Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-24
II GIRL OF 1852.

Il GIRL OF 1852.
LatiM and Poetry Studied While the Student
Was Ha,nessed IN an I,o,, Collar.
From Harper's Young People.I
One hundred years ago a little girl
named Mary Butt was living with her
parents at the pretty rectory Of Stan
ford-on-the- Terne, in England. Sho
was bright and beautiful child, and
when she grew up she became Mrs.
Sherwood, the writer of great many
charming stories for young people. But
nothing that she wrote is so entertain
ing as the story of her childhood, which
when she was an old lady, she told to
please her grandchildren. wonder
how the girls who read this paper would
endure the discipline little Mary sub
mitted to SO patiently in 1882. From
the time she was until she was IS she
wore every day an iron collar around
her neck and a blackboard strapped
tightly over her shoulders. This was to
make her perfectly straight. Perhaps
you may have seen here and there
very stately old lady who never was
known to lean back in her chair, but
who always held herself as erect as
soldier ON duty. If so. she was taught,
you may be sure, to carry herself in
that manner when she was little girl.
Poor Mary's collar was put on in the
morning and was not taken off until
dark, and. worse than that, she says:
"Lgenerally did all my lessons standing
in stocks, with the collar around my
neck. I never sat on a chair in my
mothers presence"
Her brother and herself were great
readers, but you can count on the fin
gers of one hand all the books they had
to read. "Robinson Crusoe," two sets
Of Fairy Tales" "The Little Female
Academy, and Esop's Fables " formed
the entire juvenile library. They used
to take Robinson Crusoe" and seat
themselves at the bottom of the wide
staircase, the two heads bent over the
pages together. Whenever they turned
leaf they assembled a step, until they
began to go down again. Little Martin
was not very preserving with his Latin,
SO, although it was not the fashion for
girls, Mary's mother decided that she
should begin the study in order to en-
courage him. The sister soon distanced
the brother, and before she was Is her
regular task Of morning was fifty lines
of Virgil, translated as she stood in the
stocks.
You will ask what sort of dress this
little girl was allowed to wear 100 years
ago. In summer she had cambria and
in winter linsey-woolsey or stuff gowns,
with simple white muslin for best.
Her mother always insisted on pima
fore, which was a great loose apron worn
over everything else and enveloping her
from head to feet. 1t is quite refreshing
to find that neither the blackboard nor
the Latin took from the child a love of
play or of dolls. He special pet was a
huge wooden doll, which she carried to
the woods with her, tied by a string
to the waist, after the grown people had
decided that she was too big to care for
dolls. Afriendpresentedh her one day with
a fine gauze cap, and this was the only
ornament she ever possessed as child.
I think the little girls who compare 1882
with 1882 must be thankful that they
were not born in the last century. Yet
little Mary Butt was very happy child,
spending, when permitted, hours of
great delight in the woods and groves
and listening eagerly to the talk Ct the
learned and travelled visitors who came
to Stanford rectory.