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HARRIEr ELIZABETH CARYL 
 ABOUT 1900 
 
HARRIET ELIZABETH CARYL 
 
A MEMORIAL OF 
 
 Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 1834— 1918 
 
 ARRANGED BY 
 
 Florence Dix Class of 1868 
 
 Alice M. Dickey Class of 1876 
 
 Katharine H. Shute Class of 1879 
 
 Of the Girls' High School, Boston 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 Privately Printed 
 1919 
 
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 HARRIET ELIZABETH CARYL 
 
Tribute beyond the bounds of rhyme, 
 To our Sweet Saint of modern time, 
 Whose life itself in rhythmic flow, 
 A benediction doth bestow. 
 
 "Go forth in peace," that life doth say 
 
 "In childlike trust pursue thy way, 
 
 E'en though it lead through gloom and night — 
 
 Abiding faith brings inward light." 
 
 Alice M. Dickey, 'yS 
 
HARRIET ELIZABETH CARYL 
 
 It is not what the best men do, but what they are, that con- 
 stitutes their truest benefaction to their fellowmen. It is the 
 lives like the stars, which simply pour down on us the calm light 
 of their bright and faithful being up to which we look, and out of 
 which we gather the deepest calm and courage. 
 
 Phillips Brooks 
 
 About ninety years ago, a young man by the 
 name of Lucian Willard Caryl came to Boston 
 to study medicine. He was a country boy, a 
 native of Barnard, Vermont, and a graduate of 
 Union College, New York. At the close of his 
 medical course, he served for a year as house phy- 
 sician at the Massachusetts General Hospital. 
 During this time, he met, and soon after mar- 
 ried, Miss Frances Amelia Whitney, one of five 
 daughters living with their parents in a dignified 
 old house on Myrtle Street. 
 
 After their marriage, Lucian Caryl and his 
 wife went to Buffalo, New York, where he prac- 
 ticed medicine, spending many of his spare hours 
 in the study of mathematics and astronomy, in 
 both of which he was deeply interested and un- 
 usually proficient. Here in Buffalo, on the 2 1st 
 of November, 1834, a little daughter was born, 
 who was named Harriet Elizabeth. But long 
 before the little girl could begin to share with 
 him the pursuits in which she, herself, later 
 showed such marl^e4 ability — indeed, even be- 
 
 3 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 fore she was old enough to remember him — the 
 young father died; then the stricken young wife 
 broke up the home so recently established and 
 with her little daughter went to Ohio, where they 
 remained for two years, living with relatives. 
 
 When Harriet was between four and five 
 years of age, she came with her mother to Bos- 
 ton, to make her home with the grandparents on 
 Myrtle Street, and found herself an only child in a 
 family of rather serious grown-up people. Hers 
 was a very delicate childhood, so delicate that 
 her mother was at times seriously apprehensive 
 as to her future. She was, however, sent to a 
 primary school on Revere Street, where she con- 
 ducted herself in a very docile manner until an 
 act of injustice on the part of her teacher re- 
 sulted In the quiet but deliberate revolt of the 
 little girl. She was naturally very shy, and on 
 this occasion she did not take her mother Into 
 her confidence, deciding to play truant on her 
 own responsibility. For a part of one weary but 
 independent day she sat about upon doorsteps 
 in the neighborhood (judiciously avoiding those 
 belonging to her grandfather's house) until an 
 observant neighbor reported the child's nomadic 
 course to the family at home. Then Harriet 
 made a clean breast of the whole matter to her 
 mother, found the necessary understanding and 
 sympathy, and was reinstated in school. Every 
 pupil of Miss Caryl can testify that this early 
 love of justice bore rich fruit In later years, and 
 
 4 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 none who studied under her wise guidance can 
 fail to recall her intense personal sympathy with 
 Samuel Adams and other sticklers for justice of 
 his strenuous times. 
 
 From the primary school the child went to 
 the Bowdoin Grammar School, where, although 
 still seriously hampered by ill health, she be- 
 came warmly interested in her studies. In addi- 
 tion to the regulation grammar-school curricu- 
 lum of the time, which consisted of "the three 
 R's" and geography, she studied a little Latin, 
 and algebra, and history. 
 
 She was graduated from the Bowdoin School 
 at the age of sixteen, and then entered a school 
 of design, but when it became known that a high 
 school, or "Normal School," as it was cautiously 
 called at first, was to be opened for Boston girls, 
 her mother at once decided to send her to this 
 new school. This was a bold step for a mother of 
 that day to take, and the opening of that school 
 was a memorable occasion In the history of pub- 
 lic education for women. To quote from the 
 "History of the Girls' High School," written by 
 Miss Lucy R. Woods: "In 1825, the good city 
 of Boston allowed Its girls to attend the public 
 schools but six months in the year, from April to 
 October. The Rev. John Plerpont proposed the 
 establishment of a * public school for the instruc- 
 tion of girls In the higher departments of science 
 and literature." The committee reported favor- 
 ably, the city appropriated two thousand dollars, 
 
 S 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 and in January, 1826, the school was established, 
 but instead of ninety candidates, the largest 
 number that had ever presented themselves for 
 admission to the Boys' High School, nearly 
 three hundred girls appeared at the appointed 
 place, on Washington's Birthday, 1826. One 
 hundred and thirty were admitted. This experi- 
 ment was short-lived. In vain the committee 
 raised the standard of requirements for admis- 
 sion, and both raised and limited the age of 
 admission. The numbers increased. Mayor 
 Quincy was alarmed. *No city could stand the 
 expense,' he declared. In 1828 it was discon- 
 tinued. To many friends of education this was 
 a great blow. So great was the influence of 
 Boston in educational matters, that the discon- 
 tinuance of this school no doubt retarded the 
 whole movement in the country for the higher 
 education of girls at municipal expense. Nearly 
 a quarter of a century passed. In 1852 Boston's 
 population numbered one hundred and thirty 
 thousand, and the first superintendent of schools 
 made known the need of a place where young 
 women might be trained as teachers for the 
 primary and grammar schools, and in Septem- 
 ber the Normal School began its career." 
 
 In regard to Miss Caryl's early days in this 
 school, one of her pupils, Miss Lilias Page, 
 writes: 
 
 "Harriet Caryl entered the Normal School at 
 its opening and she and her classmates well un- 
 
 6 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 derstood that upon what they did, depended the 
 future education of the girls of Boston; they 
 began this new experiment in education with a 
 spirit of adventure and a sense of responsibiHty, 
 and they were determined not to fail. 
 
 "It was with this stimulus of adventure and 
 responsibility that Harriet Caryl walked down 
 Joy Street every morning, passed the old Han- 
 cock House, then standing on Beacon Street 
 near the State House, crossed the Common, then 
 surrounded by dignified residences, and entered 
 the Mason Street School. We now know the 
 building as the School Committee building, but 
 in those days there was no steep, forbidding 
 staircase, towering above you as you opened the 
 front door, but a wide, welcoming corridor lead- 
 ing back to windows that overlooked an open 
 bricked court. At the end of the corridor, you 
 turned to the left to rooms occupied in part by 
 the Boston Public Library, while to the right 
 were the rooms of the old Natural History Build- 
 ing, later to be used by the school. Both were 
 buildings of delightful irregularity, containing 
 rooms of curious shapes and sizes, reached by 
 unexpected passages. The past seemed to per- 
 meate every corner of this clustered building; 
 and a secluded, leisurely quiet hung over the 
 bricked open court, walled in by the Boston 
 Theatre and other high buildings, where the 
 girls strolled about during recess, eating lunches 
 brought from home in folding tin lunch boxes. 
 
 "Under Loring Lothrop as master and with 
 Margaret Badger and Frances Bacon as class- 
 mates, Harriet Caryl spent three years as a 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 pupil in the school. These were the days of 
 Committee men like Theodore Parker, who often 
 would take a class in Latin or mathematics for 
 the pleasure of teaching. They were the days of 
 the Fugitive Slave Law and of the eloquence of 
 Daniel Webster; the days of the work of Horace 
 Mann, who planned the educational system not 
 only for Massachusetts, but also for the great 
 republic of Argentina, where his system is fol- 
 lowed to this day; they were the days when 
 European liberals, like Carl Schurz, came to the 
 United States from Austria, Italy, and Germany, 
 after the rising for liberty In those countries, in 
 1848, had been crushed; liberals who became 
 valuable citizens of our country, and later, im- 
 portant aids in our war of 1861 for preserving 
 the Union. We can well imagine the quick re- 
 sponse of Harriet Caryl's young nature to all 
 these stirring currents of the time." 
 
 Miss Caryl's three years as a student in this 
 school were inexpressibly happy years. She 
 loved her studies; she was modestly conscious of 
 the good opinion of her teachers ; and best of all 
 she enjoyed her schoolmates with genuine girlish 
 enthusiasm, losing with them the shyness and 
 reserve which had characterized her relations 
 with other people to a somewhat unusual degree. 
 It was in these happy, ardent, fruitful years 
 that she "found herself." To quote from Mrs. 
 Ellen F. Brown, one of her classmates: 
 
 "Hattie Caryl! What tender memories this 
 name recalls to one who was her classmate and 
 
 8 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 friend in the dear old days of the Girls' High 
 School. Without doubt there was no one of the 
 class so loved and respected by the committee, 
 teachers, and pupils as was Miss Caryl. Quiet 
 and unassuming in her ways, a close student, a 
 genial companion, always a true friend, and 
 especially so in time of need, she won all our 
 hearts. Were a fellow classmate or a pupil in 
 another grade in trouble, who so quick to find it 
 out as Hattie, and to show her kindness and 
 sympathy as she only could to the sorrowing 
 one.'* In studies her rank in the class was among 
 the highest; as a faithful earnest student she 
 was excelled by none. Her clear mind, aided by 
 close application, enabled her to grasp the intrica- 
 cies of mathematics and astronomy and appre- 
 ciate the salient points of history and English 
 literature with equal facility. She was a born 
 teacher, and whatever she knew herself she could 
 always impart distinctly to others in the class 
 recitations. With all her good qualities of mind 
 and heart there was no egotism, no assumption 
 of superiority over others not so highly gifted: 
 consequently no one was jealous. I never heard 
 an ill-natured remark concerning her in the 
 three years of our school life." 
 
 Another fellow student, Miss Laura Wildes, 
 writes: 
 
 "Hattie Caryl was the nicest girl one could 
 desire in any class. I think she changed in 
 looks as little as one could in the passing years. 
 Her face was always sweet, and her manner 
 cordial and friendly. I may say in school-girl 
 
 9 
 
Harriet Ktizabeth Caryl 
 
 fashion, *She was just as nice as she could 
 e. 
 
 It was no surprise to those who knew her 
 that upon graduation, in 1855, at the age of 
 twenty-one, she was asked to become a teacher 
 in the school, an invitation which she accepted 
 with hesitation and joy. During her early 
 years of teaching Miss Caryl was in very deli- 
 cate health. The friends who watched her with 
 anxious interest could hardly have believed that 
 she had long years of usefulness before her. In 
 i860 her condition was so critical that she was 
 obliged to leave school and go to the West. 
 With somewhat improved health she returned to 
 her work after several months of absence, but it 
 was not until about seven years later, when she 
 had recovered from a long siege of typhoid fever 
 which seemed to have purged her entire system, 
 that she began to be a thoroughly healthy 
 woman. The good health of her later years was 
 one source of her power and success. 
 
 During her forty-eight years of service, Miss 
 Caryl taught at one time or another nearly all 
 the subjects found in the curriculum, some of 
 them rather unwillingly, to meet the exigencies 
 which are sure to arise in a high-school pro- 
 gramme. The subjects she delighted to teach were 
 mathematics, physics, history, and astronomy. 
 
 One of her pupils writes : 
 
 "Her classes from the beginning were devoted 
 to her, and we know how she looked to them in 
 
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 Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 her early years of teaching from the delightful 
 little picture we have of her earnest young face. 
 Coming from her grandfather's home with its 
 daily duties for each member of the household, 
 and from her church home in old Grace Church, 
 then on Temple Street, Harriet Caryl brought to 
 the school, all unconscious of it as she was, the 
 customs and traditions of a gentlewoman, and 
 the ideals of a rare Christian character. These 
 traditions and these ideals she gradually, though 
 unconsciously, impressed upon the school during 
 her fifty years of service." 
 
 Another pupil writes of her teaching: 
 
 "I was in Miss Caryl's class in astronomy 
 first, afterwards in physics. My recollection of 
 her lessons is that the teaching was clear and 
 thorough. She planted our feet firmly on the 
 path, so that we never took a step forward till 
 the preceding step was sure. Then she inspired 
 us to work hard. A shirk had no standing with 
 her. If her kindly nature could feel scorn, it 
 was a shirk or a trifler who could call it out. 
 The subject of astronomy was one which to an 
 imaginative nature awoke emotion, wonder, dim 
 gropings after unattainable heights of specula- 
 tion and fancy. But no such flights were en- 
 couraged. Kingsley, in one of his novels says, 
 *Your ass who can't do his sums always has a 
 taste for the infinite.' Miss Caryl's teaching 
 awakened awe, reverence, and thirst for knowl- 
 edge; but she kept us strictly at work on prob- 
 lems that led us by sure, safe paths to solid 
 attainment. I do not remember that we ever 
 
 II 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 were examined. She did not pull us up, shiver- 
 ing, by the roots to find out how little we knew. 
 We studied because we wished to learn, or, if 
 that was not the motive, then we studied be- 
 cause we did not wish Miss Caryl to despise us." 
 
