The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1916-01-06
SOUTH DORSET

SOUTH DORSET
Our lit:le community was painfully
shocked and saddened last Wednesday
on receiving news Of the death of Miss
Sarah c. Kelleher in Troy City Hos
pital, following an operation on De,
cembcr 2lst. A veteran teacher Of
our primary school, for twenty years
and more, her loss is keenly felt
( throughout our valley, not only by the
parents who esteemed her for the
beauty and nobility of her character,
and TO whose care their loved ones
were entrusted; but by the young men
and women, who have left the school
room for life's arena and who must
have inhibited some potent moral pow
err from her singular rectitude and
conscientious labor in their behalf;
also by the little ones she so dearly
loved and who so fondly loved her, and
who have lost not only a fond teacher
but a sympathetic friend.
Patient, faithful, interchangeable in
duty; devoted to her home, her kin
bred, her school, kind and sympa
thc.ic with the difficulties and frailties
Of the little ones entrusted to her
care; charitable in her thoughts; self
sacrificing to a remarkable degree in
her actions, as Wordsworth says:
with reason firm, and temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength and
skill;
\ perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
a creature not too bright or good
For human natures daily food;
And yet spirit still and bright
With something of an angel light"
Such life needs no eulogy. It's in
fuence mus. be imperishable; for it
has left indelibly imprinted on plastic
minds and human souls, impressions
that may be marred but never quite
effaced. 1t has planted the seeds Of
habit; watched patiently for the frs.
tender sprouts of action and skillfully
pruned the first tendrils of imperfect
character, at an age when the child's
intelec. with its powerful faculties of
Judgment, reason and will are slowly
awakening for veal or for woe; when
the child, happily unaware of either
the glory of the heights or the despair
of the depths, fearlessly begins the
ceaseless march that leads onward,
ever onward, to destiny.
"To live in hearts we leave behind,
is no. TO die" The boys and girls who
conned the first elements Of knowledge
under Miss kelleher's tutelage can
never really forget her. Our schooldays
are ever fresh in our memories, dim
med and overshadowed perhaps, by the
press and stress, cares and RESPONSE
bilities, worries and sufferings, of this
strenuous life, yet ever there, as the
anecdotes Of our grandparents forcibly
show. With the memories is associat-
ed the teacher and, incidentally, the
teachers influence.
The thoughts she aroused; the ambi-
tons she inspired live after her in
other hearts and minds. These ma
terialize into action; the actions show
examples; the examples help to mould
characters that too, will shed their
radiance on other lives and other
souls, helping them to lift he shad-
ows, 10 strengthen the weak, and TO
renew the vigor of the strong. A
radiant influence that does not end
even here, but i. transmitted subjec
lively may be, but passed on just the
same, to each succeeding generation
10 become the one brilliant diadem in
the crown, the perpetual reward and
glory Of good character and good
life.
II the responsibility of the teacher
is so great, who can sum up the re
suits, measure the rewards or imagine
the glory, that awaits the noble, de-
voted woman, who chose as her life
work the profession that was deemed
most worthy by .he greatest Of all
great teachers, Christ Himself. She
has silently Crossed the bar, and met
her Pilot face To face" Her death be-
! ing beautiful epitome of Tennyson's
soul-inspiring lines: