HER SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS
Clara Barton’s education began at her cradle. She was not able to
remember when she learned to read. When three years old she had
acquired the art of reading, and her lessons in spelling, arithmetic,
and geography began in her infancy. Both of her sisters and her eldest
brother were school-teachers. Recalling their efforts, she said: “I
had no playmates, but in effect six fathers and mothers. They were a
family of school-teachers. All took charge of me, all educated me, each
according to personal taste. My two sisters were scholars and artistic,
and strove in that direction. My brothers were strong, ruddy, daring
young men, full of life and business.”
Before she was four years old she entered school. By that time she was
able to read easily, and could spell words of three syllables. She
told the story of her first schooling in an account which must not be
abridged:
My home instruction was by no means permitted to stand in the way
of the “regular school,” which consisted of two terms each year,
of three months each. The winter term included not only the large
boys and girls, but in reality the young men and young women of the
neighborhood. An exceptionally fine teacher often drew the daily
attendance of advanced scholars for several miles. Our district had
this good fortune. I introduce with pleasure and with reverence the
name of Richard Stone; a firmly set, handsome young man of twenty-six
or seven, of commanding figure and presence, combining all the
elements of a teacher with a discipline never questioned. His
glance of disapproval was a reprimand, his frown something he never
needed to go beyond. The love and respect of his pupils exceeded even
their fear. It was no uncommon thing for summer teachers to come
twenty miles to avail themselves of the winter term of “Colonel”
Stone, for he was a high militia officer, and at that young age was a
settled man with a family of four little children. He had married at
eighteen.
I am thus particular in my description of him, both because of my
childish worship of him, and because I shall have occasion to refer to
him later. The opening of his first term was a signal for the Barton
family, and seated on the strong shoulders of my stalwart brother
Stephen, I was taken a mile through the tall drifts to school. I have
often questioned if in this movement there might not have been a
touch of mischievous curiosity on the part of these not at all dull
youngsters, to see what my performance at school might be.
I was, of course, the baby of the school. I recall no introduction
to the teacher, but was set down among the many pupils in the by no
means spacious room, with my spelling book and the traditional slate,
from which nothing could separate me. I was seated on one of the low
benches and sat very still. At length the majestic school-master
seated himself, and taking a primer, called the class of little ones
to him. He pointed the letters to each. I named them all, and was
asked to spell some little words, “dog,” “cat,” etc., whereupon I
hesitatingly informed him that I did “not spell there.” “Where do you
spell?” “I spell in ‘Artichoke,’” that being the leading word in the
three syllable column in my speller. He good naturedly conformed to
my suggestion, and I was put into the “artichoke” class to bear my
part for the winter, and read and “spell for the head.” When, after a
few weeks, my brother Stephen was declared by the committee to be too
advanced for a common school, and was placed in charge of an important
school himself, my unique transportation devolved upon the other
brother, David.
No colts now, but solid wading through the high New England drifts.
The Reverend Mr. Menseur of the Episcopal church of Leicester,
Massachusetts, if I recollect aright, wisely comprehending the
grievous inadaptability of the schoolbooks of that time, had compiled
a small geography and atlas suited to young children, known as
Menseur’s Geography. It was a novelty, as well as a beneficence;
nothing of its kind having occurred to makers of the schoolbooks of
that day. They seemed not to have recognized the existence of a state
of childhood in the intellectual creation. During the winter I had
become the happy possessor of a Menseur’s Geography and Atlas. It is
questionable if my satisfaction was fully shared by others of the
household. I required a great deal of assistance in the study of my
maps, and became so interested that I could not sleep, and was not
willing that others should, but persisted in waking my poor drowsy
sister in the cold winter mornings to sit up in bed and by the light
of a tallow candle, help me to find mountains, rivers, counties,
oceans, lakes, islands, isthmuses, channels, cities, towns, and
capitals.
The next May the summer school opened, taught by Miss Susan Torrey.
