1 I B RAFLY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 SURVEY
 
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 This book has been 
 digitized through 
 the generosity of 
 
 Robert O. Blissard 
 Class of 1957 
 
 University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign
 
 FRANCES STUART PARKER
 
 FRANCES STUART PARKER
 
 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 
 
 ' Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
 As the swift seasons roll! 
 Leave thy low-vaulted past! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting seal" 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED 
 1907
 
 COPYRIGHT, IQ07 
 
 BY 
 C. L. RICKETTS
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES - n 
 
 INTEREST IN CLUB LIFE 53 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM MRS. PARKER'S LETTERS 63 
 
 MEMORIAL RESOLUTIONS 116 
 
 NEWSPAPER EDITORIALS ..... ^6 
 
 H 
 
 *) 
 
 : N
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FRONTISPIECE 
 
 OLD HOME AT CITY POINT - - 12 
 
 PORTRAIT OF MRS. PARKER AT 35 YEARS 16 
 
 GARDEN AT CITY POINT 20 
 
 GARDEN AT ENGLEWOOD - - 24 
 
 LIBRARY CORNER IN HOME AT ENGLEWOOD - 31 
 
 OLD COOK COUNTY NORMAL SCHOOL - 49 
 
 PORTRAIT OF MRS. PARKER AT 45 YEARS - 63 
 
 PORTRAIT OF MRS. PARKER AT 30 YEARS - 92 
 
 HOUSE AT ENGLEWOOD - - - - 116
 
 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 EARLY LIFE, BOSTON 
 
 CORA WHEELER 
 
 Frank Stuart, only daughter of Calvin Stuart and Dorothy 
 Furbush, was born in Boston, April 19, 1847. I n tne father 
 and mother may be traced the characteristics which blended 
 happily in the artistic temperament of the daughter. Quiet 
 and philosophical, yet full of dry wit and with a fund of mim- 
 icry and an appreciation of the dramatic, Mr. Stuart was de- 
 voted to his home and eminently adapted to make it happy. 
 Mrs. Stuart was a most rare spirit, and her character, both 
 strong and sweet, had a great influence on all who knew her. 
 She loved poetry and music, and was in sympathy with 
 nature, having great love of the beautiful and a remarkable 
 talent for decoration. Her strong sense of justice and the 
 religious bent of her mind are also to be noted. 
 
 With such an inheritance, it is not strange that we find 
 Frank Stuart during her school days an unusually bright 
 and attractive girl. One of the teachers to whom she always 
 felt that she owed much writes as follows : 
 
 "I can see her now, a sprightly little girl of seven or eight 
 years, I wish I could sketch her on paper as she is sketched 
 in my mind, slender, light-haired, with a look as if she 
 knew that she were doing better, anyway, than some of 
 those around her. I found her exceedingly mature, brilliant 
 far above her classmates in rendering the meaning of any 
 thing which she read a foretaste, perhaps, of her signal 
 success as teacher of elocution. Oh, how enjoyable it was 
 to teach her! I can truly say that never, among the hun- 
 dreds of children whom I have carried through the earlier 
 grades, has there been a brighter, more interesting child, in
 
 12 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 every way, than Frankie Stuart. Next or equal to her fond- 
 ness for elocution was her love of flowers ; she loved to possess 
 them, to plant and rear them in her own little garden. She 
 would, when she went away on her summer vacation, exact 
 a promise from her parents that they would send some of the 
 first blooming flowers to her teacher, between whom and her- 
 self there was ever a most loving understanding." 
 
 As a young woman, Frank Stuart was brilliant and viva- 
 cious, always ready with a witty rejoinder or an anecdote or 
 quotation appropriate to the occasion or to the theme under 
 discussion. She attracted young friends in great numbers, 
 and the City Point house was a rendezvous for many 
 bright people. She was married quite early in life, and before 
 she was twenty was the mother of two children, Mabel (now 
 the wife of George Rolfe of Cambridge, son of W. J. Rolfe, 
 the Shakespearian critic) and Edna (Mrs. Thomas Hill Shep- 
 ard of Brookline). 
 
 Her devoted love for these children and their almost 
 adoring worship of her filled a large place in her life, and 
 will be recalled by all who knew her in her home. As they 
 grew older, she was to them a companion and a good com- 
 rade as well as a tender mother. Some extracts from letters 
 written by her to the elder daughter, while the children were 
 in the country for the summer vacation, give a glimpse of the 
 wise and loving mother thoughtfulness, and account for the 
 confidence which always existed between the mother and 
 daughters: 
 
 "I am glad that you are out so much; I look forward to 
 seeing a great, rosy, strong girl come back to me. Is Edna 
 getting fat ? Don't let her play too hard. Tell her I send 
 her some pictures, and I want her to write a composition on 
 them." 
 
 " I want so to see you both that I feel anxious for fear some 
 harm will happen to you. Be careful, my darlings, of your- 
 selves, for I should be a desolate mamma if my babies should 
 be hurt. Now for some directions which I want my daughter 
 to follow implicitly. She must be very careful to look neat
 
 OLD HOME AT CITY POINT
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 13 
 
 and clean always. She must not go out to walk without 
 some of the ladies or girls. She must remember that Mrs. 
 
 and the rest will judge by her something of what 
 
 kind of a mother she has, and if she is not polite, well-bred, 
 unselfish, and, above all, reserved and discreet, will blame 
 her mother for it. I know you are so womanly and love me 
 so much that I can be sure you will do nothing to grieve me." 
 
 Cottage City, Aug. 7, 1881. 
 
 My dear Mabel, Your lovely letter came last evening, 
 and I was delighted to receive it. I have had so few letters 
 from my daughter that I began to feel as if I had now only 
 a methodical young person, whose banker I was, and not my 
 loving little girl, who told me all sorts of things, and whose 
 precious little confidences were very dear to me. But it is 
 all right now, and I hope you will see to it that the young 
 person is repressed in the future, and that I receive letters 
 only from my daughter. 
 
 I should like very much to have Bessie with you. She 
 is a charming little lady, and I like her. There is only 
 one objection and that does not trouble me much, for 
 you begin to realize that you are a sort of a mother to Edna. 
 I think I half fear that you and Bessie will be so fond of each 
 other that you will shut Edna out of the good time. Please 
 remember, dearie, that she is your sister, whom you are to 
 love dearly, in order that she may love and look up to you, 
 and that you are to have her enjoy the summer as much as 
 you and Bessie are enjoying it, and it will be all right. 
 Mamma has perfect confidence that it will, and so is glad 
 to have Bessie go. 
 
 Now, "Lovely," I want you to romp all the four weeks 
 that you are gone. Romp, forget that you are Miss Stuart of 
 the Boston Latin School, and just put on your oldest dress 
 and stay out of doors all the time. Pick berries, drive the 
 cows home, find wild flowers, climb trees, and everything else 
 that you can think of, do, except read. I don 't want you to 
 look at a book while you are gone. You will have enough 
 of that next winter.
 
 i 4 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 "I've had some very pleasant pupils this year. I wish 
 you could meet them. They will hardly believe that I have 
 a daughter so large, and think I must be trying to fool them. 
 Col. Parker called me Miss Stuart so persistently that I had 
 to tell him I have a daughter taller than myself. He is to be 
 Edna's supervisor next year. Tell her that he has new ideas 
 on the spelling question, and that she will probably reap the 
 benefit of them." 
 
 Mrs. Stuart's dramatic talent and fine literary taste had 
 long been recognized by her teachers and friends, and it was 
 suggested that she should study elocution with Prof. Lewis B. 
 Monroe. At the age of twenty-nine, she entered the Boston 
 University School of Oratory, and for three years studied 
 under the famous teachers of that institution, among whom 
 were Lewis B. Monroe; Alex. Graham Bell, the inventor of 
 the Bell telephone, and at that time teacher of articulation 
 and visible speech; Henry Hudson, the Shakespearian critic; 
 and Robert R. Raymond, whose Shakespearian readings 
 have never been equalled in this country. She afterwards 
 became an assistant teacher in the school. After the death 
 of Prof. Monroe, Prof. Raymond established the Boston 
 School of Oratory as an independent institution, and Mrs. 
 Stuart became his able assistant, having charge of the depart- 
 ment of Voice and Delsarte System of Gesture. 
 
 Of Mrs. Stuart at this time Genevieve Stebbins, now 
 Mrs. Astley, writes: 
 
 To her powerful influence on dramatic art and literary 
 interpretation hundreds of grateful pupils testify; no one 
 could come under Mrs. Stuart's teaching without having 
 higher ideals, clearer insight, and a lasting impulse towards 
 better living. She was intensely loyal to the school, admir- 
 ing and reverencing the genius of Prof. Raymond, the princi- 
 pal. She never lost an opportunity of impressing upon the 
 pupils the value of his illustrative work, while he, on his part, 
 gladly admitted the benefit derived from association with her. 
 He depended upon her to prepare the pupils, in awakened
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 15 
 
 observation and stimulated thought as well as in voice and 
 gesture, for his classes. It was an ideal association, and 
 pupils will gratefully remember how these two supplemented 
 each other in the work of the school. 
 
 Early in her professional life, Mrs. Stuart became exceed- 
 ingly interested in the study of voice and was for some time a 
 pupil of Dr. Guilmette. Possessed of a fine musical sense, she 
 was able so to assimilate the exercises given as to use her own 
 beautiful voice with perfect freedom and ease, to the best ad- 
 vantage, and also to impress upon her pupils the importance 
 of this part of the work and the essential points in the produc- 
 tion of a voice equal to the demands of dramatic expression. 
 The clearness of her illustrations, her patient persistence, and, 
 above all, her faith in the pupil's ability to do the seemingly 
 impossible thing, can never be forgotten. 
 
 This applies to all her teaching. It was inspiring, appeal- 
 ing always to the best and strongest in the natures about her. 
 Of only one thing was she impatient or intolerant insincer- 
 ity. This she detected at once, and, knowing that it was 
 fatal to all true art, she used all her tact and power, even 
 sometimes the surgeon's knife of sarcasm, to reach the real 
 self and awaken it to true expression. 
 
 Two of her characteristic observations shew her way of 
 impressing truth : "Egotism in a person is like a Chinese wall 
 built around him; it excludes all impressions from outside, 
 and makes progress absolutely impossible." " Self -con- 
 sciousness, arising from latent fear of what others will think 
 of us, is not modesty, but vanity." 
 
 Mrs. Stuart's influence on the stage, during this period, 
 was greater than perhaps was realized at the time. Her 
 criticisms were sought for and highly valued, and those among 
 her pupils who have devoted themselves to acting have 
 always upheld her ideal of truth in art. 
 
 The following estimates of Mrs. Parker's work and influ- 
 ence are from those who had the opportunity of knowing it 
 from different standpoints. Mary Shaw, a favorite Boston 
 actress, writes:
 
 16 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 The impression Frank Stuart made on me was very 
 great, for my first meeting with her was at the time I 
 went on the stage. I was then impressionable and suscep- 
 tible, and Mrs. Stuart was among the very first distinguished 
 people I met. She was the intimate friend of people who 
 were greatly interested in my career, and I remember dis- 
 tinctly receiving a note to call on her, as she had something 
 of interest to say to me. It all comes back to me very 
 vividly. The cordial hand-clasp of a graceful, lovely 
 woman, who in reply to my diffident "Is this Mrs. Stuart?" 
 put me entirely at ease by recognizing me and immediately 
 transported me to the seventh heaven of gratification by 
 adding: "You are very talented, and I hope you will not be 
 annoyed, for, at the request of a friend, I am going to tell 
 you some grave faults you have." And she did, impressing 
 on me the fact of how easy it was to change them before 
 they had hardened into mannerisms. After that we had 
 many talks. I was greatly influenced by her splendid en- 
 thusiasm and artistic insight. My work took me away from 
 Boston for a couple of years, and when I returned I was 
 preparing to play in a Shakespearian repertoire. I again 
 went to her for help, and she advised me to study the plays 
 in which I was to appear with Prof. Raymond. No actor 
 or student I have ever met could compare with him in 
 knowledge or sympathy with Shakespearian r61es. I owe 
 Mrs. Stuart a debt of gratitude for interesting him in my 
 behalf. For I can truly say that all the impulse to study 
 out the truth and beauty of Shakespeare's characters was 
 imbibed from his matchless magnetism and knowledge. I 
 seldom saw her in the succeeding years, and then only for a 
 few moments in a social way. But I am sure there are 
 many who, like me, can trace much of the best and most 
 vital influences of their early professional life to her unerring 
 sympathy and love of art. And I should say that her influ- 
 ence on dramatic art was by reason of her fine enthusiasm, 
 which she made an inspiration to her pupils, teaching them 
 to admire and appreciate the power of expression. I am 
 very glad to have the opportunity of applying this tribute to
 
 PORTRAIT OF MRS. PARKER AT 35 YEARS
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 17 
 
 a woman who was always so helpful and generous to 
 women. Among the women teachers in the Temple of Art, 
 it seems to me we have had few so sincere and gifted as 
 Frank Stuart Parker. 
 
 Franklin H. Sargent, of the New York School of Dram- 
 atic Art, says: 
 
 Mrs. Stuart was a teacher in the Monroe School of 
 Oratory, in Boston, while I was a student there. I was, 
 from the start of my acquaintance with her, impressed with 
 her remarkable abilities as a teacher, the thoroughness and 
 unusual taste she displayed in her work. 
 
 She was one of the few elocutionists who had keen ap- 
 preciation of the aesthetic, and made a fine study of the 
 scientific. She impressed me, above all else, as a thorough 
 technician. In my own case, many a difficult problem she 
 helped solve when other teachers blinded me. 
 
 Something, perhaps a great deal, of her success as a 
 teacher was due to her charming personal qualities and her 
 responsiveness to the needs of a pupil. Her teaching was 
 essentially personal; I mean it showed a profound appre- 
 ciation of the individual pupil 's temperamental qualities and 
 sensibilities. 
 
 I remember, when she became the wife of Colonel 
 Parker and removed to Chicago, the loss that I, in common 
 with many others who had studied with her, felt. I had 
 many communications from her, in which we discussed 
 questions of particularly pantomimic technique, which letters, 
 unfortunately, I have not preserved. I saw her but once 
 after she left Boston, when I called upon her at her home, 
 and found, in conversation, that her work had ripened even 
 more, and that her pedagogic knowledge had greatly in- 
 creased under the impulse given her at that time in that 
 direction by her husband. 
 
 Mrs. Parker had a wonderful appreciation of the abilities 
 of others, particularly of other teachers, and seemed to 
 infallibly know the peculiar strength or weakness of each 
 teacher that she came in contact with.
 
 i 8 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 I am very regretful that my remembrances are of such 
 a general character. The old days with Professor Monroe, 
 while they glow in my memory, have become somewhat 
 covered by the mist of the past, for I am, like an actor, con- 
 stantly facing the footlights and blinded by them to many 
 of the realities and recollections of life. 
 
 Mrs. Louise Peabody Sargent, a dear friend and pupil, says: 
 
 Mrs. Parker was one of the strong influences in my life. 
 She chose me as a friend (I was many years her junior), 
 and she was kindness and devotion itself. She had the 
 faculty of seeing the capabilities and talents of her students, 
 and she always kept them up to their standard, if possible, 
 in a kindly, interested way. She had a remarkable mother, 
 who kept entirely in her home circle and yet had a wide and 
 beneficent influence. 
 
 Mrs. Parker had great power and dominating influence, 
 but it was always exerted evenly and kindly. 
 
 I never knew her unjust; she was often severe, but 
 necessarily so. Her insight into character was keen, and I 
 know of two instances, at least, where she was the only one 
 of many who read the true character of pretenders. Even 
 Professor Monroe was deceived in these cases, and I thought 
 she must be mistaken, but time proved her to be in the right. 
 
 I always associate her with books. She always had a 
 well-selected, choice library, even when it was small, and I 
 felt sure no valueless books could be found in the great 
 library she afterward owned. 
 
 Flowers, too, were seemingly a part of her. From earliest 
 spring to latest fall she wore flowers, had them with her in 
 her rooms, and gave them to her friends, to the children, and 
 to the sick. An immense flower garden was hers at City 
 Point, where the continuous bloom gave delight to all her 
 many friends. She got at the best always, the heart of life, 
 of her friends, books, flowers; hers was always the genius 
 for selection. 
 
 She commanded the devotion of her friends. She was 
 a leader. She had the courage of her convictions, and was
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 19 
 
 a reformer, always, however, in the quiet, refined way, for she 
 had exquisite taste and refinement. She was one, rather, who 
 led others to a better standard, a higher life. She was liberal 
 and broad-minded, and forgiving, and mourned over those 
 who did not keep upright in the path of life. 
 
 Mrs. Genevieve Stebbins Astley, of New York, has given 
 the following description of Mrs. Parker and her early work : 
 
 A great pair of eager eyes, a fine, sensitive mouth, a 
 broad, intellectual brow. Such is the picture living in my 
 memory as it goes meandering backward in thought twenty- 
 one years ago and sees its original image in 1878, standing up 
 before a class in Professor Monroe's School of Oratory, Bos- 
 ton, reciting a tender little Irish piece. 
 
 My coming there was to fulfil the double function of 
 student and teacher. James Steele Mackaye, the first 
 lecturer of the system of Delsarte in America, had been an- 
 nounced in Boston. He was unable to keep his engage- 
 ment, and so sent me, then his most advanced pupil, to 
 represent him at the School. I gave the lessons, and Mrs. 
 Stuart, as she was then, asked me to exchange lessons with 
 her. Later I went to live in her house, and the sweet com- 
 panionship of those student days can never be forgotten. 
 Long into the midnight hours sometimes we both talked, 
 built fairy castles, and planned and dreamed realizations of 
 artistic ideals, and even now these faint memories seem to 
 bring back once again the sweet perfumes of those Elysian 
 days spent in loving comradeship. 
 
 The following fall, she became a teacher in the Boston 
 School of Oratory, the summer having been spent with me 
 by the sea. 
 
 Again we worked and played and took long walks to- 
 gether. A picture now comes before me as she sat under a 
 great tree by the water bough of red berries in her hand 
 we were reading Browning together, and she looked so 
 bright and loving and full of genius that I thought such 
 another soul must have been Mrs. Browning. 
 
 Mrs. Stuart Parker was a rare combination of the ex- 
 quisite woman with the keen intellectual acumen of the man.
 
 20 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 Her breadth of view was so large; not one atom of petty 
 femininity. A grand womanhood was in all her views. She 
 was a loyal friend, if ever she once became one, needing no 
 protestation. 
 
 Her marriage with Colonel Parker separated us in the 
 body (but never in the spirit), for she went to live in Chicago, 
 but I always felt as sure of her spiritual love and sympathy 
 as if our lives still ran side by side. 
 
 Our artistic and intellectual studies together were those 
 of alternating pupil and teacher, she giving me elocution- 
 ary work, I giving her interpretation, drama, and Delsarte. 
 So my reminiscence is, perforce, a personal one. I know 
 that, in the larger class and lecture use of her fine method, 
 she was an inspiration to her pupils. May the future, in that 
 higher life, bring us again together in an unbroken, spiritual 
 companionship, eternal in the heavens. 
 
 To the hearts of many friends, of those who knew Mrs. 
 Parker as a teacher, of many others who knew her as a writer, 
 lecturer, and educator, comes as a great sorrow the death 
 of this gifted, widely-known, and beloved woman. 
 
 Her absolute sincerity and fearlessness, her scorn of 
 everything that savored of affectation, her broad and intel- 
 ligent criticism, her clear insight, added to an unusual tact and 
 charm of manner, gave her a wonderful influence over her 
 pupils an influence that must make itself felt throughout 
 their lives. Her study was the study of humanity. Every- 
 thing that she did was instinct with love of truth in its highest 
 forms. Although often struggling with physical weakness, her 
 brave spirit enabled her to accomplish a wonderful amount 
 of work. Her ideals were high, and she was ever critical 
 of her own achievements, always seeking for some better or 
 clearer way of presenting her subject. 
 
 It was as a teacher and friend that the writer had the privi- 
 lege of knowing Frank Stuart Parker, and she would here 
 lovingly and reverently acknowledge the great impetus and 
 inspiration that she owes to the wise counsel, the tender sym- 
 pathy and encouragement, and especially the searching 
 criticism of this clear-headed, strong-hearted woman.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 21 
 
 After making her home in the West, her interest in her 
 husband's work led her to give herself more and more to the 
 cause of general education. Lecturing and reading at many 
 institutes and clubs, she always illustrated, in her own 
 attractive manner and finely-trained voice, the true principles 
 of elocution, and in her influence the power of the well- 
 poised, broadly-cultured woman. 
 
 Those who have been privileged to join an informal 
 home-group and listen to her reading from Browning or 
 Emerson, and her talk afterward about the inner meanings 
 of the poems, have seen her at her very best, and may well 
 be thankful for the remembrance. 
 
 Easter morning broke for her with the new light of divine 
 revelation. Now, with yet clearer insight, she rejoices in the 
 spiritual truth and beauty that through her earthly life she 
 sought so earnestly. 
 
 "On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round."
 
 FAMILY AND HOME LIFE, CHICAGO 
 
 MARTHA FLEMING 
 
 Mrs. Parker touched life at so many points that it might 
 be thought she had little time and strength to give her home. 
 Yet it was in the home that she was seen at her best, and one 
 privileged to come and go freely felt everywhere the presence 
 of the thoughtful, loving wife, mother, and daughter. 
 
 Upon her marriage to Colonel Francis W. Parker, in 
 1883, she took into her heart education in all its phases. 
 Her love for her husband was the motive force in her life. 
 Theirs was an all-sided companionship intellectual as 
 well as spiritual a partnership of work as well as of 
 affection and congenial pursuits. They were friends as well 
 as lovers. With her he could talk over all his theories and 
 plans. She was in perfect sympathy with his ideals and 
 purposes in life and education. Their work-desks stood 
 side by side in the same study. She collaborated with him 
 in all he wrote, stimulating and spurring him on not only 
 by her deep sympathy, but by her suggestions and her criti- 
 cisms for she was his most unsparing, unflinching critic. 
 The folio whig dedication to "Talks on Pedagogics" is his 
 loving acknowledgment of his indebtedness to her: 
 
 "This book is lovingly dedicated to my wife, Frank 
 Stuart Parker, who has assisted very much in the preparation 
 of every page, as well as in all my work as a teacher." 
 
 Many of his educational battles she fought for him. In 
 times of trouble, when one of these annual battles was being 
 waged against his thought and methods by the school board, 
 her devotion took the practical form of personal interviews 
 with newspaper men and others in influence, and these were 
 often won over by her clear intellectual grasp of the situation 
 and her personal power in presenting it. Indeed, after her 
 death he often remarked, "She, not I, was the fighter."
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 23 
 
 She was resourceful, tactful, courteous, determined in all 
 these conflicts, yet with it all so quiet, so charmingly womanly 
 that she never seemed intrusive or aggressive. Only her 
 enthusiasm for the cause of education and her deep faith 
 in her husband's vision made it possible for her to take the 
 initiative, as she often did in these struggles, and when the 
 work was done she made such haste to efface herself that 
 she was never in the public eye, and she had such a keen 
 sense of the fitness of things that she never embarrassed him 
 or put him in a false position by her support. 
 
