The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-08-05

nation against rain of questions from
her clever neice. Let US go back to
that sweetest character in English his
tory, Lady Jane Grey, and we will find
she was only 10 years old, when that
learned scholar and fine gentleman
Roger Ascham found her reading Pla-
to's Phaedon in the original Greek,
while the rest of the family were off
on hunting party. But it was
not with knowledge of Greek
little Lady Jane was satisfied. She
spoke French, Latin and Italian fluent
ly, writing them also and translated
easily from Hebrew, Chaldee and Ar
able. When her father took her
to court, they found with establishment
that this demure eountry-bred girl was
far finer scholar than young Edward
the VI, then a clever boy under the
first tutors of England. Yet with all
her knowledge of literature and lam
guages, Lady Jane embroidered
charmingly, sang to several instruments
that she played very well, danced and
wrote easily and gracefully.
Letitia Hemans published her first
collections of poems when she was only
fourteen.
Angelica Kaufman, the beautiful wo-
man and gifted artist, who painted the
portraits Of royalties, when only II,
used her brush far betteI~ than her
father, who was an artist by profess
sion.
Madam Roland never remembered
when she learned to read, for at four
years of age she was greedily perus-
ing any books that came to her hand;
dancing and music she readily acquired
! but geography and Latin were her ia
vorite studies. AS d girl of seven she
would eagerly rise at 5 O'Clock in the
morning to get to her books and so
dearly did she love reading she carried
her volume of Plutarch's Lives to
church when she was eleven years old
and secretly read it during the long
prayers.
| There is not more touching story of
child's quick mind starved Of its
proper food than Caroline Herschel.
! She begged to be allowed to study
French with her brother and dancing
also, but this her mother forbade,
anxious his Caroline should have a
good education. 1t was not until
| later in life when her beloved brother
William, the great astronomer, sent for
her to join him in England she had
any opportunity to exercise her fine
mind.
Mary Somerville says that as a lit
and at ten years of age she was sent
to a boarding school where the chief
lesson for each day was a page of
Johnson's dictionary committed to
/ memory. She never eXcelled at school
and yet at home no one Sympathized
with her desire to study Latin, ex-
cept an uncle who gave her some val
liable instruction. She was very much
interested in two celestial globes the
village schoolmaster taught her to use,
and yet on the whole, she was rather in
awe of the big consultations whose
brightness reminded her of lightning,
of which she was desperately afraid.
At length she persuaded her brothers
tutor to buy her an algebra and euclid
which she studied at night until her
mother, in horror at the idea of girl
wasting time on studies meant for boys,
deprived her of a candle to read by
and her father feared she might go
crazy. It was long after that she
really found the courage and sympathy
to take up her great studies in earnest.
1t was as a pianist George Elliot was
noted at her school and with the most
amazing ease she acquired languages,
yet as a very little girl she showed no
great promise, much preferrlng romp
with her brother to her books.
Fanny Burney, who is also known as
Madam D'Arblay, published her first
and cleverest novel when she was only
Is, and yet she was eight years old be-
fore learning her alphabet and scarcely
received any regular education at all.
Rachel, you must remember, was
girl just turned into her teens when she
borrowed a volume of Racine from
Jewish peddler in old clothes. On read
ing the great French tragedies she de-
cided to become an actress, and this
poor. pretty little Jewess, the youngest
of seven children, who had began life
as street singer, on her second APP
pearance on the French stage was
greeted as a great genius. So you see.
my dear, ability is apt to reveal itself
as early with girls as boys and these
are a very few Of the worlds
great women who loved books in the
nursery and gave the most glorious
promise while still in short frocks.