Hospital to lecture on anatomy. "After the lecture, which was often so
crowded that men stood in the gangways and passages near to gain such
portion of his lecture as they might fortunately pick up, he went round
the dissecting-room, and afterwards left the hospital to visit patients
or to operate privately, returning home at half-past six or seven. Every
spare minute in his carriage was occupied with dictating to his
assistants notes or remarks on cases or other subjects on which he was
engaged. At dinner he ate rapidly, and not very elegantly, talking and
joking; after dinner he slept for ten minutes at will, and then started
to his surgical lecture, if it were a lecture night. In the evening he
was usually again on a round of visits till midnight."
Sir Astley received a baronetcy and a fee of £500 for successfully
removing a small tumor from the head of George IV. He wrote several
books, and was president of various societies. He was as famous abroad
as at home. The king of the French bestowed upon him the decoration of
the Legion of Honor. He died of dropsy in 1841 in his chair, surrounded
by his friends, saying, as he passed away, "God bless you; adieu to you
all," and was buried under the chapel near Thomas Guy. His only child
died in infancy. There is a statue of Sir Astley in St. Paul's
Cathedral, and a bust of him in the museum of Guy's. He said of himself:
"My own success depended upon my zeal and industry; but for this I take
no credit, as it was given to me from above." He is said to have left a
fortune of half a million of dollars.
The beloved Frederick Denison Maurice was elected chaplain of Guy's
Hospital in 1836, when he was thirty-one. He wrote to a friend, "If I
could get any influence over the medical students I should indeed think
myself honored; and though some who have had experience think such a
hope quite a dream, I still venture to entertain it." There seems no
reason why a medical student, or any student indeed, should be rough in
manner or hard of heart. A true man will be a gentleman not less in the
dissecting-room than in the parlor. He will be humane to the lowest
animal, and tender and considerate in the presence of suffering.
Sir William Withey Gull, the son of a barge-owner and wharfinger in
Essex, who rose to eminence by his power of work and will, was for
twenty years physician and lecturer at Guy's Hospital. Going there as a
student when he was twenty-one, he was told by the treasurer, "I can
help you if you will help yourself." He used to say that his real
education was given him by his sweet-faced mother. He won many prizes,
acted as tutor to gain the means of living, and made friends by his
winsome manner as well as his knowledge. The lady to whom he was engaged
died, but her father was so attached to young Gull that he left him a
considerable legacy. Mr. Gull afterwards married a sister of his friend
Dr. Lacy. He rose rapidly in his profession, and was made F.R.S. in
1869, having been made LL.D. of Oxford and Cambridge the previous year.
His knowledge was profound on many subjects,--poetry, philosophy, and of
course medicine. His industry was astonishing to all, and his personal
influence remarkable. "Not many years ago," says Dr. Wilks, "we heard an
old student of Guy's descant on his beautiful lectures, and especially
those on fever. On being questioned as to what Gull said which most
struck him, he said he could not remember anything in particular, but he
would come to London any day to hear Gull reiterate the words in very
slow measure, 'Now typhoid, gentlemen.' ... When Gull left the bedside
of his patient, and said in measured tones, 'You will get well,' it was
like a message from above.... It was not penetration only which Gull
possessed, but endurance. It was ever being remarked with what
deliberate care he went over every case, as if that particular one was
his sole charge for the day."
Dr. Gull attended the Prince of Wales in his very severe illness from
typhoid fever in 1871, when his life was despaired of; and for this he
was created a baronet, and Physician Extraordinary to the Queen. He died
of apoplexy, Jan. 29, 1890, leaving a fortune of £344,000 (over a
million and a half of dollars), largely earned by his own industry and
ability. His son, Sir Cameron Gull, has founded a studentship of
pathology at Guy's, worth about £150 per annum. Sir William was buried,
by his own desire, in his native village, Thorpe-le-Soken, beside his
father and mother.