 She took the greatest pride in his success as a public 
 speaker. He had studied with her to improve his voice and 
 public speaking before their marriage, and she was always 
 his teacher. The following is from a report on his speech 
 made in Madison, Wis., at the National Educational Asso- 
 ciation, 1884, by Bardeen, editor of the "New York School 
 Bulletin," Syracuse, N Y.: 
 
 "The Massachusetts men claim that Colonel Parker is 
 a bull in a china closet, and exhibit, whenever he appears, a 
 pitiable quandary between anxiety to save their hand-deco- 
 rated systems by driving him out and apprehension to escape 
 his horns in the operation. There did not seem to be a 
 genuine bull- fighter among them. They were all of that sub- 
 ordinate order of prinked-up attendants whose office is 
 to throw goading rosettes into the bull's flanks, and the 
 Colonel didn't madden worth a cent. He stood up, cool, 
 collected, good-natured, master of the situation. 
 
 "By the way, how he has improved since he married! 
 Everybody knew that his necktie would be kept straight, 
 but few anticipated such a progress in his manner of public 
 speaking. Everybody spoke of it at Madison, and one or 
 two were sharp enough to observe that, wherever the Colonel 
 was, not far away was an attractive little woman with dark 
 hair and nervously intent manner, watching every point of 
 the discussion, flushing when a point was made against her 
 husband, and smiling in co-operative triumph when he 
 turned upon his opponents and routed them. Our word 
 for it, she can repeat more of the discussion afterwards than
 
 24 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 he can, and it is to the review of such discussions under her 
 critical judgment that he owes his rapid advance in the art 
 of oratory." 
 
 They always took their vacation together, hand in hand, 
 with the abandon of children, for they found in each other's 
 company inexhaustible entertainment. Dressing herself 
 for the occasion, she would fish, tramp, climb mountains 
 side by side with her husband, or camp out for the night, as 
 the old soldier loved at times to do. 
 
 They never tired of perpetrating droll jokes on each 
 other. He would often wake her in the morning by bits of 
 impassioned, mock oratory on the most trivial subjects, or 
 read with the soberest voice the most astonishing news from 
 the morning papers until the absurdity of the exaggeration 
 betrayed him. They were comrades in play and comrades 
 in work. 
 
 Gradually she gave up her own chosen work, that she 
 might devote all her talents, time, and energy to assisting her 
 husband in working out his ideals. This was not accom- 
 plished without an inward struggle, for literature and the 
 art of expression satisfied the demand and longings of her 
 artistic nature, but her love and admiration for her husband 
 and her belief in his theories of reform appealed to that 
 which was deepest and strongest in her nature an abiding 
 love for children and for humanity. 
 
 On her marriage she left her friends and home in Boston, 
 and with her two daughters moved to Chicago. They built 
 a home in Englewood, near the Cook County Normal School. 
 Mrs. Parker planned this house and superintended the build- 
 ing, decorating, and furnishing. It was, as far as possible, 
 an expression of her idea of a home. The grounds were large 
 and well kept. 
 
 From early spring until late autumn there was always a 
 profusion of flowers. The coloring of the interior was soft 
 and restful, and although the whole was very simple it 
 always gave the effect of richness and elegance. Books were 
 everywhere. A few choice pictures and pieces of bric-a-brac 
 added their special charm, the whole effect being artistic and
 
 GARDEN AT ENGLEWOOD
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 25 
 
 harmonious, for she had a marvellous talent for cozy arrange- 
 ment and was as sensitive to color effects as she was to delicate 
 shades of tone in the human voice. To deprive herself of 
 these refined and dainty surroundings meant self-denial and 
 heroism. With all her varied and exacting outside interests, 
 Mrs. Parker was an accomplished housekeeper. She had 
 reduced housekeeping to a system, which covered every 
 detail and economized both time and strength. This enabled 
 her to dispense, without apparent effort, that charming 
 hospitality for which she was distinguished. Educators and 
 other noted people interested in Colonel Parker's work 
 were constantly coming and going. These Mrs. Parker 
 counted it her privilege to entertain. Her cordial manner, 
 responsiveness, keen wit, and quick repartee added color and 
 light to the more serious problems that were often discussed 
 about this table. There was entire freedom from restraint 
 and conventionality every guest felt himself to be a part 
 of the family, partaking freely of its rich intellectual life, 
 as well as of the more material comforts of a well-ordered 
 home. 
 
 This home was the centre of a large circle of friends. 
 Teachers and pupils felt free to come and go. The faculty 
 of the Normal School held many famous meetings in the 
 beautiful rooms. Mrs. Parker was always present at these 
 meetings, alert, keen, active, helpful, a harmonious spirit 
 moving among these earnest workers. One who was privi- 
 leged to enter into the home life of Mrs. Parker as an intimate 
 friend soon acquired the habit of going there not only for 
 intellectual stimulus, but for comfort in loss and sorrow, and 
 for that inspiration and uplifting of spirit which not only 
 quiets pain, but turns thought away from self towards the 
 larger issues of life, and makes it possible for the sore heart 
 to enter into the world's work again with enthusiasm and 
 joy. Her own eye was fixed on the great things of life in the 
 individual as well as the universal. She was one of those 
 
 " Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole." 
 
 Petty things dwindled into insignificance in her presence.
 
 26 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 She was perfectly fearless when she thought a principle was 
 at stake, and had the courage, whether the cause was popular 
 or unpopular, to range herself on the side which seemed to her 
 right. 
 
 Aristocratic to the finger-tips by birth, she was in thought, 
 feeling, and action intensely democratic, always demanding 
 that liberty for the individual which would give him freedom 
 to work out his own salvation. Her attitude towards the 
 dress reform for women, her courage in wearing unconven- 
 tional dress, her constant cry that the children should not be 
 hampered with the barbarisms of fashion, and so robbed of 
 the best days of their lives, her association with the cause of 
 suffrage and with the different clubs and organizations for the 
 advancement of women, as well as her vigorous defence of 
 the Cook County Normal School and of her husband's aims 
 in education when they were misunderstood and reviled, all 
 attest her courage, strength, independence, and force of 
 character. So much power in one so delicately organized, 
 so dainty and intensely feminine in all her ways, was always 
 surprising. 
 
 Hers was an intellectual and spiritual force rather than 
 physical. Her personality was remarkable, permeating the 
 home, the school, the social circle ; one always felt her presence. 
 There was a charm of grace, a distinction of manner about 
 her, difficult to define. Her well-trained voice was low, rich, 
 and mellow, with a peculiar vibrant quality that haunted 
 the ear; her hand was strong, firm, and expressive; her car- 
 riage regal, even when she was ill and weak. All her gest- 
 ures were quiet and graceful, delicately supplementing what 
 she was saying. 
 
 She was keenly sensitive to beauty in nature and in art, and 
 was one of the strongest supporters of nature study in the 
 elementary schools and of field excursions for the children, 
 when these were calling out the most vigorous protests and 
 ridicule from the newspapers and school men. She felt 
 deeply the demand made by all children for pictures, music, 
 and beauty of surroundings, and made many eloquent appeals 
 for these in the school.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 27 
 
 Mrs. Parker's life was too full of practical work to allow 
 her to write much. "Some day" she hoped to write a book 
 on "The Function of Expression in Education." Of this she 
 talked very often, but only a small beginning was ever made. 
 The chapters on Expression in Colonel Parker's "Talks on 
 Pedagogics" voiced her thought on the subject. Of her little 
 book, "Order of Exercises," the "Independent" writes: 
 
 "We have read this book by Mrs. Frances Stuart Parker 
 with interest. We expected to find it somewhat of an 
 exposition of the Delsarte theories, but find instead a very 
 sensible guide for teachers in systematically conducting 
 physical and elocutionary exercises. This is a subject in 
 which the wise living teacher is worth far more than any 
 book; and undoubtedly those who have had some training 
 under Mrs. Parker will get the most good out of her book. 
 Its purpose is not to teach ' elocution ' in the old sense of the 
 term, but to develop a good voice and a body capable of using 
 it to express whatever of soul there is within. The directions 
 for practice and the tables of exercises are extremely sen- 
 sible." 
 
 A pamphlet, "Dress and How to Improve It," discusses 
 the adaptation of dress to the individual, and gives practical 
 suggestions on breathing as well as on dress. It appeals 
 strongly to common sense, and has some beautiful illustra- 
 tions of truly artistic gowns in actual wear. Her belief was 
 that conventional dress may be modified so as to give free- 
 dom, comfort, and beauty to the wearer. 
 
 Of Mrs. Parker's public addresses almost nothing has 
 been preserved in writing. She spoke for the most part ex- 
 temporaneously along a line usually carefully premeditated. 
 
 Art and literature were to her unfailing sources of refresh- 
 ment and joy. She was a deep student of Shakespeare, 
 Emerson, and Browning, and interpreted them with rare 
 insight into the intellectual and spiritual significance of their 
 works. She was always ready with some newly-discovered 
 beauty to give to the friends who gathered about her. To 
 know her was to come into close communion not only with 
 the great masters, but with literature in general, for she was a
 
 28 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 wide reader, and catholic in her taste. The well-known 
 Sunday evenings at home played a great part in the life and 
 pleasure of those privileged to be within the charmed circle. 
 
 Books were a great solace to Mrs. Parker through all 
 the long, weary months of her last illness. A light was 
 arranged just over her bed, and many a night, when sleep 
 was denied, she found in them forgetfulness of pain, rest 
 and comfort. At this time, it was her greatest delight to 
 read to the friends who called to see her whatever ap- 
 pealed to her sense of humor, her love of beauty, and her 
 sympathy with human life. Her voice retained its stirring, 
 resonant quality and strength, even when the body seemed 
 too frail for earth. I remember especially her reading, on 
 one of those days, Sidney Lanier's "The Marshes of Glynn" 
 and "The Song of the Chattahoochee " every shade of 
 the beautiful thought and perfect rhythm so mirrored in 
 her face, voice, and movement that one forgot everything 
 but the exquisite lines of the poet. 
 
 Mrs. Parker had strong convictions about God and 
 the future. Immortality and love were to her basic ele- 
 ments in human life, and she always spoke of the life to 
 come as one who had seen and known. Years before her 
 death, writing freely to a friend, she said : 
 
 I suppose that, some time or other, I shall go the way 
 of the rest of them, into the light beyond. The other world 
 holds three people whom I long to see with a passionate 
 longing: my mother, that I may tell her that the love she 
 so unselfishly lavished upon me is at last fully appreciated. 
 Another, an old teacher, who planted the seeds of what is 
 best in my life to-day. I think she truly saved my soul. 
 The other, a dear girl friend, the dearest that I ever had, 
 that I may see her well and happy, for her life here was 
 a terrible disappointment. I do not mourn the lost oppor- 
 tunities here, as some do, because the experiences here have 
 brought an intense longing for the good, the beautiful, and 
 the true, and there I shall have plenty of time to work it all 
 out. The next world always seems to me a place where,
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 29 
 
 with clearer eyes, with more definite faith, and a stronger 
 hope, one may work out the best in him into better. 
 
 Through all the long, painful illness she had an unflag- 
 ging courage and trustfulness, an unfailing cheerfulness 
 and courtesy. Her interest in people, education, and lit- 
 erature never failed. She continued making the collection 
 of pictures, and with all the enthusiasm and energy of her 
 nature she planned for the future of the new school, so soon 
 to be established, for in it she saw freedom for her husband's 
 work. When she faced the inevitable, it was with the same 
 courage and faith that she had faced the problems of life. 
 She was so full of hope, of life, and work, that death seemed 
 strange to her; but she was peaceful, quiet, and conscious 
 to the last hour of life. And when the final separation 
 came, she turned with the eye of faith to the new day, 
 whose dawn was just breaking, with the words, "I am the 
 Resurrection and the Life" but strength failed, and, look- 
 ing at her husband, she said, "Finish it." Then, after the 
 words were repeated, she turned her face to the wall, and 
 quietly went to sleep. To her, death was the gate of life, 
 and therefore she passed through serenely. It was all as 
 she would have chosen, for it was her wish to meet death 
 face to face. Many a time have I heard her voice ring out 
 in that magnificent lyrical defiance of death, Browning's 
 "Prospice," exulting in the final victory : 
 
 Fear death? to feel the fog in the throat, 
 
 The mist in my face, 
 When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 
 
 I am nearing the place, 
 The power of the night, the press of the storm, 
 
 The post of the foe; 
 Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 
 
 Yet the strong man must go: 
 For the journey is done and the summit attained, 
 
 And the barriers fall, 
 Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, 
 
 The reward of it all. 
 I was ever a fighter, so one fight more, 
 
 The best and the last! 
 I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, 
 
 And bade me creep past.
 
 30 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers 
 
 The heroes of old, 
 Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 
 
 Of pain, darkness, and cold. 
 For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 
 
 The black minute's at end, 
 And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave 
 
 Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
 Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 
 
 Then a light, then thy breast, 
 O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, 
 
 And with God be the rest! 
 
 Mrs. Parker died April i, 1899, on the morning before 
 Easter. The funeral services were held at her home on the 
 Tuesday morning following, and were conducted by the 
 Rev. H. W. Thomas and Rev. R. A. White. Miss Marcella 
 Riley sang "One Sweetly Solemn Thought" and "Come, 
 Ye Disconsolate." 
 
 Her ashes lie in the same grave with those of her hus- 
 band at Manchester, New Hampshire.
 
 SUNDAY EVENINGS 
 
 FLORA J. COOK 
 
 It was in Mrs. Parker's library, in her home in Normal 
 Park, that eight or nine friends, members of the Cook County 
 Normal School Faculty, met regularly on Sunday evenings 
 to hear Mrs. Parker read. 
 
 The room itself undoubtedly added something to the 
 charm of these evenings. It had a distinct personality as 
 subtle and indefinable as Mrs. Parker's own. It was not a 
 large room, yet it seemed so, for the wood fire in the grate 
 breathed out a generous hospitality, and on the shelves, which 
 filled every available space of wall and chimney, was repre- 
 sented almost every phase of human interests and activity 
 education, politics, poetry, and art. These books were 
 delightfully arranged and cared for; one knew exactly 
 where to look for the old and valued volumes and for any 
 needed help in science or literature, for such books kept their 
 places year after year. There were certain shelves always 
 filled with fascinating new books, most of which were as 
 transient as the periodicals, though every year a few of these 
 stood the trial of probation and became permanent members 
 of this large, varied, yet most exclusive company. 
 
 On Sunday evenings Mrs. Parker usually spent the entire 
 time reading Browning, for she was determined that we should 
 enjoy and value this poet whom she loved and admired above 
 all others. All her artistic skill and rare insight were thrown 
 into her interpretation of his poems. In her best moods she 
 often became fairly radiant with emotion, and her face and 
 body reflected and responded to every shade of it. She 
 felt the keen joy of an artist in her expression, and, as she was 
 a thorough Browning student, the pleasure and inspiration of 
 these evenings cannot well be measured in words. They 
 were full of surprises. For instance, if she wished to inter- 
 pret the art poems to us, she would perhaps borrow a hun-
 
 32 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 died or more pictures to use in illustrating and explaining 
 the poet's inspiration and imagery. Several times she had 
 music, such as the fugues, played by some gifted musician in 
 interpreting "Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha." Again, we had 
 all the love poems or all the religious poems read, and with 
 them the varied notes of literary critics; sometimes one 
 of the longer dramatic poems took the entire evening, but 
 it was always something new and something charming. We 
 had also occasional evenings with other poets Kipling, 
 Lanier, Lowell, Wordsworth, Rossetti, and Schiller. 
 
 After about two hours' reading came the informal Sun- 
 day evening lunches, in which Colonel Parker always joined 
 us, and to any one who knew him one need not say what his 
 presence always brought to the gathering. 
 
 After luncheon Mrs. Parker often read us a "Dooley" 
 article (for she enjoyed Mr. Dunne exceedingly) or she 
 recited or read us some Irish story or poem with her charm- 
 ing Irish brogue and the keenest possible appreciation of 
 every shade of wit and pathos. Often at this time she read 
 to us some short poem or description which she had found 
 during the week and which was appropriate to the time or 
 season, for she dearly loved nature and nature literature, 
 while color and all forms of rhythmical movement appealed 
 to her in a most unusual degree. 
 
 As the years went by, the entire company became a family 
 which gathered together at least this one time during the 
 week. Our great regret now is that so few people had the 
 benefit of this ideal relationship, which always found both 
 Colonel and Mrs. Parker at their very best. Mrs. Parker's 
 delight in literature was the greatest comfort during her last 
 painful illness, and she retained her wonderful love and 
 enthusiasm for it to the end. The last of our Sunday evenings 
 was one of the most beautiful, though the saddest, that we 
 ever spent together. 
 
 It was known to us that she could not live long, but on this 
 evening she seemed as well or better than usual. We did not 
 know that she had been told that she must die, but as she 
 read to us each one's favorite poem and afterwards those
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 33 
 
 upon immortality which she herself loved best, though she 
 was perfectly calm and hopeful, we all understood that it was 
 her farewell to us. 
 
 She loved life intensely, but fully expressed to us her great 
 courage and faith that evening as she read one after another 
 of Browning's great poems, ending finally with her best 
 beloved quotation : 
 
 "There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; 
 
 The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 
 What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; 
 On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round."
 
 A REMINISCENCE 
 
 ALICE H. PUTNAM 
 
 " To man propose this test 
 Thy body at its best, 
 How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?" 
 
 RABBI BEN EZRA. 
 
 It was on a glorious summer afternoon on the piazza of 
 the Sea- View Hotel, at one of the Martha's Vineyard Summer 
 Institutes, that I first met Colonel and Mrs. Parker (who was 
 then Mrs. Frank Stuart). She had been reading " Rabbi Ben 
 Ezra " to a delighted group of people, and a discussion was 
 opened on the lines I have used in the heading of this little 
 memoir. 
 
 Mrs Parker turned to me, and said: "I wonder if you 
 kindergartners begin to realize how much help you would 
 find in a study of Delsarte's ' Philosophy of Expression.' It 
 would be as invaluable to you in interpreting the character 
 and moods of little children as it is in studying grown people." 
 Then and there, I had to confess my entire ignorance of 
 Delsarte, except as applied to the uses of the stage, and also a 
 fear lest such study on the part of the kindergartner might 
 hinder the spontaneity of children, and tend to make them 
 self-conscious. "That shows how little you know of the 
 great principles the man stands for, and how widespread is 
 the misinterpretation of him," said Mrs. Parker. "Come 
 over to-morrow morning, will you, and let me try to convert 
 you?" "Yes," said the sceptical one, "if you will promise 
 to read 'Rabbi Ben Ezra' again, if you fail." "She is safe in 
 pledging herself to that," said the Colonel; "she never fails 
 in anything she undertakes." 
 
 The result of the morning's talk, although there was no 
 Browning poem read, was the enrolment of the "doubter" 
 as well as several other people in a most enthusiastic class for 
 the study of Delsarte's idea, which study was continued after 
 the Colonel and Mrs. Parker came to Chicago.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 35 
 
 "The excellence of a philosophy," says Ruskin, "consists 
 in the breadth of its harmony, or the number of truths it is 
 able to reconcile"; and experience in this particular investi- 
 gation proves Ruskin to be true. At each lesson under this 
 gifted teacher all that I had learned of the oneness of life 
 from Froebel, or through art and music or science, whether of 
 nature or of mind, seemed to fall hi place under this general 
 idea of expression of the inner life of man and nature, through 
 outward forms and even Swedenborg's saying, "All 
 truth is in ultimates," came to have a new meaning and to be 
 a most potent factor in my pedagogics ("If there is strength 
 within, there must be freedom at the circumference," was 
 but another way of putting Froebel's idea "Make internal 
 external, and the external internal," and again, "Do this 
 and observe what follows in this particular case from thy 
 action, and to what knowledge it leads thee"; or (Delsarte 
 again) "The Trinity in nature is always manifest in the 
 greatest as well as in the least thing"), and have come to 
 mean more and more in a study of life. 
 
 The beauty of Mrs. Parker's teaching lay not so much 
 in setting forth something peculiar to Delsarte as in show- 
 ing most clearly in his thought that which was common to 
 all men, so that one instinctively felt at home in the study of 
 him, even from the beginning. 
 
 Perhaps the one thought I gained through Mrs. Parker 
 that has been most vital to me as a training teacher grew out 
 of the saying: "Give value to that which is of value." It 
 set for me a study of proportion whether in the work for 
 the children in the kindergarten or for that of our training 
 classes. It showed me in another light the tremendous 
 importance of that which I first learned to know through 
 Froebel's law of contrasts and their connections. Out of 
 Delsarte's philosophy of the expression of the human being 
 (child or adult) in his "bearing," his "attitudes," his "inflec- 
 tions" (those transient states which dominate him for the 
 moment only), I learned to know how to follow Froebel's 
 idea, and "give to each stage that which it demands." It 
 has helped me to understand and interpret Froebel more
 
 36 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 sanely, because in a less isolated fashion. It taught me 
 something of a better proportion in the understanding of 
 certain activities and desires common to childhood, and a 
 clearer judgment as to those which remain, and those which 
 are peculiar to the passing stage ; it helped to determine the 
 "permanent" in music, art, literature, and science, and at 
 the same time to realize the value of the child's own crude 
 expression along these lines. It has shown something of the 
 place of "technique" in education, while it has also demon- 
 strated the necessity for that which technique can never 
 supply. And speaking of this reminds me of one of our 
 lessons, when Mrs. Parker quoted Delsarte's saying: 
 "Technique is only dangerous to mediocrity." The Colo- 
 nel, who was present, turned to the class with the merry 
 twinkle in his eye which we all had learned to know so well, 
 and asked if that could be the reason Mrs. Stuart disliked 
 to be called a " yell-ocutionist" ! 
 
 Again and again, as I look through the old note-books of 
 that pleasant summer, I am reminded of Browning's 
 thought: 
 
 " Don't you mark ? we're made so that we love 
 First, when we see them painted, things we have passed 
 Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see. 
 God uses us to help each other so, 
 Lending our minds out." 
 
 Represented? Set in perspective? May it not mean 
 this?
 
 THE CHICAGO INSTITUTE 
 
 ANITA M'CORMICK ELAINE 
 
 No one could have heard Colonel Parker speak of Mrs. 
 Parker's influence in his life-work without realizing what a 
 large share in it she bore in the strength and inspiration she 
 gave him. 
 