 Another side of Miss Caryl's teaching is 
 shown by the following letter from Miss Ada 
 Hersey: 
 
 "In the following incident I wish I could give 
 Miss Caryl's own words, but can only give the 
 substance. 
 
 "It was in the physics class — • after a rather 
 long and very careful explanation. Miss Caryl 
 asked if we all understood, because, as she said 
 after a pause, it was very important that we 
 should before she went further. Then one very 
 sweet girl, with whom physics was not a strong 
 point, raised her hand and said, *I think I 
 understand, but there is one question I should 
 like to ask.' Miss Caryl was all interest — the 
 question was asked — it showed that the girl 
 had not understood the first principle. In 
 breathless silence we all looked at Miss Caryl — 
 her face fell for just an instant; then, with that 
 little side turn of the head, and the sweetest 
 expression she said, 'Now that you have asked 
 that question, I think I had better begin at the 
 beginning.' And she went through the whole 
 thing again with just as much patience and even 
 more care. And at the end the girl said she 
 understood. 
 
 "This seems like nothing in the telling, but 
 somehow the whole atmosphere of that class- 
 
 12 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 room was so sympathetic with Miss Caryl and 
 with the pupil, and so thoroughly alive to the 
 subject, that it has remained with me as an ideal 
 of perfect teaching as well as an index of Miss 
 Caryl's beautiful spirit." 
 
 Another letter from a pupil, Miss Anna F. 
 Hewins, is appreciative of Miss Caryl's teaching 
 of English and shows her abiding sense of the 
 influence of Dr. Eliot in the school : 
 
 "To-day when it is common for High School 
 classes to balk at reading Milton's 'Shorter 
 Poems,' I like to remember the joy we took in 
 Miss Caryl's teaching of 'Comus' and 'Lycidas' 
 one spring forty years ago. Somehow from that 
 class came a joy that has remained with me all 
 these years, and many times when the Spring 
 has come around, Milton's lines have sounded 
 in my ears, as part of the season. I like to re- 
 member now that not many years ago I told 
 Miss Caryl what that class had meant in my life. 
 
 "I have also grateful recollections of her class 
 in American History, in my advanced year, 
 1878-79. The course covered the critical years 
 after the Revolution, the Convention of 1787, 
 and the foundation of the Government under 
 the Constitution. The things she taught stayed 
 in one's mind. As I look back upon it now, after 
 so many years, I realize anew what an admirable 
 piece of work her teaching of that class was, how 
 vital and how clear. 
 
 "But better even than her teaching was her 
 personality, — that transparent goodness that 
 
 13 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 did not preach, but suggested rather, and 
 sometimes brought about results long years 
 after. 
 
 "I have a note from her, written twenty 
 years ago, after Dr. Eliot's death, and her appre- 
 ciation of him might apply to what we are feel- 
 ing about her now. She says, * We can say what 
 he said of Miss Badger, the school has met with 
 a great loss, but it has inherited a precious mem- 
 ory. How glad I am for you and for all the girls 
 who were his pupils! And somehow, I do not 
 know how, I do believe his influence over the 
 school is to be a permanent blessing.' 
 
 "A school is rich indeed that has as posses- 
 sions the memory of Dr. Eliot's four years, and 
 Miss Caryl's fifty years of service." 
 
 In her teaching of American history, as has 
 already been suggested. Miss Caryl's deep sense 
 of justice and her strong patriotism made her 
 classes excellent training in citizenship, long 
 before such training became part of the curricu- 
 lum of the public schools, and its necessity had 
 been proved by the great war and the immigra- 
 tion problem. Miss Caryl's lessons were not 
 indiscriminate praise of our men of the Revolu- 
 tion. Her keen mind saw through the pompous 
 pretensions of Hancock, and her sense of fair 
 play gave all honor to the part which true- 
 hearted Englishmen played in England, while 
 the armies of their king fought us here. 
 
 Hundreds of women have gone from Miss 
 Caryl's classes to take their share in our coun- 
 
 14 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 try's struggle for truth and justice; and who 
 shall say how many had their feet turned into 
 loyal ways in the quiet classroom of this Boston 
 teacher ? 
 
 Miss Fanny E. Coe, in the following letter, 
 gives us a vivid picture of one of Miss Caryl's 
 classes in history in the eighties: 
 
 "It was the last week of school. Examina- 
 tions were past; graduation was close at hand. 
 Miss Caryl was straining every nerve to finish 
 her course in the American Revolution, and to- 
 day she was late to class. Some complication 
 had arisen in the school programme, intricate as 
 the calculus, that Miss Caryl alone could adjust. 
 So we waited — a section of the advanced 
 class, — in an order less perfect than usual. It 
 was warm June, and our release from classrooms 
 was at hand. No wonder we ventured upon a 
 whispering recess. 
 
 "Miss Caryl entered with her cheery greeting 
 and gay word of apology. It had been the pro- 
 gramme. Then she opened one of several big 
 volumes filled with paper markers, and began to 
 read rapidly. This was to be an easy hour we 
 saw. Ten per cent of keen attention in the event 
 of a sudden question upon the subject-matter 
 would suffice. Consequently, eyes were on the 
 tossing boughs of the maples on West Newton 
 Street, and minds were busy with the ruffles of 
 graduation gowns. Washington and his men 
 making camp at Valley Forge were remote, 
 shadowy figures, familiar since childhood. Had 
 not the grammar school * scooped' the dramatic 
 
 15 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 thrill of the situation long ago? Fiske's eloquent 
 words fell upon indifferent ears. 
 
 "Suddenly there was a pause in the steady 
 voice of the reader — it broke — made an 
 effort to continue, and failed. Miss Caryl 
 passed the book to the nearest girl, saying, 
 * Please read. I can't go on.' And as the aston- 
 ished pupil stumbled to her feet, Miss Caryl sat 
 there with bent head, winking to keep back the 
 tears and biting her lips in an effort for self- 
 control. Dear Miss Caryl, how we loved her! 
 How perfect the attention of the class from the 
 moment its leader had faltered! 
 
 "But what was it all about? thought the girl, 
 who was I. What had made Miss Caryl cry? 
 Any disorder of the class? No. Some grief 
 before she came to the lesson? Her cheery 
 greeting smile refuted that theory. Could it by 
 chance have been the reading? The scarcely 
 heeded words of a moment ago were recalled: 
 *As the poor soldiers marched on the 17th of 
 December to their winter quarters, their route 
 could be traced on the snow by the blood that 
 oozed from bare, frost-bitten feet.' 
 
 "The girl read on, 'In the crowded hospitals, 
 which were for the most part mere log-huts or 
 frail wigwams woven of twisted boughs, men 
 sometimes died for want of straw to put be- 
 tween themselves and the frozen ground on 
 which they lay.' 
 
 "A dull old story this? Ah, no. Poignantly 
 present, eternally alive, were these heroes of old 
 to Miss Caryl's wonderful mind. Even as she 
 mothered us girls, so, at that moment, she had 
 
 16 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 drawn a whole army under the wings of her 
 sympathy. Those of us who dimly sensed the 
 true cause for those tears, could only catch our 
 breaths with awe, and pray that our slow hearts 
 and unquickened imaginations might some day 
 be awakened. The history lesson was superb 
 that Miss Caryl taught that day." 
 
 The school grew rapidly, and the vital part 
 taken by Miss Caryl in its growth is referred to 
 by Miss Lilias Page in the following letter; 
 
 "Throughout the fifty years of Miss Caryl's 
 service, the school, like all vital things, was con- 
 stantly growing. Having been established to 
 prepare girls to be teachers as well as to give 
 them a higher education, the number of pupils 
 increased so much as the years went on, that in 
 1872, the normal, or teacher-training part of the 
 school was separated from that of the High 
 School, and the Normal School was established 
 by itself. In 1878 when the number of pupils 
 had again largely increased, the girls who were 
 preparing for college were taken away and made 
 into a separate school called the Girls' Latin 
 School. Later, after the number of pupils in the 
 school had reached over 2000, and more than 
 half were following vocational work in the Com- 
 mercial courses, it was proposed to take away 
 the girls following Commercial courses and make 
 of them a separate school. This has not been 
 done, but may take place in the future. In all 
 this growth, through half a century of change, 
 Miss Caryl was the constant element; classes, 
 
 17 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 teachers and masters came and went, but she 
 remained. She had helped create the school 
 in its infancy, she had cherished and fostered its 
 long growth, and she helped to direct the mani- 
 fold activities of its maturity. She had a unique 
 position, her life was the one life which was 
 identified with the life of the school from its 
 beginning — and her life was not only identified 
 with that of the school, it was also a creator of 
 its strength and an inspirer of its spirit. Be- 
 loved by its teachers and pupils, her power and 
 insight grew, as the school grew. She under- 
 stood it and loved it. 
 
 "Like other great work, Miss Caryl's work 
 was done unconsciously. It was done because 
 Miss Caryl was serving a great ideal and strove 
 with all her strength toward it, leaving no room 
 for thought of self. In this high service she 
 builded better than she knew. 
 
 "Miss Caryl's unconsciousness of self was 
 never more apparent than when a new head 
 master was coming to the school. Four times, 
 after her earlier years of teaching, the head 
 master of the school was changed. Before a new 
 master was appointed, there were weeks, and 
 sometimes months, when the school was in Miss 
 Caryl's hands. Her administration was so able, 
 her knowledge of the school needs so complete 
 and the cooperation of pupils and teachers with 
 her so enthusiastic, that again and again, the 
 pupils asked, why can we not go on as we are, 
 why do we need a strange man as master, who 
 knows neither us nor the school.'* Then Miss 
 Caryl's opposition to all such questioning came 
 
 i8 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 out firm and unhesitating. She presented every 
 possible advantage that the new master could 
 bring, always with the good of the school to the 
 fore, and would listen to no fears or doubts. 
 
 "When the new master came, he found the 
 whole of the little school kingdom in his hands 
 and Miss Caryl quietly absorbed in teaching 
 her special branches as if she had never held the 
 reins of government. Yet she was so ready to 
 aid him in his untrodden paths, with quick un- 
 derstanding of his needs and with the wisdom of 
 her experience combined with the charm of her 
 ineradicable humility, that it is no wonder that 
 each new master immediately made her his 
 prime minister. 
 
 "That a woman could relinquish supreme 
 power, once, with graciousness, would have been 
 a triumph, but that she could do so four times, 
 and do so even when it seemed doubtful to some 
 minds whether the change would turn out well 
 for the school, shows a consecration to an ideal 
 so high, that self-consideration falls away un- 
 heeded and leaves the nature free to see straight 
 and to walk true." 
 
 As an administrator, her executive ability 
 very early made itself felt, and increasingly with 
 the years. When she resigned in 1903, she had 
 held the unique position, for a woman, of assist- 
 ant principal for several years. In recognition 
 of her administrative powers, Mr. Tetlow, in a 
 paper written for the number of the "Distaff," 
 dedicated to Miss Caryl, said: 
 
 19 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 "When, in the summer of 1885, I was in- 
 formed in advance of the formal vote of the 
 School Board, that I was to be nominated to 
 the head mastership of the Girls' High School, 
 one of the first questions I asked myself was, 
 *How will my appointment be received by the 
 teachers who are to be my associates in that 
 school ? ' 
 
 "At that time I knew Miss Caryl, the assist- 
 ant, but slightly, and thought of her chiefly as a 
 teacher long identified with the school, inti- 
 mately acquainted with its traditions, and 
 widely known for executive efficiency. With 
 some doubt as to the possible attitude towards 
 me of a teacher who might easily look with mis- 
 giving, if not with positive suspicion, on a new 
 and untried leader, I called on Miss Caryl in her 
 home. At the end of a conversation of twenty 
 minutes, I had formed an entirely new and un- 
 expected conception of her character and per- 
 sonality. I had found a sympathetic friend. 
 The oppressive sense of responsibility which had 
 weighed upon me before the interview began, 
 had become a feeling of buoyant hopefulness. 
 From that time forward I knew that I was to 
 have the confidence and support of a wise, sin- 
 cere, frank, and loyal helper. 
 
 " The relation then established has never 
 changed. I meet Miss Caryl now, only at long 
 intervals; but, though our intercourse has been 
 interrupted, our mutual trust has remained un- 
 broken. It could not be otherwise, for it was 
 founded on moral foundations that were solid 
 and abiding. 
 
 20 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 "There are teachers who, through the silent, 
 subtle, unconscious influence of their daily lives 
 in the classroom, sweeten and ennoble the hearts 
 and minds of their pupils. To this class, small 
 in number, but rich in beneficence. Miss Caryl 
 belongs. Throughout a long and laborious life, 
 her daily work has been done in a spirit of cheer- 
 ful self-sacrifice, of unflinching fidelity to duty, of 
 sweet serenity of temper, of unquestioning loyalty 
 to noble ideals, of transparent, yet kindly frank- 
 ness of speech, of uncompromising truthfulness, 
 of unaffected simplicity of aim, and of reverent 
 humility. 
 
 "These noble qualities of mind and heart ap- 
 peal as directly and as strongly to young people as 
 to adults. To these qualities young people are 
 more responsive than adults. Most persons ac- 
 quire these qualities, if at all, through painful 
 effort; but to Miss Caryl they were as natural 
 as breathing." 
 