Thomas Guy has slept for over a century in the midst of the great work
which his fortune began and still carries forward. Who shall estimate
the good done every year to six thousand suffering persons, mostly poor,
who need the care and skill of a great hospital, and to seventy
thousand, or two hundred daily, who come for medical treatment? The fact
that Thomas Guy became rich through industry, economy, and business
sagacity will be forgotten; the fact that he was a member of Parliament
for thirteen years is of little moment; but the fact that he gave his
wealth to bless the world will be remembered as long as England lasts,
or humanity suffers.
SOPHIA SMITH
AND HER COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
Miss Sophia Smith, the founder of Smith College, came from a family of
savers as well as givers. Self-indulgent persons rarely give.
She was the niece of Oliver Smith, whose unique charities have been a
blessing to many towns. Mr. Smith, who died at Hatfield, Mass., Dec. 22,
1845, left to the towns of Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield, Amherst, and
Williamsburg, in the county of Hampshire, and Deerfield, Greenfield, and
Whately, in the county of Franklin, about a million dollars to a Board
of Trustees, to be used as follows:--
To be set aside for sixty years from the time of his death, so as to
double and treble itself, for an Agricultural School at Northampton,
$30,000. In 1894, forty-nine years after Mr. Smith died, this fund had
become $190,801.15, so rapidly does interest accumulate. This will be
used to purchase two farms, one a Pattern Farm, to become a model to all
farmers; the other an Experimental Farm, to aid the Pattern Farm in the
art and science of husbandry and agriculture. Buildings are to be
erected on the grounds suitable for mechanics, and workshops for the
manufacture of implements of husbandry of the most approved models. If
the income will warrant it, tools for other trades may be manufactured.
There is also to be a School of Industry on the farms for the benefit of
the poor. The boys to be aided must be from the poorest in the town, are
to receive a good common education, and be taught in agriculture or in
some mechanic art in the shops on the premises. When twenty-one years of
age they are to be loaned $200 each, and after paying interest for five
years at five per cent are to receive the $200 as a gift, if they have
proved themselves worthy. Three years before they are twenty-one, each
is to have a portion of his time to earn for himself.
After a bequest of $10,000 to the American Colonization Society, Mr.
Smith's will provided that his property should go to poor boys and
girls, poor young women and widows. The boy, not under twelve, of good
moral character, should be bound out to some respectable family, and
receive at twenty-one, if he had been a faithful apprentice, a loan of
$500, and after five years the gift in full to help him make a start in
the world.
The girl so bound out, if maintaining a good moral character, should
receive $300 as a marriage portion, if the man she was to marry seemed a
worthy man. If he was unworthy, the girl was to be aided in sickness or
mental derangement up to the full amount of the marriage portion.
[Illustration: SOPHIA SMITH.]
Each young woman in indigent or moderate circumstances, if she were to
marry a sober man, could, by applying to the trustees, receive a
marriage portion of fifty dollars, to be expended for necessary articles
of household furniture. Each widow, with a child or children dependent
on her for support, could receive fifty dollars; and this might be given
yearly if the trustees thought wise.
Mr. Smith lived and died unmarried; but he knew that the pathway of many
struggling lovers would be made easier if the young woman had even fifty
dollars, or, if the girl had been bound out with strangers, $300 would
make many a little home after marriage comfortable.
Mr. Smith has been dead over half a century, but his quaint and
beautiful gift has been doing its work. During the year 1894, 51 boys
and 17 girls were placed in good homes, and reared for useful lives.
Nine received their marriage portion, and sixteen were helped in
sickness. Thirty boys received their loan of $500 each, and thirty their
gift of a like amount. There are now apprenticed 137 boys and 38 girls.
Marriage gifts were made to 118 young women, and $50 were paid to each
of 116 widows. Last year 289 persons received gifts to the amount of
$30,785. What happiness this money means to those for the most part just
looking out into the cares and work of life! How many fortunes are built
on that first $500 so difficult to accumulate! How many homes kept from
dire poverty by that first $300 with which to make the place attractive
as well as comfortable! What an incentive for a boy or girl to be
industrious, saving, temperate, and upright! What a comfort to feel that
after we are silent our work can speak for us through a whole State, and
even a whole nation!
