Clara Barton: A Centenary Tribute to the World's Greatest Humanitarian / Founder of the American Red Cross Society, Author of the American Amendment to the International Red Cross Convention of Geneva, Founder of the National First Aid Association of America

by Charles Sumner Young

As Divinity lives in all life, as God the first garden made and work was the best religion Clara Barton had, her applied religion was in the yard as she cared for the domestic animals; in the garden as she cared for the shrubs, the flowers, the vegetables, her special pride being in raising fine strawberries. Frequently was Miss Barton called from the yard or garden, to meet guests in her “House of Rough Hemlock Boards,”—there where was welcome ever royal and farewell went out loyal; there where—

Honest offered courtesy

Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds

With smoky rafters than in tapestry halls

And courts of princes, where it first was named

And yet is most pretended.

XXXVII

Of the women writers that lived at the time of the Civil War the mind of Harriet Beecher Stowe was the most imaginative; “the vehicle of thought” used by Clara Barton, the best equipped, the most powerful. In war-literature Mrs. Stowe will live through the genius of her great novel; Clara Barton, through her descriptive powers, forceful diction, and patriotic sayings. The Author.

Learn to be good readers. Carlyle.

God be thanked for books. Channing.