 Mr. Tetlow struck the keynote of Miss 
 Caryl's character as a teacher in this article. 
 Invaluable as her teaching and indispensable as 
 her executive service were in the development 
 of the school, her sympathy and wise counsel 
 meant even more in its life. Her interest in her 
 pupils continued even after they had left school, 
 and in many instances ripened into lasting 
 friendship, a friendship ready to express itself in 
 material help, or spiritual, as the occasion de- 
 manded, a friendship unwavering, generous, 
 wise, and so gracious and loving in its quality 
 
 21 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 that those who have experienced it must always 
 count it as one of the rarest gifts Hfe has be- 
 stowed upon them. 
 
 But now let us turn from our study of Miss 
 Caryl as a teacher to her life out of school, her 
 tastes, her occupations in leisure hours, the life 
 from which she drew the sweet ennobling influ- 
 ence which she brought to her daily work. To 
 those who were admitted to her friendship and 
 saw her in her home, that home in itself seemed 
 most fitting as a background for the simple 
 dignity and loveliness of her character. We will 
 allow Mrs. William B. Stevens (Miss Elizabeth 
 Light), one of those who knew her in this home, 
 to describe it: 
 
 "More than sixty years ago when old Myrtle 
 Street bore its old-time aspect, when there were 
 only two or three inconspicuous shops in it, and 
 the three or four storied old-fashioned houses 
 were occupied only by private families. Miss 
 Caryl was living with her mother and aunt in 
 the same old house so many of us remember. 
 Miss Caryl as a school girl and also through the 
 years she taught at the high school used daily to 
 wend her way from the old house and turn up 
 Joy Street to cross the Common to the old 
 Mason Street building. We could see her from 
 my grandfather's house (my home), and see also 
 Miss Whitney, 'Aunt Katie,' who used to turn 
 down the street passing our dining-room win- 
 dow, on her way to the high school in Charles- 
 town, where she taught so many years. She 
 
 22 
 
FRANCES WHITNEY CARYL 
 
 MOTHER OF HARRIET ELIZABETH CARYL 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 wore the close bonnet which covered her ears, 
 with strings that tied under her chin, and a 
 green veil, through which her features and 
 bright eyes but faintly showed, but it was char- 
 acter and dignity and intellect, not simply a 
 figure, that passed. Miss Caryl's dress has 
 faded away in the picture. It is just her earnest 
 eyes and sweet intense expression which stand 
 out, in memory. 
 
 "I entered the high school at fifteen, and I 
 was in none of Miss Caryl's classes until my 
 senior year, but from that time for many years 
 I knew her intimately. I do not remember just 
 when I first went to her home and met her 
 mother and aunt. It seems as if I had always 
 known them familiarly against the background 
 of the old back parlor, with its old-time wood- 
 work in high mantel, the window and door 
 frames, the simple hand-carved ornament in the 
 white painted wood, the old door handles, and 
 other finishings we call antique now, but which 
 we used to call (deprecatingly) old fashioned. 
 There were the mahogany-framed, hair-cloth, 
 carved furniture, the high, well-filled book case 
 and books around everywhere, all the evidence 
 of literary work and enjoyment, the centre table 
 with its books, periodicals, and work basket, 
 and always dear dainty Mrs. Caryl, in her own 
 chair, with her snowy headdress over dark, not 
 white hair, and her plain black dress with its 
 white folded front. She was full of interest in all 
 the activities of sister and daughter and friends, 
 full of sweetness, sympathy and responsiveness, 
 but quiet and gentle, and cared for with a 
 
 23 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 cherishing care. Her active days were over, but 
 the beautiful indications of them were in her 
 changing, speaking face. 
 
 " *Aunt Katie' was in her prime, and was a 
 mine of wisdom, experience and personal recol- 
 lections. Harriet was 'child' to them both, and 
 yet intellectually, companion. 
 
 "These three gentlewomen were devoted to 
 their church, to their 'duties,' and keenly alive 
 to all the spiritual and intellectual interests of 
 the day. You may not know, for it was too 
 much before your time, but the period when I best 
 remember them all was a sort of revolutionary 
 period in the religious, the intellectual, and the 
 educational history of New England as a whole, 
 and Boston notably. And they were abreast of 
 the times! I did not know then, how valuable 
 and formative to a young girl and young woman 
 the atmosphere and the influence of this house- 
 hold were, and were to be. I do know now, 
 what the hours spent from time to time in that 
 atmosphere and open to that influence, con- 
 tributed to my life." 
 
 Whatever influences set Miss Caryl's feet in 
 the path of teaching, that path led her deeper 
 and deeper into a life of service and sacrifice — 
 service gladly performed — sacrifice cheerfully 
 borne. But this prevailing spirit of service and 
 sacrifice could not find all the opportunities it 
 craved, even in the schoolroom. In her early 
 womanhood, she became a member of Em- 
 manuel Church then under the inspiring teach- 
 
 24 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 ing of Dr. Huntington, and there she often 
 listened to the earnest appeals of Bishop 
 Whipple, called the Apostle to the Indians. In 
 1864 she was one of a little group of girls and 
 women in Emmanuel Church, roused by Bishop 
 Whipple's stirring words, who promised to raise 
 annually the few hundred dollars necessary for 
 the education of a native catechist, Paul 
 Mazakuto, the first native Indian deacon or- 
 dained among the Sioux. This little company 
 called itself "the Dakota League." As years 
 went on, its members were scattered in various 
 parishes, but they continued their interest in 
 Indian missions, till, in 1872, the Dakota League 
 became a diocesan society, and later the nucleus 
 of the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Mis- 
 sions in Massachusetts, at which time the care 
 of the work for colored people was added to its 
 responsibility. 
 
 As a missionary worker Miss Caryl showed 
 the same spirit of consecration and faithfulness 
 as in her school. She was treasurer of her com- 
 mittee, and one of her duties was to attend the 
 monthly meeting of the Woman's Auxiliary in 
 the chapel of St. Paul's Church. She had no 
 stirring appeal to make. Her task was the 
 exceedingly dull recital of the list of boxes con- 
 tributed by the different parishes with their 
 value in money. But she knew that some dele- 
 gate, perhaps several delegates from distant 
 parishes, who had worked hard, and denied 
 
 25 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 themselves to send money and well-filled boxes 
 to the Indians were listening eagerly to her 
 report to hear their special boxes mentioned, and 
 she never failed them. Her conscientious care 
 for small details, however, was no more char- 
 acteristic than her capacity to grasp large issues, 
 and be ready for improved methods. 
 
 The following are some of the resolutions 
 voted by the Auxiliary, at the time of her 
 death : 
 
 "In the passing of Miss Caryl, the church and 
 the city have lost a rare woman, for probably no 
 other woman of the Commonwealth has had the 
 wide influence over, and deep affection of, such 
 a multitude of other women and girls. It was 
 an influence so gracious and yet so strong that 
 to-day after fifteen years of retirement from her 
 position in the Girls' High School, thousands of 
 those whose lives have been touched by her rise 
 up to praise and call her blessed. 
 
 "To the church she gave devoted and loyal 
 service. One of the original members of the 
 Dakota League and its vice-president, she served 
 continuously for forty-three years. She was a 
 faithful and wise counsellor. Many of us, re- 
 membering her gentle, firm and courteous meth- 
 ods — those of a true gentlewoman — thank God 
 for her long life and great influence." 
 
 During the rectorship of Phillips Brooks, Miss 
 Caryl was a member of Trinity Church. There 
 she found abundant inspiration for her chosen 
 
 26 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 profession, — a profession which when followed 
 by a Christian woman is second only to that of a 
 clergyman in moral and spiritual influence. How 
 this influence went out from Miss Caryl, many 
 a girl has borne testimony. 
 
 But while school work, growing more exacting 
 every year, made up most of Miss Caryl's life, 
 still, there were vacations. Then the natural 
 buoyancy and capacity for enjoyment in Miss 
 Caryl's nature came to the front, and she 
 planned and executed "outings" on a large 
 scale, with the zest of a child oflt on a holiday. 
 She went abroad for the first time with her aunt. 
 Miss Kate Whitney. It was in the summer of 
 1870. Landing in Liverpool, they planned to 
 take a leisurely trip across England and then 
 visit Paris; but while they had been crossing the 
 Atlantic, war had been declared between France 
 and Germany. "Then," said Miss Whitney, 
 when she learned this fact, "we will go immedi- 
 ately to Paris." Arrived there they were told 
 that they must leave that day. But no martial 
 law could daunt Miss Whitney. "We have come 
 to see Paris," said she; and see it they did, in 
 one day. Miss Whitney ordered a carriage and 
 they drove to every sight that time allowed. 
 In the evening they left for Italy, where they had 
 a delightful trip, though the trunk which they 
 had taken to Paris did not reach them again till 
 a year later in Boston. Miss Caryl returned to 
 America doubtless more or less bewildered by 
 
 27 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 this first experience of foreign travel, but with 
 an appetite for future expeditions that never 
 left her. She crossed the ocean many times, 
 bringing back delightful memories, new pleasure 
 in her work, and trophies in the shape of pictures 
 and other treasures to distribute among her 
 friends and to adorn the old house with an un- 
 wonted touch of foreign art. 
 
 She travelled also in this country, visiting 
 places of historic interest and natural beauty. 
 As a member of the Appalachian Club, she 
 showed herself a vigorous walker and climber, 
 and in her trip to the Canadian Rockies when 
 she was about seventy, she was a genial com- 
 panion in a party of younger women. Miss 
 Marian Hawes, one of the party on this expedi- 
 tion, thus describes her: 
 
 "For many years I had known Miss Caryl as 
 the kindest and wisest of teachers, when in 1902, 
 I had my first experience of her as a travelling 
 companion. It was on a journey conducted by 
 Professor Fay through the Canadian Rockies, a 
 region in which he had already made important 
 explorations and was to make still more. We 
 were a party of sixteen members, of various 
 ages and abilities, — some experienced moun- 
 tain climbers, ambitious to follow new and dan- 
 gerous trails, others less adventurous, content 
 to enjoy the wonders of the mountains and 
 glaciers from comfortable seats in observation 
 cars and park carriages. If any one expected 
 Miss Caryl with seventy years to her credit, to 
 
 28 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 take her place with these sybarites of travel, he 
 was much mistaken. 
 
 "From the day when she joined her fellow 
 travellers in the railway station, just at the 
 appointed time, her face shining with pleasure 
 at the thought of the summer's enjoyment, to 
 the day when we bade her good-bye at the end 
 of the journey, she was always the same alert, 
 cheerful and spirited companion, claiming her 
 full share of any hardships or self-denials in the 
 most matter-of-fact and unobtrusive way. I 
 have two photographs of her which show how 
 gallantly she entered into the more strenuous 
 pleasures of the Expedition. In one of them, 
 she sits on horseback, ready for a long ride from 
 the hotel to the Yoho Valley. This was before 
 the automobile had made the journey one of 
 ease and luxury. Another, photograph shows 
 her, led by her friend Professor Fay, crossing a 
 narrow footbridge over a fairly wide stream in 
 the Yellowstone Park. 
 
 "Miss Caryl had a very strict code of duty 
 for herself, and a very broad and charitable 
 toleration for the beliefs of others. Much as she 
 appreciated the privilege of taking this journey, 
 I believe she would have denied it to herself, if 
 it had not been arranged to avoid travelling on 
 Sunday. That day she loved to devote to wor- 
 ship, rest, her books and her friends. Once, 
 however. In the Yellowstone Park, we were com- 
 pelled to travel all of one Sunday, and Miss 
 Caryl's cheerful acquiescence in the necessary 
 arrangement showed her as she always was, 
 thoroughly reasonable and unselfish. 
 
 29 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 "Her Interest in others and her noble and 
 winning personality gained friends for her on 
 this journey, as they did everywhere. I re- 
 member one of the younger members of the 
 party who had never met Miss Caryl before 
 became as devoted to her as the girls in her 
 classes used to be in the early days of her 
 teaching. 
 
 "It was beautiful to see the charm of the 
 spirit victorious over time, and we love to think 
 of its two-fold existence — in the hearts of those 
 who loved her and in the full free joy of the 
 endless life." 
 
 During her forty-eight years of service many 
 changes took place in the staif of teachers, and 
 in the mastership of the school. Accompanied 
 at first by her own classmates. Miss Bacon and 
 Miss Badger, she found herself in late years 
 surrounded by teachers who had been her own 
 pupils. To all the new teachers she became the 
 gracious hostess and friend, to the new masters 
 the loyal assistant. Under Mr. Seavey she 
 shared with her associates the rich advantage of 
 his cordial friendship and leadership, but the 
 four years of Dr. Eliot's mastership were years 
 of the fullest pleasure. Dr. Eliot was known to 
 her by name and reputation as a scholar and 
 author, and as the President of Trinity College. 
 When she heard of his appointment to the 
 Girls' High School, Miss Caryl expected that he 
 would shed glory on her beloved school, but 
 
 30 
 
^• 
 
 MARGARET A. BADGER 
 
 TEACHER IN THE GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL 
 FROM 1856 TO 1898 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 reign In dignified isolation above the stress of 
 daily teaching and administration. When he 
 came, she found him a teacher par excellence, 
 whose joy it was to form new classes and to 
 teach them himself whenever he found, as he 
 always did, eager girls to fill them, — a man 
 whose splendid motto was that of the Prince 
 of Wales, "/cA dien" — magnanimous service, 
 whose personal interest in the girls was as keen 
 as Miss Caryl's, and whose administration of 
 the school kept it always In the forefront of 
 public Instruction In this country. When to all 
 this service for her dear school Dr. Eliot added 
 an appreciation of Miss Caryl's character and 
 ability that led to a rare friendship, it is easy 
 to understand that these four years of Dr. 
 Eliot's mastership were the happiest and the 
 most fruitful of Miss Caryl's long career. 
 
