Representative women of New England/Mary E. T. Chapin
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MARY THOMPSON CHAPIN
MARY ETHERIDGE THOMPSON CHAPIN (Mrs. Henry W. Chapin) was born in Yarmouth, Me., the daughter of Moses Wirt and Huldah Green (True) Thompson. A girl of great versatility, of talent and wide range of affinities with artistic and intellectual life, her first inclination revealed itself in sculpture, and even so great an authority as Anne Whitney recognized her genuine talent for the plastic art. From her father Miss Thompson inherited her ardent love of art, which was destined later on to play an important part in her work for humanity. After graduating with academic honors, Miss Thompson took the complete kindergarten training course under the famous Miss Garland, and in Cambridge she lectured on teaching, taking the head of the kindergarten established by Elizabeth Peabody and Mrs. Horace Mann. With these two ladies she lived, and to have thus come under the remarkable influence of Miss Peabody she has always accounted as a significant event in her life.
In her early youth she became the wife of Henry W. Chapin, of Boston, who is an official in the government service, and from this time Mrs. Chapin's life began that marked expansion which has made her a potent and beneficent factor in educational and artistic life. In special courses of study in Radcliffe College, in travel, and in constant contact with the world of thought and purpose, she has achieved a power that she brings to bear upon municipal life in many directions. In 1897 Mrs. Chapin conceived the idea of courses of free art lectures for the people, to be given in the Boston Public Library: and, securing the sympathy and consent of the trustees, this movement was inaugurated, and has successfully continued, Mrs. Chapin assuming all the financial responsibility. The beautiful idea of adorning school-rooms with works of art was original with Mrs. Chapin, and it so commended itself as to be widely adopted in Boston and elsewhere.
A member of the famous Copley Club, Mrs. Chapin was the chairman of the committee selected to choose pictures for free art exhibitions for the people, which were given in the South P]n(l House (so admirably managed by Mr. Robert Wood) and in several school-houses. Mrs. Chapin is a prominent member of the New England Woman's Club. She was one of the founders of the Metaphysical Club, and also of the Unity Art Club, of which she has always been the president; and she has always been the recipient of social and scholarly honors, among the latter of which is the unique distinction of having the star, Etheridgea, discovered by Professor Charlois, of Nice, in April, 1892, named for her.
Through her ancestry Mrs. Chapin is eligible to the Society of Daughters of the Revolution and that of the Colonial Dames; and, though her busy life does not permit of her active membership, she is often a speaker at their banquets. Mrs. Chapin's mental equipment for a public speaker is enhanced by beauty, charm and distinction of presence, and a voice of combined strength and flexibility.
As a lecturer she has made herself a special favorite, and her Thursday morning "conferences," given in her home, on the general theme of the art of higher and nobler living, draw select and enthusiastic hearers. Mrs. Chapin is still a young woman, and her ardent buoyancy of temperament, her fine poise, and exalted mental attitude combine to render her work and influence among the beneficent forces of the day.