Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/234

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REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND
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the city, and cars to all points pass close to its doors. Within five minutes' walk of the Fens, within eight minutes of the Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, and close beside the new Symphony Hall and beautiful new hall of the Horticultural Society, the college home is in the artistic and literary centre of Boston.

Mrs. Southwick has been connected with the college as either pupil or teacher almost since its inception, and to her faithful and efficient work in conjunction with her husband is attributed much of its success and growth. As a reader and especially as a Shakespearean exponent, she is well known to literary American audiences as a leading artist. Her dramatic power and personal magnetism hold her audiences almost spellbound. The series of recitals given every season under the direction of Dean and Mrs. Southwick have become a marked feature of literary Boston, as is shown by the large audiences in attendance. Mrs. South- wick is also a power in the social element of the college life, where she takes a personal interest in all the receptions given, and comes in contact with all of the pupils of the school.

Mr. and Mrs. Southwick have three children, namely: Ruth, born September 18, 1893; Mildred, born August 15, 1895; and Jessie, born November 18, 1897—all of whom are now receiving the best educational advantages that can be secured.


HANNAH E. and JULIA R. GILMAN, the principals of the Home and Day School for Girls at 324 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, belong to a family which for many generations has manifested a marked interest in all matters pertaining to Christian education. Their genealogical tree shows New England stock of the best quality. In one branch appears the name of Daniel C. Oilman, the first President of Johns Hopkins University and now at the head of the Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C. In another branch is found the name of Arthur Oilman, of Cambridge, formerly regent of Radcliffe College.

The Rev. Tristram Gilman (Harv. Coll. 1757) great-grandfather of the Misses Oilman of Boston, was the honored and beloved pastor of the First Church in North Yarmouth, Me., for forty years, or from the date of his ordination in 1769 until his death in 1809. Their grandfather, Joseph Oilman, who was an eminent physician in Wells, Me., was a stanch ad- vocate of education, good citizenship, and every form of philanthropy. A more distant forbear, the Rev. Nicholas Oilman, A.M. (Harv. Coll. 1724), father of Tristram, had the same qualities of firm principle, sound judgment, and strong sense of duty which have "run in the family," as the phrase goes, from the beginning. The men were more ambitious to be useful members of society than to acquire either fame or fortune, and they were distinguished for their quiet home virtues.

The subjects of this sketch were born in Foxcroft, Me., being the daughters of Ebenezer and Roxana (Palmer) Gilman. The parents had high ideals for their children, eight in all, and together they trained the boys and girls in habits of industry, thrift, self-control, and a genuine religious faith. The father was a man of unusual sweetness and purity of character. The mother, like so many New England women of that period, had a practical wisdom and energy which beautifully complemented her husband's gentle traits. Both believed in the value of a good education, for daughters equally with sons, and labored cheerfully to secure for their large family such advantages as the times afforded.

The elder of these two sisters, Hannah, studied first at the Foxcroft Academy and later at Bradford Seminary, being graduated in 1857. From this time onward she devoted herself assiduously to study, not for the sake of mere accomplishment or mental exercise, but with an earnest purpose to embody in her life the spirit expressed in Whittier's lines,

" Make the world within your reach
Somewhat the better for your living,
And gladder for your human speech."

Her love of culture was inborn, and the wholesome discipline of Puritan training gave her