She yearned to have her pupil win the goals
before him; everything was grist that came to her mill if only it would
serve her purpose. She disdained nothing that could afford nourishment to
the spirit of the child and give him zeal, courage, and strength for the
upward journey. If more arithmetic was needful, she found it; if more
history, she gave it; and if the book on geography was inadequate, she
supplemented from libraries or from her own abundant storehouse of
knowledge. She dared to deviate from the course of study, if thereby the
child might more certainly win the goals toward which she ever looked and
worked.
In the boy, she saw a poet, a philosopher, a prophet, an artist, a
musician, a statesman, or a philanthropist, and she worked and prayed that
the artist in the child might not die but that he might grow to stalwart
manhood to glorify the work of her school. In each girl she saw another
Ruth, or Esther, or Cordelia, or Clara Barton, or Frances Willard, or
Florence Nightingale, or Rosa Bonheur, or Mrs. Stowe, or Mrs. Browning.
And her heart yearned over each one of these and strove with power to
nourish them into vigorous life that they might become jewels in her crown
of rejoicing. She must not allow one to perish through her ignorance or
malpractice, for she would keep her soul free from the charge of murder.
And in the fullness of manhood and womanhood her pupils achieved the full
symphony of life.
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