Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/244

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BEECHER
BEECHER

bered 160 pupils. It was maintained for ten years. Comprehending the deficiencies of existing text-books, she prepared, primarily for use in her own school, some elementary books in arithmetic, a work on theology, and a third on mental and moral philosophy. The last was never published, although printed and used as a college text-book. The gist of her theories on the subject of teaching was that the physical and moral training of her pupils was quite as important as the development of their intellectual powers. She also claimed that a housekeeper is responsible for the health of all the inmates of her family, especially of children and servants who have not the needful knowledge and discretion. She was constantly making experiments, and practising them upon the girls, weighing all their food before they ate it, holding that Graham flour and the Graham diet were better for them than richer food. Ten of her pupils invited her to dine with them at a restaurant. She accepted the invitation, and the excellent dinner changed her views. Thereafter they were served with more palatable food. In 1832 Miss Beecher went to Cincinnati with her father, who had accepted the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary, and in that city she opened a female seminary, which, on account of failing health, was discontinued after two years. She then devoted herself to the development of an extended plan for the physical, social, intellectual, and moral education of women, to be promoted through a national board; and for nearly forty years she labored perseveringly in this work, organizing societies for training teachers; establishing plans for supplying the territories with good educators; writing, pleading, and travelling with persistent energy and earnestness. Her object, as described by herself, was, “to unite American women in an effort to provide a Christian education for 2,000,000 children in our country” who were destitute of schools. She made her field of labor especially in the west and south, and sought the aid of educated women throughout the land. She was for many years engaged with ex-Governor Slade, of Vermont, in a scheme for introducing woman teachers into the west. The name given to the organization was “The National Board of Popular Education”; and it was claimed that hundreds of the best teachers the west received went there under the patronage of this system. To a certain extent the plans succeeded, and were found beneficial; but the careers of the teachers were mostly short, for they soon married. She had a mind full of original vigor, but without much imagination; it was perhaps the want of this that made some of her schemes impracticable. She had a great deal of racy humor and mother-wit, with patience, magnanimity, and unbounded good-nature. Her conversation was full of fresh comments on persons and things, without the least bitterness or malice. It was her rule to make her own common sense the standard of judgment, and she doubted the value of anything not commended by that. She continued in her old age the accomplishments of her youth, singing, and playing the piano and the guitar; but her performances were those of a past generation, as she had no belief in modern or classic music. She believed that what she could not comprehend could not exist. It was so also in art. The work of the masters and mediæval art had no meaning for her. She spoke of a house where rare specimens of art were collected as “full of Virgins and Son,” with “a picture of Christ all rubbed out,” “a Psyche with the top of her head knocked in,” and “Venus without arms.” She occasionally wrote verses, and was sometimes an attendant at women's conventions and congresses. For many years she suffered from lameness and weakness of nerve and body, and all her work was carried on under great bodily difficulties. In early life she was Calvinistic in belief, but in her later years became a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church. Miss Beecher's published works include “Letters on the Difficulties of Religion” (Hartford, 1830); “The Moral Instructor” (Cincinnati, 1838); “Treatise on Domestic Economy” (Boston, 1842); “Housekeeper's Receipt-Book” (New York, 1845); “Duty of American Women to their Country” (1845); “True Remedy for the Wrongs of Women, with a History of an Enterprise having that for its Object” (Boston, 1851); “Letters to the People on Health and Happiness” (New York, 1855); “Physiology and Calisthenics” (1856); “Common Sense applied to Religion” (1857), a book containing many striking departures from the Calvinistic theology; “An Appeal to the People, as the Authorized Interpreters of the Bible” (1860); “Religious Training of Children in the School, the Family, and the Church” (1864); “Woman's Profession as Mother and Educator, with Views in Opposition to Woman Suffrage” (Philadelphia, 1871); “Housekeeper and Healthkeeper” (New York, 1873); and with her sister, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The American Woman's Home” (New York, 1869); “Principles of Domestic Science as applied to the Duties and Pleasures of Home” (1870); and also a “Domestic Receipt-Book,” of which numerous editions have been sold. Apart from the books relating to her special educational purpose, she wrote memoirs of her brother, George Beecher (1844); and “Truth Stranger than Fiction” (Boston, 1850), an account of an infelicitous domestic affair in which some of her friends were involved. She left an autobiography nearly completed. — His eldest son, William Henry, clergyman, b. in East Hampton, L. I., 15 Jan., 1802; d. in Chicago, Ill., 23 June, 1889. His education was obtained at home, and then he studied theology under his father and at Andover. In 1833 he received the honorary degree of A. M. from Yale. For many years he was a home missionary on the Western Reserve, and held charges in Putnam, Toledo, and Chillicothe, Ohio, and in Reading, and North Brookfield, Mass. — Another son, Edward, clergyman, b. in East Hampton, L. I., 27 Aug., 1803; d. in Brooklyn, N. Y., 28 July, 1895. He was graduated at Yale in 1822, studied theology at Andover and New Haven, became tutor in Yale in 1825, and then removed to Boston to take charge of the Park street congregation. Here he remained from 1826 till 1830, when he was elected president of Illinois College, Jacksonville. In 1844 he returned to Boston, as pastor of Salem street church, and in 1855 he became pastor of the Congregational church at Galesburg, Ill., where he remained until 1870. For some years he was professor of exegesis in the Chicago Theological Seminary. In 1872 he retired from the ministry and removed to Brooklyn, N. Y. The title of D. D. was conferred on him by Marietta College in 1841. He was a constant contributor to periodicals, was senior editor of “The Congregationalist” for the first six years of its existence, and after 1870 was a regular contributor to the “Christian Union.” His two works on the “Ages” gave rise to much discussion, and have modified doctrinal statements as to the origin of human depravity. The central idea presented is, that man's present life upon earth is the outgrowth of a former life as well as the prelude to a future one; that during the ages a conflict has been