The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-03-05
EVENING CHAT
By RUTH CAMERON.

Il have never passed single week since
attending the seminary without recalling
Mary Lyon and her teachings"
Can you think of any finer tribute to
the influence of life than this. which
was paid to Mary Lyon by a pupil fifty
years after graduating?
VINO is Mary Lyon, and why am [ talk
ing about her?
Mary Lyon was the founder of Mt
dolyoke college, which was one of the
two first colleges for women in the coun-
try, and am telling you about her today
birth. @'~-
There are many of these obscureIy great
Iolks IN our history, who had almost as
powerful an influence upon the conditions
OF our lie today as some of the names
that are household words, and whose lives
are quite as inspiring to read about To
any woman who is interested in the wo-
man movement, 1 recommend the BIZ
ography OF one of its greatest ancestors
Mary Lyon.
Mary Lyon was born February %. 1897.
She was the child of very poor parents,
and had to earn most of her own educa-
tOn- She became a country SchOolmarm.
RECEIVING as her first pay, seventy-five
cents a week and board. In all her life
the highest salary she ever received was
wv year, and out of that she gave
much toward her beloved project
At that time higher education for wo-
men was as BITTERLY opposed as woman
suffrage now is. That a woman should
study algebra was considered as unnat-
she should vote. Moreover, money for
philanthropic objects was a great deal
more difficult to get then than it is in
these days of multi-milli onaireS who can
found a college by signing a check. But
Mary Lyon fought her way through every
obstacle of prejudice and poverty, and in
1886 founded Mt. Holyoke and became its
first president.
One of the most wonde rful things about
her life was that she had time for little
kindneSses, for personal influence and
contact, as we'll for her great work
The tribute her pupil paid her fifty
years afterwards, shows the depth of her
personal influence. An example of the
little kindness is this incident related by
her biographer-
With all the care of the seminary rest
ng on her shoulders, she yet made time
during her last season at Ipswich to
teach a woman who worked in the
kitchen to read. The woman was about
forty years old and had been ashamed to
let anyone know of her inability. Mary
Lyon found it out and straightway began
to teach her alone in her own ROOM
I wish 1 had space and time to tell
you all about this wonderful woman's life.
Since have not, perhaps the best use 1
can make of my remaining space is to
chronicle some of her sayings which have
come down to u.s. and let you read her
character in them
1.-The right use of money is to accom-
plsh what you wish with it,.
Privileges and obliga tons, like sisters,
go hand in hand
'f1t is the mark of a weak mind to be
always continually comparing the two
sexes and disputing, and making out the
female sex as something great and SUI
perior.''
II have asked God to keep me alive
just so long as 1 can do something for
him, which no one else can do"
You have not governed a child until
you have made the child smile under your
government"
Never put anything in the fire that
a bird will open its bill to GET
There is nothing in my universe that
I fear, but that I shall not know all my
duty or shall fail to do it,