 The following extracts from Dr. Eliot's letters 
 to Miss Caryl will show how his Interest In the 
 school continued long after he had resigned from 
 his position as master: 
 
 "Versailles, Oct. 6, 1880 
 
 "I thank you for divining that I had thought 
 of you, and of the school, when the new year 
 began just a month ago, and that I would 
 think of you on the first day of this month, the 
 eighth anniversary of my meeting the school 
 face to face. My wishes and prayers for you and 
 your work are all the more earnest and the more 
 frequent now that I have nothing else to give — • 
 
 31 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 no labor, no Interposition, no official service of 
 any kind. I rejoice in believing that the work 
 does not need me, that the foundations on which 
 it rests are secure, the earthly foundations, and 
 deeper and stronger, the Everlasting Arms. 
 Education may be secular, as they call it, 
 through and through, but it is not the less in 
 God's hands; men cannot take it out of them, 
 and He who suffers children to come to Him will 
 make the schools His ministers and care for 
 them as no other can." 
 
 On July 15, 1877, he wrote: 
 
 "For all the kind words your letter contains 
 you know I am grateful, and though I cannot 
 think that I have helped you half as much as 
 you say, I know I have wished to help you as 
 much as I could. I trust you know that you 
 have helped me, and that the deep regret I have 
 had in laying down my work at the school has 
 been soothed over and over again by your 
 sympathies." 
 
 During Miss Caryl's years of service she was 
 several times offered positions of honor and use- 
 fulness in other schools. One of these oppor- 
 tunities was especially attractive to her as it 
 was in the church school at Faribault, Minne- 
 sota, founded by the well-beloved Bishop Whip- 
 ple. But In each case she decided to remain in 
 the school which had become so intimate a part 
 of her life. And for this the school can never be 
 too grateful. 
 
 32 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 In the preparation of this sketch request was 
 made to the graduates of the school to contrib- 
 ute interesting reminiscences of their dear and 
 honored teacher. The response was most grati- 
 fying. From all over the country, and even 
 from Europe, came words of gratitude and 
 affection. There seemed to be a general recol- 
 lection of unfailing kindness and strict justice, 
 of serene calm, of "motherliness". — the word 
 oftenest used. This motherliness was perhaps 
 the truest characteristic of Miss Caryl — the 
 motherliness which a girl comes to rely on, to 
 take for granted, as is the way of a girl with her 
 mother. 
 
 Miss Lucy Woods, a pupil, a fellow teacher 
 and lifelong friend of Miss Caryl, was also for 
 some time during her girlhood a member of 
 Miss Caryl's household. Miss Woods, in her 
 "History of the Girls' High School," says of 
 Miss Caryl: 
 
 "Her pupils remember her teaching, — clear, 
 persistent, thorough, patient, but when all 
 lessons are forgotten they will remember her; 
 the dullest could recognize the honesty, clear as 
 the day, the simplicity and humility of mind, the 
 utter devotion to duty, and the unfailing kind- 
 ness that, like the sunshine of the Lord, falls on 
 the evil and the good, on the just and on the 
 unjust." 
 
 The following responses from graduates will 
 also throw a little more light on her character. 
 
 33 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 The first comes from Mrs. Mabel Woodbury 
 Douglass: 
 
 "You asked me to send you some little inci- 
 dent about Miss Caryl. I do not know that I 
 can tell of anything that is of special interest. 
 But perhaps I can say a little bit of my feel- 
 ing for Miss Caryl. I have no gift of language, 
 and it is hard for me to express myself. But 
 I loved and revered Miss Caryl so deeply that 
 I will try to say something as my tiny tribute 
 to her. 
 
 "I had but one year in the Girls' High School, 
 — the Fourth, — but that year meant more to 
 me than all my other years of school added to- 
 gether. It was one of the big influences for good 
 in my life. No other school is so dear to me. 
 But I knew this only subconsciously when in 
 the school. I had come from one of the mixed 
 schools, and had been much more interested in 
 having fun than in my studies. I was a very 
 mischievous little girl at times. (I was n't really 
 bad.) When I came to the Girls' High School, 
 I found myself in an entirely new atmosphere. 
 I can truly say I never had the slightest thought 
 or desire to 'cut up,' while there. And I was 
 perfectly happy. I think hundreds of girls must 
 have had the same experience, and we all know 
 that it was due to the school's wonderful teach- 
 ers. I did not know how wonderful they were 
 then; at least looking back it seems to me I did 
 not. Some of them I respected and loved; 
 some I admired; and one or two I adored in 
 romantic school-girl fashion. 
 
 34 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 a 
 
 'After leaving the school, I went back once 
 or twice to its reunions. Then other things 
 came. I married, went away for three years. 
 It was after my return to Boston and I was 
 a mother, that I began to have a longing for 
 the old school. And I found that whenever 
 I thought of the school, I thought of Miss 
 Caryl. She seemed to stand for the school. I 
 had not seen her for a number of years, but 
 in my heart there was growing for her a deep 
 love and reverence which will last for always. 
 I must have felt it when in the school, but un- 
 consciously. 
 
 " Miss Caryl always seemed to me more like a 
 great mother than a teacher. I can remember 
 one thing: I always felt that I must be abso- 
 lutely honest and sincere with her. She was 
 that herself, and called forth the same attribute 
 from her pupils. 
 
 "Perhaps I might tell this. It is hardly 
 enough to call it an incident. 
 
 "While in the school, my mother died. When 
 the spring vacation came, Miss Caryl sent for 
 me to come to her in the reception room. She 
 asked me a little about my family and learned 
 that I was the eldest of four children. She then 
 offered to come to my home during the vacation 
 and help me with sewing or anything else needed. 
 I was very immature, like a child of ten or 
 twelve in many ways, but with the awful sorrow 
 of eighteen. I had not thought of sewing or 
 anything else, and her offer filled me with gratis 
 tude, while at the same time it bewildered me. 
 She rnvist h^ye s^?n how it was, for she 4id pp^ 
 
 25 
 
Harriet Rlizabeth Caryl 
 
 press the matter. But if she could have helped 
 me, she would have given up her vacation time 
 to doing it." 
 
 Miss Ellen M. Folsom, a teacher in the school 
 from 1872 to 1 88 1, contributes the following 
 letter: 
 
 "All I can do is to be one more voice among 
 the many who feel first and foremost, in think- 
 ing of her, the ennobling influence she had in our 
 lives. She lived her own life on so high a plane 
 that others must lift themselves up to it to meet 
 her. Did you ever know any one swifter or 
 more sure to give credit to good intentions, no 
 matter how far performance lagged behind the 
 aim? One of my mind pictures is the earnest- 
 ness in her face as she said, *She meant it all 
 right!' when the rest of us were shouting over 
 the version of the Salic Law by which *No 
 female or descendant of a female could inherit 
 the throne of France.' — If I tried to tell you 
 of the one time in the eight years — probably 
 the one and only in all the years — when she 
 was late at school, coming in after the devotional 
 exercises, you would miss all the fun of it with- 
 out that sparkle in Miss Badger's eyes as she 
 told me *It was a kitten!' We had been, not 
 quite anxious, but a little concerned at her non- 
 appearance. I think oftenest of these two 
 together — so equal in their aims and their, 
 attainment — so different in the lesser attri- 
 butes that make up personal charm — and both 
 alike giving all their years of service to the 
 
 36 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 School. I remember one discussion between 
 them when each wanted the advanced class in 
 Astronomy — it would have been a pure delight 
 to either to have had a picked class in study- 
 ing the wonders of the stars — and they were 
 both so fine in the decision, which they had 
 finally left to me. I don't remember my reasons, 
 but I can never forget the perfection of their ac- 
 ceptance of my decision, making it really their 
 
 own." 
 
 A letter from Miss Alice Hawes gives a per- 
 sonal touch to a delightful memory of Miss 
 Caryl's early years of teaching: 
 
 "During my senior year (1867) Miss Caryl 
 had a serious illness (typhoid fever, as I re- 
 member). Of course all of us were deeply 
 interested in her recovery, and longing for her 
 return. One day one of the class came rushing 
 in at recess, joy and excitement in her large 
 black eyes. *0h, girls! I've seen Miss Caryl! 
 She's the most adorable sight you can imagine. 
 She never looked so dear!' 
 
 "We all waited eagerly, and at the next recita- 
 tion in she came, wearing a little close lace cap 
 with pink ribbons, a charming piece of coquetry 
 and simplicity combined. The fever had taken 
 all her beautiful hair. For weeks she wore her 
 caps, one with blue ribbons and one with 
 pink. 
 
 "Then one happy day the cap was laid aside, 
 and behold, her hair was clustering in soft curls 
 around her shapely head. We were never quite 
 
 37 
 
Harriet RHzabeth Caryl 
 
 sure whether the caps or the curls were the 
 neater and completer, for nothing could be 
 sweeter than Miss Caryl in either." 
 
 Another pupil writes thus: 
 
 "A young woman beset with perplexities and 
 sore troubles went to Miss Caryl at school one 
 afternoon and unburdened her soul. Miss Caryl 
 took her in her arms as a mother might have 
 done — bade her keep 'a single eye' — took her 
 then and there to Miss Woods. That was the 
 beginning of many happy years at Trinity in 
 Miss Woods' Bible Class — and under Phillips 
 Brooks' wonderful preaching. And that day 
 was the beginning of a love tender and wise that 
 enfolded the girl always through every day of 
 her life till the girl grew into the shadow of 
 middle life, and Miss Caryl passed to eternal 
 youth." 
 
 A letter from one of Miss Caryl's pupils In the 
 early years of her teaching contains the following 
 tribute: 
 
 "I was a pupil of hers more than fifty years 
 ago, and was also a member of the Dakota 
 League. In the schoolroom when I became a 
 teacher I tried to model my life according to her 
 example, and I feel that what success I had there 
 was due to her. 
 
 "The enclosed sonnet I wrote for her and it 
 was published in the ^Transcript' for June 12, 
 1880. Then It was headed 'A Portrait,' as I 
 knew how averse she was to praise." 
 
 38 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 HARRIET E. CARYL 
 
 Had I the singer's charm or poet's fire, 
 Ah then should all the world, her world and mine, 
 Resound with praises of her gifts divine. 
 Removed from all that earth-born hearts desire. 
 In look and act a saint who doth aspire 
 Even to an eternal crown and shrine. 
 The peaceful brow where years have left no sign 
 Except the impress of a soul whose higher 
 Calm this world can never give or take away. 
 A gentle smile and tender dovelike eyes 
 Reflect a mind that pain nor grief can sway, 
 Yet in whose depths a shade of sadness lies. 
 Lives such as hers bring nearer day by day 
 The heaven man looks for in the distant skies. 
 
 Mary A. Haley 
 
 Miss Caryl's conscience was a source of 
 "jestings which are not convenient" to her inti- 
 mate friends. At one time, when Miss Caryl 
 was planning a trip abroad, she said to a group 
 of teachers, "What shall I bring you all?" One 
 said, "A photograph"; another something else, 
 and then Miss Woods said, "Oh, don't bring me 
 anything, Hattie; but if you can find anywhere 
 an india-rubber conscience, I wish you would 
 buy one for yourself." 
 
 Her peculiar respect for the city property, 
 shown on a large scale in her most laborious and 
 scrupulous care of all the books, numbering 
 many thousands, loaned each year to the pupils 
 and collected, counted, and packed away for 
 the summer, was not only unimpaired, but 
 assumed an acute form in dealing with small 
 
 39 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 articles. She never, no matter how overbur- 
 dened with work or pressed for time, took any- 
 thing that belonged to the city for her own per- 
 sonal use, or allowed any one else to do so. One 
 of the teachers going home from school asked 
 Miss Caryl for a string to tie a bundle she was 
 carrying. Miss Caryl, after searching in a desk 
 drawer, said she had no string. "But, Miss 
 Caryl," said the teacher, "there is a whole 
 ball." "That," said Miss Caryl with an air of 
 finality, "is city string." The matter was 
 finally compromised by the loan of a piece of 
 the "city string" on condition that it should be 
 returned next day without fail. At another 
 time a pupil brought Miss Caryl a letter. As 
 she handed it to her she said, "See, Miss Caryl, 
 that stamp has not been cancelled." Miss 
 Caryl immediately tore it in two, and when the 
 girl remonstrated, said, "You know we must 
 not cheat Uncle Sam." 
 
 Rigorous discipline for herself, high standards 
 firmly insisted on for her pupils, but greatest 
 sympathy for those whose standards and actions 
 fell short of her own — these characteristics 
 made her firm as the granite of her New England 
 hills, but tender as those same hills folded under 
 a summer sky and clothed with verdure. 
 
 The year 1902 was the fiftieth anniversary of 
 the school, and as Miss Caryl was then about to 
 resign, the Girls' High School Association de- 
 cided to have a celebration of the anniversary 
 
 40 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 which should take the form of a reception to 
 Miss Caryl. 
 
