Her mother died while she was at Clinton. Her death occurred in July, but before the term had ended. Clara could not reach home in time for the funeral and her family knew it and sent her word not to undertake the journey.
She finished her school year and her course, made a visit to her home, and then journeyed to Bordentown, New Jersey, to visit her friends, the Norton family. There the opportunity came to her of teaching the winter term of the Bordentown school.
“Public schools of that day,” she wrote, “ceased with the southern boundary of New England and New York. Each pupil was assessed a certain fee, the aggregate of which formed the teacher’s salary.”
THE SCHOOLHOUSE AT BORDENTOWN
She undertook the school on the fee basis, but in a short time changed it to a public school, open to all the children of school age in Bordentown. It was that town’s first free school. The School Board agreed to give her the opportunity to try the experiment. She tells how it came about. She looked over the little group who attended her subscription school, and then saw the much larger number outside, and she was not happy:
But the boys! I found them on all sides of me. Every street corner had little knots of them idle, listless, as if to say, what shall one do, when one has nothing to do? I sought every inconspicuous occasion to stop and talk with them. I saw nothing unusual in them. Much like other boys I had known, unusually courteous, showing special instruction in that line, and frequently of unusual intelligence. They spoke of their banishment or absence from school with far less of bravado or boasting than would have been expected, under the circumstances, and often with regret. “Lady, there is no school for us,” answered a bright-faced lad of fourteen, as he rested his foot on the edge of a little park fountain where I had accosted him. “We would be glad to go if there was one.” I had listened to such as this long enough, and, without returning to my hotel, I sought Mr. Suydam, as chairman of the School Committee, and asked for an interview.
By this time, in his capacity of postmaster, we had formed a tolerable acquaintance. Now, for the first time, I made known my desire to open a public school in Bordentown, teaching it myself.
Surprise, discouragement, resistance, and sympathy were all pictured on his manly face. He was troubled for terms in which to express the mental conflict, but in snatches something like this.
These boys were renegades, many of them more fit for the penitentiary than school—a woman could do nothing with them. They wouldn’t go to school if they had the chance, and the parents would never send them to a “pauper school.” I would have the respectable sentiment of the entire community against me; I could never endure the obloquy, not to call it disgrace that I should meet; and to crown all, I should have the bitter opposition of all the present teachers, many of whom were ladies of influence in society and would contend vigorously for their rights. A strong man would quail and give way under what he would be compelled to meet, and what could a woman—a young woman, and a stranger—do?
He spoke very kindly and appreciatingly of the intention, acknowledging the necessity, and commending the nature of the effort, but it was ill-timed, and had best be at once abandoned as impracticable.
With this honest effort, and, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, he rested. After a moment’s quiet and seeing that he did not resume, I said with a respect, which I most sincerely felt, “Thank you, Mr. Suydam, shall I speak?” “Certainly, Miss Barton,” and with a little appreciative laugh, “I will try to be as good a listener as you have been.”
I thanked him again for the evident sincerity of his objections, assuring him that I believed them drawn entirely in my interest, and his earnest desire to save me from what seemed to him an impossible undertaking, with only failure and humiliation as sure and logical results. A few of these I would like to answer, and throwing off the mask I had worn since Clinton, told him plainly that I was, and had been for years, a teacher of the public schools of New England. That was my profession, and that, if entered in the long and honored competitive list of such, I did not suppose that in either capacity, experience, or success I should stand at the foot. I had studied the character of these boys, and had intense pity for, but no fear of, them. As for exclusion from society, I had not sought society, and could easily dispense with it, if they so willed; I was not here for that. As for reputation, I had brought with me all I needed, and that of a character that a bit of village gossip could not affect. With all respect for the prejudices of the people, I should try not to increase them. My only desire was to open and teach a school in Bordentown, to which its outcast children could go and be taught; and I would emphasize that desire by adding that I wished no salary. I would open and teach such a school without remuneration, but my effort must have the majesty of the law, and the power vested in its offices behind it or it could not stand. If I secured a building and proceeded to open a school, it would be only one more private school like the score they already had; that the School Board, as officers of the law, with accepted rights and duties, must so far connect themselves with the effort as to provide quarters, the necessary furnishings, and to give due and respectable notice of the same among the people. In fact, it must stand as by their order, leaving the work and results to me.
I was not there for necessity. Fortunately I needed nothing of them—neither as an adventuress. I had no personal ambitions to serve, but as an observer of unwelcome conditions, and, as I thought, harmful as well, to try, so far as possible, the power of a good, wise, beneficent, and established state law, as against the force of ignorance, blind prejudice, and the tyranny of an obsolete, outlived public opinion. I desired to see them both fairly placed upon their merits before an intelligent community, leaving the results to the winner. If the law, after trial, were not acceptable, or of use to the people serving their best interest, abolish or change it—if it were, enforce and sustain it.
My reply was much longer than the remarks that had called for it, but the pledge of good listening was faithfully kept.
When he spoke again, it was to ask if I desired my proposition to be laid before the School Board? I surely did. He would speak with the gentlemen this evening, and call a meeting for to-morrow. Our interview had consumed two hours, and we parted better friends than we commenced.
The following afternoon, to my surprise, I was most courteously invited to sit with the School Board in its deliberations, and I made the acquaintance of two more, plain, honest-minded gentlemen. The subject was fairly discussed, but with great misgivings, a kind of tender sympathy running through it all. At length Mr. Suydam arose, and, addressing his colleagues, said, “Gentlemen, we feel alike, I am sure, regarding the hazardous nature of this experiment and its probable results, but situated as we are, officers of a law which we are sworn to obey and enforce, can we legally decline to accede to this proposition, which is in every respect within the law. From your expressed opinions of last evening I believe we agree on this point, and I put the vote.”
It was a unanimous yea, with the decision that the old closed schoolhouse be refitted, and a school commenced.
The school speedily outgrew its quarters, and Clara sent word to Oxford that she must have an assistant. Her brother Stephen secured the services of Miss Frances Childs, who subsequently became Mrs. Bernard Barton Vassall. Frances had just finished her first term as teacher of a school in Oxford, and she proved a very capable assistant. Letters from, and personal interviews with, her have brought vividly before me the conditions of Clara’s work in Bordentown.
MISS FANNIE CHILDS (MRS. BERNARD VASSALL)
At the time she taught school
with Miss Barton at Bordentown, N.J.