The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball That Floats in the Air | Page 3

to bring before young people who have read her books some qualities of her mind and character which made her the rare woman, teacher, and writer that she was. I knew her from early girlhood. We went to the same schools, in more and more intimate companionship, from the time we were twelve until we were twenty years of age; and our lives and hearts were "grappled" to each other "with links of steel" ever after. She was a precocious child, early matured, and strong in intellectual and emotional experiences. She had a remarkably clear mind, orderly and logical in its processes, and loved to take up hard problems. She studied all her life with great joy and earnestness, rarely, if ever, baffled in her persistent learning except by ill-health. She went on at a great pace in mathematics for a young girl; every step seemed easy to her. She took everything severe that she could get a chance at, in the course or out of it,--surveying, navigation, mechanics, mathematical astronomy, and conic sections, as well as the ordinary course in mathematics; the calculus she had worked through at sixteen under a very able and exact teacher, and took her diploma from W.H. Wells, a master who allowed nothing to go slipshod. She was absorbed in studies of this kind, and took no especial interest in composition or literature beyond what was required, and what was the natural outcome of a literary atmosphere and inherited culture; that is, her mind was passively rather than actively engaged in such directions, until later. At the normal school she led a class which has had a proud intellectual record as teachers and workers. She was the easy victor in every contest; with an inclusive grasp, an incisive analysis, instant generalization, a very tenacious and ready memory, and unusual talent for every effort of study, she took and held the first place as a matter of course until she graduated, when she gave the valedictory address. This valedictory was a prophetic note in the line of her future expression; for it gave a graphic illustration of the art of teaching geography, to the consideration of which she had been led by Miss Crocker's logical, suggestive, and masterly presentation of the subject in the school course. Her ability and steadiness of working power, as well as singleness of aim, attracted the attention of Horace Mann, who was about forming the nucleus of Antioch College; and he succeeded in gaining her as one of his promised New England recruits. She had attended very little to Latin, and went to work at once to prepare for the classical requirements of a college examination. This she did with such phenomenal rapidity that in six weeks she had fitted herself for what was probably equivalent to a Harvard entrance examination in Latin. She went to Antioch, and taught, as well as studied for a while, until her health gave way entirely; and she was prostrate for years with brain and spine disorders. Of course this put an end to her college career; and on her recovery she opened her little school in her own house, which she held together until her final illness, and to which she devoted her thoughts and energies, her endowments and attainments, as well as her prodigal devotion and love.
The success of "The Seven Little Sisters" was a great pleasure to her, partly because her dear mother and friends were so thoroughly satisfied with it. Her mother always wished that Jane would give her time more exclusively to writing, especially as new outlines of literary work were constantly aroused in her active brain. She wrote several stories which were careful studies in natural science, and which appeared in some of the magazines. I am sure they would be well worth collecting. She had her plan of "Each and All" long in her mind before elaborating, and it crystallized by actual contact with the needs and the intellectual instincts of her little classes. In fact all her books grew, like a plant, from within outwards; they were born in the nursery of the schoolroom, and nurtured by the suggestions of the children's interest, thus blooming in the garden of a true and natural education. The last book she wrote, "Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road from Long Ago to Now," she had had in her mind for years. This little book she dedicated to a son of her sister Margaret. I am sure she gave me an outline of the plan fully ten years before she wrote it out. The subject of her mental work lay in her mind, growing, gathering to itself nourishment, and organizing itself consciously or unconsciously by all the forces of her unresting brain and all the channels of her study,