Transcriber's Notes.

Hyphenation has been standardised.

A GROUP OF FAMOUS WOMEN

STORIES OF THEIR LIVES

EDITH HORTON

ILLUSTRATED

D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

BOSTONNEW YORKCHICAGO

TO THE
WOMEN TEACHERS OF AMERICA
WHOSE NOBLE LIVES HAVE EVER BEEN
AN INSPIRATION TO THE YOUTH
OF OUR LAND

FOREWORD

The best kind of American woman is proud. She has confidence in herself. She is not vain or conceited or self-assertive, but she has faith in her own powers. Even if she could, she would not spend her life in play or in idleness; she would choose to work. She believes that because she is doing her chosen work—whatever it may be—steadily, hour by hour, day by day, she is achieving. Because she has confidence in herself, she can live and labor serenely, proudly. No matter how obscure her lot, she feels herself to be in the same class as the most famous of her American sisters who have worked with steadiness and confidence at their task, and who have achieved greatness.

So difficult has it been for teachers to find brief, readable biographies of distinguished women to use in connection with their lessons in history and civics that they will welcome this interesting collection. It should help to make the girls in our American schools proud of their womanhood and it should give them a strong desire to be worthy of belonging to the same class as this group of noble workers.

Emma L. Johnston

Principal Brooklyn Training School for Teachers.

March 16, 1914.

"If women now sit on thrones, if the most beautiful painting in the world is of a mother and her child, if the image of a woman crowns the dome of the American Capitol, if in allegory and metaphor and painting and sculpture the highest ideals are women, it is because they have a right to be there. By all their drudgery and patience, by all their suffering and kindness, they have earned their right to be there."

—O. T. Mason

"The Egyptian people, wisest then of nations, gave to their Spirit of Wisdom the form of a woman; and into her hand, for a symbol, the weaver's shuttle."

—John Ruskin

INTRODUCTION

The advantages of biography as a means of education are obvious. History and biography go hand in hand, the latter giving vitality and reality to the former.

Educators have for a long time appreciated this, and in many Courses of Study throughout our land provision has been made for the teaching of history through biography. In most cases, emphasis has been laid upon the notable careers of Washington, Franklin, Lincoln, and other illustrious men, with the purpose of interesting the young and inspiring in them the spirit of emulation.

It is a remarkable fact that little attention, if any, has been given to the study of the careers of distinguished women, and the question has often been asked why short biographies should not be prepared, in order that the pupils in our schools might become familiar with the noble and unselfish lives of the many remarkable women whose influence has been inspiring and uplifting. It is hoped that those who read the stories of the lives of the women whose names appear in this volume will find in them an incentive to guide their own lives into useful channels.

These types have been selected because of their direct influence upon events of world-wide significance. Only a limited number of types has been given because it would be impossible, within the compass of one volume or of many, to record the great and good deeds of women, past and present.

The compiler has no intention of expressing her personal opinions; the facts of these women's lives speak for themselves, and the stories, necessarily brief here, of their careers are so full of vital and human interest that it is hoped that the young reader may be led to the perusal of more complete biographies in later life.

Many foreign born girls in our schools have practically no means of acquiring any adequate idea of the ideal standard of American womanhood—a standard radically different from that in their own native lands. The foreign born boys, however, invariably study the lives of great American men, and thus have no difficulty in familiarizing themselves with high ideals in ethics and statesmanship at precisely the time when the most enduring impressions are being made. As there is no reason whatever for this disparity of opportunity, it should cease, and by means of this little work and others of similar character, our school girls in general—and more especially those of foreign birth or parentage—should be made acquainted with the traditions and responsibilities of American women, and the unlimited opportunities for development and progress in this great Republic.

Women have been important factors in our national growth, and the value of their aid in carrying forward the progress of human improvement has never been properly estimated. The future of woman in America is undoubtedly to be of still greater significance to our country. Every art and profession is open to her, everything compatible with womanhood is within her reach, and she should be in readiness for the supreme civic privilege if such be granted her.

To-day, women are voting in ten states of the Union, a fact which calls attention to the necessity of educating girls for the duties of citizenship. The woman of the future will be better equipped to meet such duties by the study of the lives of certain representative women.

In the schools, side by side with boys, our girls study civics. Side by side with boys, they salute the Flag. Grown to womanhood, still side by side with men, they will help to uphold all the sacred traditions for which our Flag stands,—the true woman never forgetting that the home and the family are the bulwarks of the country.

E. H.