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: