The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-04-27

young DrlQe 10 cldSSlc Olu CIdpel HILL
and begin my domestic life in circle
of remarkable and delightful women,
who formed the society of the young Uni
versity. OF them most have gone to
their final rest; a few still live, though
widely scattered, as the children draw
them to homes they have made in the
outside world. There was the doctors
wife, Mrs. Mallett, great manager, a
careful, skilled Southern -~sxsekeeper
(the world holds none more SKILLED than
the best here) and once State belle We
can well believe, for even at sixty hve,
although gray and wrinkled, she was
graceful and active, directing work in
doors and out, till near the end or
useful and busy life. There was beau
tiful, brown-eyed, white-haired, sweet
faced Mrs. Hooper,; learned, impractical,
charitable and beloved. There was dear
Mrs. Charles Phillips, a pillar through
many years of a beautiful home life.
She has fought life's battle bravely and,
though nearly always having some dear
one an invalid to nurse, has found time
for delightful hospitality, church and
social pleasures. May she long be with
us to visit from fireside to fireside and
be blessing under the roof she thus
honors.
Perhaps even more dearly than all
loved beautiful tactful, popular Mrs.
Taylor, a woman Of most lovable quail
ties. She, too had borne bravely life's
troubles and was always blessing al
she walked the streets of our village.
Mrs. Carr. mother of Col. Julian S.
Carr. still lives with children in Dur
ham, also there was her sister, Mrs
Tilley. a character we'll known to stu
dents, enjoyed, and sometimes feared, by
them. Mrs. Kemp Battle came after I
had been there a year, she leaving your
city to come to our village when her
husband was made president; but it is
uncertain If in moving she didn't leave
half her heart behind with you
But, at our last meeting, l was asked
to tell of Mrs. Cornelia Phillips Spencer
a labor of love and pleasant memories.
She first greeted me, when from the tire
some hack ride from Durham through
the country" we reached my new home,
she having the key to our house, and
living next door.
The member who at the last meeting
had the delightful paper, 1.-The Noted
Women of North Carolina" spoke of
Mrs. Spencer as perhaps the greatest
living North Carolina woman. The late
Governor Vance was once asked if she
was. Yes, and the greatest man, too"
was his quick reply.
Mrs. Cornelia Phillips Spencer was tie
only daughter and youngest child of the
late Prof. Jas. Phillips, d. D., of the
University Of North Carolina. She and
her two brothers-the late DR.. Charles
Phillips. of Chapel Hill, and Hon. S. F.
Phillips, now of Washington city-lived
in Chapel Hill the larger part Of their
lives, and owe to its environments all
that they were, or are.
Mrs. Spencer's life affords nothing to
a biographer. 1t has been wholly un-
eventful, spent quietly at the feet of the
University in the quietest town of the
quietest county of the quietest State of
the Union. There are no adventures, no
enterprises, no changes of Importance to
narrate.
In Chapel Hill fifty, sixty years ago
life's ways, thoughts and outlooks (out-
side of what books could give) were
thoroughly provincial and no doubt mar
row. The children were taught at home,
and any move for them, outside of GER
tain lines, was considered queer"
revolutionary, anarchic. Education was
highly esteemed carefully provided-but
1T must be got in the ways the fathers
trOd. Latin and Greek and French, the
first foundation; ancient history and an
cient geography in preference to anything
modern. The old was better than the
new; the dead languages preferable to
the living.
DR.. Phillips, and especially his wife
(who did have some aspiration which
might have been called "altruistic" il
the word had then been known)-directed
the early education of their daughter
very much along with that of her broth
ers, with this difference: as they grew
up theirs expanded while hers remained
stationary, on the lines Of it's early direc-
ton. But she always read, she read all
kinds and on all subjects; her memory
was wonderful. l have been driving with
her and had her repeat pages of Eng
lish poetry and chapters of Scott's novels.
When one wearied in those days of
the wanderings of Ulysses, there was
Telemachus to take UP the tale, or the
pious Aeneas to place his own achieve
ments in the best possible light; or there
was Ovid, more fascinating than either
because better understood and Horace,
dear old heathen.'' There were the
dramatists and the historians, the ora
tors. For a change the French stage
was given, French poetry French SER
mons and Corinne. Later the English
language had some attention, also Mrs.
Marcet's chemistry, and Bonnycastle's
algebra and the like. And then the great
garden of English literature was opened,
and Cornelia Phillips, at eighteen or
twenty years of age, dropped her Latin
and Greek and betook herself to those
gardens and deep wells. Much English
poetry she had absorbed in those
eighteen years in the memorizing Of
choice passages which had been con-
stantly demanded Now she began to
understand and appreciate them. The
process was slow, but everything was
slow in those days
All educational work was dore with
absolutely no training for mind or body,
as training is understood in the present
day But there was a good deal of hap
plness, and much converse with the
woods and hills and streams and wild
flowers and fruits of Orange county. The
children grew up strong and healthy and
ready for any kind of work that might
offer. The pity was that so little of