Again, I write the name reverently, as gracing one of the most perfect
of personalities. I was not alone in my childish admiration, for her
memory remained a living reality in the town long years after the
gentle spirit fled. My sisters were both teaching other schools,
and I must make my own way, which I did, walking a mile with my one
precious little schoolmate, Nancy Fitts. Nancy Fitts! The playmate of
my childhood; the “chum” of laughing girlhood; the faithful, trusted
companion of young womanhood, and the beloved life friend that the
relentless grasp of time has neither changed, nor taken from me.
On entering the wide-open door of the inviting schoolhouse, armed
with some most unsuitable reader, a spelling book, geography, atlas,
and slate, I was seized with an intense fear at finding myself with
no member of the family near, and my trepidation became so visible
that the gentle teacher, relieving me of my burden of books, took
me tenderly on her lap and did her best to reassure and calm me. At
length I was given my seat, with a desk in front for my atlas and
slate, my toes at least a foot from the floor, and that became my
daily, happy home for the next three months.
All the members of Clara Barton’s household became her teachers, except
her mother, who looked with interest, and not always with approval,
on the methods of instruction practiced by the others. Captain Barton
was teaching her military tactics, David was teaching her to ride
horseback, Sally, and later Dorothy, established a kind of school at
home and practiced on their younger sister, and Stephen contributed his
share in characteristic fashion. Sarah Stone alone attempted nothing
until the little daughter should be old enough to learn to do housework.
“My mother, like the sensible woman that she was, seemed to conclude
that there were plenty of instructors without her,” said Miss Barton.
“She attempted very little, but rather regarded the whole thing as a
sort of mental conglomeration, and looked on with a kind of amused
curiosity to see what they would make of it. Indeed, I heard her remark
many years after that I came out of it with a more level head than she
would have thought possible.”
Clara Barton’s first piece of personal property was a sprightly,
medium-sized white dog, with silky ears and a short tail. His name was
Button. Her affection for Button continued throughout her life. Of him
she said:
My first individual ownership was “Button.” In personality (if the
term be admissible), Button represented a sprightly, medium-sized,
very white dog, with silky ears, sparkling black eyes and a very
short tail. His bark spoke for itself. Button belonged to me. No
other claim was instituted, or ever had been. It was said that on my
entrance into the family, Button constituted himself my guardian. He
watched my first steps and tried to pick me up when I fell down. One
was never seen without the other. He proved an apt and obedient pupil,
obeying me precept upon precept, if not line upon line. He stood on
two feet to ask for his food, and made a bow on receiving it, walked
on three legs when very lame, and so on, after the manner of his crude
instruction; went everywhere with me through the day, waited patiently
while I said my prayers and continued his guard on the foot of the bed
at night. Button shared my board as well as my bed.
After her first year’s instruction at the hands of Colonel Stone,
that gentleman ceased his connection with the common schools, and
established what was known as the Oxford High School, an institution of
great repute in its day. This left the district school to be taught by
the members of the Barton household. For the next three years Clara’s
sisters were her public school-teachers in the autumn and spring, and
her brother Stephen had charge of the school in the winter terms. Two
things she remembered about those years. One was her preternatural
shyness. She was sensitive and retiring to a degree that seemed to
forbid all hope of her making much progress in study with other
children. The other was that she had a fondness for writing verses,
some of which her brothers and sisters preserved and used to tease her
with in later years. One thing she learned outside the schoolroom, and
she never forgot it. That was how to handle a horse. She inherited her
mother’s sidesaddle, and though she protested against having to use
it, she learned at an early age to lift and buckle it, and to ride her
father’s horses.
Meantime her brothers grew to be men and bought out her father’s
two large farms. Her father purchased another farm of three hundred
acres nearer the center of the town, a farm having upon it one of the
forts used for security against the Indians by the original Huguenot
settlers. She now became interested in history, and added that to her
previous accomplishments.