 To quote from the report written for the 
 "Distaff" by Mrs. Mary D. Blodgett: 
 
 "The evening opened with the reception to 
 Miss Caryl, and for nearly an hour an endless 
 procession of graduates, in double ranks, pressing 
 closely upon one another, swept across the plat- 
 form to greet Miss Caryl and the other teachers, 
 who stood beyond. 
 
 "All this greeting had to pause mid-way, 
 because the time had come to begin the pro- 
 gramme, and as a prelude to this there was gay 
 music well rendered by a piano, violin and cor- 
 net, which, with the brilliancy of the hall, first 
 lighted this evening by the new electric lights, 
 and the beauty of the palms, lavishly decorating 
 the platform, gave the occasion a truly festive 
 character. 
 
 "Probably you have read in the newspapers a 
 report of the programme, so I will not try to 
 repeat it in detail, but I should like every one of 
 you to have been in the audience when Miss 
 Caryl rose to speak to us. We all sprang to our 
 feet, and waved our handkerchiefs, so that she 
 could only stand a moment in silence, and then 
 she motioned to us to be seated, saying, ' If you 
 do this, you will break me down.' But she did 
 not break down. Not she! but went on to tell 
 us clearly and simply about the first class of the 
 Girls' High School." 
 
 We have no record of Miss Caryl's address, 
 
 41 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 but among her papers the following notes have 
 been found of a talk which, though given a little 
 later at a reunion to younger girls, deals with 
 the same subject as her anniversary speech: 
 
 "It is fine and inspiring to belong to a school 
 that is fifty years old. To be sure the neighbor- 
 ing school on Warren Avenue, the Boys' Latin, 
 celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth anni- 
 versary almost twenty years ago. I hope the 
 heart of every boy there thrills with pride and 
 affection when he thinks of those two hundred 
 and fifty years. Think what it must be to 
 belong to a school which began its work and life, 
 just when the foundations of Massachusetts 
 were laid! There is no harm in that kind of 
 pride. We cannot be quite one fifth as proud as 
 they, but let us make all we can of our fifty 
 years. Notice, I say 'us' and 'we,' for I was 
 once a school-girl here, just as you are now — 
 so forget to think of me as a teacher here, and 
 think of me as just a school-girl with yourselves. 
 That is a relation that can never be broken; you 
 and I will always be members of the alumnae. 
 I shall not be here to celebrate the one hun- 
 dredth anniversary of the founding of the 
 school, but many of you may be — and then, 
 although you will be nice old ladies, and per- 
 haps grandmothers, still, if you can attend any 
 celebration that may be then, be sure and 
 come and be sure and recall this fiftieth anniver- 
 sary. 
 
 "I don't think I can talk to you just as I 
 talked tliat lovely evening in January, because 
 
 42 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 I was talking to many an old girl then who knew 
 what I was talking about, — and I doubt if there 
 are ten of you who know where our first school 
 building was. The school was in Mason Street, 
 a narrow street running parallel with and be- 
 tween Washington and Tremont Streets. It 
 bends round into Tremont Street and comes out 
 very nearly opposite the Subway Station at 
 Boylston Street. The building is still standing 
 and is used by the School Committee. It was 
 not built for us; it had been used for the Adams 
 Grammar School. 
 
 "In October, 1852, our school was opened; in 
 that year, also, the Boston Public Library was 
 founded; it occupied the first floor of the Mason 
 Street building and the school the two upper 
 floors. The Library was small and young then; 
 the public did not crowd it, and we girls, not 
 having any school library, were allowed to do 
 much of our studying in the reading-room of the 
 library. Having the Library in the same building 
 was a great boon to us, for we were allowed great 
 freedom in the use of the books, and the libra- 
 rian, Mr. Bedlington, was very kind in furnish- 
 ing us with all the reference books we needed. 
 I want to recognize, for the school's sake, the 
 glad service he rendered it, all the time we occu- 
 pied the same building. 
 
 "The first class numbered only 105; as the 
 course was to be but two years and we were to 
 be fitted to be teachers in that time, the age of 
 those first pupils, on entering, was in advance of 
 the present age of admission; the girls were more 
 mature than many of you are and more respon- 
 
 43 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 sive to our teachers' efforts. Mr. Loring Lothrop 
 was the first principal of the school. He suc- 
 ceeded in making us feel that the success of the 
 school, — nay, its very permanency — largely 
 rested with us. If we showed ourselves appre- 
 ciative of the opportunity afforded us — and 
 worthy of it — then we should have done what 
 in us lay to make the school a permanency. 
 The man who could thus inspire a class was the 
 one to start such an institution and the judgment 
 of the Committee was justified. We were 
 certainly an enthusiastic class; holidays were a 
 dead loss, and the more time spent in the school- 
 room, the happier we were. 
 
 "The school became a sort of city pet, a show 
 school. Strangers were often upon the platform. 
 In those days, the Committee of the school were 
 mostly professional men and they were constant 
 visitors, so constant that they became person- 
 ally known to teachers and pupils and often- 
 times they would take charge of a recitation. A 
 row of four or more visitors in a recitation was 
 nothing unusual, and it did not disconcert a 
 pupil. The company was all very pleasant and 
 inspiring, but perhaps it was also a hindrance 
 to the regular work. 
 
 "This school was one of the first, if not the 
 first in the city, to abolish the ranking system. 
 We were taught to study just for the joy of it 
 and for the use we hoped later to make of our 
 knowledge. 
 
 "Mr. Lothrop left us at the end of the fourth 
 year, to open a private school. He had done a 
 fine work for the school, had laid firm founda- 
 
 44 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 tlons. Its curriculum has broadened since that 
 time, sciences and modern foreign languages 
 have been added to its list of studies, but the 
 spirit with which Mr. Lothrop inspired those 
 first classes was of the finest, and has never been 
 lost, but has been renewed and invigorated by- 
 many a teacher who has followed him; it is still 
 a power in the school for the highest ideals of 
 school life. May those who will speak at the 
 Centennial celebration of the school have the 
 same report to make." 
 
 To return to Mrs. Blodgett's account of the fifti- 
 eth anniversary: 
 
 "When the formal addresses were over, the 
 hour was late, but the moment of moments was 
 yet to come. Some of us were looking anxiously 
 at the clock, but Miss Jacobs, the president, 
 knew how to hold us, and she charmingly intro- 
 duced Miss Woods as the rose petal, which a 
 brimming cup might hold without overflowing. 
 Now it was Miss Woods who was to present our 
 gift to Miss Caryl. This, you know, was a 
 mahogany desk and a gift of money. In her own 
 happiest manner. Miss Woods said that it was 
 a familiar sight to all of us to see Miss Caryl 
 before a desk, so we hoped that she might sit 
 before a desk which we had given her for many 
 years. 'Also,' she said, *we are going to place In 
 her hands a sum of money, with which she Is 
 to go on a journey. She has been in all our 
 thoughts, and now we are going to give her 
 something to keep us in her thoughts, for wher- 
 ever she goes, whether in pursuit of eclipses or 
 
 45 
 
Harriet KUzabeth Caryl 
 
 climbing Alaskan mountains, we are going with 
 her.' 
 
 "Then she turned to show Miss Caryl the 
 desk, which, skilfully concealed by palms and 
 drapery, had been standing behind her all the 
 evening. To prevent any necessity of a formal 
 reply of thanks, the opening notes of the school 
 ode were struck on the piano, and we all joined 
 heartily in singing the words by Miss Dix, to 
 the tune of 'Auld Lang Syne.' But Miss Caryl 
 still would have the last word, and, after the 
 ode, she came bravely forward, and said, 'I 
 have been told that I am not to say anything, 
 but I must speak to you all the same. I want 
 to thank you from the bottom of my heart, and 
 to tell you that your kindness to me this evening 
 has completely overwhelmed me. I only wish I 
 were more worthy of it.'" 
 
 Miss S. Annie Shorey, a fellow teacher and 
 warm friend of Miss Caryl for many years, 
 writes of her coming to the June Party in 1903, 
 just before she left the school for good. The 
 June Party is given each year by the Eliot 
 Memorial Association to the Seniors shortly be- 
 fore their graduation. It Is given on a Saturday 
 afternoon and is intended to provide an oppor- 
 tunity for the girls who are so soon to leave the 
 school, to meet their teachers and their class- 
 mates in a more satisfying way than the 
 crowded school hours at examination and 
 graduation time permit. _ Miss Shorey writes as 
 follows : 
 
 46 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 "Mr. and Mrs. Tetlow and Miss Caryl were 
 present at the June Party in 1903. A half-hour 
 was spent in pleasant talk; then Miss Caryl, 
 stepping to the front of the platform, called the 
 assembly to order. In a few gracious words she 
 extended to all a hearty welcome; we rejoiced 
 to see her there, but those of us who were still 
 engaged in the active work of the school, who 
 felt that it was the last time when, entirely as one 
 of themselves, she would so speak, could scarce 
 keep back their tears. Soon, however, came the 
 wiser thought, the school of the present, the 
 past, and the future is but one, and in that 
 school, as in our hearts. Miss Caryl's place can 
 never change; her interest will be deep and abid- 
 ing, and for many years to come the influence 
 of her strong and gracious presence will be felt 
 as a real power for good in our beloved school. 
 
 "After the charming entertainment of music 
 which had been provided for the afternoon, we 
 all felt there was but one voice which this year 
 could fittingly speak the words of counsel to the 
 graduating class, and all her girls of the older 
 generation as well, who were present, gave loving 
 attention while Miss Caryl spoke as follows: 
 
 " * It is my pleasant duty, as one of the host- 
 esses of this occasion, to welcome those of you 
 who are about to graduate from the school into 
 the ranks of the Alumnae. Some of you will 
 break at once, and some a year later, the special 
 tie which binds you to the school as a pupil, and 
 in spite of the near attraction of rest to tired 
 brain, I believe it will be somewhat painful to 
 break that tie; to those of you who feel thus, 
 
 47 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 the open arms and warm welcome of the 
 Alumnae will be something of a solace. But 
 don't forget that you will be a living part of the 
 school, that it will follow and watch your career, 
 what you are, what you become, what you do, so 
 far as it is able to do so, and let that thought be 
 an inspiration to you to lead such a life that 
 your membership in its growing ranks shall be a 
 blessing. 
 
 " *The larger Girls' High School (the pupils 
 and the ex-pupils) needs just those faithful, 
 earnest lives to keep and carry forward the high 
 ideals of its first half-century. Notice that I 
 said, "earnest and faithful lives.'* On our ex- 
 hibition day in 1898 when the time came to give 
 the diplomas, there was no member of the Com- 
 mittee present to act, but happily our Dr. Eliot 
 was present, and the girls were overjoyed to 
 receive their diplomas from his hands. I cannot 
 do better than to try to give to you the burden 
 of those few words which he spoke to them at 
 that time. He said, "Seek to find some place in 
 life that needs you, and when you have found it, 
 be happy and content to do your duty just there. 
 Your corner in the world's broad field of work 
 may be very tiny, very obscure, bringing you 
 none of the world's honors, never mind that; 
 don't be down-hearted about it; if you are in 
 the spot that needs you, you are in the place 
 that God made for just you, and to be faithful 
 in the work which He assigns, must be to do the 
 highest work that the world could hold for you; 
 and if done in obedience to His will, no contribu- 
 tion to life's work could be finer." ' 
 
 48 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 "For a moment all was still, then the sweet 
 notes of the flute broke the silence, giving the 
 response that was in all our hearts. 
 
 " I think I never realized more strongly than 
 on this occasion the influence of these meetings 
 in fostering a feeling of loyalty to the school. A 
 young girl of the Senior class, one who had never 
 seemed very warmly attached to her Alma 
 Mater, came to me at the close of the afternoon, 
 with tears in her eyes, 'Oh!' she said, 'I hope 
 I can come back to school next year, but if I do 
 not, I shall belong to this association some time. ' 
 
 "May this love and loyalty grow stronger and 
 deeper every year in the hearts of all our 
 graduates." 
 
 When Miss Caryl finally resigned her position 
 in 1903, her friends hoped that there were to 
 follow years of leisurely enjoyment and of free- 
 dom from all care and anxiety. It was therefore 
 a grief to all who knew her that there soon de- 
 veloped very serious trouble with her eyes which 
 finally resulted In almost total blindness. This 
 she bore uncomplainingly, and with a courage 
 and patience that added the crowning touch to 
 a character already wonderfully complete. Still 
 her spirit was unconquered. Her heart was still 
 warm with love for the school, for her church, for 
 missionary work, and for her friends. She had 
 moved from the old house, now too large for her 
 needs, to pleasant modern apartments where she 
 still busied herself with some household duties, 
 
 49 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 and where she had the constant and devoted 
 care of a relative and a friend who made their 
 home with her. Led by them, her face touched 
 by a new, pathetic gentleness and dependence, 
 she still attended her church, and her monthly 
 missionary meetings, came to the girls' reunions, 
 and often was an honored guest at the school. 
 One of her pupils. Miss Etta Yerdon, who was 
 much with her after she became blind and was 
 most attached to her, writes : 
 
 ■ "Miss Caryl kept the knowledge of her ap- 
 proaching blindness from her friends as long as 
 possible. One of the last times I saw her she 
 said, ^When it was certain that I was to be 
 blind I resolved never to say a word of rebellion. 
 I think I have kept that resolution.' Sometimes 
 I had the privilege of accompanying Miss Caryl 
 to church. When the psalms were read we 
 stood close together and I read as distinctly as 
 I could so that she could hear me, but generally 
 when a verse ' was begun Miss Caryl finished 
 it from memory. 
 
