryland. Here, enjoying the companionship of a few faithful friends, she spent the remainder of her life, passing away on April 12, 1912.

Miss Barton possessed one of the most remarkable collections of medals and other decorations in existence. They were presented to her by nearly every country on the globe. Many are set with rare jewels and bear inscriptions. Among them is the Iron Cross of Germany, the highest honor Germany can bestow, and one conferred only for deeds of great personal bravery. A rare jewel, which Miss Barton always wore, was a pansy cut from a single amethyst, presented to her by the Grand Duchess of Baden in memory of their lifelong friendship.

Clara Barton ranks as one of the greatest heroines the world has known. Her name is known and loved throughout Europe and America for unselfish devotion to a great cause. Her services in foreign lands were offered as freely as in her own country, for her creed was the brotherhood of man.

HARRIET HOSMER

(1830-1908)

... "A sculptor wields The chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty." ...

—_Bryan_

Harriet Goodhue Hosmer was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, October 9, 1830. She was the youngest child of Hiram and Sarah Grant Hosmer. From her father came her marked independence of character; from her mother, her imagination and artistic tastes.

The latter died when Harriet was four years of age. Dr. Hosmer determined to save his daughters from the insidious disease which had carried away his two sons as well as his wife, and so instituted for them a system of physical training, insisting upon out-of-door sports and amusements. Notwithstanding all his efforts, however, the elder daughter died, leaving Harriet as the sole surviving child.

Dr. Hosmer, grieved, but undismayed, renewed his endeavors to strengthen Harriet's vigor and increase her powers of endurance. Harriet took to this treatment very kindly, spending many joyous days tramping through the woods with her dogs. All the while, she observed keenly, acquiring a knowledge of plant and animal life, and storing up impressions of the beautiful and harmonious in Nature.

Her home was situated on the Charles River. She had her own boathouse and bathhouse. In summer she rowed and swam; in winter she skated. No nook or corner of the country round was unknown to her; the steepest hills, the wildest and most rugged regions, were her familiar haunts. A madcap was Harriet, and the sober neighbors were often astonished and even scandalized, by the undignified speed she made on her beautiful horse.

This kind of life would always have satisfied her, and Harriet thought it nothing short of an affliction when her father said she must go to school. Was she not getting her education in riding about the country? However, to school she went, in Boston, for several years.

But when she reached the age of fifteen, Dr. Hosmer became convinced that Harriet would never thrive, mentally or physically, unless she were left free to follow her own bent. And perhaps he never in his life made a wiser decision.

So he sent the wild girl to the home school of Mrs. Charles Sedgwick of Lenox. Here she had the benefits of cultured and elevating surroundings, together with motherly care, and also of the out-of-door life so dear to her heart and so necessary to her well-being.

Lenox, in the beautiful Berkshire Hills, was at that time a primitive village, though it has since grown into a fashionable summer resort. There, in Mrs. Sedgwick's refined and peaceful home, Harriet acquired her real education from listening to the conversations of such men and women as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederika Bremer and Fanny Kemble.

This stimulus was all Harriet needed to develop in her the idea of doing some serious work in life. She began to give a great deal of time to drawing, her study of nature and her splendid powers of observation being of great assistance to her here.

Those were happy days for Harriet. She was the life of the household, being always ready to deliver comic lectures, to dress up in odd costumes, to give impromptu theatricals, or to say or do original things. Mrs. Kemble, who occupied a villa near the Sedgwicks, often entertained the school-girls by reading and reciting Shakespeare to them. Harriet became devotedly attached to her, their friendship lasting throughout their lives.

In 1849, Harriet left Lenox and returned to Watertown for the purpose of beginning her life work, which she had decided should be that of a sculptor. To work intelligently, it was necessary for her to know anatomy thoroughly, but there was no college where she could prepare herself in that study, for the subject was at that time reserved strictly for men.

It happened that Harriet went to St. Louis to visit friends, and that while she was there some lectures on anatomy were delivered by Dr. J. N. McDowell, the head of the medical department of the State University. The lectures were not open to women, but so great was Harriet's desire to profit by them that Professor McDowell allowed her to see his notes and examine the specimens by herself—a very radical act on his part, since it was thought indelicate for a woman to study this noble subject, even though the knowledge was to be used to create the beautiful in art and, so, to elevate public thought.

Harriet studied hard, and was rewarded at the close of the term by receiving her diploma with the class. This great concession had been gained through the influence of Mr. Wayman Crow, the father of a classmate of Harriet. Mr. Crow became her intimate friend and close adviser, watching over her and guiding her affairs as long as he lived.

The coveted diploma secured, Miss Hosmer decided to travel before returning home. She visited New Orleans and traversed almost the entire length of the Mississippi River. While on a Mississippi steamboat, some young men began to talk of their chances for reaching the top of a certain bluff which they were then approaching. Miss Hosmer made a wager that she could reach it before any of them. The race was made, Miss Hosmer winning easily. The bluff, about five hundred feet in height, was straightway named Mount Hosmer.

