The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-02-05
Country Girl Voted As The Best
Student In America.
AND SHE is FROM MISSOURI
Award of So, 500 Which She Must
Spend in Travel, How Her Moth
erAIded Education Plans.

Brookfield, Mo-, Jan &c. A Missouri
girl, born aud reared on "a farm and
educated almost entirely by her own
efforts, has been awarded the Braun
prize as the pest student of the uni
versities of America and Europe and
will start the coming summer on a
tour of the world with the money her
victory has given her. She is Mabel
f. Sturtevant of Brooktield twenty
six years old Miss Stmtevant is q
graduate of the University of Mis-
souri,, secretary of the National Teach
Travelled for season in Europe, been
admitted to the Missouri bar and has
won scholarship awards and other dis
tinctions in practically every year of
her schooling.
Her latest victory brings her the
annual William Braun prize of more
than $500 the only provision being
that she must use the money travelling
in countries where efforts to encOur-
age education have been made. Not
later than next August Miss Sturte-
want will start on this tour, which is
to occupy at least year.
Was An Ordinary Schol Girl.
Ten years ago Mabel Sturtevant
was an ordinary Missouri country
schoolgirl, attending one of the rural
schools in Linn county. Her parents
were poor and the daughter had no
exceptional advantage except her abil-
ity for labor and a consuming desire
to excel. She got through the eight
year course in the public schools in
five years, heading her classes all the
way. Then the mother moved to
Brookfield, where the girl was sent to
high school. She finished the four
years course in three years, winning
the curator's scholarship at the Uni
versity of Missouri.
But even with scholarship it takes
money to attend university, and
money was the one thing Mabel Stur-
tevant did not have. She became
first bookkeeper and later a dis
trict school teacher, and worked for
three years before she was able to
take up more study. Then she went
To Columbia and began at, once the
law and academic courses. In two
and one-half years she finished the
three years course, took the final eX
aminations and qualified for prize
which entitled her to three years
travel in europe She spent the fol
lowing summer abroad and returned
TO the university in the fall for post
graduate work.
1t was while in Europe that she
learned from other students of the
eccentric will of the late William
Braun, a wealthy Engishman, whose
testament provided that his fortune
go to the encouraging travel and
study in many lands by students OF
remarkable attainments Miss Sturte-
want prepared herself for the eXami-
nations and entered them with char
acteristic energy and determination.
She came out considerably ahead OF
al OChcI COH pCbiloins ih'i ''h' "''''Nh'
When she starts the coming summer
her mother, who has been the untiring
promoter of her daughters interesting
career, will accompany her. Nothing
about the Missouri girls string of
student achievements has more human
interest than the part the mother
played.
Mrs. Sturtevant raised vegetables
near Brookfield to send her daughter
to high school. Later, when the girl
had earned nearly enough money to
start in the university, the mother
went to the college town, rented Il
large house, let rooms to students
and paid the remainder of the ambi-
tious girls expenses. She might have
earned her way to an education as
other girls are doing at Columbus,
but her mother desired that all the
girls time be put on her studies.
So next summer the daughter who
did and the mother who helped will
take little journey around the world.