Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/610

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ELLA FLAGG YOUNG 587 rooms. The girls ^^ turned onf from the classes of this old school have remained life-long friends of their teacher and tell to-day of her sympathy for them and for the children un- der her charge. In 1869 she was married, but went on with her school work. Later she became teacher of a high school class and in 1874 went back to the Normal School as instructor in mathematics. In 1876 she became principal of an elementary school and in this work spent eleven years. This position gave her an op- portxmity for broader work and study and was an important step in her training for supervision and management of schools. One of her pupils gives an interesting picture of Mrs. Young at this time : ^ ^ When I was a little girl about ten years of age I went to the old Scammon School on Monroe street Our prindpal, Ella Flagg Young, gave me a tortoise- shell-handled penknife as a present for making two grades in one year. I prized the knife greatly and kept it until I had grown up. I always call her ^our principal' in speaking of my school days, for J loved her dearly then, and still love her. I wish you could see her as she stands before me in my mind's eye : a little bit of a woman about five feet tall, all vim, push, and go-ahead. My, how she would make those boys fly. She always dressed in black, very plainly. And her eyes — eyes that looked you through and through ! When she was trans- ferred to the Skinner School I asked her if she would allow me to go there too, but she told me she could not without a permit from the board of education. As my mother was always too busy to get the permit and I was not old enough to go for my- self, I consequently lost all interest in the school when we lost our beloved principal, and I quit going. I lost my beautiful little knife, too, the only thing I had to remember our prin- cipal by, except her picture, which will last forever engraved in my heart.*' The measure of Mrs. Young's service in the positions she has held cannot be told by saying that hers has been a com- plete devotion to duty. She has gone beyond that point and has given more than the job required. While principal of schools she organized her teachers into a study class. The