At the age of eight, Clara Barton entered what was called high school,
which involved boarding away from home. The arrangement met with only
partial success on account of her extreme timidity:
During the preceding winter I began to hear talk of my going away
to school, and it was decided that I be sent to Colonel Stone’s
High School, to board in his family and go home occasionally. This
arrangement, I learned in later years, had a double object. I was what
is known as a bashful child, timid in the presence of other persons, a
condition of things found impossible to correct at home. In the hope
of overcoming this undesirable _mauvais honte_, it was decided to
throw me among strangers.
How well I remember my advent. My father took me in his carriage with
a little dressing-case which I dignified with the appellation of
“trunk”--something I had never owned. It was April--cold and bare.
The house and schoolrooms adjoined, and seemed enormously large. The
household was also large. The long family table with the dignified
preceptor, my loved and feared teacher of three years, at its head,
seemed to me something formidable. There were probably one hundred and
fifty pupils daily in the ample schoolrooms, of which I was perhaps
the youngest, except the colonel’s own children.
My studies were chosen with great care. I remember among them,
ancient history with charts. The lessons were learned, to repeat by
rote. I found difficulty both in learning the proper names and in
pronouncing them, as I had not quite outgrown my lisp. One day I
had studied very hard on the Ancient Kings of Egypt, and thought I
had everything perfect, and when the pupil above me failed to give
the name of a reigning king, I answered very promptly that it was
“Potlomy.” The colonel checked with a glance the rising laugh of the
older members of the class, and told me, very gently, that the P was
silent in that word. I had, however, seen it all, and was so overcome
by mortification for my mistake, and gratitude for the kindness of my
teacher, that I burst into tears and was permitted to leave the room.
I am not sure that I was really homesick, but the days seemed very
long, especially Sundays. I was in constant dread of doing something
wrong, and one Sunday afternoon I was sure I had found my occasion.
It was early spring. The tender leaves had put out and with them
the buds and half-open blossoms of the little cinnamon roses, an
unfailing ornamentation of a well-kept New England home of that day.
The children of the family had gathered in the front yard, admiring
the roses and daring to pick each a little bouquet. As I stood holding
mine, the heavy door at my back swung open, and there was the colonel,
in his long, light dressing-gown and slippers, direct from his study.
A kindly spoken, “Come with me, Clara,” nearly took my last breath.
I followed his strides through all the house, up the long flights
of stairs, through the halls of the schoolrooms, silently wondering
what I had done more than the others. I knew he was by no means wont
to spare his own children. I had my handful of roses--so had they.
I knew it was very wrong to have picked them, but why more wrong for
me than for the others? At length, and it seemed to me an hour, we
reached the colonel’s study, and there, advancing to meet us, was the
Reverend Mr. Chandler, the pastor of our Universalist Church, whom
I knew well. He greeted me very politely and kindly, and handed the
large, open school reader which he held, to the colonel, who put it
into my hands, placed me a little in front of them, and pointing to
a column of blank verse, very gently directed me to read it. It was
an extract from Campbell’s “Pleasures of Hope,” commencing, “Unfading
hope, when life’s last embers burn.” I read it to the end, a page or
two. When finished, the good pastor came quickly and relieved me of
the heavy book, and I wondered why there were tears in his eyes. The
colonel drew me to him, gently stroked my short cropped hair, went
with me down the long steps, and told me I could “go back to the
children and play.” I went, much more easy in mind than I came, but it
was years before I comprehended anything about it.
My studies gave me no trouble, but I grew very tired, felt hungry
all the time, but dared not eat, grew thin and pale. The colonel
noticed it, and watching me at table found that I was eating little
or nothing, refusing everything that was offered me. Mistrusting that
it was from timidity, he had food laid on my plate, but I dared not
eat it, and finally at the end of the term a consultation was held
between the colonel, my father, and our beloved family physician, Dr.
Delano Pierce, who lived within a few doors of the school, and it was
decided to take me home until a little older, and wiser, I could hope.
My timid sensitiveness must have given great annoyance to my friends.
If I ever could have gotten entirely over it, it would have given far
less annoyance and trouble to myself all through life.
