m
indoctrinate their children in this fundamental truth, and we shall
have wise legislators."

"You won't do so again, will you, dear?" was almost always sure to win
a tender response from a pupil.

She would never allow a scholar to be laughed at. If a teacher spoke
jestingly of a scholar's capacity, Miss Lyon would say, "Yes, I know
she has a small mind, but we must do the best we can for her."

For nearly sixteen years she had been giving her life to the education
of girls. She had saved no money for herself, giving it to her
relatives or aiding poor girls in going to school. She was simple in
her tastes, the blue cloth dress she generally wore having been spun
and woven by herself. A friend tells how, standing before the mirror
to tie her bonnet, she said, "Well, I _may_ fail of Heaven, but I
shall be very much disappointed if I do--very much disappointed;" and
there was no thought of what she was doing with the ribbons.

Miss Lyon was now thirty-three years old. It would be strange indeed
if a woman with her bright mind and sunshiny face should not have
offers of marriage. One of her best opportunities came, as is often
the case, when about thirty, and Miss Lyon could have been made
supremely happy by it, but she had in her mind one great purpose, and
she felt that she must sacrifice home and love for it. This was the
building of a high-grade school or college for women. Had she decided
otherwise, there probably would have been no Mount Holyoke Seminary.

She had the tenderest sympathy for poor girls; they were the ones
usually most desirous of an education, and they struggled the hardest
for it. For them no educational societies were provided, and no
scholarships. Could she, who had no money, build "a seminary which
should be so moderate in its expenses as to be open to the daughters
of farmers and artisans, and to teachers who might be mainly dependent
for their support on their own exertions"?

In vain she tried to have the school at Ipswich established
permanently by buildings and endowments. In vain she talked with
college presidents and learned ministers. Nearly all were indifferent.
They could see no need that women should study science or the
classics. That women would be happier with knowledge, just as they
themselves were made happier by it, seemed never to have occurred to
them. That women were soon to do nine-tenths of the teaching in the
schools of the country could not be foreseen. Oberlin and