 The one incident that I can bring to add to the wreath of 
 testimonies to her bears witness to that side of her life that 
 was absorbed in Colonel Parker's work. Of the long years 
 of devotion to it, with active labor and potent upholding, 
 others will speak who toiled with them through the long way. 
 The one time of which I can testify was at the moment of the 
 formation of the plan to create a school on an independent 
 basis for the accomplishment of Colonel Parker's ideal school. 
 The plan had been under discussion for some months and 
 was just coming to a focus in the early part of the year 1899. 
 Colonel Parker had been considering the possibility of 
 carrying out such a plan with large emphasis on the 
 objections. It involved his resigning from the public school 
 position, which he held the more triumphantly because of the 
 fight and the victory achieved for his work in the public 
 schools. If fight was necessary to establish the principles he 
 believed in for the children of the nation, among those in 
 authority who did not understand them, fighting was how he 
 would die. It involved withdrawing from the public school 
 system except as an influence for his whole idea through- 
 out his life-work had been to do the thing as he saw it for 
 all the children of the country. The public school was the 
 high-road he saw for this public good. To the public school 
 he had early dedicated his life effort. Dissemination was 
 what he worked and prayed for within the school system. 
 Teachers to teach, were all he asked for with freedom in 
 the teaching. 
 
 The arguments brought to him for the new plan of
 
 38 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 greater sureness and permanence in the doing, better 
 facilities, more freedom, possibly wider range of teachers 
 when not limited to those of one city, etc. were granted and 
 grasped and added to with the vigor of his imagination. 
 Still the doubt remained the root objection still held. 
 
 In the deep consideration of the question that Colonel 
 Parker gave it he took counsel of several advisers, and 
 when the time approached that required a decision, he said 
 that he had practically decided that he would make the move 
 
 cast the die for one new effort and added that the pre- 
 vailing influence that had determined him to a sureness that 
 this was his course was his wife's opinion of the wisdom of it. 
 
 He asked me to go to see her and talk with her about it. 
 Mrs. Parker had been very ill all the winter. I found her 
 frail and, as a few weeks proved, near the end of her road, 
 but with her mind as alive to all the conflicting interests of 
 the moment as though she were able, and she alone, to steer 
 them, and with an outlook to the future of the work in 
 which her whole heart lay as keen as though she, and she 
 alone, would live to see it. And here I saw how Colonel 
 Parker was upheld in a decision which was for him difficult 
 
 how her sureness was reassuring and her faith inspir- 
 ing. She had no doubt of the wisdom of his entering into the 
 plan for a new school no doubt of his ability to make it 
 all that it should be no doubt that it would solidify and 
 give permanence to his ideas in education in their best and 
 ripest moment. Her glance took in the near and the far. 
 She grasped all the immediate difficulties and objections, 
 but these daunted her not a whit, for she seized the main 
 ideas as true that the great purpose could be better car- 
 ried out with more freedom, and would be possibly more 
 far-reaching if not limited to one city, and would be more 
 permanently established if not at the mercy of political 
 appointment, where the next wave could obliterate it when 
 Colonel Parker should stop his work. 
 
 Having seen beyond the difficulties in the way, her sight 
 rested on the land of promise. 
 
 And in that vision she had full belief. I think she felt
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 39 
 
 that she would not be on earth to see it, and an appeal from 
 her heart reached out to the world, with not a touch of 
 doubt, to uphold the work and carry it on. If she had 
 known that Colonel Parker would but see the edge of that 
 land, her faith would doubtless have been as great that the 
 hosts would still be led into it by a sure prophet. 
 
 The sanction and the impetus that she gave to the new 
 school, even as she was passing out of the sphere she so loved 
 to live in, seem too sacred a blessing to try to convey ex- 
 cept that it was Colonel Parker's wish that this should be 
 spoken in her memory. And for that, I could wish that 
 I could better convey it. The real essence of it was in the 
 way that Colonel Parker bent to the new work. The occa- 
 sion, when I was made a sharer of it, seemed one of the 
 moments that link the future with the present. Her faith 
 and its work must be among the things that live after in 
 lives made better by their presence.
 
 MUSEUM AND LIBRARY WORK 
 
 EMILY J. RICE 
 
 In Colonel Parker's last report of the Cook County and 
 Chicago Normal School, made in 1899, ne says: "In 1883, 
 the school was meagrely furnished with apparatus, books, 
 collections, and other illustrative material. There were a 
 few specimens of birds, a fair collection of minerals, and 
 some apparatus for teaching physics. The Eberhartonian 
 Society had collected about fifty books. It is gratifying to 
 report that the school now has an excellent all-round equip- 
 ment; thirteen thousand carefully selected volumes in the 
 library, card-catalogued and arranged for use; the largest 
 school collection of pictures in the world; and a very large 
 encyclopaedia of newspaper clippings. The picture collec- 
 tion and the newspaper encyclopaedia are the work of Mrs. 
 Frances Stuart Parker. Many of the collections, mineralogi- 
 cal and anthropological, also were made by Mrs. Parker." 
 
 Mrs. Parker realized that the daily papers and the maga- 
 zines contain valuable articles upon all subjects of study, 
 and she felt that they should be kept hi some permanent 
 form. After much thought in regard to the methods of 
 classification and means of preservation of this material, she 
 decided to use such a case as the United States Government 
 employs for the filing of documents. She had manila slips 
 cut to fit the spaces 4^ x 10 inches in size. On these slips 
 she mounted the articles saved and wrote the name of the 
 paper from which each was taken and the date of publication. 
 The classification of these slips was no easy task, as a system 
 had to be worked out at once simple and yet embracing all 
 the many phases of thought in the collection. 
 
 As the teachers used the Newspaper Encyclopaedia, and 
 realized its great assistance in their work, the question came 
 to Mrs. Parker: "Why could not pictures be brought into 
 the school-room in much the same way?" She began to
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 41 
 
 collect pictures from the illustrated papers and magazines. 
 These were mounted, classified, and stored in large cases of 
 drawers made for the purpose. They proved to be of inesti- 
 mable value to the teachers. Often as many as three hun- 
 dred of these pictures were in use in the different rooms of 
 the school in a single day. 
 
 Seeing what a benefit this work could be made to the 
 school, Mrs. Parker threw all her energies into it. Pictures 
 could rarely be purchased for the purpose. So she interested 
 her friends in the matter, collected all the old illustrated 
 papers possible, and was ever on the outlook for material. 
 She never read without a colored pencil in her hand, with 
 which to mark articles or pictures that she thought would 
 be of use. 
 
 The collecting, mounting, arranging, and classifying of 
 material were done by her personally, or under her direct 
 supervision. Some slight idea of the vast amount of work 
 that she accomplished may be gathered from the fact that in 
 1899 the Picture Collection numbered over thirty thousand 
 pictures and the Newspaper Encyclopaedia over fifty thou- 
 sand slips. 
 
 In all Mrs. Parker's travels, she had these collections in 
 her thought, and always brought home quantities of maga- 
 zines, pictures, and photographs. She also secured many 
 specimens of minerals and of the handwork illustrating the 
 primitive industries, and in this way added materially to the 
 school museum. In her letters from Hawaii, she speaks 
 constantly of the growth of the collection that she was mak- 
 ing hi the Sandwich Islands, and these letters give ample 
 evidence of her vital interest in the whole matter of school 
 material. 
 
 She gave herself freely to this work because she saw what 
 it meant to the cause of education, which she dearly loved. 
 In the service of this cause, she was lavish of her time, her 
 strength and means. The equipment of material for work in 
 the Chicago Normal School is a splendid monument to her 
 keen understanding of the conditions of the schools and her 
 energy and devotion in the direction of their improvement.
 
 INFLUENCE UPON ELOCUTION IN THE WEST 
 
 HENRY M. SOPER 
 
 Twenty-five or thirty years ago, Chicago and the great 
 West could boast of only a very few whose elocutionary 
 instruction was founded upon a rational basis. Here and 
 there, a college or seminary had a department of elocu- 
 tion, directed by an able instructor in the art; but aside 
 from this the work was mostly done by the nomadic elocu- 
 tionist, who was a sort of colporteur, dispensing his goods 
 from point to point, throughout a vast territory, with a ten 
 days' or at most a few weeks' sojourn in any one place. 
 Those desiring a complete professional course in this line 
 generally went to Boston or to some other Eastern metropolis. 
 Some of the critics of the early elocution of the West as- 
 serted that, while it was noted for fire and vigor, it was 
 lacking in real art and refinement, and that the Eastern 
 elocution, on the other hand, was deficient in strength and 
 grandeur of voice and action. 
 
 Doubtless the criticism was just enough. The same 
 energy that made possible the conquest of Western wilds, 
 the founding of mighty cities, and had to do with creating 
 gigantic business enterprises, undoubtedly made its influence 
 felt also along educational lines, and caused our earlier 
 exponents of the elocutionary art in the West to cultivate 
 force of expression at the expense of many other equally 
 desirable qualities. 
 
 The disproportion of strength and grace in expression 
 impressed Eastern readers as being so lacking hi refinement 
 that they, perhaps, went to another extreme, and sacrificed 
 force for elegance. 
 
 In the midst of such conditions, Mrs. Frank Stuart 
 Parker appeared upon the scene, and at once became a 
 potent force to modify these conditions. Her influence 
 was as far-reaching as it was powerful. She combined the
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 43 
 
 elements of grace and vigor, and it was the first wonder of 
 the stranger that such a slight physique could exhibit so much 
 vocal power. The Western exponent of elocution, coming 
 in touch with this grace and delicacy of the Eastern elocution 
 as shown in Mrs. Parker's teaching, was led to admire and 
 then adopt a style of expression that combined the best 
 points of both the Eastern and Western styles, so that it 
 may be said that the moulding influence of Mrs. Parker's 
 professional labor produced a new type of expression. 
 
 An extract from a letter of Mr. J. M. Maguire, Superin- 
 tendent of Schools of Manitoba, shows the far-reaching 
 influence of Mrs. Parker's work in the West : 
 
 Mrs. Parker's addresses were eloquent and effective, 
 showing a complete mastery of her subject, and made a 
 deep and lasting impression upon her hearers. There is no 
 question that Mrs. Parker's work in this Province has had 
 an abiding influence upon the work of education. Teachers 
 here speak of her yet with grateful acknowledgment of the 
 higher and better ideas for work that they have gained 
 from her visit. To me, and, I think, to others also, the 
 chief charm of her public utterances lay in the revelation 
 of the pure and cultured womanliness of the speaker, and 
 in her deep, loving sympathy with human nature. With 
 such a woman as Mrs. Parker, the mere platform orator that 
 one now applauds, now criticises, disappears, and one sees 
 instead a friend talking with earnest purpose to her friends. 
 I should like to give just one instance of her ready tact, her 
 humor, and her instant sympathy with her surroundings. 
 At one of the Teachers' Institutes, Mrs. Parker had just fin- 
 ished an address in which her illustrations were drawn from 
 American history and frequent references were made to 
 American characters. As she sat down, there was a mo- 
 ment's silence, as there usually was after her talks, before the 
 applause broke forth, testifying to the depth of feeling that 
 had been stirred. Then came the applause, and the chair- 
 man invited discussion on the topic of the address. Imme- 
 diately an old fellow a teacher was on his feet express- 
 ing appreciation of the address just given by Mrs. Parker
 
 44 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 but asking why, in speaking to Canadian teachers on British 
 soil and under Great Britain's flag, the speaker had seen 
 fit to take her illustrations from American life and history. 
 Had not British history ample material for such references 
 and illustrations? You know this style of blatant patri- 
 otism, and you can, perhaps, imagine my feelings and won- 
 der how I could best apologize to Mrs. Parker without 
 wounding the feelings of the old man. I saw Mrs. Parker's 
 half-hurt, half-puzzled look, but before any one else could 
 think of anything to say or do in order to relieve the strain 
 of the situation her face cleared and she was on her 
 feet, saying with her own inimitable grace: "Mr. Chair- 
 man and friends, I must apologize for my inexcusable over- 
 sight hi drawing my illustrations from American history. 
 It certainly was not because of any lack of illustrious names 
 in British or even in Canadian history, but because my 
 address was prepared for American teachers. In coming to 
 Manitoba, I should have remembered that I was in a foreign 
 land and under another flag, but the fact is, Mr. Chairman, 
 that when I came among you I met with such a cordial recep- 
 tion, being treated so like a comrade and fellow-teacher, 
 and was made to feel so entirely one of your own number, 
 that I quite forgot I was a stranger in a strange land. So, 
 you see, Mr. Chairman and friends, that you are yourselves 
 to blame for my mistake." 
 
 These are her words, but I cannot hope to convey to you 
 the sweetness of tone and courtesy of manner with which 
 they were uttered, and which completely disarmed her 
 would-be-critic the old man and relieved us all from 
 a very awkward situation. 
 
 An extract from a letter of Mr. Mclntyre of Winnipeg is 
 also added: 
 
 I had known Mrs. Frank Stuart Parker for some 
 years as a charming hostess, a clear and incisive teacher, 
 a graceful writer on a variety of topics, and the wise coun- 
 sellor and loyal helpmate of the man whom posterity will 
 own as the greatest educational reformer of his day. My 
 acquaintance with her as a public speaker went back only
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 45 
 
 to the later years of her life. She came by invitation to 
 Winnipeg in the autumn of 1896 to give a series of lectures 
 on topics of educational and social interest before the Eastern 
 Manitoba Teachers' Association. To many of those to 
 whom she was to speak the thought of woman on the lecture 
 platform was new, and the attitude of the audience was 
 directly critical. The speaker's charm of manner and her 
 easy, graceful utterances at once arrested attention and won 
 the listeners, and before the close of the first lecture even the 
 most reluctant was led captive and owned her power. Such 
 was the appreciation of Mrs. Parker's work that a demand 
 went up from the teachers throughout the Province that, if 
 possible, her services be obtained for a longer period and a 
 more extended field next year. In 1897, therefore, Mrs. 
 Parker spent upwards of a month in Manitoba, lecturing 
 five days per week to audiences of teachers, and frequently 
 to the general public in the evenings. Her reception on 
 every occasion was most enthusiastic and the impression she 
 created permanent. No speaker that ever visited the Prov- 
 ince influenced her audiences more profoundly, and none 
 ever went from it who left behind so many admirers and so 
 many warm personal friends. 
 
 The secret of Mrs. Parker 's power as a speaker lay in no 
 one quality, but was rather to be found in the variety of her 
 endowments and accomplishments. To a charming manner 
 and graceful personality she added clear and fluent speech, 
 vivid imagination, a keen sense of humor, the sympathetic 
 insight that put her at once in touch with her hearers, skill 
 in marshalling and arranging her arguments and an earnest- 
 ness and sincerity that compelled conviction. 
 
 Underlying all were the lofty ideal and the resolute pur- 
 pose of a true woman, whose belief it was that the world 
 should be better because she had lived, and that the gifts 
 committed to her should not be trifled away in the frivolous 
 round of social life, but should be employed for the service 
 of mankind. 
 
 The steadfastness with which she pursued this aim and 
 the testimony of multitudes who acknowledge their indebt-
 
 46 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 edness to her for inspiration and ideals establish Mrs. Par- 
 ker's title to a foremost place among leaders of American 
 women of the igth Century. 
 
 Miss Myra Pollard writes of Mrs. Parker's personality 
 in connection with her work in the Illinois State Association 
 of Elocutionists: 
 
 Mrs. Parker was one of those rare characters who, as 
 teacher, social leader, artist, lecturer, or friend, exceeded the 
 demands of every office undertaken, gracing it with the pecu- 
 liar charm of her own character and originality. 
 
 This originality, this seeing of things in a new, fresh light, 
 was, indeed, one of Mrs. Parker's strongest traits. 
 
 In the class-room she was not an ordinary didactic in- 
 structor, but an inspiration. In her lectures, the usual 
 formality of the platform was superseded by the freedom and 
 unconsciousness of spontaneous expression. As artist and 
 interpreter, while conforming to the established canons of 
 art, every conception was tinged with the light of her own 
 personality. 
 
 Reform in dress, with her, ceased to be a fad and assumed 
 something of the dignity of a science, and had always the 
 grace of an art, for she perfectly illustrated her own ideals. 
 
 Any one who ever met Mrs. Parker as hostess, especially 
 in an informal way, saw the acme of social spontaneity and 
 graciousness. No one could meet her as an acquaintance 
 without longing to know her as a friend, and her every friend 
 desired to be her intimate associate. 
 
 Those of us who were privileged to know her in this asso- 
 ciation, knew her also as hostess and friend, as well as an ever 
 loyal and enthusiastic professional comrade, and we loved 
 her in each and every capacity. 
 
 Missing her presence now as we do, it is nevertheless 
 difficult to associate regrets with that sweet, bright, rare 
 nature, whose very essence was light and strength. 
 
 Mrs. Parker was the first to introduce in Chicago, 
 and in the West generally, the genuine philosophy of Del- 
 sarte's teachings and methods. I had the good fortune to 
 be one of her early pupils, and I feel that I owe much to
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 47 
 
 her inspiring instruction. She filled her pupils with a love 
 of better expression for Art's own sake. Her work did 
 much to modify and improve the methods of elocutionary 
 instruction in the West, and her labor of love in her chosen 
 calling has left an enduring impression upon the present 
 age. Of her life and its noble work it may be fittingly said, 
 
 " Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
 And grow forever and forever." 
 
 She believed that an artist whose soul was in his work 
 would find in the hereafter a far wider scope for its develop- 
 ment. She told me once that she "expected to teach elocution 
 in the next world." And why may we not have a like faith 
 for her ? We can but wonder why she, whose life here meant 
 so much to her family and to the large circle of friends who 
 knew and appreciated her, should be called away from all 
 this, at the zenith of her usefulness. But as I stood beside 
 the open casket which held the frail body that had enshrined 
 her strong, bright spirit, and missed the smiling welcome that 
 had ever before been wont to greet me when I met her, was 
 it all a fancy that through the silence, even of Death itself, 
 there stole to my ear a calm, sweet whisper, saying, "She 
 has but gone on to do grander work beyond, and to perfect 
 ideals as only the disembodied spirit can do, when quite set 
 free from the trammels of the earth-life"? 
 
 It has been said of her by an ardent admirer of her labors, 
 "She was a potent force in the struggle for higher ideals in 
 American education and American life." She was pos- 
 sessed of a remarkable power of discrimination ; she dissected 
 the fallacious reasonings and teachings of some members of 
 her profession with unanswerable logic; and yet her criticisms, 
 while keen, were always kind, and she was ever generous 
 in her estimate of her fellow-workers and their efforts. 
 
 She believed in organization in all lines of art and learn- 
 ing, and was a charter member of the Illinois Association 
 of Elocutionists, and on more than one occasion entertained 
 the monthly meeting of this association in her own home. 
 She was a royal hostess, and those who were privileged to
 
 48 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 enjoy these occasions will always fondly cherish the bright 
 memory of the feast of reason and flow of soul which char- 
 acterized these meetings in Mrs. Parker's home. 
 
 She was of a broad, catholic spirit, and scorned all petty 
 jealousies and bickerings in the profession. Her books on 
 "Dress Reform" and " Order of Exercises" have done much 
 to do away with the old and injurious methods of dress, and 
 to break up false styles of action and vocal expression. 
 
 The news of her death cast a gloom over the profession 
 in Chicago and the West, where she had won so many hearts, 
 and her loss was especially and deeply felt by the Illinois 
 State Association, of which she had been such a valued and 
 esteemed member. 
 
 Thus another great soul has gone on to 
 
 "join the choir invisible 
 Of those immortal dead who live again 
 In minds made better by their presence." 
 
 So shall she continue to live in our hearts and memories, 
 inspiring us ever to more earnest endeavor, and ever urging 
 us on to loftier achievement, until at last for us, also, 
 shall dawn the eternal morning.
 
 OLD CHICAGO NORMAL SCHOOL
 
 THE CHICAGO NORMAL SCHOOL 
 
 WILBUR S. JACKMAN 
 
 In the work of the Cook County Normal School no 
 topic occupied a larger share of the attention of the teachers 
 than the subject of "Correlation." There was a per- 
 sistent and systematic attempt to work out an organic 
 arrangement of the parts of the curriculum, so that the 
 studies composing it should be mutually reinforced and 
 helpful. This external result was sought through a care- 
 ful attempt to supply the needs of each pupil with the nutri- 
 tive material demanded by his growth. Colonel Parker 
 said many times that he derived his earliest ideas upon 
 this important subject from a study of the work of Mrs. 
 Parker in Delsartean expression. While the school as a 
 whole was given over mainly to the gathering of material 
 and to its presentation, Mrs. Parker's influence was always 
 immensely strong on the side of natural and full expression. 
 By this means, she was perpetually bringing to the surface 
 and sharpening into definite outline the vague and half- 
 formed ideas that often lay in the minds of both pupils and 
 colleagues. 
 
 From her intense interest in the life of the whole school, 
 it was inevitable that her idea of expression should lead 
 at once to the notion of helpfulness, which to her mind 
 was the final motive for all expression. This end Mrs. 
 Parker labored incessantly to achieve. To do this, she 
 hesitated at no task, no matter how much physical or 
 mental effort it might involve. I well remember the pro- 
 digious amount of physical work she performed, the first 
 year I became connected with the school, in trying to pro- 
 vide for all the school materials a definite place in the old 
 ramshackle building. Mrs. Parker stood strongly for neat- 
 ness, cleanliness, order, promptness, and system in the 
 school. There were but few faculty meetings when hi some 
 way she did not bring before the teachers her ideas upon
 
 50 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 these points, which she considered fundamental in educa- 
 tion. As a practical illustration of her attitude and spirit 
 in such matters, it is but necessary to cite the building up 
 of the newspaper file in the library, where one could easily 
 find fairly wide newspaper treatment of almost any topic 
 that arose in the work with the pupils. This afterwards 
 expanded into the picture collection, which, arranged in 
 sets, was in constant use by the teachers of practically 
 every subject taught in the school. 
 
 Her insight, as well as her cultivated habits of studying 
 the relations of things, made the services of Mrs. Parker 
 of inestimable value in the support of the school as a whole 
 against its numerous and insidious foes. Constantly alert 
 to the points in the school that were likely to invite criti- 
 cism, and keen to divine the source from which the attacks 
 might be expected, her courage to defend what her insight 
 led her to believe was right was more than once an impor- 
 tant factor in carrying the school over the shoals of politi- 
 cal troubles. 
 
 But the influence of Mrs. Parker was not confined by 
 any means to administrative and political matters. Her 
 insight and skill as a teacher gave her an influence in the 
 class-room that was marked and wholesome, as the follow- 
 ing tribute from the pen of Mrs. Ellen R. Jackman, one of 
 her pupils and a graduate of the Cook County Normal School, 
 will show: 
 
 It was my good fortune to be closely associated with 
 Mrs. Parker for ten years, and thus to have favorable 
 opportunity of estimating her influence upon the training 
 classes of the Cook County Normal School, and upon others 
 who came hi contact with her. She was a woman of cult- 
 ure, charm, and rare tact. With a clear knowledge of the 
 underlying principles of her own chosen field, broadened by 
 her association with Colonel Parker in his pioneer work, she 
 was able to bring to the classes, which she so long taught, 
 an insight, a power of analysis, a skill in dealing with long- 
 standing defects, that won the confidence and respect of her 
 students.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 51 
 
 Mrs. Parker's love of teaching was shown in her study 
 of the needs of the individual without regard to social posi- 
 tion or intellectual gifts. A defect in speech, in the carriage 
 of the body, any weakness which was the result of poor in- 
 struction or a lack of instruction, appealed strongly to her. 
 The work begun in her classes was frequently continued in 
 her home in private lessons. 
 
 Free from conventional thought herself, she did not 
 hesitate to lay bare the weak spot in her pupil. She sug- 
 gested the remedy and with generous liberality gave of her 
 time and strength, many times without recompense, in 
 assisting the student to overcome defects. 
 
 Mrs. Parker realized the relation of women's dress to 
 health and to freedom of the body and mind, and interested 
 large numbers of teachers in a study of art as applied to 
 dress improvement. Constantly experimenting in this 
 difficult field, she unhesitatingly gave the results to any 
 who might wish to profit by them. 
 
 Her gracious influence was felt by the students and 
 others in her own home, where they often gathered to 
 study her collection of photographs or to enjoy readings 
 from her favorite authors. Many of the students owe their 
 love of Browning to her readings, especially of "Prospice," 
 "Abt Vogler," and "Andrea del Sarto." 
 
 In the list of talented and faithful women who have 
 taught in the old Cook County Normal School, and as a 
 worker in all good causes for the advancement of women, 
 Mrs. Parker must rank amongst the first. 
 
 Mrs. Parker's power as a teacher before a class, on occa- 
 sion, easily expanded to that of an effective platform speaker 
 before a general audience. Her ability in this direction is 
 well set forth in the following tribute from Principal W. A. 
 Mclntyre, of the Winnipeg Normal School : 
 
 It would be impossible to state the value of the ser- 
 vice rendered to education by Mrs. Frances Stuart Parker 
 during her visits to this Province in 1896 and 1897. She 
 came to us comparatively unknown, but there is now in 
 the hearts of hundreds of our people a gracious memory 
 
 U.OFIU..UC.
 
 52 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 of one who was recognized as a scholar, a teacher, and a 
 woman of the highest culture. She appeared before the 
 students of the Normal School and illustrated that art of 
 which she was such a noble exponent the art of free and 
 forcible expression; she attended the various teachers' con- 
 ventions in the Province, and, by her addresses and her life, 
 became an inspiration to those in charge of schools; she 
 lectured at public gatherings in our cities and towns, and 
 assisted in creating a sentiment in favor of more liberal and 
 rational education. Those who were fortunate enough to 
 meet her, or hear her on the platform, will remember her as 
 one who had drunk deeply at the springs of knowledge. 
 She was widely and profoundly read, especially in all that 
 pertained to education; and there seemed to be little that 
 was beautiful or of permanent worth in literature that she 
 had not read and assimilated. She will be remembered, 
 too, as a teacher and as a woman. Her enthusiasm, her 
 perfect example, her skill in dealing with difficulties, her art 
 in illustrating the principles of teaching, will make her still a 
 living pattern to those before whom she appeared ; her gen- 
 erous sympathy for childhood, her unselfish zeal, her devo- 
 tion to the highest and best in life, make her still a guide 
 to those intrusted with the care of children. 
 
 Mrs. Parker combined many qualities which were neces- 
 sary to meet successfully the responsibilities of her position 
 in the school and before the public. Tact, energy, and 
 courage were so combined in her character as to give her 
 great personal power in the many undertakings with which 
 she became identified. 
 
 As a persistent worker, a fine teacher, a cultivated 
 woman, and as an intelligent and intrepid defender of the 
 work of the school, Mrs. Parker will always live in the mem- 
 ory of her associates and friends.
 
 INTEREST IN CLUB LIFE 
 
 Mrs. Parker derived much pleasure from her interest in 
 various clubs and organizations of women. She assisted 
 and encouraged their work in every possible way; and at 
 the same time they were a constant source of enjoyment 
 and inspiration to her. Their appreciation of her work 
 with them is both earnest and sincere. 
 
 THE FORTNIGHTLY CLUB OF CHICAGO 
 
 As a member of "The Fortnightly" of Chicago, a liter- 
 ary club, which stands for all that is highest and best in 
 social and intellectual culture; a club which numbers among 
 its membership a larger proportion of women who have dis- 
 tinguished themselves in the world of literature, art, and 
 science than any other literary club in the United States, 
 Mrs. Parker held a high and abiding place in the esteem 
 and love of its members. Personally, she was one who 
 would attract attention in any company for the beauty of 
 her face and form, for her exquisite, though entirely unob- 
 trusive, art in dress, and for that subtle something in per- 
 sonality which attests an all-pervasive culture of mind and 
 heart. Possessing in a marked degree that quality of 
 womanhood which Shakespeare calls "the girdle of self- 
 restraint," she impressed some, on first acquaintance with* 
 a quality of "aloofness" which caused one to remark of her 
 that "she was a little aristocrat from the crown of her head 
 to the soles of her feet." But even a short acquaintance 
 brought to light the qualities of kindliness of heart, interest 
 in others, a readiness to do her part in every kind of asso- 
 ciated work, and a forgetfulness of self that inspired affec- 
 tion, as well as respect. She was one of those to whom any 
 member of the Fortnightly might introduce a guest with 
 the full assurance that the guest would receive from her 
 courteous attention and kindly interest. She was, also,
 
 54 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 one to whom all could turn in an emergency to help out 
 in a program, to start the agreeable discussion, or to fur- 
 nish variety in thought and expression on any subject that 
 might be mentioned. 
 
 During her membership in the Fortnightly, she pre- 
 sented, at different times, four notable papers or addresses. 
 Her gift of extemporaneous speaking caused her to be in- 
 dependent to an unusual degree of her manuscript or notes. 
 Her first address was on Emerson, and it was given wholly 
 without notes; her familiarity with her subject and with 
 Emerson's writings enabling her to present a treasury of 
 things new and old from the " Sage of Concord." Her 
 second address, also extemporaneous, was on Delsarte, 
 and his system of expression. It is needless to say that, 
 as she was so admirable an exponent of his system, she won 
 the heads, as well as the hearts, of many who had deep and 
 well-founded prejudices against the work of the ordinary 
 elocutionist. Her third address was an interpretative ren- 
 dering of Browning's "The Ring and the Book," in which 
 her scholarly and sympathetic insight into the mind and 
 heart of the poet enabled her to reveal new beauties of 
 thought and expression, even to the best students of Brown- 
 ing. Her fourth paper was on the subject which, after 
 all, lay nearest her heart, and to which she had devoted 
 the best energies of life, "Democracy and Education." 
 Of her life-work in this line, others will tell the story. Suf- 
 fice it to say that this paper was an impassioned and elo- 
 quent plea for giving the best education has to give to the 
 children of the public schools. She said, in effect, that the 
 highest interests of our country demanded that the children 
 of the public schools, and especially of the laboring classes, 
 should be given instruction in Art, in Music, in Literature, 
 in the Art of Expression, to the end that there might be im- 
 planted within them those aesthetic tastes which, while they 
 might not tend directly to fitting them to earn a material 
 living, would, nevertheless, make their lives better worth 
 living, because of their having awakened in them the sense 
 of beauty and susceptibility to spiritual riches.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 55 
 
 It was with the most heartfelt sense of loss that the mem- 
 bers of the Fortnightly heard of the death of Mrs. Parker. 
 Along with the beautiful floral tribute of palms and white 
 lilies sent by them was a card bearing the following in- 
 scription : 
 
 "With palms for victory and flowers to speak of love 
 and beauty, the Fortnightly would symbolize a loss which 
 will be a permanent one in their midst. The qualities 
 of genius, of cheerfulness, of readiness, of helpfulness, of 
 participation, which met in Mrs. Parker, were a stimulus 
 to all the society most wishes to perpetuate." 
 
 HELEN E. STARRETT. 
 
 CHICAGO WOMAN'S CLUB 
 
 Frances Stuart Parker became a member of the Chicago 
 Woman's Club in 1891, and she remained a member as 
 long as she lived. Naturally, she entered the Educational 
 Department. 
 
 Mrs. Parker at once took rank among her associates 
 as a woman of force, originality, and exceptional powers 
 of expression. There was a charm in her presence, in her 
 voice, her manner, her artistic, independent dress. From 
 the first these outward manifestations of her personality 
 attracted us all. As time passed, and as we became ac- 
 quainted with the mind and heart that inspired our fellow- 
 worker, we became admirers of the unseen reality and 
 thought less of the outward image. Mrs. Parker became 
 a power, influencing the entire Club for good. 
 
 I remember that at first, when Mrs. Parker took part 
 in the Club discussions and programs, I used to listen, de- 
 lightedly, to her beautiful voice, not attending closely to 
 what she said. After a time I shook off the spell of her 
 musical tones, for I had found that the velvet voice always 
 expressed something well worth hearing. In the same 
 way, as I came to know her better, I ceased to look too 
 intently at Mrs. Parker's face, alight with thought and en- 
 thusiasm, or to take note of her quaint and characteristic 
 costumes of grey, violet, or brown, made in some artistic
 
 S 6 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 fashion quite remote from the prevailing mode. I became 
 absorbed in the ideas she presented whenever she spoke, 
 and to my own benefit. In some such fashion, I believe, 
 Mrs. Parker grew upon all the Club members. A most 
 delightful fashion it was, and few there be who are fortu- 
 nate enough to be able to adopt it. 
 
 Of course, Mrs. Parker's influence was exerted mainly 
 for the cause which is called "the new education." Always 
 she spoke and wrote and worked for the ideas and ideals 
 to which she and Colonel Parker had devoted their lives. 
 She became chairman of the Educational Department of the 
 Club, and while in that position she gained many helpers 
 for the objects so dear to her. 
 
 The influence of Mrs. Parker's work remains endur- 
 ing, excellent, and growing though the worker herself has 
 gone from us. ADA C. SWEET. 
 
 ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN 
 
 Mrs. Parker was a beloved and valued officer of the 
 Association for the Advancement of Women, "A. A. W." 
 She was for several years chairman of the Committee on 
 Topics and Papers, in which her services are remembered 
 with gratitude. She was much interested in dress reform, 
 and was an expert in the invention of tasteful and symmetrical 
 garments. These were further commended by the grace 
 with which she wore them. She also shared her husband's 
 enthusiasm in the cause of popular education, and was very 
 happy in the success which has given Col. Parker a place 
 among the most distinguished educators of the land. She 
 leaves two daughters to mourn her loss, and a large circle of 
 friends and fellow- workers who must sympathize deeply in 
 the family sorrow. 
 
 It was a sad day for us, members of the Association for 
 the Advancement of Women, when we learned that our dear 
 friend, Mrs. Frank Stuart Parker, would meet with us on 
 earth no more. 
 
 I remember well her first appearance at, I think, our 
 second Congress in Buffalo. I remarked at once her bright
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 57 
 
 countenance and tasteful attire. The theme of her dis- 
 course was some aspect of Dress Reform, a topic which could 
 not have had a better exemplification than that offered by 
 her own costume. Her aspect at that time was so youthful 
 that I regarded her as a young girl, and was surprised to 
 learn that she was a wife and mother. A nearer acquaint- 
 ance with her only deepened the pleasant impression already 
 made. We were glad to count her among our frequent 
 speakers, and in process of time appointed her to the 
 responsible post of Chairman of our Committee of Topics 
 and Papers. She occupied this position until the time of her 
 death, and her services were highly esteemed by us. 
 
 The charming harmony of Mrs. Parker's dress, her well- 
 modulated voice and pleasing address, made her a promi- 
 nent figure in the public meetings of our Association. Her 
 devotion to family relations sometimes deprived us of her 
 presence, but did not interfere with her aid and interest in 
 our work. She was with us at a Congress held at Knoxville, 
 Tennessee, of which I cannot give the precise date. This 
 was one of our pleasantest occasions. 
 
 I am glad to remember her as one of its brightest orna- 
 ments. We were saddened and surprised to hear somewhat 
 later of her failing health. I received a charming letter from 
 her on her return from the Sandwich Islands, and had every 
 hope of seeing her soon in person. The next news that I 
 had of her was of the end of her valuable lif e. 
 
 I may say that, for all of us, her fellow- workers, the sense 
 of our own loss was deepened by our feeling of the great 
 sorrow fallen upon her family, and especially upon her hus- 
 band, whose noble efforts in behalf of education were bright- 
 ened by her intelligent and loving sympathy. 
 
 At my request, the treasurer of the Association, Mrs. 
 H. L. T. Wolcott, has written me a letter, from which I 
 extract the following paragraphs : 
 
 Mrs. Parker became interested in the Dress Reform 
 movement which was started in the New England Woman 's 
 Club, of Boston. The movement appealed to her own artistic 
 sense. She occupied some years in the elaboration of a
 
 58 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 better style of dress for woman than the one in vogue. She 
 resided at this time in Chicago, where she found it difficult 
 to induce any dressmaker to venture on a departure which 
 then appeared of so radical a nature. To this endeavor she 
 gave thought and work to interest all women with whom 
 she came in contact. 
 
 To-day, when we see the "Empire" gowns displayed in 
 the shop windows, I cannot refrain from saying to myself, 
 "Why did not Mrs. Parker live to see herself in high posi- 
 tion in her style of frocks? " 
 
 Her personality was most charming wherever she 
 went and spoke she was heard with delight. In her home, 
 as wife and mother, she was exemplary, bearing most cour- 
 ageously the weight of her husband's trials. I am not yet 
 reconciled to her untimely death. She should have seen her 
 victory perhaps she does! JULIA WARD HOWE. 
 
 SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF CORRECT DRESS 
 
 Mrs Parker's work for Dress Reform, in Chicago, to 
 which Mrs. Wolcott refers, was done in connection with the 
 Society for the Promotion of Correct Dress. 
 
 Mrs. Parker was one of its charter members, and, as long 
 as her strength lasted, one of its most active members. 
 
 During the Exposition of 1893 the Society main- 
 tained an exhibit in the Woman's Building, but, except 
 for Mrs. Parker's enthusiasm and indomitable persever- 
 ance, this effort, which has now taken place in the history 
 of reform in dress, could never have been accomplished. 
 
 Eager as the Society was to embrace every opportunity 
 of helping other women who were struggling to free them- 
 selves from the conventions of dress, the members were timid 
 about exhibiting their too slight and crude efforts. 
 
 To this timidity Mrs. Parker had but one answer: "If we 
 are ashamed to own our crude beginnings, we shall never be 
 able to develop the finished product." 
 
 This thought finally became the watchword of the 
 Society, and prevailed over their desire to give out nothing 
 that could be regarded as only tentative.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 59 
 
 During the six months of the Exposition the exhibit was 
 visited by thousands of men and women, and, if one may 
 judge from the record of the "Visitors' Book," it met with 
 their cordial approval. It certainly gave courage to many 
 women struggling alone to overcome the obstacles which, 
 more than nature's design, man's prejudice, or all other 
 causes combined, are keeping woman on a lower plane, phys- 
 ically and mentally. That the effort was not without avail 
 is evidenced in the letters which even now, after the lapse 
 of years, are coming to the members of the Society, telling 
 of help received and asking for the latest word of advice. 
 
 It may not be unwarrantable, either, to assume that the 
 present forward movement in dress reform in Germany, 
 which has outstripped in point of converts and influence 
 anything ever accomplished in this country, owes much to 
 theories and practical illustration received during those 
 months. 
 
 Mrs. Parker 's work for her day and generation will never 
 be underestimated by those who appreciate the overwhelm- 
 ing importance to woman and the race, of emancipation 
 from her bondage as "Fashion's Slave." 
 
 ANNIE WHITE JOHNSON. 
 
 ENGLEWOOD WOMAN'S CLUB 
 
 Contrary to the history of most clubs, the Englewood 
 Woman 's Club was not a gradual growth. It began its first 
 year with a membership of about three hundred. 
 
 To organize so large a body of women into one harmo- 
 nious, working whole was not an easy matter. Diverse 
 opinions had to be harmonized, compromises had to be 
 made, and oftentimes cherished ambitions had to be laid 
 aside. All this required much tact on the part of the 
 leader. 
 
 To those interested in the beginning of the movement, 
 Mrs. Parker seemed to be peculiarly fitted to guide the Club 
 through this trying period of organization and initial work. 
 Although already generously giving her time and ability 
 to many lines of public work, Mrs. Parker consented to act
 
 60 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 as president, and served in that capacity during the organi- 
 zation and until the close of the first year. 
 
 If the success of the year's work could be analyzed, it 
 would be found to be a result not alone of the broad culture 
 and wide experience of Mrs. Parker, but also self-control not 
 only of words but of voice, gesture, attitude of body, a 
 control so absolute that we might almost question whether 
 to her the occasion had been one requiring self-control. 
 
 This beautiful poise of mind and body, this perfect con- 
 trol of the entire being, exemplified the truth in the woik 
 of which she made almost a life study. The control of the 
 physical and spiritual was so harmonious that we might say 
 of her, as was said of a great preacher, that she never seemed 
 to make an effort, being equal to every occasion. Such is 
 the fruitage of long culture. The rose that so easily opens 
 its perfect petals could not do so without the preceding work 
 that took place in root and leaf and branch. 
 
 Another potent factor in Mrs. Parker's great influence 
 was her ability not only to see, but to call out, the best every 
 one had to offer. She belonged by nature to the small circle 
 of ''chosen spirits" whose mission is to make even the hum- 
 blest among us realize something of the divine in us. 
 
 ALICE D. HOSWELL. 
 
 THE CHICAGO POLITICAL EQUALITY LEAGUE 
 
 In May, 1894, when it was thought necessary to have 
 further organization for the political enfranchisement of 
 women than then existed in Chicago, Mrs. Frances Stuart 
 Parker was consulted in regard to starting the new organiza- 
 tion in the Chicago Woman's Club, and she gave her enthu- 
 siastic and hearty support, speaking and working for it. 
 
 Mrs. Parker became one of the committee of twenty- 
 five members of the Club, organizing the Chicago Political 
 Equality League in the summer and fall of 1894. She was 
 a member of the League's Board of Directors from its forma- 
 tion until her death. 
 
 While she was always very busy with other public affairs, 
 she could be depended upon to help the League in an emer-
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 61 
 
 gency, and many times she read papers and reports of per- 
 sons who could not be present, giving them, by reason of her 
 accomplished oratory, an interest and force they could not 
 have had at the hands of their writers. 
 
 In May, 1896, Mrs. Parker was elected president of the 
 League and re-elected in 1897, holding the office as long as 
 the by-laws permit one person to hold it. 
 
 Her health had begun to fail before her term as president 
 expired, and her self-sacrifice and devotion were shown in 
 many ways. I recall especially a two days' meeting in the 
 Association Hall in November, 1897. The meeting was 
 under the auspices of the League, and several officers and 
 speakers of the National Suffrage Association were present, 
 and Mrs. Parker, as president of the League, was expected 
 to preside, and did preside. 
 
 No one knew until the meeting was over, and then only 
 accidentally, that she was ill and suffering intensely during 
 the entire two days. She made no complaint and gave no 
 sign. And so it was many other times. She moved ahead 
 with her work, regardless of the comfort or discomfort to 
 herself. 
 
 The following letter, dated January 5, 1895, explaining 
 her absence from a meeting, shows her attitude toward the 
 League : 
 
 My dear Miss Martin, The grip is no respecter of per- 
 sons. I have been confined to the house, now, nearly two 
 months, with it. I am deeply interested in the Political 
 Equality League, and as soon as I am able to be out, shall 
 be with you heart and soul. There is nothing that the 
 Woman's Club has taken up, of late, that has interested me 
 so much, and I will give my best efforts to it as soon as I am 
 able to be out. I was hoping to be with you to-day, but 
 the weather is so stormy that I do not dare venture. It is my 
 misfortune, and not any lack of interest, that has prevented 
 my meeting with you. 
 
 I was very glad that I was placed on the Board of Direc- 
 tors, and will do double work when I am about.
 
 62 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 The League's work has never been marked by striking 
 features, and it is difficult to give an adequate idea of the work 
 done by any one for it. Probably the best statement of the 
 work is that it consists in breaking down prejudice against 
 suffrage and suffragists, and in this Mrs. Parker was most 
 efficient. She was earnest in her advocacy, but she knew 
 the time and occasion. The political enfranchisement of 
 women had no more earnest and devoted adherent than Mrs. 
 Parker. She was a suffragist on broad, democratic h'nes. 
 
 Mrs. Parker was a ready and resourceful presiding officer 
 and quick and direct in debate. The program committee 
 never had any uneasiness when she was present, at a public 
 meeting, for it knew, whatever might happen, she would 
 make it a success. 
 
 In Mrs. Parker's death the League lost one of its most 
 helpful, hopeful, and earnest members. It misses greatly 
 her genial, strong spirit. ELLEN A. MARTIN.
 
 PORTRAIT OF MRS. PARKER AT 40 YEARS
 
 EXTRACTS FROM MRS. PARKER'S LETTERS 
 (Written on her Hawaiian Trip) 
 
 Montana, June, 1898. 
 
 The journey to-day has been a constant delight. We 
 have been in the mountains all day. Five hundred and 
 fifty feet this morning over the Rockies. The field flowers 
 are most beautiful. The trainmen get out and gather 
 them in great bunches. The syringa and larkspur grow 
 wild. Yellow and white daisies, fireweed, goldenrod, 
 wild geraniums, and in such profusion how I wish you 
 could see it! 
 
 There is a river that we have been beside all the after- 
 noon Kootenai and just now we have passed the Koo- 
 tenai Falls. The river narrows to a third, a rocky island 
 divides it in the narrowest part, and the water piles up fully 
 two feet higher at the sides than in the centre. The river 
 was the color of milk, the queerest shade I ever saw. 
 
 On the Pacific side of the Rockies the pine woods are 
 very heavy. Great, tall, mastlike trees with spearlike 
 tops. I think they must be yellow pine. 
 
 Such stretches of country and so few people! Hardly 
 a settlement, and miles without a house. Here and there 
 a camp, seven or eight men, and "cattle on a dune and 
 hills. " Great ranges for horses, cattle, and sheep. 
 
 Father is positively beatific. He is studying the land- 
 scape, looking through his field-glasses, and consulting his 
 aneroid thermometer to know just how high we are. 
 
 Oh, this beautiful river! On the opposite side are pal- 
 isades, the rocks slate and limestone standing out 
 from the fir and pine. Father says the river turns and goes 
 way up into British Columbia and then comes back and 
 empties into the Columbia. 
 
 Two things have been in my thoughts all day. I'll
 
 64 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 give them to you, as "last call for the dining-room" has 
 sounded: 
 
 " The hills rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, the vales 
 Stretching in pensive quietness between; 
 The venerable woods, rivers that move 
 In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
 That make the meadows green." 
 