 "Miss Caryl always treasured the books on 
 the periods of history which she had taught, and 
 I read to her first of all a ponderous life of Jeffer- 
 son. Every week most of the time was given to 
 this, and a space at the end for the * Spirit of 
 Missions'; these two because Miss Caryl wished 
 to hear them, also because she thought them 
 good for her reader. Other friends read other 
 things for her. She was most conscientious 
 about sending periodicals of all kinds that she 
 
 SO 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 liked to those who would enjoy them after she 
 herself had read them. Always Miss Caryl was 
 fresh and dainty about her dress and belongings, 
 and she appreciated the wearing of a new gown, 
 or bit of fine lace. It pleased her, too, when her 
 friends wore an occasional bit of finery. She 
 liked 'seeing it' with her fingers. 
 
 "There was a bit of verse about 'the Heavenly 
 City*; Miss Caryl loved it very much, and we 
 used to say it together every time I went to 
 read to her. I cannot remember the beginning, 
 but we loved most of all these lines, 
 
 " 'Bathed all in light with open gates of gold 
 Perfect the city is in tower and street. 
 And there a palace for each mortal waits 
 Complete and perfect, at whose outer gates 
 An angel stands, its occupant to greet.' " 
 
 But at last came a time when the clear brain, 
 the loving memory, the strong will gave way. 
 Through three years of helplessness she lay like 
 a little child, most tenderly cared for night and 
 day by her cousin. Miss Katharine George, 
 whom she had loved and taught as a child, by 
 an intimate friend, Miss Emily Weeks, and two 
 devoted nurses. She was in a mysterious state 
 like that described in the words of the old hymn 
 she had often sung in church: 
 
 "And when these failing lips grow dumb 
 And mind and memory flee, 
 When thou shalt in thy kingdom come 
 Then Lord remember me." 
 
 SI 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 The end came at last on February 22, 1918, 
 and on the afternoon of February 25 the funeral 
 service was held. 
 
 Once more, as after the death of Miss Emma 
 Temple and of Miss Lucy Woods, the great doors 
 of Trinity Church opened to receive a teacher, 
 "found faithful unto death," who was to rest 
 before the chancel and to have the words of the 
 burial service repeated for her. And once more, 
 as then, the old friends gathered, and flowers 
 were heaped upon the bier and the chancel rail, 
 and throngs of school girls filled the nave and 
 transepts. In the case of Miss Temple and of 
 Miss Woods, as both had been taken away in the 
 midst of their active work, their pupils came 
 fresh from the teaching that had been the joy 
 and inspiration of their school days, some heart- 
 broken with the loss of their dear teacher. When 
 Miss Caryl rested at last in the church she loved 
 so well, she had been separated for years from 
 the school that had looked to her as its great 
 mother. But Miss Caryl's sweet face had looked 
 down upon the later classes from her portrait, 
 and there was no girl who did not know her as 
 the best friend of the school. A great number of 
 the pupils of the school had come directly from 
 their classrooms to the church, and as their awed 
 faces were lifted and their voices joined with 
 those of the great company of graduates in sing- 
 ing the school hymn, it was a reverent and grate- 
 ful throng that filled the old church that day. 
 
 52 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 So significant and touching was the sight that 
 Dr. Mann, the rector of Trinity, in speaking of 
 it afterwards said that to him it was most im- 
 pressive that such a service could have been held 
 so long after Miss Caryl's work was over and 
 also a great testimony to her power and influence 
 as a teacher and friend. 
 
 Through the last years of Miss Caryl's life 
 which had shut her away from all she loved in 
 life, her old friends and the pupils on whom she 
 had lavished so much love and care did not for- 
 get her. More than a year after she died, and 
 sixteen years after she gave up her work in 
 school, many of those who loved and reverenced 
 her while her gracious presence still moved 
 among them, gathered on May 2, 19 19, in the 
 old classic hall of the High School, and held a 
 memorial meeting in her honor. 
 
 On this occasion the fine portrait of Miss 
 Caryl, painted by Miss Grace Geer, of the class 
 of 1873, stood upon the platform with pots of 
 roses set on either side, the long branches of clus- 
 tering pink blossoms framing the picture of that 
 well-loved face. 
 
MEMORIAL MEETING 
 
 FOR 
 
 Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 Held in the School Hall 
 May 2, 1 91 9 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Girls' High School Association, Boston 
 
O strong and faithful soul, serenely bright, 
 The hurrying seasons bless thee as they go, 
 And each doth give thee all it may bestow: 
 The hopefulness that makes the cheerful might 
 Of springtime; summer's joyous love and light; 
 The patient strength that lies 'neath winter's snow; 
 And warmth serene of autumn's passing glow, — 
 All these the years have left thee in their flight. 
 And we, thy children, looking in thy face, 
 Pray that some day at last we may have gained 
 Even a little of the shining grace 
 That there we find. Oh, may the flying years 
 Bring us triumphant over all our fears 
 Toward that fair table-land thou hast attained! 
 
 Laura E. Richardson, '86 
 
ORDER OF EXERCISES 
 
 Greeting by the President of the Girls' High School Association, 
 
 Miss Rachel Rosnosky, Class of 1898. 
 Introduction by the President of Miss Elizabeth L. Smith, 
 
 Class of 1873, ss Chairman of the meeting. 
 Opening words of the Chairman. 
 Address: Mr. Myron W. Richardson, Principal of the Girls* 
 
 High School. 
 Music: The School Ode. 
 
 Brief Sketch of Miss Caryl's Life by the Chairman. 
 Addresses: Professor Charles E. Fay of Tufts College. 
 
 Rev. Alexander Mann, D.D., Rector of Trinity 
 Church. 
 Anthem: Consider and Hear Me. The Choir. 
 Reading of Letters from Miss Eliza G. Swett, Class of 1855. 
 Mrs. Mary Lathrop Tucker, Teacher in the school from 
 
 1875 to 1881. 
 Mrs. Julia Jellison Wright, Class of 1861. 
 Addresses: Miss Mary C. Mellyn, Class of 1887, Assistant 
 Superintendent of the Schools of Boston. 
 Miss Katharine H. Shute, Class of 1879, Teacher 
 
 in the Boston Normal School. 
 Miss Elizabeth L. Smith. 
 Hymn : For all the Saints. 
 Announcement of the founding of the Harriet Elizabeth 
 
 Caryl Memorial Scholarship. 
 School Hymn: Thine Forever. 
 
 The music for this meeting was furnished by a small choir, 
 trained and led by Mrs. Willianna Folsom, of the class of 
 1878. The members of the choir were graduates and present 
 pupils of the school together with outside friends. 
 
 Mrs. FoLsoM was assisted by Mr. Bertram Currier, 'cellist, 
 and Miss Linda Ekman, pianist. 
 
 Miss Rachel Rosnosky, president of the 
 Girls' High School Association, opened the meet- 
 ing with a few gracious words of welcome to the 
 
 57 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 graduates of the past years who had come to 
 honor the beloved teacher who had been their 
 joy and inspiration. After this cordial greeting, 
 Miss Rosnosky turned to Miss Elizabeth L. 
 Smith as one who had been, as pupil and teacher 
 in the school, an associate and dear friend of 
 Miss Caryl for more than thirty years, and trans- 
 ferred the chairmanship of the Memorial Meet- 
 ing to her hands. 
 
 In the following pages a report is given, in 
 part, of the addresses that were made. 
 
 Opening Words by the Chairman 
 We have come home to our school at the call of 
 our dear teacher and friend. Miss Caryl. We 
 recall the radiant occasion of which she was the 
 central figure, when at the fiftieth anniversary 
 of the school, this hall was crowded with Miss 
 Caryl's pupils, who loved to do her honor. To- 
 night let us see upon this platform the same 
 gracious and beautiful figure turning upon us a 
 face lighted up with her dear familiar smile of 
 loving greeting. 
 
 Address of Mr. Richardson 
 Miss Caryl was a woman of wonderful power 
 and dignity, and she was dearly beloved by her 
 pupils. She was deeply interested in them, 
 always kindly considerate of them, and infi- 
 nitely patient with them under all circumstances; 
 she has long been known as the mother of the 
 
 S8 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 school. Her loss Is felt by hundreds of the 
 graduates of the school who came under her 
 influence. 
 
 Miss Caryl did not lose her interest in the 
 school with her retirement, and until three years 
 ago, when failing health made it impossible for 
 her to do so, she was always present at the 
 graduation exercises, alumnae gatherings, Christ- 
 mas concerts, and the like. It was during this 
 portion of her life that I personally knew Miss 
 Caryl and through her I obtained many helpful 
 pictures of the early life of the school, its ideals 
 and traditions. I soon came to feel for her the 
 same Interest and regard and reverence that she 
 inspired In others. With her passed on one of 
 the most commanding figures In the life of the 
 school. 
 
 Address of Professor Charles E. Fay 
 
 I HESITATE as I Undertake the service to which 
 you have invited me this evening, because I feel 
 how absolutely Impossible It Is even for one who 
 was acquainted with Miss Caryl as a friend to 
 do justice to that noble and serene character. 
 On one other occasion in recent years I had the 
 honor of occupying this same position ; It was at 
 a similar memorial service for Mr. Tetlow. It 
 seems to me that, with notable differences, there 
 was a point of marked likeness between these 
 two able teachers In the Boston schools, and that 
 it lay in their strength, their stability of char- 
 
 59 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 acter. Not only their pupils and the teachers 
 associated with them, but all who have had the 
 honor of being in any way connected with them, 
 can now fully realize the worth of their friend- 
 ship. 
 
 Miss Caryl always impressed me as the type 
 of gentle, strong, helpful Christian womanhood. 
 While my acquaintance with her covered a pe- 
 riod of nearly fifty years, we actually met but 
 seldom; yet on no occasion without my recogni- 
 tion of these dominant traits of her character. 
 
 I first met her while I was still an undergradu- 
 ate, passing part of my summer vacation in my 
 student quarters at Tufts College. Professor 
 John P. Marshall, of our department of Geology, 
 had invited the Senior class (I think it was) of 
 the Girls' High and Normal School to picnic on 
 the campus and later to visit certain interest- 
 ing geological features of the neighborhood. My 
 elder colleague invited me to assist in conduct- 
 ing the party, of whom there were perhaps thirty 
 or forty. My services were not onerous. So far 
 as I recall, they consisted in helping the young 
 ladles over the various stone walls of fields that 
 to-day are covered with a myriad of houses. Al- 
 though those assisted, one or two of whom I 
 later came to know in other connections, were 
 more nearly my contemporaries, I am sure that 
 I was most deeply impressed by the simple, 
 gracious, yet masterful, dignity of their teacher, 
 whom they obviously held in high honor. 
 
 60 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 Executive capacity combined with a keen human 
 sympathy would have been my characterization 
 of Miss Caryl in 1867. 
 
 After my marriage to one whose family had 
 already for a generation been on terms of inti- 
 macy with hers, that casual acquaintance was 
 renewed and continued to the end, or at least so 
 long as that intensely intelligent personality we 
 all loved and honored remained unimpaired. 
 On one or two occasions when, with others, we 
 were guests in her home, I can recall that she 
 withdrew from the company to attend to prepa- 
 ration called for by her school duties of the fol- 
 lowing day. What better evidence of the seri- 
 ousness with which she took her work as a 
 teacher, of the conscience that she put into all 
 that she did ! I had other opportunities of realiz- 
 ing the extent to which this conscientiousness 
 was a leading trait of her character. 
 
 I consider it a rare privilege that, at the time 
 when she had reached the maximum of her in- 
 fluence and honors, I was permitted to enjoy a 
 very intimate association with her for a period 
 of several weeks. It came about through her 
 joining a party of friends that I was to conduct 
 on an excursion across the continent. We were 
 to visit in particular the grand Alpine region of 
 the Canadian Rockies and Selkirks and the 
 Pacific Northwest, and to return by way of the 
 Yellowstone Park and the Great Lakes. It was 
 a trip to which she had looked forward with great 
 
 61 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 Interest, as it would take her to regions of which 
 she had heard much but had never visited. 
 Probably no anecdote I could tell of her would 
 more clearly emphasize that loyalty to principle 
 that was coupled with her conscientiousness, 
 than a reference to a letter that I received from 
 her a few days before the party was to start, say- 
 ing that she did not wish to interfere with any 
 plans, nor to force her views upon any one, but 
 that if the party was to start on Sunday, she 
 could not go. It was with great pleasure that I 
 responded that there was no intention of start- 
 ing upon Sunday and that, so far as possible, 
 Sunday travel would be avoided. A party con- 
 stituted as that one was could not have been 
 other than a congenial and united one, but I feel 
 that we all regarded Miss Caryl as the culmina- 
 tion, so to speak, of its dignity and geniality. 
 Never in all those weeks was there the slightest 
 expression of dissatisfaction on her part with 
 anything that was in the programme. I recall that 
 when we were about to go from Glacier House to 
 Vancouver, and were to start on a Saturday 
 afternoon and reach Vancouver Sunday noon, 
 Miss Caryl arranged to start by herself the day 
 before and gave us a friendly welcome on our 
 arrival. 
 