Mr. Oliver Smith depended much upon his nephew, Austin Smith, a
successful and wealthy man, to carry out his wishes. Austin and his
brother Joseph were members of the General Court of Massachusetts. When
their father died, though he was not wealthy like Oliver, he left his
two sons the larger part of his fortune, and his two daughters, Harriet
and Sophia, enough to support them with close economy. The father was a
soldier in the Revolutionary War; and the grandfather, Samuel Smith, was
commissioned lieutenant in 1755 by Governor Phipps.
Sophia, who must have been a sweet-faced girl, judging from her
appearance in later life, was eager for study; but there was little
chance for a girl to obtain an education, and little sympathy, as a
rule, with those girls who desired it. She was born in Hatfield, Mass.,
Aug. 27, 1796. When Sophia was a little girl, Abigail Adams, the noble
wife of John Adams, our second president, wrote to a friend in England,
"You need not be told how much, in this country, female education is
neglected, nor how fashionable it is to ridicule female learning."
Mrs. Samuel D. (Locke) Stow, in a history of Mount Holyoke Seminary,
shows how meagre were the early advantages for girls. "Boston did not
permit girls to attend the public schools till 1790, and then only
during the summer months, when there were not boys enough to fill them.
This lasted till 1822, when Boston became a city. An aged resident of
Hatfield used to tell of going to the schoolhouse when she was a girl,
and sitting on the doorstep to hear the boys recite their lessons. No
girl could cross the threshold as a scholar. The girls of Northampton
were not admitted to the public schools till 1792. In the Centennial
_Hampshire Gazette_ it was stated: 'In 1788 the question was before the
town, and it was voted not to be at any expense for schooling girls.'
The advocates of the measure were persistent, however, and appealed to
the courts; the town was indicted and fined for this neglect. In 1792 it
was voted by a large majority to admit girls between the ages of eight
and fifteen to the schools from May 1 to Oct. 31. It was not till 1802
that all restrictions were removed."
These summer schools from May to October were of comparatively little
worth. All children brought their work, braiding, sewing, and knitting,
and were taught to read and write, and to have "good manners," according
to the accepted notions of the time. "At first arithmetic and geography
were taught only in the winter, for a knowledge of numbers or ability to
cast accounts was deemed quite superfluous for girls. When Colburn's
Mental Arithmetic was introduced, some of our mothers who desired to
study it were told derisively, 'If you expect to become widows, and have
to carry pork to market, it may be well enough to study mental
arithmetic.'
"The first school in New England," says Mrs. Stow, "designed exclusively
for the instruction of girls in branches not taught in the common
schools, is said to have been an evening school conducted by William
Woodbridge, who was a graduate of Yale in 1780. His theme on graduation
was, 'Improvement in Female Education.' Reducing his theory to practice,
in addition to his daily occupation he gave his evenings to the
instruction of girls in Lowth's Grammar, Guthrie's Geography, and the
art of composition. The popular sentiment deemed him visionary. 'Who,'
it said, 'shall cook our food and mend our clothes if the girls are to
be taught philosophy and astronomy?' In Waterford, N.Y., in 1820,
occurred the public examination of a young lady in geometry. It was the
first instance of the kind in the State, and perhaps in the country, and
called forth a storm of ridicule. Her teacher was Mrs. Emma Willard."
Sophia Smith's girlhood was passed during this indifference or
opposition to education for women. When she was fourteen, in 1810, she
went to school in Hartford, Conn., for twelve weeks; and four years
later, at eighteen, she was for a short time a pupil in the Hopkins
Academy in Hadley. She studied diligently with her quick, eager mind,
and was thankful for these crumbs of knowledge, though she lamented
through her life that her opportunities had been so limited.
Year by year went by in the quiet New England home, her sister Harriet
taking upon herself the burden of household cares and business, as
Sophia was frail, and at forty had become very deaf. Her mind had been
broadened, and her heart kept tender to every sorrow, by her Christian
faith and devotion to duty. The town of Hatfield had capable ministers,
who were intellectual as well as spiritual helpers, and Sophia Smith
enjoyed cultivated minds.