 And Gannett's 
 
 "He hath made the haunts of beauty 
 
 The home elect of his grace ; 
 He spreadeth his mornings on them, 
 
 His sunsets light their face. 
 The people of tired cities 
 
 Come up to their shrines to pray; 
 God freshens again within them 
 
 As he passes by all day." 
 
 British Columbia. 
 
 We are almost there, after a very pleasant ride of eight 
 hours from Seattle, in sight either of the water or the moun- 
 tains. The flowers are glorious, as they have been all 
 along. The clover is everywhere, for there are more settle- 
 ments along this route than on any other. 
 
 The trees are being cut down all along the road, and 
 there are sawmills everywhere. The large trees are nearly 
 gone, and we see great stumps, some measuring six and 
 seven feet across. What giants they must have been, and 
 what a pity to cut them down! They haven't left one; 
 they might, at least, have done that. Just fancy all that 
 glorious life cut up into railroad ties and shingles! 
 
 Honolulu. 
 
 Here we are, dearest, safe and sound, in the Islands; 
 and, oh, how I wish you could be here! It is hot, hotter, 
 hottest. But, oh, the flowers! But, oh, the trees! I am 
 wild with delight. Great royal palms, hibiscus hedges, full 
 of bloom, bananas everywhere, and cocoanut palms full 
 of fruit, most gorgeous umbrella trees, the pepper, and, 
 most graceful of all, the feathery mimosa, full of yellow 
 flowers, coleus, great bushes, and such lovely vines and 
 cactus! Opposite the house where we are is an actual
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 65 
 
 hedge of cactus, or, rather, the night-blooming cereus, which 
 is all ready to bloom. 
 
 Just fancy it! The islands rise straight out of the 
 water, and look in the distance like soft, green headlands, 
 with houses clustering at the very base. The town is quite 
 a town, when one gets into it, but looks very tiny as you 
 approach in the steamer. 
 
 The docks were lined with American transports, war- 
 ships, and monitors ; one great steamer filled with our boys 
 went slowly past us. We shouted "Chicago!" and forty 
 hats went up. I tell you, at the sight of the flag and the 
 soldiers, I broke down and had a good cry. The war, for 
 the first time, has come straight home to me. 
 
 I want you children to see this beautiful place. In my 
 next letter I will send you some of the flowers. Oh for 
 Katherine to fill her hands full! Not Francis or Dorothy 
 they would eat them. 
 
 We had a delightful trip, take it all in all. Only one 
 mishap. A sea broke in at the porthole and completely 
 drenched father, who was under it. A flying-fish came on 
 board; we watched the great gulls; had a Kipling after-- 
 noon reading, and quarrelled with two Englishmen over 
 education of the masses, by way of variety. 
 
 This wonderful place! I am wild over it. The flowers 
 and the fruit ! If it weren't for my grandchildren, I'd never 
 go back. 
 
 Father and I took the car a mule bobtail and went 
 as far as it goes. It staits way up the valley, and goes 
 winding down through the town, by the Chinese quarters, 
 past the wharves, then to another residence part of the city, 
 where are beautiful gardens and groves of mangoes and royal 
 palms. Palms are common as grass; they are everywhere. 
 The royal palm is very picturesque and graceful, too. 
 The fronds fall like immense ferns from the summit of the 
 pillar, for a palm trunk is like an Egyptian column. Each 
 successive leaf, as it dies off, leaves a broad brown ring, 
 like a telegraph pole bound with bands of rusty iron.
 
 66 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 I saw the tamarind tree this morning, filled with brown 
 pods, nice and sour. It has the habit of our nut trees, 
 round top, filled with brown pods hanging all along the 
 ends of the branches. 
 
 The natives sit on the sidewalk, with their baskets 
 full of leis, or garlands. I had a beauty brought me 
 yesterday a pale yellow flower, shaped like a morning- 
 glory. These were threaded on a string, and then twined 
 among and around was a glossy green vine, the whole over 
 two feet long. You see these wreaths worn by natives 
 everywhere, around the neck or the hat. The dress of the 
 native women is a mother hubbard, and they go barefooted. 
 
 You see many Chinese and Japs. I go wild over the 
 solemn Chinese baby with his little skull-cap and his panta- 
 lets that come to the little bare heels. The Jap baby sits 
 astride of his mother's back and stares blankly at you and 
 at the world. 
 
 The Chinamen go about with two baskets swung over 
 their shoulders, looking as if they had just stepped out of 
 a geography picture. 
 
 We don't suffer with the heat at all: we are at the 
 mouth of a valley, and a soft, cool breeze blows down all 
 the time. Down in the town it is warmer. Father went 
 off this A. M. in his new duck suit, as happy as a lark. 
 He told Barbara he looked like a canvasback duck in them. 
 He had a new pair of tan shoes, and no one in the place 
 can touch him. 
 
 We begin work next Monday. I have only forty min- 
 utes a day, so you see I shall not work hard. Father 
 has two periods, and Miss Allen two. We don't have to 
 work in the afternoon, for which I am thankful. 
 
 Doubtless, the papers have told you what a great time 
 the soldier boys have passed through. In two hours they 
 raised seven thousand dollars to entertain them. They 
 have great tables set in the public square, and everybody 
 sends fruit, cake, coffee, meat, and bread. 
 
 The bar-rooms would take no money, nor barbers, fruit- 
 men, or boot-blacks. The government sent their letters free.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 67 
 
 The last detachment sent home twenty thousand letters. 
 They had boxes up, marked "Soldiers' Letter-box." Peo- 
 ple took them to ride; the horse-car lines asked no fare; 
 in short, with the American flag flying everywhere, the 
 windows decorated with the red, white, and blue, Dewey's 
 picture surrounded by the colors, the girls with flag pins 
 and the men with flag buttons, I begin to feel quite at 
 home. 
 
 We have gone to keeping house, opposite the Spreckels 
 palace. I am out on my own piazza, looking at the noble 
 column of royal palms which leads up to his house. Judge 
 Frear, whose wife is away, put his house at our disposal. 
 We have a parlor, library, dining-room, and a bath, all 
 on one floor. We have a Chinese cook and a Chinese maid. 
 
 Mrs. Townsend sends us milk from her own cow; the 
 neighbors send in fruit ; and here we are. 
 
 This morning the Institute opened. We have a large 
 class, both natives and Hawaiians. I gave a short talk, and 
 got through bravely. 
 
 Last Saturday we went to the Hawaiian market. Such a 
 funny place ! Open stalls and all sorts of fish, flesh, and fowl 
 for sale. There were piles of wee dressed fishes and queer- 
 looking lobsters, so different from ours, crawling all over each 
 other; crabs, sea-urchins, live shrimps, a funny cake that 
 looked like brown bread, made of seaweed, and a queer 
 root they call taro; baked sweet potatoes and dried squid; 
 bamboo for making hats. 
 
 After the market we took a carriage and drove to the 
 top of one of the smaller mountains that rise almost ab- 
 ruptly behind the town. It was a most delightful ride 
 back and forth, winding up, now past a lateral crater that 
 looked like a small green bowl; now over cinders and 
 volcanic rock, covered by great thickets of the lantern, 
 which grows wild here; past great cacti and patches of 
 an acacia that Mr. Jackson cultivated in his greenhouse, 
 to the very top, where we caught a beautiful sunset over 
 the ocean and saw the surf and the reef in the distance.
 
 68 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 Oh, the blue of the ocean! I wish you could see it, a per- 
 fect sapphire, such color! It is divine. 
 
 This morning I had a long talk with Mrs. Dole, the 
 wife of the President. We are going there to a reception 
 Friday. She gave me her fan, one of the native ones, 
 which I shall keep for a T. M. (tender memory). 
 
 On our place there are sixty kinds of fruit. We have 
 been looking about. A row of bananas, full of great bunches, 
 a more delicious variety than we get; Chinese oranges, 
 used for sherbet; figs we are to have some for supper; 
 strawberry guava ; alligator pears ; papia, a big fruit, shaped 
 something like a pear; cocoanuts; mangoes; oranges. 
 All this we discovered before the rain, which drove us in. 
 There is a big flower garden, and ferns and foliage 
 plants without end. There is no use talking. You must 
 come to the Sandwich Islands, these islands that "lift 
 their fronded palms in air"; you must see them. 
 
 Everybody asleep or out. Father is to lecture to-night, 
 and I am, or have been, resting on the lounge. This house 
 is a perfect delight. We are so quiet, and the garden is so 
 beautiful. There are no ants, but, oh, the mosquitos! They 
 literally swarm, especially as we are having a very damp 
 season. It rains in the funniest way here. Just a cloud 
 over the mountains, a drizzle to which no one pays any 
 attention, walking serenely through it, even in white muslin; 
 then blue sky again. This it does twenty or thirty times a 
 day. You are never safe from it. I discovered a new 
 palm the Traveller's, the one they get water from in the 
 desert. 
 
 There is a transport due to-morrow, and now I am long- 
 ing for a letter. I do hope you have written right along, so 
 I shall hear. It does seem so far away. 
 
 "Give me an amulet 
 That keeps intelligence with you!" 
 
 Yesterday was one of the most eventful of my life. About 
 three o'clock Father came back and said we would ride out 
 to the beach. He went to the telephone to order a carriage,
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 69 
 
 when we heard something said about annexation. We 
 found a steamer was coming in, all covered with flags, and 
 had signalled annexation. We drove to the wharf as fast 
 as that horse could go. People were pouring in the same 
 direction men, women, and children, on foot and in car- 
 riages. All at once there was a burst of music the Star 
 Spangled Banner; the flag was unfurled, and, oh, how every- 
 body cheered! President Dole was just in front of us, on 
 his horse. He and Father shook hands and exchanged 
 congratulations. He rode back and greeted me as a fellow- 
 citizen. Then the procession formed, the band leading, and 
 playing all our national airs. Flags appeared from every 
 quarter; men fell in behind the band ; carriages were covered 
 with flags, and with everybody cheering, shaking hands, and 
 rejoicing, we all went up to the capitol. There were speeches 
 by those who brought the news, and cheers for everybody 
 and everything. 
 
 Then we started for the papers and mail. Imagine our 
 delight on finding there had been a great victory; the 
 Spanish fleet had been sunk; then letters from home, saying 
 there had been another great victory that Father had 
 been triumphantly re-elected and all was well with the 
 school; can you imagine a fuller day? I was so tired with 
 happiness I couldn't go to sleep. 
 
 Miss Chisholm sent me about fifty cuttings, some of them 
 three columns long. So you see how much interest the 
 election has caused. Strange to say, there wasn't a paper 
 but was favorable and spoke of Father in the highest terms. 
 Mr. White preached a sermon on Sunday on Higher Edu- 
 cation, and in it spoke of the work, what it stood for, its 
 ethical trend. When he called Father's name, the whole 
 church broke into cheers. He then called for a rising vote, 
 for those who would stand for the school and its work and 
 would pledge themselves to either write or see some member 
 of the Board before the election. Everybody voted, and a 
 petition of over seven hundred went from the church. 
 
 All the Normal people went to the Board meetings, with 
 a big white satin badge marked "Normal" on it. It was
 
 70 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 the best fight of all, and called out the best people we have 
 ever had. They have actually broken ground for the new 
 building. 
 
 Father is very happy, for he feels this is really the last 
 fight, and hopes to end his days in peace and comfort and 
 work. He also feels that it was a great victory for educa- 
 tion, for it was largely a move on the part of the politicians 
 to take possession of the school for their own purposes, and 
 the people called a halt. 
 
 I forgot to tell you that last night a great bonfire of tar- 
 barrels and timber was lighted on the hill above us, the 
 Punch Bowl, to announce to the other islands that Hawaii 
 had received the news of annexation. 
 
 We are going to have a big celebration next week, when 
 the official news comes from Washington. 
 
 Father and I took a lovely ride to-day to Diamond Heart. 
 It is a volcano (extinct), a great headland of rock, just 
 beginning to weather. At the foot of the rock cluster the 
 lovely cottages close to the sea. There is a reef about a 
 mile out and a line of breakers over which the water comes 
 tumbling in. The natives take parties out hi their surf- 
 boats. We watched them waiting for a big wave. Up 
 would go the bow of the boat, and they would come tearing 
 in to shore, the spray flying over them. 
 
 Another funny thing was to see the Chinese out in the 
 water up to their thin waists spearing for squid. We passed 
 a lot of duck farms, rice- fields, and banana farms; but the 
 best sight was a long row of date palms, filled with great 
 bunches of dates, yellow and green. They were all very 
 small and hung in large clusters, like yellow beads strung 
 on flexible wires. The trunk of the date palm is very pict- 
 uresque. As the leaves die out, they cut them off, and so 
 the trunk has a sort of pineapple pattern all up and down. 
 They all seem carved and artificial; they are not like trees 
 they are suggestive of old temples and ancient ruins. 
 
 We went into an ancient road-house where Robert Louis 
 Stevenson wrote one of his books ; a lovely place, with funny
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 71 
 
 balconies jutting out everywhere, and covered with banyan 
 trees, and kept by a most picturesque Greek. 
 
 We also saw the new park, which is filled with date 
 palms, and is full of lagoons, filled with lotus. Every- 
 where you turn there is so much beauty, so much grandeur. 
 As we turned to go back, the mountains stood out against 
 a background of black clouds ; then the rain began to stream 
 down between the valleys, and two beautiful rainbows 
 stretched across the sky. On one side the blue sky and 
 the blue ocean, and on the other dark clouds and frowning 
 mountains. 
 
 I wish you could have been with us to have seen the night- 
 blooming cereus. It is out now, and is a beautiful sight. 
 Hundreds of great white blossoms filling the air with fra- 
 grance; such a wealth of beauty, and only for a night. The 
 night-blooming cereus is a cup-like flower with yellow stems 
 and narrow white petals, and, when open, about seven inches 
 across. They are so crowded in that the stone wall is fairly 
 white with them. Then they are so waxen and so magnifi- 
 cent a quarter of a mile of elegance to make a banquet for 
 the moths and beetles that crowd their cups in the morning. 
 
 Did I tell you that we had a reception given us last night 
 at the high school? The teachers were all there, and we 
 had music and refreshments. The best thing was a lot of 
 native songs by the Hawaiians, whose folk-songs are in- 
 tensely interesting. Like all primitive music, they have few 
 notes, and the melody is very simple; the minor prevails, 
 and through it all is a vague, undefined longing, an inartic- 
 ulate soul; they never seem to find free and full expression. 
 The voices are very sweet and clear, but you feel the sadness 
 and incompleteness in everything they sing. 
 
 I feel stronger to-day than I have felt since I arrived. 
 Our Chinaman is an excellent cook, and the house is very 
 comfortable. Quiet ! You can hear yourself think, it is so 
 still; even the mosquitos don't sing. 
 
 Just a word before we leave for a luncheon. We are 
 going up to see a girls' school, native, a beautiful place, over 
 the hill, on the other side of the town.
 
 72 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 Such a good breakfast! We begin with papaya and end 
 with grapes. We eat alligator pears and have taro fried 
 instead of potatoes. Taro is what they make the national 
 dish out of. It tastes like starch; that is about the only 
 thing that I do not like. When they have high feasts, they 
 pound the taro and make it into a dish that tastes like sour 
 paste they call it poi and many people like it, but I 
 don't. There is another very pleasant thing here I haven't 
 mentioned. Every night we look the beds carefully through 
 for centipedes, shake out the pillows, pull down the sheets; 
 then in the morning shake out our shoes and stockings. 
 They are not pleasant, and "we in our house" don't want 
 a bite, not this year. Mosquitos I am getting used to. I 
 have a screen put over the lounge, and I sit or lie in my 
 tent, and like to see them flattening then" noses on the out- 
 side and wondering how they can get at me. Netting must 
 be the Tantalus of the mosquito. 
 
 Home again after a most delightful day at Kamehameha, 
 a large school for girls, endowed by a very wealthy lady, 
 Mrs. Bishop, a native Hawaiian. Her husband founded a 
 boys' school, museum, and did any quantity of things for 
 these islands. 
 
 The house is most beautiful. It is built in a half-cir- 
 cular form, with stone court and fountain in front, and long 
 colonnades stretching to right and left. Rooms open out 
 upon the piazza, (lania), and the interior is all finished in 
 California redwood. Not a bit of paper anywhere. The 
 school is for native girls, and has industrial features. After 
 a most sumptuous dinner, cooked by the girls, we all went 
 into the large hall, and the girls in an adjoining room sang 
 the native songs for us. The royal song was exquisite, 
 and the girls sang it with much expression. They are in- 
 tensely loyal, and the Queen is expected back next week; 
 so they are greatly aroused. The native Hawaiian feels 
 very bad over annexation, and I expect there will be a 
 demonstration when she gets back home. I shall go down 
 on the wharf to see her come in and hear what the natives 
 say. I read for the girls, and had a very charming time
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 73 
 
 with them. When we came away, Miss Pope, who is 
 at the head of the school, presented me with a bowl made 
 from a block of mahogany taken from Mrs. Bishop's old 
 house. It is a rarely beautiful thing, and I shall prize it 
 greatly. 
 
 Miss Pope took us beyond the school up to Mauna Loa 
 to see a wonderful farm owned by Mr. Deacon. It should 
 be called Lagoona, for it was literally a series of lagoons 
 and islands. He had great rice-fields, banana groves, dates, 
 and cocoanut palms, greenhouses, and even a sunflower 
 patch. 
 
 The most interesting thing was a native house built 
 exactly as they build them at Samoa, and filled with native 
 curios. The Bishop Museum also has a great collection 
 of native wares, which we are going to see some day. 
 
 I saw a cactus tree to-day actually a tree. It was over 
 twelve feet high, and the funniest thing you ever saw. I never 
 believed the cactus was a tree before, although it is so clas- 
 sified. 
 
 Nine o'clock, and only think, with you it is about three 
 o'clock in the morning. I don't like to be so far away. I 
 have changed Gail Hamilton's "ten miles from a lemon" 
 to five thousand miles from my grandchildren. I long for 
 letters; only think, sweetheart, it is about three weeks since 
 I heard from you, and when I do hear the news will be about 
 two weeks old. We shall not leave here until the third of 
 September, as Father wants to go to the volcano, and he can- 
 not get away earlier and take that trip. We have lots of 
 invitations for the other islands, and I know we shall have 
 a lovely time. Each island presents certain definite char- 
 acteristics, and I am glad we are to see them all. I wish 
 I had six months here rather than six weeks. 
 
 We had an afternoon at home to-day, and it was a great 
 success. Lots of people came, a Chinese lady in full cos- 
 tume among the rest. Miss Lawrence poured tea, and 
 with the flowers and the doors all open it was very pretty. 
 
 It came out to-day that the teachers are making a col-
 
 74 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 lection of the native work, wood, shells, etc., to give us to 
 carry back with us. One brought me a lovely pair of shells 
 to-day, and is going to send a doll's hat for Katherine. 
 
 The people are lovely. They will do anything for you. 
 That calabash has great historical value. I am delighted 
 with it. It is of Koa wood, the native mahogany. We are 
 to have several pieces given us, and I will save one for Tom. 
 The trees are not very numerous, but the woods are very 
 beautiful and take a high polish. 
 
 We heard a good story of a native to-day. Some one 
 asked him if he were married. "Non, non, too muche 
 pa-pa, too muche mama." Another native calls marriage 
 a "leg-tie"; a man who is married can't go to war, "his 
 leg tied." 
 
 Did I tell you that we go home on the "Miowera," the 
 same steamer that we came on, which leaves the first of Sep- 
 tember ? It takes just eight days to go to America, so be sure, 
 sweetheart, that you all have letters at the Vancouver Hotel 
 for us, welcoming us to America once more. I shall be wild 
 for letters from home; only think what may have happened 
 in my absence. Don't fail to write, all of you, for I shall 
 get homesicker and homesicker the nearer home I get. 
 You can't think what angels you all seem at this distance. 
 
 We are to have a grand celebration on Thursday, the 
 annexation celebration; a procession, addresses from the 
 capitol, ending with a salute to the Hawaiian and the Ameri- 
 can flag, and in the evening a grand ball. I suppose I 
 shan't go to that, but I wish I could. 
 
 I went into the Chinese stores after my lesson to-day, 
 and, oh, how I wish I had a lot of money! They have 
 exquisite things. The Chinese babies are great fun. I 
 played with the sweetest little one I ever saw, in a shop, 
 to-day; he was only six, and a perfect dear. They are so 
 funny with their little shaved heads and funny eyes, just 
 like a doll; they don't seem alive, for they won't smile or 
 even wink. 
 
 I bought some lovely things, what I shall not say. You
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 75 
 
 must wait until Christmas, unless you come out and hunt 
 and hunt and hunt. Don't you wish you lived next door, 
 and could come in and help me unpack? 
 
 Well, this letter must go to-morrow, so good-bye, my 
 own dear children. Mama prays it is well with you all 
 and longs to see you. 
 
 Thursday, July 21, 1898. 
 
 I sent off a letter of over thirty pages to you all yesterday. 
 I would almost give up this beautiful country for a sight of the 
 " little head running over with curls" that used to greet me 
 every morning and ask "Damma" to make "nice nest." 
 Don't let her forget Damma, will you ? 
 
 Yesterday we dined with Mr. and Mrs. Dillingham; 
 very lovely people here, who have been the principal movers 
 in Honolulu improvements. Mr. D. is at the head of the 
 railroad now building around the island. After the summer 
 school he is going to take us out on an expedition and show us 
 the sights. Won't that be jolly? Friday we dine at the 
 Hawaiian Hotel with Mr. Miller, the representative of the 
 "Inter-Ocean," of Chicago. He is a very interesting man 
 and a rather important factor in the newspaper world. We 
 are getting a fine collection of native woods, shells, lava, seeds, 
 mats, etc. The teachers are bringing me things every day. 
 Land shells of most curious marking, snail shells. They 
 grow upon the trees on the mountains. I have a number of 
 duplicates, and shall save some for Katherine and Dorothy. 
 Every day brings a new fruit. This morning I had a rose 
 apple. It is about the size of a small peach, in shape of a 
 quince, and tastes of roses and cinnamon, perfectly delicious. 
 It has a funny, smooth, round seed about the size of a good 
 plum-stone. 
 
 I went into the Chinese store this morning, and have a 
 number of queer things selected which I am going to buy 
 later on. They do such lovely ivory work. It is very expen- 
 sive, though. 
 
 The mixture of races is interesting. Chinese, Japs, 
 Hawaiians, Portuguese all have their quarters and all are
 
 76 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 to be met everywhere on the streets. They are in all degrees 
 of assimilation, for you meet a Jap in full native costume 
 and just behind him another in full European. One small 
 Chinese had on his native costume and an American straw 
 hat, and was riding a bicycle. I laughed aloud to-day when 
 I met a Chinese boy about seven whistling "There'll be a 
 hot time in the old town to-night." Shut your eyes, and you 
 would have believed he came from Chicago. I had a new 
 sensation to-day. I rode into a rainbow. It was so close that 
 I could have touched the place where it ended. If Father 
 hadn 't been with me, I should have gone down and found the 
 pot of gold. 
 