 It is one thing to have principles and con- 
 science. It is another thing not so to manifest 
 them as to be an annoyance to one's friends. I 
 do not think it would be possible for any one 
 
 62 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 here present to think of Miss Caryl as endeavor- 
 ing to force her principles upon her. What an 
 inheritance it is to have been under such a 
 personality as a pupil! What an inheritance to 
 the generations that grew up under that influ- 
 
 ence. 
 
 Address of Rev. Alexander Mann, D.D. 
 I CANNOT speak to-night to this gathering, com- 
 posed, as I understand it, largely of Miss 
 Caryl's old girls, of her years of mature and 
 effective work. I can only speak of the decline 
 of her life. When I came to Boston in 1905, two 
 years after Miss Caryl retired, she was living in 
 that house on Myrtle Street, which has already 
 been referred to. It was there I first met her 
 when I called upon her as one of the members of 
 Trinity Church. I remember the effect pro- 
 duced upon me; I remember the interest which 
 Miss Caryl took in the work of the parish, 
 which was naturally the subject of our conversa- 
 tion; and I shall always remember the cheery 
 and hopeful way in which, through her sightless 
 eyes, she still looked out upon life. Her work 
 was done when I knew her, but her influence was 
 going on. One might say of her, — "Does God 
 demand day labor, light denied.? . . . They also 
 serve who only stand and wait." Miss Caryl 
 was standing and waiting, but she also most 
 emphatically served. 
 
 There were two members of Trinity Church 
 
 63 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 whom I remember clearly, — one an elderly 
 man who could not hear a sound, but who was 
 regularly in his seat on Sunday. He knew the 
 service by heart, and so was able to follow 
 although he could not hear one sound of the 
 preacher's voice or one note of the organ. The 
 other was Miss Caryl, from whom all sight was 
 taken away. Those two people impressed me 
 as two of the most earnest worshippers in that 
 congregation. 
 
 I also remember the meetings of the Woman's 
 Auxiliary, that great missionary society of the 
 Church which reaches all over the world, and 
 which raises hundreds of thousands of dollars 
 for its mission work. I can remember going to 
 these meetings, and there finding Miss Caryl 
 keenly interested in all that was going on, listen- 
 ing eagerly to whatever the speaker of the day 
 had to say, and showing in every way the same 
 interest in the great work of the extension of 
 Christ's kingdom. It is interesting to be told, 
 as I was to-day, that that society really came 
 out of a much smaller society known as the 
 Dakota League, in which Miss Caryl was one of 
 the first members. She was one of the foremost 
 disciples of Bishop Whipple, whose life was 
 consecrated to the Sioux Indians. It may be 
 that her sense of justice had something to do 
 with it. It may very well be that she felt there 
 was something due to the American Indians by 
 the people of the United States. At any rate, 
 
 64 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 what is certain is that for years she was one of 
 the most interested and helpful members of the 
 early missionary society known as the Dakota 
 League out of which came the Woman's Aux- 
 iliary. 
 
 I should like to say one other word. It is 
 interesting that you should all be gathered here 
 in grateful memory of a public school teacher. 
 I think it is a good sign. Lowell said about 
 Lincoln, — "Great Captains with their guns and 
 drums disturb our judgments for the hour.'* 
 That is a fair example of the conditions to-day. 
 It is rather helpful to find that, in these days 
 when we are thinking of the return of the 
 soldiers, there should be a gathering like this to 
 honor a teacher in one of our public schools, — 
 one whose work though far-reaching was for the 
 most part unseen. 
 
 We are reading a great deal to-day about the 
 necessity of "Americanization" in the United 
 States. We are reading a great deal about the 
 organization which shall bring about that 
 Americanization. Congress is talking about this 
 very thing. Thoughtful citizens are talking 
 about it. After all, is there any one thing that 
 exists to-day, or anything that the wit of man 
 can contrive in this matter of Americanization, 
 that can compare with the public school? I do 
 not think there is. 
 
 I cannot forget that years ago when I went as 
 a young Deacon to Buffalo (where I am inter- 
 ns 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 ested to learn Miss Caryl was born), my work 
 was on the East Side where the parish was made 
 up of workingmen, — men who handled freight, 
 brakemen on the trains, and the like. We had a 
 very large number of Germans in our congrega- 
 tion. I suppose they went to the Episcopal 
 Church because it reminded them of the Church 
 in which they had been brought up, and I re- 
 member going around to visit those young Ger- 
 man mothers. (I always went into the kitchen, 
 because that was where they were to be found.) 
 One after another would say, "Mr. Mann, I 
 wish you would speak to Hans and tell him how 
 important it is that he should keep up his Ger- 
 m.an. We speak it in the family because we 
 believe that when he grows up it will be useful 
 
 to him." I would say, "Now, Mrs. S , what 
 
 is the matter? Why does n't Hans speak Ger- 
 man.'*" She would answer that Hans was afraid 
 if he spoke German at home he would let a word 
 drop in the school, and the boys would call him 
 "A Little Dutchman," and Hans would not 
 stand for that. Now, that was twenty-five 
 years ago. Hans has been in America all that 
 time, and the German-American people have 
 been loyal citizens, as you know. I welcome all 
 the agencies which take care of the men and 
 women who come to make their homes in our 
 country, but for the child, there is no agency 
 like our public school. 
 
 Something has been said to-night about the 
 
 66 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 Impression Miss Caryl made upon all with whom 
 she came in contact, and it has been referred 
 justly to her character. I wish people bore that 
 in mind more. We are told sometimes that the 
 public school cannot teach religion. The public 
 school does teach religion in the most effective 
 way in which religion can be taught. The school 
 teaches it through the unconscious influence of 
 Christian example. I do not know of any influ- 
 ence as lasting as this. Some have the unpleas- 
 ant habit of contrasting our preaching with our 
 practice. No one can say anything about that 
 unconscious preaching which Is the result of a 
 Christian character and Christian love. As long 
 as we have in our public schools men and women 
 of Christian faith and Christian love, we have the 
 most effective sort of preaching of the religion of 
 Christ. 
 
 Now that Is unquestionably what our friend 
 Miss Caryl did. She revealed the gospel of 
 Christ to many a thoughtless girl who probably 
 did not think anything of It at the time, but who 
 in years after wondered what was the cause of 
 that sweet strain which she so admired in Miss 
 Caryl, and she came to see that it was just the 
 natural outcome of Miss Caryl's Christian faith. 
 
 I think you do well in these days to come to- 
 gether as you have to-night and pay this tribute 
 of respect to a public school teacher who taught 
 far more than the subjects in the curriculum, 
 and who brought to bear upon hundreds of lives 
 
 67 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 a most potent and lasting influence of Christian 
 example. 
 
 Letter from Miss Eliza G. Swett 
 
 As a classmate of Miss Caryl in the old Mason 
 Street Normal School at its opening, may I send 
 my loving tribute to her memory? We all ad- 
 mired and loved her, but as years passed on, she 
 and I, both busy in teaching, seldom met, 
 though we met always with the same loving 
 interest of earlier days. I recall so vividly the 
 trio, Harriet E. Caryl, Helen Avery and Mar- 
 garet Badger, bright lights in the Normal chain. 
 
 At the dedication of the new building on 
 Newton Street I was so happy to give my mite 
 in form of a hymn to be sung, and my heart was 
 ever with the graduating classes. 
 
 Harriet E. Caryl has endeared herself to 
 thousands of pupils who will "rise up and call 
 her blessed." And this is her fitting memorial. 
 
 As I am now an invalid, I can only send my 
 hearty greetings to the gathering on May 2d. 
 
 Letter from Mrs. Mary Lathrop Tucker 
 
 I HAVE been asked to write from the standpoint 
 of a teacher coming into the school with no 
 previous acquaintance with Miss Caryl. I be- 
 lieve I was first struck by her capability in a 
 high administrative position. I marvelled at her 
 masterly manipulation of the complicated and 
 variable school programme. It seemed to me that 
 
 68 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 the schedule was incessantly changing to accom- 
 modate a new class or a shift among teachers or, 
 in the true spirit of the school, to enable some 
 ambitious group, or possibly a single pupil, to 
 take an extra subject outside the regular class 
 work. 
 
 But more than her executive ability I came to 
 admire Miss Caryl's spirit. So far as I could see 
 she never appeared burdened by any labor or 
 responsibility. One of my constant school 
 memories is of meeting her with that ever- 
 insistent programme which she would perhaps 
 wave on seeing me and exclaim with a whimsical 
 laugh and twinkle of the eye, "See! my work is 
 laid out for to-day! So and so in 2B wants to 
 take this or that in 3 A" — or whatever the case 
 might be — "and so the whole row of bricks 
 tumbles down." But she lightsomely tossed 
 aside any expression of sympathy. It was all in 
 the day's work and her strong and cheery atti- 
 tude toward any task was a lesson and inspira- 
 tion to me — then and ever since. 
 
 Letter from Mrs. Julia Jellison Wright 
 Miss Julia Jellison, a graduate of 1861, and a 
 teacher in the school from 1869 to 1875, and 
 again from 1878 to 188 1, married an Englishman, 
 Mr. Henry Wright, and has made her home in 
 England since her marriage. But the ties of 
 loyalty and affection which existed between her 
 and the school, and especially between her and 
 
 69 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 Miss Caryl, have never been broken, and she has 
 often come back to the school and written to it, 
 so that she has always remained a part of its 
 life and activities. She has carried on in England 
 through the great war, a work as wise and loving 
 as that which was so near her heart while a 
 teacher here, and now on receipt of a picture of 
 Miss Caryl, sent to her after Miss Caryl's death, 
 she writes the following: 
 
 "A little photograph, reproduced from a long, 
 past day, was sent me recently by a friend who 
 well knew what pleasure it would give. 
 
 " It stands where I have looked at it daily, and 
 has brought back, not only the face in early 
 womanhood of her whose long life of service we 
 are honoring to-day, but a host of attendant 
 memories which I have been wishing I could 
 discuss and exchange with some old friends who 
 may be at the meeting. It would be a very com- 
 forting interlude in the strain of anxiety and the 
 turmoil of unprecedented events through which 
 we are passing. 
 
 "It is partly the unrelieved strain of these sad 
 times which has brought out by vivid contrast 
 the calm beauty of the young face at which I am 
 looking. I see in this little picture with its 
 individual grace of discipline and self-control, 
 its own charm of sympathy, of friendly interest 
 and humor, and with its fresh young earnestness, 
 the dear teacher who when I was fifteen years old 
 was only a few years in advance of me in life's 
 march, little as I then realized it. 
 
 "I must not take time which will be better 
 
 70 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 filled by others to linger on the crowding memo- 
 ries connected with Miss Caryl. Of school life 
 (over which brooded the shadow of the Civil 
 War), of talks in school and out, every one of 
 which left its seed of thought or inspiration, of 
 later years when we worked together as col- 
 leagues, or of the still more recent years when I 
 had more than once the pleasure of welcoming 
 her in my own home. I sit and think of these by 
 myself, in spirit joining you all. 
 
 "But the thought I would like to share with 
 you is that the lesson of this dear life is one of 
 calmness, of control and balanced effort. Neither 
 in Miss Caryl's mind nor in her work were there 
 ever any of those high flights of genius of which 
 the too frequent penalty is alternative weariness 
 and weakness. Her mind and methods were 
 essentially restrained and sound, such as lend 
 themselves to the ordered and dutiful service 
 which was the fabric of her life, and lend them- 
 selves above all to that wide and wholesome 
 influence It was her privilege to exert upon 
 thousands of minds of the most diverse quality 
 and race. 
 
 "That influence survives and will live long in 
 thousands of homes of the city which owes her 
 so large a debt of gratitude, in thousands of 
 hearts of pupils who to-day are calling her 
 memory blessed." 
 
 Address by Miss Mary C. Mellyn 
 
 I AM glad to have a share in this tribute to Miss 
 Caryl. It was not my privilege to know her in 
 
 71 
 
Harriet KUzabeth Caryl 
 
 the warm close relationship of personal friend- 
 ship, for I am one of the hundreds of students 
 whose life she touched and influenced uncon- 
 sciously. 
 
 The fundamental elements in her teaching 
 seem to have been, first, a spirit of reverence; 
 secondly, a spirit of understanding sympathy, 
 and thirdly, a spirit of generous service. We, 
 who remember the astronomy lessons, recall the 
 reverence with which Miss Caryl taught the 
 works of God, and the immutable laws which 
 govern the operation of the great natural forces; 
 — never once in her teaching did we fail to 
 appreciate that not only His word and His work 
 were in harmony, but also that behind all this 
 teaching was the abiding faith of a great teacher. 
 
 Secondly, we, who are the children of a newer 
 people, recognized in Miss Caryl a sympathy 
 wise and tender; an appreciation that our ideals 
 and aspirations were high and fine and purpose- 
 ful. Miss Caryl realized the fundamental 
 principle of Americanization — a sympathetic 
 appreciation of all that the newer races brought; 
 and their sincere desire to give of their best to 
 the country which symbolized "opportunity'* 
 to them. None of us can forget the smile of 
 kindliness with which she met her girls as she 
 passed them in the corridor, • — her friendly 
 morning greetings, her personal words of en- 
 couragement and faith in the student's powers; 
 all her "little unremembered acts_of kindness 
 
 72 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 and of love ! " These made the days in her class- 
 room dear to us all. 
 