"By reading mostly," says the Rev. John M. Greene of Lowell, Mass., "she
kept herself familiar with the common events and occurrences of the day.
Probably what she and others called a calamity was a blessing to her.
She had fortitude to bear the trial, and the wisdom to improve the
reflective and meditative powers of her mind, far beyond what the
fashionable and gossiping woman attains. Deafness is an admirable remedy
for insincerity, shallowness, and foolish talking. It sifts what we
hear, and compels us to try to say what is worth attention."
Miss Smith attended the services of the Congregational Church, of which
she was a member; and though she could not hear a word of the sermon
perhaps, she felt accountable for the influence of her presence. She
loved the Bible, and would quote the words of Sir William Jones: "The
Bible contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more pure
morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and
eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age
or language they have been written." She had the strength of character
of the typical New England woman, yet possessing gentle manners and most
refined tastes.
She loved nature; and in Hatfield, with its magnificent elms and
beautiful river, Miss Smith had much to enjoy. Some of these great elms
measure twenty-eight feet in circumference, three yards from the ground.
In this charming scenery, reading her books, and doing good as she had
opportunity, Miss Smith was growing old. Her sister Harriet had died a
little before the time of our Civil War, and the lonely woman bent her
energies towards helping other aching hearts. She worked with her own
hands to aid the soldiers and their families, and when she had the means
used it generously.
Her brother Austin died March 8, 1861; and very unexpectedly Sophia
Smith became the possessor, through his gift, of over $200,000. "God
permitted him," says the Rev. Mr. Greene, to "gather the gold, preparing
all the while the heart of a devout and Christlike sister to dispense
it."
Miss Smith at once felt her great responsibility. Some persons living
all their lives most carefully would have rejoiced at the opportunity to
buy comforts,--a carriage for daily riding, attractive clothes, more
books, or take a journey to the Old World or elsewhere. But Miss Smith
said at once, "This is a large property put into my hands, but I am only
the steward of God in respect to it." She very wisely sought the advice
of her pastor, the Rev. John M. Greene, a man of broad scholarship and
generous nature. Dr. Greene was a lover of books; and finding so much
happiness for himself in a student's life, he rightly thought that woman
should have the bliss of possessing knowledge for her own sake, as well
as for her increased influence in the world.
Miss Smith desired so to give as would accord with the wishes of her
brother Austin were he alive, but could not be sure what were his
preferences. She wished to give the money for education; for that was
her great joy, mingled with regret that her way, as that of every other
woman at that time, had been so hedged up by mistaken public opinion.
She longed to build a college for women, even when learned doctors wrote
books to show that girls would be ruined in health by study, and that
they were mentally inferior to the other sex. It was said that women
would not care for higher education; that if they went to college they
would not marry, and would cease to be attractive to men; that in any
event the intellectual standard would be lowered if women were admitted
to any college.
Miss Smith said, "There is no justice in denying women equal educational
advantages with men. Women are the natural educators and physicians of
the race, and they ought to be fitted for their work." When the foolish
and untrue argument was used, that educated women do not make good wives
and mothers, Miss Smith would say, "Then they are wrongly educated--some
law is violated in the process."
Miss Smith had read history, and she knew that the Aspasias and the De
Maintenons are the women who have had the strongest power with men. She
knew that an educated woman is the companion of her children and their
intellectual guide. She knew that women ought to be interested in the
welfare of the state, rather than in a round of parties and amusements.
She had no love for display, though she had taste in dress and in her
home; and she longed to see all women have a purpose in life other than
frivolity and pleasure-seeking. But Miss Smith feared that $200,000
would not be sufficient to found a college for women, and gave up the
idea. Two months after her brother died she made her will, giving
$75,000 for an Academy at Hatfield, $100,000 to a Deaf Mute Institution
in Hatfield, and $50,000 to a Scientific School in connection with
Amherst College. Six years later Mr. John Clarke provided a deaf mute
institution for the Commonwealth, and Miss Smith was at liberty to turn
her fortune into another channel.