 Father is having great success here. Everybody is 
 delighted with him, and I think he will do a great deal of 
 good. To-day they organized a society to push industrial 
 and agricultural work, called the General Armstrong Indus- 
 trial Society, in honor of General Armstrong of Hampton. 
 Father meets quite a number of the young men every day and 
 is stirring them up. They are all so fond of him. He will 
 be a great inspiration in their lives. A Mr. Wood called this 
 afternoon and took us up on Punch Bowl to see an extinct 
 crater. We studied cuts in the hill, saw the black sand and 
 tufa; we stopped and had learned discussions over gulches, 
 and tried to see flood plains and lava tongues. I indeed 
 found sermons in stones this afternoon, for I could hardly 
 make head or tail of the whole discussion. Father found it 
 most interesting, but for me, give me an active volcano 
 spouting; then I'll see where the lava flows, determine 
 lateral cones for myself, and decide whether it is wind or 
 erosion which determines cinder heaps and black deposits. 
 
 It seemed much like some of Father's conundrums with- 
 out the answers. 
 
 Mr. Dillingham gave me a very vivid description of Ki- 
 lauea, the big volcano, now unfortunately not very active. 
 The party went up on horseback, by the trail, and took a 
 lunch. Then they watched the sunset and the great rolling 
 mass of fire that brightened and deepened as the darkness
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 77 
 
 grew. The whole crater was filled with a molten mass of 
 fire that seethed and surged against the cliff below them, 
 sending up great masses of fire spray, which fell back into 
 the crater, causing loud explosions of steam. They stayed 
 watching this grand sight until midnight. Mr. Dillingham 
 said that in certain parts of the crater, where there was less 
 motion, the lava would cake over; then a central disturbance, 
 more violent than usual, would break this surface up into 
 huge masses that would slowly rise into the air, stand a mo- 
 ment like huge splinters of black rock, then slowly sink and 
 melt from sight. Now the floor of the crater has sunk fif- 
 teen hundred feet below the surface. You could put the 
 whole of New York into the crevice. Only steam with a 
 slight reddening of lava is to be seen. Of course, it is 
 intensely interesting even as it is ; but think of what it must 
 have been. 
 
 The best lesson I have had at all to-day. 
 
 After the lesson we rode down to my Chinaman (I've set 
 up a Chinaman), a funny store with lunch place at the back, 
 filled with all sorts and kinds of china and silk embroideries, 
 with a sprinkling of furniture. I do wish I could bring some 
 of it home. I bought several presents here. Isn't it lucky 
 we are to be in the U. S. ? Now I can take things home. 
 The celebration will not take place until next week, as the 
 "Philadelphia" has not arrived. We are looking for the 
 transports every minute, and I do so hope that I'll get another 
 letter from you. 
 
 My Chinaman took me in where they were lunching, and 
 I saw them eating with chop-sticks. He also showed me 
 how to use them. The Chinese are very deft and skilful 
 with them, and it is a difficult thing to handle them. I am 
 practising to astonish my grandchildren. They were eating 
 funny little fishes about two inches long, all done up in some 
 kind of long, stringy greens. It really looked nice, but I 
 did not accept an invitation to lunch with them. 
 
 We dined last evening with Mr. Miller at the Hawaiian 
 Hotel, which is beautiful and furnished in good taste. It has
 
 78 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 open places, or courts, all around, and beautiful gardens. The 
 hotel is built around a court, open at one side, and owns a 
 great many cottages all about, where families can be accom- 
 modated. Just before we started last night, as we were sit- 
 ting on the piazza waiting for a car, there was the most infer- 
 nal squawk you ever heard over the garden wall. Then 
 another and another, followed by a rustling of the branches. 
 A stately peacock tiptoed across the lawn, his beautiful tail 
 just lifted to escape the grass. He was the prettiest sight 
 imaginable the colors on his neck and the graceful way 
 in which his tail feathers fluttered in the wind. Near the 
 fence something startled him, and every feather was lifted 
 and stood distinct and separate above his head. We just fairly 
 revel in color here. I never saw such color effects. 
 
 To-night we are going to the Chinese theatre. A China- 
 man is to take us and explain all about it. 
 
 Such a funny experience as we had last night ! Imagine a 
 huge barn with rafters and beams unfinished, a rude gallery 
 with three private boxes on either side, the floor fitted with 
 benches and filled with Chinamen, who smoked and kept 
 their hats on. The only women were in the boxes that is, 
 there were perhaps with our party eight women present. 
 The stage was a little less barren than the house; there was no 
 attempt at decoration. Some curtains were put up at the 
 stage entrances which were at the back of the stage. 
 
 All the action took place on a slightly raised platform, 
 marked stage. All the properties needed were kept just back 
 of this stage and handed to the actors as they were needed. 
 The orchestra kept up a continual din and struck in any 
 and every where. The acting was capital, the voices abomin- 
 able, such yelling on one shrill key I never heard. Of course, 
 the women's parts were taken by men, and their dresses and 
 make-up were very effective. 
 
 The play didn't have a plot or plan, so far as I could see. 
 It was a succession of funny little scenes. Two were quar- 
 relling over stealing a calf; a woman who despised her hus- 
 band because he didn't support her; a family quarrel over
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 79 
 
 the division of money when the father died; flirtations 
 of the dissolute sons of a judge; the temptation of a very 
 proud young man by a very haughty young woman; and a 
 quarrel between a sister and a brother. All of these seemed 
 little family episodes that might have happened in any 
 neighborhood, but so far as any relation to the play was 
 concerned, I couldn't see where it came in. There was an 
 utter lack of dramatic unity. 
 
 The audience seemed highly amused. They talked and 
 jabbered all the time, and were full of expression. The 
 Chinese servant and his immovable face is one thing a 
 lot of them on their native heath, so to speak, is another thing. 
 
 One funny thing is the lack of scenery. You had to 
 imagine a bedroom door, and the actor went through the 
 pantomime of unlocking the door, and later the infuriated 
 husband forced the same door with his sword to get at his 
 unfaithful wife. 
 
 I was told some very interesting things the other night 
 about the superstitions of the Hawaiians. They had, and 
 still have to a limited extent, their medicine men. The 
 hoodoo is their great superstition. A native gets word that 
 he is being hoodooed or prayed to death by a Kahuna (medi- 
 cine man), and, unless something can be done, he dies. Dr. 
 Cassell was one day in the office when a native came in and 
 told him that a Kahuna said he would be dead in two months. 
 The Doctor laughed and said: "Tell her that she will be 
 dead in two months; that I am a stronger Kahuna than she." 
 He thought no more of it, but in two months after the man 
 came in and said: "She is dead." "Who?" "Why, the 
 Kahuna you prayed for." You see, she believed he was a 
 Kahuna, and promptly died. Nothing can cure a native if 
 he believes that he is being hoodooed. Dr. Cassell was a 
 great favorite with the King, but after the above happened he 
 was never invited to the palace; the King was afraid of him. 
 
 I am going up to the museum next week to see the native 
 collections. Then I shall see their religious and medicine 
 paraphernalia. Father has been there and says it is a great 
 study.
 
 8o FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 Yesterday I did not write, for it was our reception day. 
 Such a lot of callers and such a delightful time. I haven't 
 told you much about the people, but they are charming. If 
 I were well, I should be overwhelmed with engagements. 
 
 A Mr. Dodge and his wife called yesterday. He is a poet 
 and an artist as well. He goes to all my lessons, and seems 
 to enjoy my work. I am to read one of his poems to the 
 class to-morrow. He brought me six pictures, two beautiful 
 ones of the night-blooming cereus. I am so glad, for I can 
 give you some faint idea through them of its beauty. 
 
 One lady brought me a straw pillow, made by the natives, 
 and a tortoise-shell taro blossom for a hairpin. It is very 
 quaint and curious. The same lady brought some shells. 
 
 Mrs. Crabbe gave me a Samoan fan, a very singular 
 thing; and another lady brought Father a vase made from 
 the wood of the tree fern ; it is very beautiful in shape, carv- 
 ing, and color. We also had some colored photographs and 
 a hundred specimens of ferns from one of the teachers. The 
 photos are very tempting. I bought five dozen yesterday. 
 
 Did I write you that ground had been broken for the new 
 building at home? The whole upper part of the building 
 is to be a museum with cases (glass) in which to lock up 
 things. When we get everything out and labelled, it will 
 be seen how industrious we have been. 
 
 Judge Frear is one of the new commissioners to draw up 
 laws for governing our new possessions here. He is a 
 charming man, and frequently comes in to dinner with us. 
 Mr. Dilhngham, his father-in-law, was in last night to see 
 about our trip on the railroad. He owns the principal part 
 of the stock, and wants us to see the road before we leave. 
 He proposes that we drive half around the island to the 
 head of the road in private carriages, then go the rest of the 
 way on the railroad. All this when we return from our 
 volcano trip. 
 
 I hear wonderful accounts of the food and water part of 
 that expedition. Miss Ely said she spent the whole night 
 alternately bracing herself in her berth and climbing the 
 wall, varying the performance by standing on her head at
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 81 
 
 intervals. I think I stand a fair chance of being seasick, 
 but shall take my chance, all for the sake of seeing a real 
 live volcano. 
 
 Another red-letter day yesterday. After my lesson I did 
 a little shopping, and then home for lunch. At two a car- 
 riage came to the house, and Father, Mr. Wood, and myself 
 started for the Pali. Pali means wall and is a narrow pass 
 through the mountains to the ocean on the other side of 
 the island. Just fancy riding across a continent in about 
 two hours. It was a glorious ride up the side of the hill, 
 past summer residences and Portuguese gardens of carna- 
 tions and anemones, past the reservoirs, and finally, as the 
 pass narrowed, through great thickets of the haw tree, which 
 makes a perfect jungle. The ferns were something too 
 beautiful to imagine. Great fronds three and four feet long, 
 and making a veritable fairyland. We looked down a 
 great bowl by the side of the road; the Australian palm 
 completely festooned with vines; a little pool filled with 
 lily pads; great tree ferns, and ferns of every description 
 clothing the sides; and here and there the tea plant with 
 its great, broad leaves making spots of lighter green. 
 Father could hardly drag me away. There was one fern in 
 particular that was very effective; it was a dark green after 
 it had been out awhile and turned, but a light red when it 
 first came out. Must get some fronds for you. 
 
 Finally, the walls narrowed to just the road, with tall red 
 lava cliffs perfectly perpendicular rising on either side. We 
 turned a corner and the wind fairly blew us against the 
 rocky corner then such a sight ! We were on a narrow 
 rocky platform; the walls dropped straight down three hun- 
 dred feet, and below, stretching three miles, the plain, and 
 beyond the great glorious ocean, pale blue or deep sapphire, 
 a foaming line for the reefs, and near the shore every shade 
 of the opal. 
 
 To north and south stretched the shore line, a series of 
 palisades, looking like the inside of a crater, then, nearer the 
 coast, low, worn hills, or cinder mounds. To the south the
 
 82 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 clouds swept in rainy sheets, twisting and writhing on in 
 long, grey, vaporous masses down the ravines. It was a 
 sight for men and gods, and I wish I could pitch my tent 
 there for a month and let its beauty rush into my soul. 
 The valleys were under cultivation, with rice-fields and pine- 
 apple farms, and on the flanks of the mountains were native 
 trees making every shade of color imaginable. The earth 
 is red in the valley, and so every plant stood out against a red 
 background. I have exhausted my vocabulary. Adjectives 
 won't do justice to the situation. And they say that the 
 trip to Hawaii is grander! What shall I do ? 
 
 Two lectures more. It seems like a dream, a beautiful 
 dream, the three weeks I have spent here. If I only had you 
 all here and could stay six months! 
 
 This pass is the famous one where Kamehama I. drove 
 the natives up and closed in upon them and forced them over 
 the precipice. It is supposed to be the site of the tremendous 
 volcano that made this island. This was Dana's theory, 
 but of course it is disputed by some. Certainly the walls 
 look like the crater of a huge volcano, and there is lava and 
 mud, not to speak of cinders, enough to warrant the belief. 
 
 This morning I talked upon child study to a large audience. 
 Ever so many delightful people there. You can 't think the 
 invitations I have had to lunch, drive, spend the night or a 
 week at beautiful places. 
 
 A lady brought me some shells, a basket, several necklaces 
 of beads, seeds and shells, and some beautiful lace woven by 
 the Portuguese. Our collection is growing fast. Mr. Ward 
 is going to bring me another calabash. 
 
 I have just discovered that I have spelled his Majesty's 
 name, Kamehameha L, the Napoleon of Hawaii, wrong. I 
 think he was gay, from all I hear of him, and I wish to do 
 him all honor and give him all the vowels he is entitled to. 
 
 He was more liberal in his intercourse with the whites 
 than most of the natives, and in this encounter with the 
 natives of Oahu, the island upon which Honolulu is situated, 
 he had the help of John Young, sixteen white men, well
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 83 
 
 armed, and a cannon. It was fear of the cannon that drove 
 the natives over the Pali, or precipice. That is spelled Pali. 
 Dear me, I '11 stop writing any more history if I have to spell 
 the names. 
 
 Last day of school. I have been at every lesson, and 
 ended in a blaze of glory. Best lecture last. We have an 
 evening lecture and farewell reception, and then for a month's 
 rest. I am so thankful that I could put the thing through 
 and grow stronger all the time. The people are all delighted 
 with the work we have done. Every evening lecture has 
 been crowded, and the whole thing a great success. 
 
 Last night I was in paradise; but I haven't said that 
 before, have I ? A veritable paradise. At six we took a 
 carriage drive along the shore, past the palm groves and the 
 rice-fields, the lengthening shadows of the mountains, and 
 finally came to Mrs. James Castle's, where we were invited 
 to dinner. The house is set far back from the road, sur- 
 rounded by a beautiful lawn and magnificent trees. As we 
 stepped out upon the piazza., such a sight as burst upon our 
 enraptured eyes! The house is literally upon the edge of 
 the ocean, which stretches, with never an island, clear to the 
 horizon. To the right the shore gently curves a matter of 
 thirteen miles or more, ending in a high range of mountains, 
 the shore fringed with royal and cocoanut palms that in the 
 lower stretches stand out against the sky. Behind the far- 
 thest range the sun was just setting; great white, fleecy 
 clouds were piled high in the sky over our heads, all ready to 
 catch the golden glow. The rim of the mountain was deep 
 purple and the shadows and mists violet. Punch Bowl, a 
 cinder cone, took greenish-grey shadows against the darker 
 range back of it. The sea was a brilliant sapphire, golden 
 where the clouds were reflected ; the sky, that wonderful blue 
 that you see only in atmospheres as absolutely pure as in these 
 islands. A wide veranda passes clear around the house, with 
 cane chairs and lounges with cushions everywhere, and 
 great palms and statues against the pillars. Back of this 
 was an immense room furnished in the French style, beau-
 
 84 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 tiful furniture, every piece a gem; desk, rosewood inlaid 
 with ivory, seats built in, and inviting cushions. Books, 
 rare china, fine paintings all about, but I got out to the view 
 as soon as possible. I watched the sun set, and about half 
 past seven two Chinese servants brought out the table almost 
 ready for dinner. It was beautiful. Six silver candlesticks, 
 a bank of roses, the glass Venetian, with Venetian pitchers, 
 for the eight courses, besides coffee and mint. 
 
 The company was distinguished. Murat Halstead, the 
 newspaper correspondent, Minister Thurston and his wife, 
 and Mrs. Carter, a very lovely woman, whose husband 
 was killed in the last rebellion. 
 
 Murat Halstead is a most interesting man, quite old, 
 very quaint in his style, full of reminiscences. Thurston 
 is a man you will hear from young, active, a good talker, 
 with every statistic of this island at ready command. 
 
 Last, but not least, the host and hostess were charming. 
 Mr. Castle is a sugar planter, and his wife a very attractive 
 woman. She was dressed in white satin, a directoire, and 
 looked as if she had just stepped out of a picture. 
 
 Think what it must be to live where one can in a second 
 step into all that glory of ocean and land! Of all the pict- 
 ures, that is the most beautiful, and I am going to see it 
 again I am blest above women. 
 
 Friday I gave my last reading, in the evening. Satur- 
 day A. M. at half-past nine we took the car to the depot, 
 met a party of twenty-five people, and started on our journey 
 upon the only steam railway on the island. It has been 
 built only a few months, in the interest of the sugar planta- 
 tions, and runs about two-thirds around the island. It 
 connects with Pearl Harbor, a beautiful inlet that is to be 
 dredged and will be a great shipping port for rice, sugar, 
 and fruit. 
 
 The sugar plantations are perfectly immense. We saw 
 great fields of cane growing; there are large sugar manu- 
 facturing plants, and row after row of cottages for the China- 
 men and Japanese that work on the plantations.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 85 
 
 We saw the natives planting rice, ankle-deep in water, 
 a bunch of plants in one hand, and root by root they stuck 
 the single shoot into the mud. The rice-fields are a suc- 
 cession of plots of ground separated by grassy ridges, one 
 below the other, so that the water can run from rice-patch 
 to rice-patch. These fields are an exquisite green, and from 
 the mountains, as you look down upon them, are beautiful 
 white sand beaches, with black lava rocks thrust out into 
 the sea. We drove past the tall, gaunt cliffs, where hardly 
 a green thing was to be seen, just high sand dunes; along 
 rocky beaches, high above the ocean, where the water had 
 carved the lava into all sorts of fantastic shapes, until at last 
 we reached the end of the road. There we found carriages 
 waiting us, and drove until luncheon was ready, which we 
 had in a box-car with long seats on either side, a splendid 
 lunch, and then we spread out along the beach, hunting 
 shells, sea-urchins, and crabs until it was time to go home. 
 
 It was a distinguished company, Professors galore. 
 Among them the U. S. Geologist, on his way to the Philip- 
 pines, and Professor Becker, a very interesting man. 
 
 To-day we went up to lunch with Professor and Mrs. 
 Mead. They are up in the valley just above us, a view of 
 sea and mountain and cloud that would do your heart good. 
 You can't imagine the beauty of this island. I so long to 
 be well and strong, and to climb and walk, and walk and 
 climb, until I have made its beauty a part of my very being. 
 
 Mrs. Mead was very kind to me, and I had a good rest 
 on a great roomy lounge in the corner where out of a large 
 window I could see the hills across the valley. Presi- 
 dent and Mrs. Dole, Dr. and Mrs. Emerson, and several 
 others were there. After lunch a lot of people came in. 
 
 To-morrow is the first day of August. We have thirty 
 lovely days left, and then that ocean trip. What a summer 
 I have had, and only think I am growing stronger all the 
 time! 
 
 Yesterday noon I went over to the Kamehameha School 
 to lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, who have charge
 
 86 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 of the boys' school. We enjoyed our lunch and had a nice 
 talk, then went up to the Bishop Museum, a fine stone build- 
 ing on the grounds. 
 
 Its foundation and success is due to a large estate left by 
 Mr. Bishop in memory of his native wife, one of the royal 
 family and a very cultured and beautiful woman; and the 
 devotion of its curator, Mr. Brigham, who has travelled all 
 about the world, studying museums, and is a most persistent 
 student and collector. Each group is arranged in alcoves 
 and can be studied carefully. It is wonderful the fineness 
 of carving and delicacy of design on the part of men who are 
 regarded as the lowest of savages. The cannibals did the 
 best work of them all. Their tools are of the rudest descrip- 
 tion, but the result is a work of art, fine in design and chaste 
 in coloring. I saw a disk of tortoise-shell mounted on a 
 disk of ivory (to be worn as a head ornament) that wasn't 
 any thicker than paper (the tortoise-shell, I mean) and was 
 as delicate as lace, it was so finely cut. The white ivory 
 showing through the dark of the tortoise made it look like 
 a beautiful piece of inlaid work. 
 
 A steamer goes to-morrow. Will write on the trip I am 
 to take to-day. With ever and ever so much love to my 
 dear ones. 
 
 August 3. 
 
 A new letter begun. Will you ever be able to read all 
 I send you ? 
 
 To-day has been a lazy day. We are taking a day off. 
 Yesterday, after sending your letter, I began packing a valise 
 for the south-west island I have forgotten its name. We 
 got ready, drove to the steamer, and then found that the 
 "Philadelphia" would arrive the next day. As we did not 
 wish to lose the annexation ceremonies, we drove back and 
 unpacked again. 
 
 We had an invitation to dinner at Mrs. Carter's, so I 
 telephoned her that I had changed my plans. We dressed 
 and drove out to Aikiki. This is the same beautiful suburb 
 of which I wrote you, and Mrs. Carter's house is next Mrs.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 87 
 
 Castle's, the lady who had the Greek veranda. Mrs. 
 Carter's is slightly back from the ocean; the whole side of 
 the house can be opened by lifting slatted sections that, when 
 raised, serve as a cover. The lawn is beautifully kept, and 
 shaded by the algaroba tree, which droops softly, giving 
 glimpses of the ocean as you sit on the lawn in the great wil- 
 low chair filled with soft cushions. The house is admirable. 
 There is a beautiful piano, books, cushioned seats, exquisite 
 embroideries everything so sweet and inviting. Mrs. 
 Carter is charming, full of life, and a lovely mother. She 
 has two children, a boy and a girl. There were four little 
 tables on the lawn, and we had our dinner there. The moon 
 rose over great Diamond Head; the sun went down in a 
 bank of clouds; there was a lunar rainbow, a thing I had 
 never seen before. We got home about eleven, and slept all 
 night long. Even after such a day I am not very tired, but, 
 as I say, Father and I are resting and getting our letters off. 
 Did you ever see a lunar rainbow ? It arched across the sky 
 in the regulation manner, and the colors, though faint, were 
 very distinct. It is a rare sight, and I think we were very 
 fortunate. 
 
 This morning about eleven the "Philadelphia" was 
 signalled, and so of course we went down to see her come 
 in. The wharf was crowded with people; the carriages 
 lined the sides of the street; the guns were booming, and 
 the band on the tug playing national airs. The great mon- 
 ster slowly swung to her moorings, splash ! went her anchor, 
 and then a salute of seven guns. Everybody is waiting 
 anxiously to hear what news she brought, and Father and I 
 are going down by and by to see whether the war is over 
 or not. 
 
 It 's the funniest thing about the children. I see any quan- 
 tity of things for Katherine, but for poor little Francis and 
 Dorothy I can't see a thing that is suitable. I do wish they 
 would hurry up and grow, and get some sense, and then I'd 
 have some in regard to them. The trouble is, everything 
 goes into their mouths. 
 
 I am keeping house. It isn 't much trouble, for a China-
 
 88 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 man is perfection when you understand him and he you. 
 He just gets through his work, and it is well done, too. 
 I'd give anything to have one in the house at home. They 
 are splendid workers and fine cooks. 
 