 Thirdly, in the generous service which she 
 gave so unremittingly, in the hours of extra help, 
 in the wealth of knowledge with which she en- 
 riched lesson periods; in the many hours given 
 over to reunions of classes, — all this marked 
 her days. Is it to be wondered at that "life 
 came more abundantly wherever she passed" ? 
 
 What was it all for.? this dominant faith, this 
 understanding sympathy, this generous service.? 
 It lifted the ideals of the young women whom she 
 taught, and it gave a conscious and impelling 
 example to all of her students who became 
 teachers in our schools. 
 
 By the power of her life, she helped them to be 
 true to the great trust which is theirs — to the 
 great trust to which Miss Caryl herself was true 
 — to so live and serve that a "people's vision 
 shall not perish." 
 
 Address by Miss Katharine H. Shute' 
 
 Your committee has asked me to speak for a 
 few minutes in regard to Miss Caryl's influence 
 upon her pupils. You will pardon me, I hope, if 
 I repeat what others have already said this even- 
 ing, for it has been my great misfortune to lose 
 the other addresses owing to an engagement 
 which I was able to shorten but not to postpone. 
 The fact of Miss Caryl's influence for good 
 over her girls is one of those great, evident, 
 
 73 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 beneficent facts which we do not argue about 
 because no one questions them. While she was 
 with us, we accepted it, and we still accept it, 
 very much as we accept the sunshine, and the 
 rain, and the return of spring. Talk with any- 
 one of her pupils, from the members of those 
 very earliest classes, of which there are now but 
 few survivors, to the girls of 1903, who were the 
 last to share the privilege of being taught day 
 after day by her in their closing year in the 
 school, and you get the same unvarying testi- 
 mony. A member of the school in the early 
 sixties — herself now about eighty years of age — 
 has recently written to me: "Although but a few 
 years older than many of us, such was the quiet 
 dignity of Miss Caryl's daily life that she seemed 
 old enough to awaken our absolute respect. To 
 every one who knew her in any relation, the 
 crowning trait of her altogether precious life 
 was her sincerity." And the writer adds later 
 on in her letter, "These are the thoughts that 
 stay with me for days at a time, when circum- 
 stances especially call them to mind." Think of 
 that, an influence that nearly sixty years after- 
 wards revives in thoughts that are precious 
 daily companions! In another letter, coming 
 from the Pacific Coast, a woman of great useful- 
 ness, who was a pupil in the school forty years 
 ago, says, " I did not know that Miss Caryl had 
 passed away. She was and is a beautiful character. 
 No one who knew her could ever forget her." 
 
 74 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 It has been my privilege — as one of the col- 
 lectors for the memorial fund, with which we are 
 to honor Miss Caryl's name, to read many such 
 letters, breathing affection, loyalty, gratitude, 
 expressing always pleasure in being given an 
 opportunity — as one puts it — "to help keep 
 her name in the living history of the school she 
 served so well." 
 
 A pupil of twenty years ago recalls vividly a 
 few quiet words spoken by Miss Caryl which fell 
 upon her like oil on turbulent waters, in one of 
 those moments of tense emotional experience 
 when words may mar, or help to make, a soul, — • 
 words which helped this young girl to see the 
 worthlessness of emotion unless it bore fruit in 
 living deeds. And at the funeral service at 
 Trinity Church, I saw one young girl — still a 
 school girl — who was there not because Miss 
 Caryl had ever been her teacher, not because she 
 had ever even spoken with Miss Caryl, but 
 because Miss Caryl had been the loved and 
 honored teacher of her teachers and had helped 
 to build up the school which this girl loved. 
 Doubtless she was only one of many who had 
 never known directly — but had inherited — an 
 influence so rare and undying that it will always 
 play a part in "the living history of the school." 
 
 It is time to speak more definitely, more ana- 
 lytically, of the nature of Miss Caryl's influence. 
 She influenced us, but to what ends.^* She influ- 
 enced us for good, but to what form of good? 
 
 75 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 She was but one of a group of very remarkable 
 women whom we hold in grateful and living 
 remembrance. They all influenced us for good, 
 — one making us long to be thorough and 
 scholarly; another to earn for ourselves the phrase 
 which so perfectly described her, "a culti- 
 vated woman"; another by her sympathetic in- 
 timacy with books arousing our desire to know 
 books as she did, to live in them, best of all to 
 open their doors to others. It was not in these 
 directions that Miss Caryl influenced most of us 
 preeminently. She had a very fine, clear mind; 
 she knew her subjects through and through; she 
 was always a student and always growing; her 
 administrative ability was remarkable; but al- 
 though those of us who thought about it could 
 not fail to recognize these things, — the way in 
 which Miss Caryl affected us most profoundly 
 was to make us long to be good. We have a foolish 
 way of talking about "plain goodness"; I don't 
 quite know what we mean by it, but I know that 
 Miss Caryl stood for that preeminently in our 
 minds and always will. Now that I try to 
 analyze that "plain goodness," I wonder if you 
 would agree with me that hers consisted pri- 
 marily in a scrupulous conscientiousness — a 
 sense of honor and duty, that is, that could not 
 be set aside nor tampered with; and secondarily, 
 in a kindness so constant, so pervading, that I 
 have no words of my own that can do justice to 
 it and must borrow the words of one of our own 
 
 76 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 poets and thinkers, when — in speaking of the 
 nature of his friend — he says that in him 
 
 ** Glowed unexhausted kindliness 
 Like daily sunrise, there." 
 
 No thoughtful person can have lived in daily 
 contact with Miss Caryl without asking what 
 the sources of her unswerving rectitude and in- 
 exhaustible kindliness were; what the hidden 
 springs that fed the serene river of her life. 
 These — at least — we are sure of, — a genu- 
 inely affectionate nature, an almost phenomenal 
 lack of egotism, and a profound religious faith. 
 
 Miss Caryl's affection knew no moods; she 
 did not welcome you to-day and ignore you to- 
 morrow; she was always your friend, always in- 
 terested in your enterprises, always pleased at 
 your happiness, always sympathetic with your 
 sorrows. You knew where to find her; you 
 counted absolutely upon her. 
 
 Her lack of egotism, as I have just said, was 
 phenomenal. I think that I have never known 
 any one else in whom interest in self was equally 
 conspicuous by Its absence. Apparently she 
 never spent any time in analyzing herself nor in 
 explaining herself. She never seemed to be con- 
 cerned about her effect upon others or their 
 effect upon her. She was touched, and grateful, 
 and even surprised, at the affection and devotion 
 of other people for her, but she thought of it all 
 in terms of their generous kindness, not In terms 
 
 77 
 
Harriet Rlizabeth Caryl 
 
 of her own worthiness. This lack of egotism 
 was — I suppose — at the root of the very 
 wholesome and beautiful quality that char- 
 acterized the devotion which her pupils felt for 
 her. It was just what every right thinking 
 woman would like to inspire, provided she 
 thought about it at all. We felt toward Miss 
 Caryl as one feels toward her mother, — toward 
 a wise, companionable mother. Some of us had 
 the wonderful good fortune to go away with her 
 in the summer. What a companion she was — 
 ready for every adventure, happy, even merry, 
 equally friendly to all! I cannot imagine any 
 element of morbidness ever entering into any 
 girl's admiration for Miss Caryl. To speak 
 plainly, I never knew a girl to be silly about 
 Miss Caryl. One never hung about in the corri- 
 dor to see her pass by; one went straight to her 
 desk like a sensible human being, and always 
 found there a welcome. Miss Caryl was one 
 who neither felt nor inspired jealousy. I recall 
 a happy after-school talk one day with Miss 
 Badger, In which something led us to speak of 
 jealousy. "I do not see why one person should 
 be jealous of the affection shown for another," 
 said Miss Badger, "now of course" — and she 
 nodded her queenly head toward the room 
 across the corridor, "I see how the girls love and 
 admire Miss Caryl, but I am never jealous of 
 her." That was beautiful in Miss Badger; I 
 love to remember the way in which she said it; 
 
 78 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 but it was partly that straight-forward, trans- 
 parent, unassuming quality in Miss Caryl that 
 made it impossible to be jealous of her. 
 
 I should be very sorry to give the impression 
 that Miss Caryl was good without eflfort. One 
 day when she was helping me to see things 
 straight — while I was still a school girl — she 
 referred incidentally to the constant battle, the 
 up-hill road, which she herself found life to be. 
 And she added in a tone almost of reverence 
 that her mother — who seemed to her very 
 nearly perfect — had told her that she too was 
 still struggling to be good. 
 
 Miss Caryl never made any secret of the source 
 to which she turned for help and inspiration in 
 her own struggle. She was as far from concealing 
 her strong religious faith and feeling as she was 
 from any pharisaical exhibition of it. I don't 
 quite know how we knew, but we knew abso- 
 lutely that her life was consecrated; that the 
 Master Whom she served was as actual a pres- 
 ence in her daily life as the earthly friends whom 
 she loved. Each great decision was made in 
 the light of His wisdom; each faithful fulfilment 
 of duty was accomplished in the joy of His 
 presence. 
 
 Address of Miss Elizabeth L. Smith 
 
 This has been Miss Caryl's evening, perhaps 
 even more truly than that other to which we 
 turned in memory at the opening of our meet- 
 
 79 
 
Harriet Klizabeth Caryl 
 
 ing. We have felt her with us and I believe that 
 her spirit, always so true and so humble, knows 
 that we have spoken the truth about her. Once 
 more, as so often before, she is sending us home 
 from school with the desire and the inspiration 
 to be more worthy of her teaching and example. 
 With her how perfectly teaching and example 
 were one! 
 
 Her light shone steadily before us to the glory 
 of her Father in Heaven. Becoming a little 
 child she entered the Kingdom of Heaven and 
 showed us the light and peace in which she 
 dwelt. 
 
 Can we not hear her now, saying: "I thank 
 God that I have meant this to you. Try to be 
 good children of our Heavenly Father." That 
 we may hear this message in Miss Caryl's own 
 words, I want to share with you two of my 
 dearest memories of her. 
 
 Just as Miss Caryl was beginning her work, 
 there came a time of delicate health which 
 brought anxious fears lest she would never be 
 strong enough or good enough to teach. She 
 carried the trouble to her rector. Dr. Hunting- 
 ton. I will tell you the story in her own words. 
 
 << 
 
 Dr. Huntington said to me: 'My dear child, 
 I want you to stop all this, and every morning, 
 before you go out to your work, kneel down and 
 tell our Heavenly Father that you have a day's 
 work to do for Him, and that you are going to 
 try to do it, trusting Him to give you the 
 
 80 
 
Harriet Elizabeth Caryl 
 
 strength for It. Then go out and do it. At 
 night come back and tell Him that if you have n't 
 succeeded you will try again to-morrow. Do 
 this every day of your life.' — And I have.^'' 
 
 The many letters which I have received from 
 Miss Caryl are full of expressions which reveal 
 this childlike relation to God. I will share with 
 you one of these, which I find in a reply to a letter 
 of mine written to Miss Caryl upon her birthday, 
 in which I had tried to make her understand what 
 she was to the school and to us all. She replied : 
 
 " I am sure this is no outburst of birthday 
 affection. I will take it, dear child, as an inspira- 
 tion, and I will try to become more like what 
 my Heavenly Father meant me to be when He 
 made me." 
 
 My first gift from Miss Caryl was a copy of 
 Faber's Hymns, a book which she deeply loved, 
 for her spirit found itself at home with the 
 childlike faith of the poet. Two lines from one 
 of her favorites tell the story of her life. 
 
 "Time and obedience are enough 
 And thou a saint shalt be." 
 
 So circled lives she with Love's holy light, 
 That from the shade of self she walketh free; 
 She hath a natural, wise sincerity, 
 A simple truthfulness, and these have lent her 
 A dignity as moveless as the centre; 
 So that no influence of earth can stir 
 Her steadfast courage, nor can take away 
 The holy peacefulness, which, night and day. 
 Unto her queenly soul doth minister. 
 
 James Russell Lowell 
 
THE HARRIET E.'CARYL MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 All members of the Girls' High School, whether they 
 were so happy as to have Miss Caryl for a teacher or not, 
 feel that in her life and work we have a priceless possession 
 which we must preserve for the school by establishing 
 there a permanent memorial of her. 
 
 The most fitting form for such a memorial seems to be 
 a scholarship fund, the income of which shall be given 
 every year to a member of the graduating class whom her 
 teachers consider worthy to receive it. 
 
 The word scholarship is used in its broadest sense, so 
 that the gift may be used for study at a college or for any 
 form of preparation for service which may be approved by 
 the committee having it in charge. 
 
 This form of memorial seems the one which would best 
 please Miss Caryl. She was always helping others in the 
 spirit of love, and in this memorial we make it possible for 
 her to keep this beautiful ministry unbroken. 
 
 The Girls' High School Association has committed to 
 its branch, the Samuel Eliot Memorial Association, the 
 work of raising the Memorial Fund. About three thou- 
 sand dollars have already been received and the work is 
 still going on. 
 
 It is earnestly hoped that every graduate of the school 
 and every friend of Miss Caryl may have a share in her 
 memorial. 
 
 No gift can be too large, nor any too small to be offered, 
 since all are given as a sincere expression of true apprecia- 
 tion and grateful love. 
 
 Gifts to the scholarship may be sent at any time to the 
 treasurer of the Memorial Fund, Miss Ida Hunneman, 
 II Mt. Pleasant Avenue, Rqxbury, Massachusetts. 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 022 137 743 6 ^ 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 022 137 743 6