The old idea of a _real college_ for women, a project as dear to Dr.
Greene as to herself, was again upon her mind. She read all she could
find upon the subject. She loved and believed in her own sex, and knew
the low intellectual standard of the ordinary boarding-school. She said,
"We should educate the whole woman, physical, intellectual, moral, and
spiritual." She insisted that the education given in the college which
she hoped to found should be _equal_ to that obtained in a college for
men.
"There is a good deal that is heroic," says a writer in _Scribner's
Monthly_, May, 1877, "in the spectacle of this lonely woman, shut out in
a great measure by her infirmity and secluded life from so many human
interests and pleasures, quietly elaborating a plan by which she could
broaden and enrich the lives of multitudes of her sex, and give
increased dignity and power to woman in the generations to come."
In July, 1868, Miss Smith made her last will, stating the object for
which she wished her money to be used: "The establishment and
maintenance of an institution for the higher education of young women,
with the design to furnish them means and facilities for education equal
to those which are afforded in our colleges for young men."
"The formal wording," says M. A. Jordan in the _New England Magazine_
for January, 1887, "hardly tells the story of self-denial, painful
industry, commonplace restriction and isolation, that lies behind it in
the lives of this brother and sister."
Miss Smith wished the college to be Christian, "not Congregational," she
said, "or Baptist, or Methodist, or Episcopalian, but _Christian_." She
hoped the Bible would be studied in the Hebrew and Greek in her
college, so that the students could know for themselves the truth of the
translations which we have to-day.
Miss Smith gave about $400,000 for the founding of Smith College,--the
fortune left by her brother had increased,--with the express condition
that not more than half the amount should be used in buildings and
grounds. It required much urging to allow the college to bear her name.
After counselling with friends, Miss Smith decided that the college
should be built at Northampton, which George Bancroft thought "the most
beautiful town in New England, where no one can live without imbibing
love for the place," with the provision that the town should raise
$25,000, which was done. Northampton seemed preferable to Hatfield,
because more easy of access, and possessed of a public library and other
intellectual attractions. After her brother's money came into her hands,
Miss Smith continued to economize for herself, but gave generously to
others. Often in her journal she wrote, "I feel the responsibility of
this great property."
She subscribed $5,000 to the Massachusetts Agricultural College if it
should be located at Northampton, $300 for a library for the young
people's Literary Association in Hatfield, $1,000 towards the organ in
the church, $30,000 for the endowment of a professorship in Andover
Theological Seminary, and to many other objects. "She gave to them
_all_," says Dr. Greene, "Home Missions and Foreign Missions, the Bible
Society and Tract Society, the Seamen and Freedmen,--to all the objects
presented. In her journal she writes: 'I desire to give where duty
calls.' ... Before her death she had great satisfaction and comfort in
her Andover donation.... When she was considering whether or not to make
her donation to Andover Theological Seminary, Professor Park asked her
if he might consult a mutual friend, an eminent lawyer and business man,
about it. With uplifted hands and almost a rebuking gesture she replied,
'No, no; I'll make up my mind myself.' One of her most intimate friends,
a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary, remarked, 'I never was acquainted
with a person who felt more deeply than Miss Smith her accountability to
God.'"
Miss Smith's life declined pleasantly and happily. In 1866 she wrote in
her journal: "Sunday afternoon. It is a most splendid day; have been to
church, although I have not heard. I feel the presence of Him who is
everywhere, and who is all love to him that seeketh Him and serves
Him.... I resolve with His blessing to give myself unreservedly anew to
Him, to watch over my thoughts and words, and to strive after a more
perfect life in all my dealings with my fellow-men, and strive to make
this great affliction [deafness] a means of sanctification, and make it
a means of improvement in the divine life."
May 9, 1870, she made her last record in her journal: "I resolve to
begin anew to strive to be better in everything; to guard against
carelessness in talking; to strive for more patience and sense, and to
strive for more earnestness, to do more good; to strive against
selfishness, and to cultivate good feelings in all; to live to God's
glory, that others, seeing our good works, may glorify our Father in
heaven."