 Yesterday we went down to the Chinese quarter, and 
 spent an hour, just looking around. We found several 
 things a basket or two ; but the best was an old carved 
 soapstone vase perfectly charming in color, for which I paid 
 only seventy-five cents. It was a great find, and will be 
 perfectly lovely in the library. 
 
 We came home, dressed, had dinner, and in the evening 
 Mrs. Dillingham, Judge Frear, Mrs. Carter, and Mr. Lowrie, 
 her cousin, came. Mrs. Dillingham brought over her col- 
 lection of paintings of native fish, for us to see, a hundred 
 or more. After we had looked them over, I read for an 
 hour from Sidney Lanier, "The Marshes of Glynn," "Owl 
 against Robin," "The Song of the Chattahoochee," and 
 "Field Notes" from Sill. It was a lovely evening, take it 
 altogether. 
 
 Warm and beautiful this morning. The birds are chat- 
 tering, the hibiscus full of red blossoms, and, as I look across, 
 the stately palm trees are slowly waving in the breeze. The 
 algaroba trees stand out against the deep blue sky, and the 
 monkey-pod tree shines and glistens against the white of the 
 Spreckels grand mansion opposite. Father has gone down 
 town, and I am writing before I dress to go to lunch with 
 President and Mrs. Dole. 
 
 We fear we shall not see the flag raised, after all. This 
 morning it was stated that the celebration would not take 
 place until Friday, and on Friday we must go to Hawaii, if 
 we go at all. Too bad, for it is to be a great affair, and we 
 have lost the trip to an island already. 
 
 Yesterday at nine we started for the Pali again for an 
 all-day trip. The scenery was grander even than the other 
 day, when it was clear sunshine. The clouds and mists 
 rolling in and breaking over the numerous peaks made beauty
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 89 
 
 and constant change. The rain clouds drop in sheets way 
 over the ocean and down to the valleys. It was a novel 
 sensation to see driving rain on the hillsides on each side of 
 us and to be in the middle perfectly dry. But it wasn't so 
 nice when we reached the narrow place in the valley where 
 they both came together, driving from either side. We went 
 clear over the mountain, down the valley, to visit a sugar 
 plantation, one of the oldest in the island. The manager 
 was away, but his book-keeper took us all over the factory, 
 explaining the process of sugar making. We then went 
 out on the coral reef, had a fine lunch, and inspected Mr. 
 Fisher's bachelor quarters, then went up to the manager's 
 house to see his garden and some photos, then over the 
 mountain and home. 
 
 The scenery is particularly fine on that side of the island, 
 and the color divine, as we looked across the bay to the great 
 cinder heaps, piled so picturesquely around the arm of the 
 bay a peninsula that curves out into the sapphire blue of 
 the great ocean. These cinder heaps have no verdure what- 
 ever, and are broken and ridged all along the sides and the 
 top. They are a piney grey that changes to blue and violet 
 in the shadows, and stand out against the blue of the sky and 
 ocean in bold relief. How I wish every day of my life that 
 Nellie were here to see this wealth of color 1 - I never wanted 
 to paint so in my life as since I have been here. 
 
 Father has decided what to get for Francis, a complete 
 suit of a baby Chinaman. Won't he look cunning? I 
 never saw anything funnier than the little Chinese as they 
 toddle about the street. I ordered a kimona for Katherine 
 yesterday, and am trying to find one small enough for Doro- 
 thy, but haven't succeeded yet. A kimona is the dress of a 
 little Jap. The people put them on in the morning and at 
 night, over their night-dresses as a sort of dressing sack. It is 
 great fun getting together things for the school cabinet. I 
 have added some pillows, straw hats of the Hawaiians and 
 the Chinese; their funny sandals, and some lovely baskets. 
 
 I am about ready to go home. There is too much to see. 
 The longer you stay, the more places you have to go to, and
 
 90 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 each lovelier than the preceding. The Cook tourist plan is 
 the best. You don't stay long enough to find out what you 
 have missed, and so go away convinced you have seen every- 
 thing worth seeing. Great is Cook! 
 
 The sea was divine. Full tide, every color imaginable. 
 The reef about a quarter of a mile out makes the most fas- 
 cinating line of breakers; as they curled up, sometimes 
 they were pure jade green; while above, the wind blew the 
 white tops in glistening spray far along over the water. 
 The far sea was a deep sapphire; just inside, a line of deep 
 purple; inside that, green, yellow, brown, pink, and, in cer- 
 tain shallow places, pure opal glints the whole being 
 indescribable. No one, unless he sees it, has or can have 
 any idea of the beauty of these islands, the perfection of color. 
 
 The Doles' house is an ideal house for the seashore. 
 It has one immense room, forty by fifty, with sides that pull 
 up so that two sides of the room can be out-of-doors. At 
 one end of the room is an immense window, and before it 
 tall palms, and ferns of all descriptions hanging from the 
 roof. In one corner a great wide lounge, covered with 
 Turkish striped curtains, and the corner draped with cur- 
 tains of the same description. The whole room is of reddish 
 wood, with the beams all inside and in sight. A blue- 
 covered sideboard fills one corner, willow chairs everywhere, 
 small and large tables, books, cushions, and long Jap chairs 
 that you can lie full length hi and watch the waves beat 
 against the shore just below. 
 
 In addition to this huge room, there are three bedrooms 
 and a kitchen; also a dressing-room or two. There is a 
 stable, and fine trees, algaroba, cocoanut palms, and iron- 
 wood. The rest is sand, white and fascinating. The 
 whole is situated right under Diamond Head, which rises 
 abruptly at the back, with only a road between. On the 
 ocean side you can see nothing but the ocean. 
 
 Too hot to sleep about the hottest day I have felt yet. 
 For a wonder, we haven't had a shower to-day, usually an 
 hourly occurrence.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 91 
 
 Yesterday afternoon we had a good long ride. Went 
 up over Telegraph Hill and down to the other side of the 
 island. We came to a lovely sandy beach, covered with 
 shells and sea-moss. How the children would have enjoyed 
 it! We drove along the hard sand for a couple of miles, 
 then struck the main road, and home. 
 
 We had the girls and the two Smith brothers over to 
 dinner, and with callers had a very pleasant evening. 
 
 To-morrow at one we start for a most interesting trip. 
 Mr. Dillingham is to take us for a tour of the island. We 
 drive over the Pali, down the other side to Mr. Judd's, 
 where we stay all night. The next morning to a big plan- 
 tation for lunch, from there to Walter Dillingham's ranch 
 for the night, and come home on the railroad the next 
 morning. 
 
 Mrs. Judd is the niece of the Attorney- General, and has 
 a lovely place way down on the shore. 
 
 After this trip we can be sure we have seen the island 
 here pretty thoroughly. 
 
 I must finish up this letter, for I believe there is a steamer 
 going to-day. Think of the letters I have written you! 
 The next time I go to a foreign clime, I'll take my family 
 along. 
 
 Flag Day is surely Friday. Saturday we start for 
 Hawaii and the volcano. Too bad that it isn't in action, isn't 
 it ? But we shall see the big crater, the twisted and broken 
 lava, and the wonderful ferns tree ferns galore. I shall 
 have lots to tell you in my next. 
 
 Honolulu, Aug. 5, 1898. 
 
 I wish you and Father could see this place. The scenery 
 is perfectly beautiful. The islands have a color peculiar 
 to themselves, and, fortunately, they have an artist. There 
 is a Howard Hitchcock, who is a wonderful colorist, and 
 who has exhibited in Paris and Boston, that lives here 
 and has painted many beautiful scenes. At the Bishop 
 Museum, which strives to preserve everything pertaining to
 
 92 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 the islands, they have several fine pictures of the volcanoes 
 painted by him. He finds ready sale for his pictures, and 
 charges prices. I would so like something of his, but a 
 mere sketch of his costs a cool fifty and I cannot afford it. 
 
 The wealth of color here would make an artist's fortune. 
 These islands will be visited before long by painters. Just 
 fancy a tree almost as big as the elms on the Boston Com- 
 mon completely covered with golden flowers, hanging 
 like huge clusters of wistaria from every part of the tree. 
 They call it the golden shower, and it is rightly named. 
 Then, too, the Ponciana regia is a gorgeous tree. It 
 spreads out in great flat branches, something like an um- 
 brella tree; it is of enormous width; and then bears a great 
 cluster of somewhat flat blossoms the most gorgeous flame 
 color I have ever seen. Pure carmine and scarlet, if that 
 combination can appeal to your artist's soul, for the flowers 
 have all the vividness of the scarlet and the richness of 
 the carmine. It fairly glows. 
 
 The hibiscus grows in hedges, and is aflame; the 
 alamander is that vine that bears a yellow flower something 
 like a trumpet flower Mr. Jackson had it in the greenhouse, 
 only here it runs riot over the very house-tops. The houses, 
 with but few exceptions, are one-story, with a veranda, 
 or "lania," at the front, and with nothing but a slatted 
 door like a blind. The furnishing is simple willow 
 furniture, but, as a rule, very artistic. They take a great 
 deal of pride in the lawns; keep them green and well- cut, 
 with here and there great clumps of trees or ornamental 
 shrubs. The avenue of palms is a great feature in the 
 more pretentious places, and is a great addition to the land- 
 scape. 
 
 I go as often as I can to the stores Japanese and 
 Chinese. I am picking up an odd bit here and an odd bit 
 there for the house. I have had a number of fans given 
 me, and think I shall start a fan collection. 
 
 Yesterday I was at the Honolulu market. It is a huge, 
 open place, with Chinese principally as venders. I wouldn't 
 eat some of the fishes; it would seem as if I were chewing
 
 PORTRAIT OF MRS. PARKER AT 30 YEARS
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 93 
 
 paint, they are such gorgeous reds, greens, blues, and pur- 
 ples. I saw one fish with first a stripe of pure green, 
 then one of white, then a blue, and then a white followed 
 by a purple, and all in perfect harmony. No parrot was 
 ever more gorgeous. There were a half-dozen equally 
 startling, and the Chinamen had them put side by side, a 
 perfect rainbow of color. Their lobsters are perfectly 
 lovely, a greeny, yellowy effect, decidedly aesthetic. I 
 would like, if he would keep, to hang one up, or rather a 
 dozen, in a string beside my looking-glass for a color effect. 
 Why not? Color is color, even in a lobster. I insist he 
 is decidedly decorative, and would be recognized as such 
 by Morris & Co. 
 
 Frank went to the Queen's reception this A. M. I 
 was not able to go, and was very sorry, as it was a great 
 sight. There was the most profound reverence on the part 
 of the people; they knelt and kissed her hand, and every- 
 body was in tears. She was surrounded by her ladies in 
 waiting; a row of natives, in full Prince Albert costumes 
 and silk hats, stood from gate to door, and a member of 
 her court chanted the royal eulogy, a sort of wail, that was 
 very touching, together with the tears and the sad faces. 
 The Hawaiians are a fine people, gracious in manner, kind, 
 and of splendid development. There is a very friendly feeling 
 between most of the whites and the Hawaiians, a great 
 contrast to the relations between the Southerner and the 
 negro. I hope President McKinley will be wise in his gen- 
 eration, and send the right man here. There will be bad 
 feeling if a very prudent man isn't chosen to be at the head 
 of affairs. 
 
 Be sure you all mail letters to meet me at Vancouver. 
 We sail the thirty-first of August, and, of course, I shall be 
 wild for news that is only seven days old. Just fancy! 
 Edna's letter, which I got Monday, was written the seventh, 
 about three weeks old. I feel far away from my kith and kin. 
 
 We had a lovely ride yesterday over the Pali. For a 
 wonder, it didn't rain. It was a gorgeous day, and we saw
 
 94 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 the mountains under a totally different aspect. Mr. Dil- 
 lingham came for us in a wagonette, full of good things to 
 eat and cushions to make us comfortable. We had ginger 
 ale on ice and grapes, cold and delicious. The ride was a 
 delight. There were only four of us, Mr. D., Miss Allen, 
 Father, and I. We stopped at Mr. Damon's, where they 
 had pineapples and lemonade and cake out on the lawn. 
 They had heard we were coming, and were watching for 
 us. From there, ten miles to the Swanzis' home, it was 
 a delight. Close to the shoie with the mountains darkling 
 above us, a perfect ride. We arrived at six-fifteen. There 
 were about ten of us at dinner; then a jolly evening, and to 
 bed. The old Judd place, where we are staying, is one of 
 the oldest on the island. They own over a thousand acres. 
 The scenery is magnificent. The mountains rise straight up 
 above the house; the lawn slopes down to the road, about 
 a quarter of a mile, and the place is full of magnificent trees, 
 the tallest I have ever seen on the island. They are as big 
 as our elms on the Common, and you can't imagine how 
 lovely they are, a group of fifteen or more, with cocoanuts 
 off to the left, going straight up into the blue. 
 
 No time to finish this letter. Too muchee goodee time. 
 We left Mrs. S.'s about eleven, had a delicious lunch, which 
 she put up for us and which we ate beside the ocean. The 
 whole day was a succession of beautiful views, both of 
 ocean and mountains, for we kept close to the ocean all 
 the way. We stopped and picked up shells at various 
 points all along the trip, and after a delightful cloud effect, 
 and a narrow escape of a shower, arrived at half past five 
 at a sugar plantation, where we spent the night. Mr. 
 Ward's wife was away, but he made us comfortable. We 
 had a two-room cottage all to ourselves and a delicious 
 bath of hot water. I tell you the men on these sugar plan- 
 tations live well, and their servants are perfection. 
 
 We made an early start, seven-thirty, and got to Wal- 
 ter Dillingham's ranch at one o'clock. We found twenty 
 Japs waiting to lift the carriage over a break in the road.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 95 
 
 It was fun to climb down the rocks and go along the beach 
 while it was going on. At the place where we stopped we 
 had beer and sandwiches, saw an explosion of thirty- five 
 blasts the railroad men were making, went up to a native 
 place and got four shell belts, which are made there, and 
 then on to the ranch. 
 
 Walter D., only about twenty-three, is managing an 
 immense cattle ranch, and doing it finely. He served an 
 excellent lunch, and after we saw the fruit, stock, and chick- 
 ens, likewise his charming rooms, we were driven to the 
 cars, and here we are. We ran down a freight-car, and 
 are detained, and so I am improving the time. 
 
 On the trip I was fortunate enough to get a tapa beater, 
 a stone axe, fan, shell leis, a calabash, stone lamp, and one 
 of their stone dishes, which they use for a sort of tenpin 
 game. All of these things are very rare, and we consider 
 ourselves fortunate to get hold of them. 
 
 How I wish we had Mabel and her camera along! She 
 would have gone wild over the scenery. It is so beautiful. 
 
 Mr. Dillingham has been the most charming of hosts. 
 Everything possible has been done for our comfort, and 
 we have had even luxuries on the trip. Miss Allen and 
 myself wore bicycle suits, and have taken solid comfort. 
 
 The trip has done me a world of good. I am as brown 
 as a berry and look so well. You can't imagine how happy 
 I am to feel that I am really getting well and strong again. 
 Strange to say, I have stood the trip better even than Miss 
 Allen. We have been over the ground where Mr. Dilling- 
 ham has just started a big sugar plantation. He is the pro- 
 moter of the railroad, and instrumental in the formation of 
 what is known as the Ewa Sugar Plantation. The new 
 plantation stock is just put on the market, three millions, 
 and you may know people's confidence in him, for in five 
 days one-half of it has been taken. He is a power, and it 
 is delightful to hear him tell the steps that led up to his in- 
 vestments and the manner in which he has fairly pushed 
 people into the development of the island. 
 
 We have a private car, and our team is on board; so
 
 96 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 you can see we are travelling in great style, despite our 
 bicycle suits. 
 
 To-morrow is flag raising. I do not believe I shall see 
 much of it, as this accident will delay us, and we have to 
 be packed and start on our volcano trip Saturday at eleven. 
 
 "Off agin; on agin; gone agin. Flanigin." 
 
 We got home about eight. Thanks to the accident, found 
 "Ah Jam," our own Celestial, in a boiling rage, but managed 
 to get something to eat, nevertheless. We distress his orderly 
 soul to such an extent that I expect he will give thanks at his 
 joss-house for our departure. 
 
 This morning at eleven we started for the Government 
 building. Ceremonies were at high noon. We had tickets 
 to the first balcony, and, as they were in the front row of seats, 
 had a splendid view of all the exercises. The official stand 
 was built directly in front of the main entrance, just under 
 the balcony. The Hawaiian Guards were drawn up on 
 either side; the U. S. troops way down to the front entrance, a 
 solid column of men, twenty-five in a row. They fired a 
 salute to the flag so soon to come down after the delivery of 
 papers to President Dole and a short speech by Minister 
 Cooper. Then played the Hawaiian national tune, "Hawaii 
 Ponoi," and the flag came slowly down. It was as still as 
 death, and tears stood in the eyes of nearly every one present. 
 A salute was fired, the Star Spangled Banner played by the 
 band, and then the Stars and Stripes were slowly hoisted 
 upon the four sides of the building. A cheer went up, but 
 was quickly hushed, for every one respects the feelings of 
 the natives, and tried not to show too much feeling. The 
 whole scene was most dignified and impressive. I am glad 
 that I was in it. This republic will mean much to me, and 
 if I were younger and didn't have any grandchildren I should, 
 I think, settle here. It is God's country, if ever there was one. 
 
 This afternoon has been a hard one packing. I have 
 to provide for our trip, arrange so I won't have to unpack 
 on my return, and also provide for steamer travel and our 
 trip over the mountains as well. What a month is before me !
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 97 
 
 I shall be literally crammed with scenery fancy a volcano 
 and the Canadian Pacific, all in one month ! My next letter 
 will start from Vancouver, and will be an account of the 
 volcano. 
 
 Won't you be thankful when these long letters cease? 
 You must be all worn out, and will rejoice when I return to 
 my native land and a typewriter. By the way, before I 
 close, I must tell you a little adventure I had this afternoon. 
 Everything was over the bed, and I went to pick up a grass- 
 hopper and throw him out of the window. It didn't feel 
 just right, so I dropped him, and, as he straightened out 
 into a combination of a grasshopper and dragon-fly without 
 wings, I called Miss Lawrence. She called out, " Don't 
 touch it! It's a scorpion!" So you see I've seen one, and a 
 lively one, too, for the way he ran around with his business 
 end in air after we put a glass over him was a caution. 
 
 Hilo, August 14, 
 We started bright and early on Saturday A. M. Many 
 friends came down to the boat to see us off, and literally 
 covered us with leis. I had a white carnation, two red 
 carnations, a white and red carnation, a yellow and white, 
 one of the royal yellow, and a long green one of fragrant 
 leaves I have forgotten its name. The reporter of the 
 " Inter-Ocean" took a snap-shot at us. There was a party 
 of students from Kamehameha School, and they sang in 
 Hawaiian as the boat pulled out. It was great fun, for the 
 wharf was crowded and everybody was cheering and waving. 
 It was a glorious steam the first day, clear and bright, in sight 
 of islands all day long, and I wasn't sick. Didn't sleep 
 very well, for they tramped up and down all night, after the 
 fashion of steamer tourists ; and the boat rolled and pitched 
 past all reason. 
 
 Volcano House, August 15, 1898. 
 
 Here we are again! Beautiful morning, clear as a bell, 
 and the great lava plain stretching out before me, and the 
 smoke from the volcano rising like a cloud of incense from 
 the centre. A real volcano, even if it is half dead.
 
 98 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 We had a lovely room at the Hilo House, a nice bath, 
 but nothing to eat. Started early in the morning, in a wagon- 
 ette, Miss Camp, Mr. Pond, Miss Allen, Father, and I. I rode 
 on the front seat and looked. Such a landscape I never saw ! 
 The island is a high plateau, hardly eroded at all. Coming 
 up over the ascent, the rise of the beautiful flat road, as 
 black as coal, was so gradual as hardly to be noticeable. 
 Ferns of every description lined the road ; tree ferns, climb- 
 ing ferns running even to the tops of the trees, and the beau- 
 tiful screw palm, a sort of palm with clusters of spiked 
 leaves, here and there and everywhere. Down in the hol- 
 lows, where there was a little more water, were great clusters 
 of the wild banana. The trailing ground-pine was every- 
 where, growing to the height of two and three feet. The 
 road has been built only a few years, and it was interesting to 
 study the cuttings in the road, the little lava caves, made by 
 the cooling of the upper crust, the deposits of ashes, and the 
 ah-ah (broken lava). Coming up, within seven miles of the 
 volcano, we were hailed all along the road ; one lady brought 
 out a great bunch of calla lilies, twenty-five in the bunch. 
 They blossom all the year around, and grow like weeds. At 
 Mrs. Snow's they brought us a pan of water lemons, and 
 Father a great bouquet of calla lilies and ferns, the rest of 
 us small bouquets of roses, heliotrope, and ferns. Next Mrs. 
 Townsend was waiting, and we stopped to call upon her and 
 her brother, the artist, Howard Hitchcock. We saw his 
 pictures, and had a delightful chat with him. When we 
 went away, Mrs. Townsend picked me a great bunch of pink 
 begonia and another of heliotrope. Just fancy a bush of 
 heliotrope as big as a lilac bush, and crowded with blossoms ! 
 I never saw such flowers and such color. A hydrangea not 
 a foot high had fifteen big clusters on it. It looked exactly as 
 if some one had picked a great bouquet and left it on the 
 ground. 
 
 Soon we reached the Volcano House. It stands about 
 two hundred and fifty feet above the old bed of the volcano, 
 a steep, precipitous wall, covered with ferns, berry bushes, 
 and low trees. At the very foot, and stretching for miles,
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 99 
 
 you see a black mass of lava, broken, piled every which way, 
 corrugated, with great seams and cracks running in every 
 direction. In the very centre you see a thick cloud of smoke, 
 while thin, wavering lines of vapor are here and there running 
 along the crevices. The big smoke indicates the crater, while 
 the thin lines show that there is still fire beneath, even close 
 by the house. The crater is more than six miles long and 
 about five wide; the deep hole in the very centre is five 
 hundred feet deep, with a great crack or crevice, out of which 
 the smoke pours, the whole bowl being filled with it. Every 
 once and awhile the wind whisks the vapor away, and you 
 see the bottom, all covered with rough rocks, and the huge 
 crevice out of which the vapor rolls continually. No one 
 can go down into the crater, because of the sulphurous 
 fumes. It is awful when the wind blows it up into your 
 face, for we are standing five hundred feet above. 
 
 To get to the central hole from the Volcano House is 
 quite a ride. You go zigzagging down the cliff two hundred 
 and fifty feet, then on to the bed of lava, which is the most 
 confused and broken up mass of slag that ever could be 
 imagined. 
 
 It is black, a steely black, except in the cracks ; there the 
 sulphur and other deposits have colored it yellow, red, white, 
 and all shades of purple. In spots you see great patches of 
 yellow, and find thick incrustations of sulphur. But the 
 lava ! Imagine a great mass of tar poured down and twisted 
 into every imaginable shape, big billows, rope twists, great 
 swirls, and then cooling and breaking unevenly, and you have 
 the surface of what must have been little short of hell itself 
 when it was one red-hot mass. 
 