To this day, I would rather stand behind the lines of artillery at
Antietam, or cross the pontoon bridge under fire at Fredericksburg,
than to be expected to preside at a public meeting.
Again Clara’s instruction fell to her brothers and sisters. Stephen
taught her mathematics, her sisters increased her knowledge of
the common branches, and David continued to give her lessons in
horsemanship. Stephen Barton, her father, was the owner of a fine black
stallion, whose race of colts improved the blooded stock of Oxford and
vicinity. When she was ten years old she received a present of a Morgan
horse named Billy. Mounted on the back of this fine animal, she ranged
the hills of Oxford completely free from that fear with which she was
possessed in the schoolroom.
When she was thirteen years of age, her education took a new start
under the instruction of Lucian Burleigh, who taught her grammar,
composition, English literature, and history. A year later Jonathan
Dana became her instructor, and taught her philosophy, chemistry, and
writing. These two teachers she remembered with unfaltering affection.
While Clara Barton’s brother Stephen taught school, his younger
brother, David, gave himself to business. He, no less than Stephen,
was remembered affectionately as having had an important share in
her education. He had taught her to ride, and she had become his
nurse. When he grew well and strong, he took the little girl under
his instruction, and taught her how to do things directly and with
expedition. If she started anywhere impulsively, and turned back, he
reproved her. She was not to start until she knew where she was going,
and why, and having started, she was to go ahead and accomplish what
she had undertaken. She was to learn the effective way of attaining
results, and having learned it was to follow the method which promoted
efficiency. He taught her to despise false motions, and to avoid
awkward and ineffective attempts to accomplish results. He showed her
how to drive a nail without splitting a board, and she never forgot how
to handle the hammer and the saw. He taught her how to start a screw so
it would drive straight. He taught her not to throw like a girl, but
to hurl a ball or a stone with an under swing like a boy, and to hit
what she threw at. He taught her to avoid “granny-knots” and how to tie
square knots. All this practical instruction she learned to value as
among the best features of her education.
One of her earliest experiences, in accomplishing a memorable piece of
work with her own hands, came to her after her father had sold the two
hill farms to his sons and removed to the farm on the highway nearer
the village. It gave her her opportunity to learn the art of painting.
This was more than the ability to dip a brush in a prepared mixture
and spread the liquid evenly over a plane surface; it involved some
knowledge of the art of preparing and mixing paints. She found joy in
it at the time, and it quickened within her an aspiration to be an
artist. In later years and as part of her education, she learned to
draw and paint, and was able to give instruction in water-color and
oil painting. It is interesting to read her own account of her first
adventure into the field of art:
The hill farms--for there were two--were sold to my brothers, who,
entering into partnership, constituted the well-known firm of S. &
D. Barton, continuing mainly through their lives. Thus I became the
occupant of two homes, my sisters remaining with my brothers, none of
whom were married.
The removal to the second home was a great novelty to me. I became
observant of all changes made. One of the first things found
necessary, on entering a house of such ancient date, was a rather
extensive renovation, for those days, of painting and papering. The
leading artisan in that line in the town was Mr. Sylvanus Harris, a
courteous man of fine manners, good scholarly acquirements, and who,
for nearly half a lifetime, filled the office of town clerk. The
records of Oxford will bear his name and his beautiful handwriting as
long as its records exist.
Mr. Harris was engaged to make the necessary improvements. Painting
included more then than in these later days of prepared material. The
painter brought his massive white marble slab, ground his own paints,
mixed his colors, boiled his oil, calcined his plaster, made his
putty, and did scores of things that a painter of to-day would not
only never think of doing, but would often scarcely know how to do.
Coming from the newly built house where I was born, I had seen nothing
of this kind done, and was intensely interested. I must have persisted
in making myself very numerous, for I was constantly reminded not
to “get in the gentleman’s way.” But I was not to be set aside. My
combined interest and curiosity for once overcame my timidity, and,
encouraged by the mild, genial face of Mr. Harris, I gathered the
courage to walk up in front and address him: “Will you teach me to
paint, sir?” “With pleasure, little lady; if mamma is willing, I
should very much like your assistance.” The consent was forthcoming,
and so was a gown suited to my new work, and I reported for duty.
