Clara Barton, Professional Angel. Elizabeth Brown Pryor
timidity was at once heightened and tempered by her experiences at school. She soon found she could gain much-needed attention by her unusual intellectual abilities, but she had difficulties fitting in with the shouting, rambunctious children.
Clara began her formal education at the age of three—a practice not uncommon in New England at that time. Even at this age she was no novice, having already the rudiments of a basic education. Indeed she could not recall a time that she could not read and startled her teacher on the first day by spelling words as advanced as artichoke.55 One of her earliest schools was conducted by Richard Stone, a converted Universalist like her father, whose belief in bringing out the best in each child helped him to attract pupils from all over New England. This school, like so many she would attend, crowded up to a hundred scholars in one or two rooms and stressed reading, writing, and arithmetic, learned largely through rote. Stone, however, was unusual in his commitment to challenging his better pupils, and Clara was among those who enjoyed the benefits of individual attention.56 She especially recalled the pleasure of discovering the field of geography at his school, becoming so intrigued that she “persisted in waking my poor drowsy sister in the cold winter mornings to sit up in bed and by the light of a tallow candle, help to find mountains, rivers, counties, oceans, lakes.”57 Barton’s earliest school papers also show that Stone inculcated her with the patriotic, moral, and religious precepts thought appropriate to the proper formation of character. “Death is the only thing certain in the world,” a nine-year-old Clara carefully copied into her penmanship book. She followed it with “Govern your passions” and “Knowledge is gained Only by Constant Study.”58
The strong personal relationship between Clara and Richard Stone seems to have been repeated with all of her teachers. They found in the serious young girl an eagerness to learn that was both touching and challenging. Another teacher, Lucien Burleigh, treated her “with consideration and kindness,” and developed a series of advanced studies—including astronomy, ancient history, and poetry—for her questing mind. Long after she left his school, Burleigh continued to show an affectionate interest in her affairs and concern for her spiritual and intellectual development.59 Clara next attended an Oxford school taught by Jonathan Dana, and once more the pupil-teacher relationship proved to be a close one. Barton wrote of this friendship that she had “no words to describe the value of his instruction, nor the pains he took with his eager pupil.” There again she was permitted to dabble in the higher branches of learning and was given special instruction outside of school hours. Thankful for any individual attention, Clara remembered her experiences at Jonathan Dana’s school with affection: “My grateful Homage for my inestimable teacher and his interest in his early pupil, became memories of a lifetime.”60
Clara’s family was proud of her scholarship, and she basked in their approbation. Her sisters helped her to expand her literary tastes, sharing poetry and their favorite books, while Stephen, she recalled, “inducted me into the mystery of figures.”61 The Barton's’ encouragement of Clara’s intellectual talents speaks of their liberalism, for many girls of her day were dissuaded from intellectual pursuits or actively barred from the more advanced fields of study. It also strongly shaped her perception of the skills needed to gain recognition and acceptance at home and in the world at large. While other girls were honing the traditional traits of womanhood—humility and nurturing—Clara found that achievement and “hard-thinking” won her the respect she so anxiously sought.62
Clara’s school experiences gave her scope for intellectual growth and lessened somewhat her family tensions, but they made only minimal inroads into her chronic social malaise. On her first day of school, finding herself away from the familiar scenes of home, she “was seized with an intense fear…at finding no member of the family near.”63 She gradually adjusted to this, of course, but continued to feel alienated from the other pupils and fearful of new faces. An attempt to reduce her bashfulness by sending her to Richard Stone’s new boarding school turned into a disaster as Clara, “in constant dread of doing something wrong,” could not adjust and would not talk or eat. Despite the kind attentions of teachers, she finally had to be sent home. Clara bitterly resented the whole episode, characterizing it as a decision “to throw me among strangers.”64 As an older pupil, Clara found the majority of her peers to be less earnest than she about their studies, and they consequently seemed to her frivolous and immature. Though at least one fellow pupil admired her (“she was very studious and had a remarkable memory”), she also sensed that most of her schoolmates found her “unaccountable and prudish.” Her memories of school days are filled with remembrances of teachers and curriculum, not carefree frolics and school fellowship.65
Recognition for Clara’s scholarship reinforced in her a taste for masculine accomplishments and pursuits that caused her to identify strongly with men both during her childhood and in her adult life. “Your father always said you are more boy than girl,” Clara reminded herself in 1907.66 She idolized her father, and her favorite memory as a very small child was of sitting and listening “breathlessly” to his stories of war and wilderness living until she could recite the names of his heroes with a “parrot-like readiness.”67 The tales were transformed into playtime mock battles, complete with drums, banners, and stick bayonets—unusual games for a young girl. “The army played havock with each other, had fearful encounters, and…suffered disastrous results,” Clara recalled.68 The men in her family led her in pastimes that tested her strength and courage: David had her riding bareback before she was five, and her father’s present of a spirited horse, “Billy,” increased her ability until, galloping out in all kinds of weather, she would leave her companions far behind.69 Eschewing dolls, she followed instead the pleasures and work of Stephen and David; they, in turn, taught her well, allowing few excuses for performance that was not up to their standard. “I must throw a ball or a stone with an underswing like a boy and not a girl, and must make it go where I sent it, and not fall at my feet and foolishly laugh at it,” Clara proudly stated. “If I would drive a nail, strike it fairly on the head every time and not split the board. If I would draw a screw, turn it right the first time. I must tie a square knot that would hold.”70
At the age of seven or eight, Clara found herself in a situation that allowed her to exercise and hone her tastes for boys’ play and boys’ company. About that time her father moved the family to the nearby Learned farmstead. Jeremiah Learned, a dashing but indiscriminate nephew of Captain Stephen Barton, had died, leaving a wife and four children and a farm that had suffered badly during his long illness. There were large debts, children to be clothed, and only the scantiest crops in the ground. To retain the land—nearly three hundred acres—for the family, Captain Barton, together with another relative, purchased the farm. The Learneds were allowed to stay on, but Clara’s family also moved into the house. The Learned boys, Jerry and Otis, and their friend Lovett Simpson, became her firm friends. “Wild” Jerry and mischievous Otis set the tone for the activities of the little band of cousins, and the next four years were filled with adventurous and daring escapades. In describing the happy events of this time Clara rarely mentions her girl cousins.71
The old Learned homestead, built in the early eighteenth century, was a much larger and more commodious house than the one in which Clara was born. Two stories high, of strong clapboarding, and with a pitched roof, it was surrounded by orchards, gardens, and intriguing outbuildings. The new place presented an array of interesting nooks and crannies to explore. Thus the little troop of cousins and friends roamed the farm’s territory, running through “broad beautiful meadows” and up the rocky and wooded hills. They hunted chestnuts, explored caves, and dogged snakes near the French River. Clara recalled with obvious pleasure the lure of “three temptingly great barns…. Was there ever a better opportunity for hide-and-seek, for jumping and climbing?”72 The saw and grain mills also held a special fascination. The children rode the long saw carriage out over the raceway, jumping off quickly after the sawn log was drawn back. They dared each other to balance on a pole thrown across the mill stream, and they gasped and whooped as it “swayed and teetered from the moment the foot touched it till it left it.” Oblivious to the danger, the children merrily tempted the odds, and, miraculously, none was ever hurt.73
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