In 1852 appeared her first finished product. This was the bust of a beautiful maiden just falling asleep, and was entitled _Hesper, the Evening Star_.

About this time Miss Hosmer met the renowned actress, Charlotte Cushman. Miss Cushman, seeing promise in the girl's work, urged her to go to Rome and study. Dr. Hosmer approved of this suggestion, and soon father and daughter sailed for Europe.

Upon their arrival in Rome, they called upon John Gibson, the most noted English sculptor of the day, to whom they had letters of introduction. After examining the photographs of _Hesper_, and talking with Harriet, who always impressed strangers with a sense of her ability and earnestness, Gibson consented to take her into his studio as a pupil.

Overjoyed was she to be assigned to a small room formerly occupied by Canova, of whom Gibson had been a pupil. Here she began the study of ancient classical art, making copies of many masterpieces and selling them without any trouble. When her first large order for a statue came from her friend, Mr. Wayman Crow, Harriet felt that she was beginning the world in earnest. When this order was soon afterward followed by another for a statue to be placed in the Library at St. Louis, she knew that her career as a sculptor was assured.

International fame came to her with a figure of _Puck_, copies of which found their way into important public galleries and into private collections on both continents.

When the State of Missouri decided to erect its first public monument, she was requested to design a statue of Thomas H. Benton, to be cast in bronze and placed in St. Louis.

A work attracting unusual attention was _Zenobia_, _Queen of Palmyra, in Chains_. A replica of this now stands in the Metropolitan Museum, of New York City. Miss Hosmer's whole soul was enlisted in her work on this particular piece of sculpture. She spent days searching the libraries for information upon the subject, information that should stimulate her hand to express powerfully her conception of the great queen—dignified, imposing, and courageous, despite her fallen fortunes. This statue was exhibited in Rome, England and America.

Harriet Hosmer possessed a great faculty for inspiring warm and lasting friendships. Among her intimate friends during her long residence in Italy were the Brownings, Mrs. Jameson, Sir Frederick Leighton, and W. W. Story. The charming group of artistic people living at that time in Rome, most of them engaged in earnest work, occasionally took a holiday in the form of a picnic or an excursion to the Campagna. In one of her letters Mrs. Browning speaks of these excursions, which had been instituted by Fanny Kemble and her sister, Adelaide Sartoris:

Certainly they gave us some exquisite hours on the Campagna with certain of their friends. Their talk was almost too brilliant. I should mention, too, Miss Hosmer (but she is better than a talker), the young American sculptress who is a great pet of mine and Robert's. She lives here all alone (at twenty-two), works from six o'clock in the morning till night as a great artist must, and this with an absence of pretension and simplicity of manners, which accord rather with the childish dimples in her rosy cheeks, than with her broad forehead and lofty aims.

Frances Power Cobbe wrote of her:

She was in those days the most bewitching sprite the world ever saw. Never have I laughed so helplessly as at the infinite fun of that bright Yankee girl. Even in later years when we perforce grew a little graver, she needed only to begin one of her descriptive stories to make us all young again.

During five happy years, Charlotte Cushman, Miss Hosmer and another friend made their home together. In a letter to America, Harriet wrote: "Miss Cushman is like a mother to me, and spoils me utterly."

In 1862, Miss Hosmer received the news of her father's death. Though grieving sincerely, she worked but the more assiduously, to keep herself free of selfish sorrow. By means of the moderate fortune left her, she was able to take an apartment of her own, and establish a studio which was considered the most beautiful in Rome.

Here she entertained noted people of the day, who came to visit her. Usually, after a hard day's work, she would mount her horse and gallop over the Campagna, returning refreshed at night and ready to dine with her friends. Her animation and wit in discussion, her musical laughter, her gaiety and lightness of spirits, astonished and charmed all who met her.

Like most thinking women of the time, Harriet Hosmer abhorred slavery, and did her part in the Abolition movement by making an inspiring statue called _The African Sibyl_—the figure of a negro girl prophesying the freedom of her race. Of this work, Tennyson said, "It is the most poetic rendering in art of a great historical truth I have ever seen."

One of her notable orders came from the beautiful Queen of Naples, whose portrait she executed in marble. The Queen became a close friend of Miss Hosmer, and her brother, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, frequently visited the studio.

Miss Hosmer's last years were spent in England and America, with only occasional visits to Rome. Death came to her in 1908, at the age of seventy-eight, but to the end she remained an entertaining talker, recalling with joy the many episodes of her busy, happy life and the great people she had known.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

(1832-1888)

"God bless all good women! To their soft hands and pitying hearts we must all come at last."

—_Oliver Wendell Holmes_

The following is said to be a description of Louisa May Alcott at the age of fifteen, written by herself and published in her book called _Little Women_. She is supposed to be _Jo_, and her three sisters were the other _little women_.

Jo was very tall, thin and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in the way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp grey eyes which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce or funny or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net to be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, and big hands and feet, a fly-away look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn't like it.

Louisa May Alcott was born November 29th, 1832, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Her father was Amos Bronson Alcott, a remarkable man, known as a philosopher and educator. His views of education differed from those of most people of his time, though many of his ideas are highly thought of to-day.

He became an important member of that circle of great men of Concord known as Transcendentalists, and he counted Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry D. Thoreau among his closest friends.

Miss Alcott's mother was the daughter of Col. Joseph May of Boston and the sister of the Rev. Samuel J. May, a noted anti-slavery leader. Mrs. Alcott was a quiet, unassuming woman, intellectual in her tastes, and accustomed from her childhood to the companionship of cultured people. Although an excellent writer, both in prose and verse, her home and her children were always her first thought. She herself never became publicly known, but her influence may be traced in the lives and works of her brilliant daughter and gifted husband. It is doubtful whether either could have achieved success without her guidance and sympathy.

Thus Louisa came into the world blessed with a heritage of culture and intellect. Her disposition was sunny and cheerful. Upon one occasion, when scarcely able to speak so as to be understood, she suddenly exclaimed at the breakfast table, "I lub everybody in dis whole world!"—an utterance that gives the keynote to her character and nature.

When she was about two years of age, her parents removed to Boston, where Mr. Alcott opened a school. The journey was made by sea. Louisa liked steam-travel so well that she undertook to investigate it thoroughly. To the alarm of her parents, she disappeared, being found after a search in the engine room, sublimely unconscious of soiled clothes, and deeply interested in the machinery.

Her father believed in play as an important means of education, so Louisa and her sister were encouraged in their games. Her doll was to her a real, live baby, to be dressed and undressed regularly, punished when naughty, praised and rewarded when good. She made hats and gowns for it, pretended it was ill, put it to bed, and sent for the doctor, just as any other normal little girl does.

The family cat also came in for its share of attention at the hands of Louisa. No one was allowed to abuse or torment pussy, but the children might "play baby" with her, and rock her to sleep; or they might play that she was sick and that she died, and then attend her funeral.

All this sort of thing Mr. Alcott called "imitation," and at a time when many good parents looked disapprovingly on children's sports, Mr. Alcott placed them in his system of education. These plays were so real to Louisa that she never forgot her joy in them, and years afterward she gave them out delightfully to other children in her stories.

At seven years of age she began, under her father's direction, a daily journal. She would write down the little happenings of her life, her opinions on current events, on books she read, and the conversations she heard. This was good training for the future writer, developing the power of accurate thought and of clear and charming expression.

In 1840, it became evident to Mr. Alcott that he could not remain in Boston. His views on religion and education were so much in advance of the people about him that his school suffered. Concord had long attracted the Alcott family, not only because it was the home of Emerson and others of high intellectual attainments, but because it offered a simple life and rural surroundings. And so it came that the family removed there, occupying a small house known as the Hosmer Cottage, about a mile from Mr. Emerson's home.

At that time there were three Alcott children: Anna, nine years of age, Louisa, eight, and Elizabeth, five years. A boy, born in Boston, died early. A fourth girl, named Abby May, was born in Hosmer Cottage. These four sisters lived a happy life at Concord, although the family had a hard struggle with poverty; for Mr. Alcott, always a poor business man, had lost the little he had in trying to form a model colony, called Fruitlands.

But all were devoted to one another. The children made merry over misfortune, and wooed good luck by refusing to be discouraged. They were always ready to help others, notwithstanding their own poverty. Once, at their mother's suggestion, they carried their breakfast to a starving family, and at another time they contributed their entire dinner to a neighbor who had been caught unprepared when distinguished guests arrived unexpectedly.

Mr. Alcott first attempted to earn his living by working in the fields for his neighbors, and by cultivating his own acre of ground; but this work being uncongenial, he soon drifted into his true sphere—that of writing and lecturing. He supervised the instruction of all his children, but becoming convinced of Louisa's exceptional ability, he took sole charge of her education, and except for two brief periods she was never permitted to attend school.

He was a peculiar man, this Mr. Alcott. One of his methods of guiding his children was to write letters to them instead of talking. The talks they might forget, he said, but the letters they could keep and read over frequently. Louisa had one letter from him on _Conscience_, which helped to mold her whole life.

Mrs. Alcott, too, would sometimes write to Louisa, giving her some advice or calling her attention to a fault or undesirable habit. On Louisa's tenth birthday her mother wrote her as follows:

DEAR DAUGHTER:

Your tenth birthday has arrived. May it be a happy one, and on each returning birthday may you feel new strength and resolution to be gentle with sisters, obedient to parents, loving to every one, and happy in yourself.