, 1878-01-04
Miss AlcOtt.

settled many years before by Germans,
for whom it Was named, and by Qu,kers,
such rs came to Philadelphia with viii
liam Penn. Here Louisa May Alco,twas
born, and she spent the first two years Of
her life in Germantown and Philadelphia.
Then, her father and mother went back
to Boston, where Mr.. Alcolt taught
celebrated school in fine large building
called the Temple, close by Boston Com.
mon, and about this school AN interesting
book has been written, which, perhaps,
you will some day read. The little
Louisa did not 90 to it at first, because
she WAS not old enough, but her father
aud mother taught her ut home the same
beautiful things which the older chlld.en
learned in the Temple school. BY and
by people began to complain that Mr.
Alcott was too g.ntle with his scholars,
that he read to them from the New Testa-
ment too much, and talked with them
about Jesus, when he should have been
making them say their multiplication
table. So his school became unpopular,
and all the more so because he would not
refuse to teach poor colored boy who
wanted to be his pupil. The fathers aud
mothers of the white children were not
willing to have colored child in the
same school with their darlings. So they
took away their children, one after an
other, until, when Louisa Alcott was be-
tween six and seven years old, her father
was left with only five pupils. Louisa
and her two sisters (''Jo," Beth and
Meg, one white boy, and the colored
boy whom he would not send away. Mr..
Alcott had depended for his support On
the money which his pupils paid him,
and now he became poor, and gave up
his school.
There was q friend of Mr.. Alcott's then
living in Concord, not far from Boston
man of great wisdom and goodness,
who had been very sad to see the noble
Connecticut school-master so shabbily
treated in Boston-and he invited his
friend to come and live in Concord. So
Louisa went to that old country town
with her father and mother when she
was eight years old, and lived with them
in little cottage, where her father
worked in the garden, or cut wood in the
forest, while her mother kept the house
and did the work of the cottage, aided
by her three little girls.
BY and by, when Louisa was ten years
old, they went to another country town
not far off, named Harvard, where some
friends of Mr.. Alcott had bought farm,
on which they were all to live together,
in a religious community, working with
their hands, and not eating the flesh of
slaughtered animals, but living on vege-
table food, for this practice, they thought,
made people more virtuous. Miss Alcott
has written an amusing story about this,
which she calls "Transcendental Wild
Oats" When Louisa was twelve years
old, and had a third sister C'Amy"O, the
family returned to Concord, and for
three years occupied the house in which
Mr.. Hawthorne, who wrote the fine ro-
mances, afterward lived. There Mr.
Alcott planted a fair garden, and built a
summer-house near a brook for his chill
dren, where they spent many happy hours,
and where, as have heard, Miss Alcott
first began to compose stories to amuse
her sisters and other children of the
neighborhood.
When she was almost sixteen, the
family returned to Boston, and there Miss
Alcott began to teach boys and girls their
lessons. She had not been at school
much herself, but she had been instructed
by her father and mother. She had seen
so much that was generous and good
| IAna h, fha,,, chat oha ha1 loarna1 ~ 10
far better to have kind heart and to do
unselfsh acts than to have riches or
learning or fine clothes. So, mothers
were glad to send her their children to be
taught, and she earned money in this way
for her own support.
But she did not like to teach so well
as her father did, and thought that per-
hsps she could write stories and be paid
for them, and earn more money in that
way. SO she began to write stories. At
first nobody would pay her any money
for them, but she kept patiently at work,
making better and better what she wrote,
until in a few years she could earn a
good sum by her pen. Then the great
civil war came on, and Miss Alco,t. like
| the rest ol the people, Wlsneu 10 40 soIhe-
thing for her country. So she went to
Washington as nurse, and for some
time she took care of the poor soldiers
who came into the hospital wounded or
sick, and she has written a little book
about these soldiers which you may have
read. But soon she grew i'll herself
from the labor and anxiety she had in
the hospital, and almost died of typhoid
fever; since when she has never been the
robust, healthy young lady she was be.
fore, but was more or less an invalid
while writing all those cheerful and en-
tertaining books. And yet to that illness
all her success as an author might per
haps be traced Her Hospital Sketches,
first published in Boston newspaper,
became very popular, and made her name
known all over the North. Then she
wrote other books, encouraged by the
reception given to this, and finally, in
1868, five years after che left the hospital
in Washington, she published the first
volume of Little Women From that
dav 10 this she has been constantly gain