I question if any ordinary apprentice was ever more faithfully and
intelligently instructed in his first month’s apprenticeship. I was
taught how to hold my brushes, to take care of them, allowed to help
grind my paints, shown how to mix and blend them, how to make putty
and use it, to prepare oils and dryings, and learned from experience
that boiling oil was a great deal hotter than boiling water, was
taught to trim paper neatly, to match and help to hang it, to make
the most approved paste, and even varnished the kitchen chairs to the
entire satisfaction of my mother, which was triumph enough for one
little girl. So interested was I, that I never wearied of my work for
a day, and at the end of a month looked on sadly as the utensils,
brushes, buckets and great marble slabs were taken away. There was
not a room that I had not helped to make better; there were no longer
mysteries in paint and paper. I knew them all, and that work would
bring calluses even on little hands.
When the work was finished and everything gone, I went to my room,
lonesome in spite of myself. I found on my candle stand a box
containing a pretty little locket, neatly inscribed, “To a faithful
worker.” No one seemed to have any knowledge of it, and I never gained
any.
One other memory of these early days must be recorded as having an
immediate effect upon her, and a permanent influence upon her life.
While she was still a little girl, she witnessed the killing of an
ox, and it seemed so terrible a thing to her that it had much to do
with her lifelong temperance in the matter of eating meat. She never
became an absolute vegetarian. When she sat at a table where meat was
served, and where a refusal to eat would have called for explanation,
and perhaps would have embarrassed the family, she ate what was set
before her as the Apostle Paul commanded, but she ate very sparingly of
all animal food, and, when she was able to control her own diet, lived
almost entirely on vegetables. Things that grew out of the ground, she
said, were good enough for her:
A small herd of twenty-five fine milch cows came faithfully home each
day with the lowering of the sun, for the milking and extra supper
which they knew awaited them. With the customary greed of childhood, I
had laid claim to three or four of the handsomest and tamest of them,
and believing myself to be their real owner, I went faithfully every
evening to the yards to receive and look after them. My little milk
pail went as well, and I became proficient in an art never forgotten.
One afternoon, on going to the barn as usual, I found no cows there;
all had been driven somewhere else. As I stood in the corner of the
great yard alone, I saw three or four men--the farm hands--with one
stranger among them wearing a long, loose shirt or gown. They were all
trying to get a large red ox onto the barn floor, to which he went
very reluctantly. At length they succeeded. One of the men carried
an axe, and, stepping a little to the side and back, raised it high
in the air and brought it down with a terrible blow. The ox fell, I
fell too; and the next I knew I was in the house on a bed, and all the
family about me, with the traditional camphor bottle, bathing my head
to my great discomfort. As I regained consciousness, they asked me
what made me fall? I said, “Some one struck me.” “Oh, no,” they said,
“no one struck you.” But I was not to be convinced, and proceeded to
argue the case with an impatient putting away of the hurting hands,
“Then what makes my head so sore?” Happy ignorance! I had not then
learned the mystery of nerves.
I have, however, a very clear recollection of the indignation of my
father (my mother had already expressed herself on the subject), on
his return from town and hearing what had taken place. The hired men
were lined up and arraigned for “cruel carelessness.” They had “the
consideration to keep the cattle away,” he said, “but allowed that
little girl to stand in full view.” Of course, each protested he
had not seen me. I was altogether too friendly with the farm hands
to hear them blamed, especially on my account, and came promptly to
their side, assuring my father that they had not seen me, and that it
was “no matter,” I was “all well now.” But, singularly, I lost all
desire for meat, if I had ever had it--and all through life, to the
present, have only eaten it when I must for the sake of appearance, or
as circumstances seemed to make it the more proper thing to do. The
bountiful ground has always yielded enough for all my needs and wants.