 The lava field to-day is as bare as your hand, save here 
 and there a fern. The last great flow was in '94, but did not 
 reach far. Think of the infinite patience of Nature. The 
 lava will decay, lichen will creep over it, the mosses and the 
 ferns follow, then the wild shrubs, and the trees ; silently and 
 steadily, soil will be preparing; the stream will begin to 
 trickle down, eroding the lava more and more, and in a thou- 
 sand years, perhaps, a great coffee and sugar plantation
 
 ioo FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 with busy laborers hard at work will cover what was once a 
 boiling, dashing sea of fire. "O God, a thousand years in 
 Thy sight are but as yesterday." 
 
 August 17, 1898. 
 
 It is raining and misty and the air is full of moisture. 
 Everything we put on here is wet, and it is a wonder that 
 everybody doesn 't get his death of cold. 
 
 Yesterday afternoon we went over to the sulphur holes 
 and were nearly stifled. They are interesting, but not so 
 much so as the Yellowstone; there are no formations here. 
 In the evening, we had singing. I recited, and Professor 
 Ingals gave us a tame bear and monkey and hand organ 
 exhibition. I wish oh, how I wish you were all here! 
 
 Hilo. 
 
 Got down about one P. M. A ride of thirty-one miles. 
 We stay here to-night and leave at eight to-morrow on the 
 boat. Hilo is a town of gardens. It is very hot, and rains 
 almost continuously; so the trees are very large and the 
 flowers very beautiful. I shall hope to get a look at it after 
 a while, but at present I am resting. Fortunately, the road 
 from the volcano down is a Government one, and very good, 
 indeed. It is made of lava, covered with black sand, which 
 packs down hard as a floor. 
 
 The children and Mrs. Townsend were out with flowers 
 for us as we passed, and I also saw Mr. Hitchcock for a few 
 moments. I am going to have one of his marines, much to 
 my delight, a picture of Diamond Head, where we have 
 passed so many pleasant hours. 
 
 Wailua, Maui Islands, 
 
 August 20, 1898. 
 
 We started at eight o'clock Thursday A. M. for Maui. 
 The night before we sailed we went for a drive to Rain- 
 bow Falls, a beautiful fall over a cave, and later to pick 
 out some photographs. Mr. Hitchcock has the most beau- 
 tiful pictures I have ever seen; they are wonderful works
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 101 
 
 of art. I bought several photographs, and when you come 
 on you shall see some of the beautiful scenes. I was so 
 glad to get them. 
 
 We landed at two o'clock in the morning. There wasn't 
 any excitement at all. For a wonder it was perfectly smooth, 
 the most unheard of thing in the world; usually, the boat 
 pitches and tosses, and you are just grabbed and gotten on 
 shore anyway and anyhow. We took carriages and drove 
 seven miles, got to bed about five, slept until seven, and up 
 to breakfast at eight. We have a very good hotel here, kept 
 by a German; he is also a butcher, a happy combination, 
 for I got my first beefsteak on the island here. The meat 
 is something dreadful in Honolulu, and I do not wonder, 
 for most of it is shipped from the other islands, and the manner 
 of shipping is the worst I have ever seen. There are no docks 
 and no wharves on the island of Maui, and all freight is car- 
 ried in great wide flat boats, armed by natives who form the 
 crew. 
 
 The cattle are lassoed around the horns by a man on horse- 
 back, who then dashes into the water, dragging the poor cow 
 after him. He carries the end of the rope to the boat, and the 
 men pull the animal up close and fasten the rope around 
 some pins in the side. This brings the animal's head 
 close up to the boat, with the neck stretched in the most 
 painful manner, the nose up in the air, half the time bleed- 
 ing, the piteous, wide-open eyes telling how the creature 
 suffers as she turns and twists and tries to get away. About 
 eight cattle are lashed to each boat, which is then pulled 
 to the side of the steamer, a matter of a half-mile. Strug- 
 gling and kicking, the poor beasts are brought to the side ; 
 a sort of cradle is passed under their bodies, and they 
 are swung over the side to the deck, thrown down, the 
 harness pulled out, and then. a native twists their tails until 
 they struggle to their feet and are dragged to the side, tied 
 tight to the railing, to suffer in seasick misery for another day 
 and night. Talk about cruelty to animals! I never saw 
 anything worse in my life. It is a disgrace to the steamboat 
 company that they permit such a thing. I tell you under
 
 102 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 the new order of things that won't long continue. What 
 won 't men do for money ? 
 
 Maunaolu Seminary, 
 
 August 22, 1898. 
 
 We had a fine time at Wailua, and, best of all, something 
 good to eat. We had to pay for it, but sometimes we have 
 to pay and get nothing. After breakfast on Friday we started 
 for lao Valley, one of the most lovely on the island. It is 
 rather narrow, and the road runs along the side high above 
 the brawling stream filled with rocks, almost a N. H. stream, 
 except that instead of granite boulders there were only lava 
 rocks, black and brown. We drove as far as Miss Nape's, 
 one of the Hawaiian pupils in the Institute. We stopped 
 at her house, left the carriage, and went the rest of the way 
 on horses. My dear, it would curdle your blood to see the 
 road and what I went over and through that day. When I 
 return, I shall ride anything from a tandem to Tom's most 
 spirited steed. The road wound up an almost perpendicular 
 hill, the trail so washed out that there was nothing but rocks 
 left; over boulders two feet high; along the very edge of a 
 precipice sheer down two hundred and fifty feet; through 
 three streams, one quite wide and full of moss-covered stones. 
 The view was glorious (Father got off his horse to see it better, 
 he said), great hills on either side, five and six thousand feet 
 high; great barren rocks with needle-like pinnacles, and 
 flying buttresses of smaller hills stretching down into the 
 valley. We were on a high tableland, in the centre a grassy 
 plateau, and under the great cocoa trees we ate our lunch. 
 
 Miss Nape came as our guide, and told us the legends 
 and stories of the valley. She went down the gorge and 
 picked red roses and ferns, and showed me how to braid 
 a fern lei (wreath). We had a very jolly time, and about 
 five started for the town. I won't say anything about the 
 return, which was ten times worse than the ascent. Father 
 got off, but I stuck to the animal, and arrived at the bottom 
 safely. The view looking down the valley out upon the 
 sea was the most exquisite I have seen ye,t. The soil of
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 103 
 
 Maui is perfectly red, and, as we looked out from between 
 our two great dark green barriers, the landscape lay glow- 
 ing in the sunlight, the blue of the sea, the green of the 
 cane-fields, white sand heaps, red barren fields, and the dark 
 green of the hills all combined in one mosaic of glowing 
 color. I never understood the term " jewelled landscape" 
 before; it was a gem indeed. How I wish you all could 
 see it! I can't half enjoy it for wanting you all to share it. 
 
 Saturday I lay low all the afternoon, and read a novel. 
 Judge Kalna, a native gentleman of culture and means, 
 invited us to lunch. He has a beautiful place, filled with 
 old Hawaiian furniture, great palm trees, and open lanias, 
 where we took our lunch. We each had yellow plumaria 
 wreaths, or leis, beautifully made. We had poi served in 
 wooden bowls, fine fish, cocoanut water iced, strawberries, 
 green cocoanuts in short, a characteristic native lunch, beau- 
 tifully served. Father went with Miss Judd, sister of the 
 former chamberlain to the King, to see some wonderful 
 tapa and the Gilbert Island natives, who weave mats. She 
 sent me one, a beauty, which I suppose you will want upon 
 my return, but which it is needless to say you -won't get. 
 
 I forgot to tell you that at Miss Nape's I was presented 
 with a lovely Hawaiian mat, made out of the pandanus. 
 I shall have to have a Hawaiian corner in the house, I am 
 having so many beautiful things given me. 
 
 Then a scramble for the train, and in the most primitive 
 of cars we rode ten miles to Paia, where a wagonette was 
 awaiting us for a drive of eight miles to this lovely school, 
 where we are to be guests for a few days. 
 
 Mauna Loa is a beautiful mountain. It slopes gradually, 
 and still is so steep that the horses had to walk nearly every 
 step of the way up to the Seminary. It was a very dusty 
 ride; we were covered thick with the red soil. The view 
 of the two bays below, one on either side of the island, was 
 very beautiful, as were the cloud effects and the grand old 
 mountains we were climbing. 
 
 We received a very warm welcome from Mrs. Watson 
 and Miss Alexander, who are in charge here. We have
 
 104 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 pleasant rooms opening out upon a porch covered with 
 passion flower vines in bloom, and everything is done to 
 make us comfortable. 
 
 This is a school for native girls. They have about 
 seventy when the school is in session. Mrs. Watson has 
 just been showing me some beautiful work that they do 
 hats, mats, straw for bonnets, drawn work, crochet, hem- 
 stitching, bead and seed work of various kinds. In addition 
 to this, they learn all kinds of housework and lessons besides. 
 They also raise turkeys and chickens and have a garden. 
 The tuition is only fifty dollars a year, so much is given 
 in the way of scholarships, etc. 
 
 I have secured quite a number of things here for the 
 museum, specimens of the braids they make, and some 
 mats. Miss Alexander gave me a beautiful piece of tapa, 
 yellow; it is a very old piece, so I am exceedingly fortunate 
 to get it. The native things are becoming very scarce, and 
 one can hardly get a thing for love or money. 
 
 Father and a party of fourteen started for the volcano 
 yesterday (to-day is Tuesday), and so I am alone. Mr. 
 Dickey, a brother of Mrs. Wallace, has gone with them. 
 Father was very fortunate, for Mr. Dickey has been to the 
 volcano forty times. The ride was so long that I did not 
 dare attempt it. Mr. Baldwin, a sugar planter here, gave 
 Father his mule to ride, and the keys to his summer house 
 at Olinda, just half-way up the mountain-side. They are 
 to stay there to-night and come down in the morning. Peo- 
 ple are so nice here. In the mean time, I read, rest, and 
 talk with the teachers, who are a very delightful company 
 of women. 
 
 Expect Father and the rest this morning. Had a tele- 
 phone from Olinda, saying that they had a magnificent time. 
 You should have seen Father mounted on his mule. He 
 looked like Sancho Panza. They had to carry provisions 
 on pack-mules, their blankets behind them, done up in oil- 
 cloth for fear of rain. This volcano is a tremendous one; 
 you could put all of New York City into the yawning depth
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 105 
 
 of Haleakala. Isn't it a shame that I can't see it? But 
 to go through rain and shine up a terrific road, and to sleep 
 on the floor of a stone hut all night where there was no fire 
 and it was colder than Greenland, was too much for an 
 invalid, and so I didn't urge the point. 
 
 Hawaiian Hotel, Honolulu. 
 
 "Here we are again!" back in Honolulu, the first step 
 towards a return to my native land not to speak of my 
 children and grandchildren. We were delighted to find a 
 lot of letters awaiting us. It was good to hear from home, 
 I tell you, and the dear ones once more. So my Katrina is 
 walking. Good for her! Won't she run away! If she is 
 anything like her grandma, look for her in Boston; don't 
 spend your time hunting around Brookline. How I long 
 to see her! 
 
 We arrived on the steamer this A. M. It seems good 
 to get back to civilization once more. We have two lovely 
 rooms opening out on a broad piazza, and I expect to do 
 lots of resting for the next three days. 
 
 Father had a most exciting trip up to the volcano (to 
 return to Wednesday), and his various mishaps have been 
 dribbling out all the week. He was soaked to the skin, 
 thrown over his mule's head twice, lost his way once. He 
 has a black-and-blue spot on his hip about ten by twelve, 
 and it is a picture to see him sit down. Luckily, he selected 
 a soft place for his somersault, or he wouldn't be here to 
 tell the tale. One lady fell off her horse, Mr. Pond was 
 thrown, Mr. Dickey got lost in the crater and did not get 
 back to camp until twelve, and one of the horses got loose 
 and strayed away. They all raved over the scenery, the 
 wonders of the volcano, the great cinder piles, the enormous 
 dykes, and the sunrise, so I suppose it paid, in spite of all. 
 
 Thursday A. M. we started down the mountains for our 
 return trip, took the cars to Wailua, were met there by a 
 carriage, and after a pleasant drive of three miles came to 
 a Mr. Kiliacai's, a native teacher, who had invited us there 
 for a night. Mr. K. had a luau, native feast, for us
 
 io6 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 down at the beach, a broad, beautiful sand beach. Most 
 of the party went in bathing, while I sat in a boat on shore 
 and enjoyed the ocean and the sky. They covered hot 
 stones with tea leaves, then two little pigs were filled with 
 hot stones and put on the tea leaves in the pit. Leaves 
 covered them, then came a layer of fish, more tea leaves, 
 hot stones, and the whole covered with seaweeds and left to 
 cook. 
 
 Under a palm leaf canopy was spread a large braided 
 mat, down the centre were tea leaves, arranged in an artis- 
 tic pattern. On this were bread, butter, bananas, watermelon, 
 poi, cheese, and cake. We all squatted on the mat, and 
 the pig and fish were cut up and passed around on plates. 
 We ate poi with our fingers and pig, also. There were 
 native girls who waved the palm over us to keep the flies 
 away, and a group of native boys and girls sang and played 
 the Hawaiian songs and music. 
 
 We found some beautiful shells on the beach, sea-mosses 
 and funny disks sea porcupines, I think; then drove 
 home. In the evening we had more music, ice-cream; and 
 some of the natives danced the Hoola. 
 
 The next A. M., sick as I was, I insisted upon moving 
 on. We had a delightful drive of twenty-five miles from 
 W. to Lahaina. It was along the cliffs, fine road, and the 
 sea dashing against the rocky walls in great waves six feet 
 high. We were on the dry side of the island, and there 
 wasn't a bit of vegetation. Great red, barren rocks inter- 
 spersed with cinders, violet, grey, and red, piled and tumbled 
 together in one awful pile. It looked as if some giant had 
 literally peppered the ground with rocks of every kind 
 and description. 
 
 We stopped in Lahaina with Mr. and Mrs. Abbott, 
 who have charge of a boys' school there. Lahaina is the 
 famous old town of whaling times, and has some of the 
 oldest houses on the islands. There are ruins of adobe 
 houses, and the old missionary places, looking like a bit 
 of New England. Built utterly regardless of the climate, 
 they stand as prim and precise as if in Salem town, and
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 107 
 
 you expect to see Joshua Pryne written over the door. 
 Lahaina is given over to the sugar industry almost entirely, 
 and sugar cane even lined the principal streets, coming 
 down into every vacant lot. 
 
 We had a jolly time with Mrs. Abbott and her brother 
 her husband was away. We left their hospitable door 
 at about five for a drive around town before the steamer 
 arrived. 
 
 Chinese, Japs, Hawaiians, everybody, out of doors, 
 children without end. The Chinese babies are a joy for- 
 ever; they are such excellent imitations of the dolls that 
 I want to buy some and carry them home. I just long to 
 see Francis in his Chinese suit; he will be too cunning! 
 I shall shave his head and leave only a crown piece to make 
 him complete. 
 
 The trees are the largest I have seen here. Great bread- 
 fruit trees and no end of cocoanut palms. At the school 
 they have everything figs, dates, pomegranates, guavas, 
 alligator pears, oranges, pines, and all immense trees. The 
 fruit lies on the ground for the pigs and cattle to eat. I 
 saw a beautiful tamarind tree full of fruit; coffee trees, and 
 sugar cane without end. 
 
 We visited the Gardener Islanders, who live in straw huts, 
 and saw them weaving hats. Called on an old Hawaiian 
 judge, who has one of the loveliest places in town. He 
 gave me an immense calabash in fine condition. 
 
 I added greatly to my collection here of coffee, cane, 
 bamboo cane, fibre from the Gardener Islanders, a polished 
 cocoanut cup, a keyboard of Koa wood, coffee beans, 
 willie-willie beans, an old flint musket of Revolutionary 
 times, and lots of lava specimens. I shall have to charter 
 a steamer to carry away my plunder. 
 
 We left the wharf about nine in the bright moonlight, 
 and rowed to the steamer, which lay, a thing of beauty, 
 about a mile from shore. The electric lights, the cries of 
 the boatmen, the hurry and bustle of seeing that our numer- 
 ous bags were on board, our clean, sweet-smelling berth 
 on deck, the door wide open so I could see the clouds and
 
 io8 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 the ocean, the tinkle of a Hawaiian banjo and blessed 
 sleep until five o'clock, when we landed, drove to the hotel, 
 found our letters. If one could travel without trunks, how 
 happy one could be! 
 
 Did you ever know such devotion? I am sitting up in 
 bed to get this off by the "China," which came in this 
 morning and goes out this afternoon. I did not hear until 
 late last night that she was expected; so when I heard her 
 whistle at four I said, "My dear ones will get the letter 
 quicker," and so here I am, five o'clock in the morning. 
 
 We sail to-morrow, "Miowera," Vancouver; the " China" 
 goes by the way of San Francisco. Had an awfully busy 
 day yesterday and Sunday, too. Am nearly packed for 
 home. Yesterday we drove three hours in the morning, 
 doing our errands, and in the afternoon selected pictures. 
 
 We have a fine selection of photographs, and I can give 
 you quite an idea of the islands from them. 
 
 Things are pouring in for our school collection, and 
 this morning I must go down and superintend getting that 
 ready. It will be a great thing, but I do begrudge the 
 time it will take to see it properly packed. 
 
 Beautiful as this place is, much as I enjoy it, it is too 
 far from you, and my heart stands still as I sometimes think 
 of what might happen. 
 
 Pacific Ocean, September, 1898. 
 
 I have determined to write a letter here. I will not be 
 so lazy. I will do something unusual. 
 
 We are three nights and two days nearer you, my chil- 
 dren, and I begin to dream of home and the babies. As 
 a Boston celebrity once said, I shall say: "Thank God, 
 I am once more on terra cotta." Not that I am seasick, 
 I haven't had even a qualm, but that I am not within 
 telegraphic communication. That has been the worst of 
 the business, that I couldn't reach you or couldn't be reached 
 except by a steamer. 
 
 We had a very busy three days before the steamer 
 started, packing and all, and I was thoroughly worn out.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 109 
 
 We had four large boxes of specimens and things for the 
 school, three trunks and a telescope, not to speak of bags. 
 Then, too, there were good-byes to be said and people to 
 see. 
 
 The boat went out at nine o'clock in the evening, much 
 to our sorrow; but there were a goodly number of our 
 friends down to see us off. 
 
 You should have seen the leis I had fourteen, and 
 they covered me up to my ears. Mr. Dillingham brought 
 two dozen photographs showing the history of annexation, 
 the coming of the troops, and the different ships of the navy. 
 Mrs. Coleman left a lovely mat and a girdle in my state- 
 room (native work). Mr. Miller brought fruits and leis. 
 
 Monday P. M. 
 
 Dark, cold, dismal. Three days more. How I count 
 the hours as they pass! I can hardly wait until I get all 
 your letters, and know you are safe and well. 
 
 Thursday A. M., Eleven O'clock. 
 
 Man proposes, but the weather disposes. Here we are, 
 sixteen miles from land and a deep fog. We are dead- 
 still, not an engine moving, and no knowing when we shall 
 arrive. I have been in bed the better part of three days 
 with a desperate backache; so life hasn't been wildly excit- 
 ing, to say the least. 
 
 I have about read my eyes out; if it hadn't been for 
 books, I should have given up, for I am looking forward 
 to your dear letters, which I know will await me either at 
 Victoria or Vancouver. 
 
 We shall telegraph as soon as we land, so your minds 
 will be at rest, for I am sure you will be glad to hear of our 
 safe anival, and that we are once more in dear old America. 
 
 The fog is thicker than ever, and the fog whistle blows 
 every five minutes. Victoria fifty miles away, according 
 to the latest reports. 
 
 I see the babies continually. Katherine keeps hopping 
 in, her little curls flying back, and sits on the floor, look-
 
 no FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 ing gravely at me. Francis stares at me from his high-chair 
 at the window, then breaks into a happy chuckle that 
 shakes him all over. Dorothy is eating her din-din, and 
 doubling up her little fists in her cradle. I wish I had all 
 three this blessed minute, and wouldn't I hug them! 
 
 Later Three P. M. 
 
 Fog-horn still blowing. Still becalmed. It begins to 
 look as if we shouldn't get in in time for the train that leaves 
 at one to-morrow. 
 
 Seven O'clock. 
 
 We ought to be landing, and here we are going out to 
 sea, for the captain feels we are too near land for safety. 
 I don't believe we can start before Saturday now, and that 
 means that we can't get home before Thursday, unless 
 by a miracle we make connections at St. Paul. 
 
 Eight O'clock. 
 
 Still foggy; still the fog-horn making night hideous. 
 One of the men said they were becalmed and befogged a 
 week once! "Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!" 
 What to do? 
 
 Friday, Eleven A. M. 
 
 About five this morning the fog lifted, and we got into 
 the strait; now we are slowly forging ahead. The fog- 
 horn is still sending out its unearthly moan over the white 
 and desolate waters. 
 
 The birds are coming thick around the vessel, a dozen 
 different kinds, coming by the hundreds. There was a kind 
 of tern about the ship last night, so tame that several were 
 caught by the passengers. Everybody is cross and every- 
 body is cold, so you can imagine it's a gloomy boat. 
 
 I'll never go so far from you all again, never. 
 
 Four O'clock. 
 
 Not into Victoria even yet, and nobody knows when 
 we shall get in.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS in 
 
 7P.M. 
 
 At Victoria at last! Father has gone to telegraph, so 
 I know that you will know we are safe and sound, before 
 many hours. I am so glad that I begin to feel better 
 already. 
 
 On the Train, Saturday P. M. 
 
 All my blue devils have vanished. There isn't a hap- 
 pier woman in the country. "Richard is himself again. " 
 
 Such a batch of letters as I found awaiting me. My 
 soul has found peace, for I know it is well with you. 
 
 We are rushing along through the dear old scenes so 
 familiar to me. Goldenrod, birches, elms, and spruces. 
 I'm in my " ain countree" once more. I could kiss the 
 clover, it is so a part of my life. Palms are beautiful, 
 Bougainvillea gorgeous, but there is nothing like the things 
 that have been a part of one's life for so long. I feel the 
 beauty of other lands. I love my own. 
 
 "Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, 
 Who never to himself hath said, 
 This is my own, my native land! " 
 
 It is a perfect fall day. The air is cool and filled with 
 a hazy smoke that shrouds everything as in mist. There 
 must be great forest fires in the mountains. Just now the 
 sun sets behind the hills, a great fiery globe, and outlined 
 there against a wonderful yellow-grey sky. It was a beau- 
 tiful effect, one that I have never seen outside of Japanese 
 pictures. The water is a pure blue-green, and the moun- 
 tains are standing like ghost ridges, fainter and fainter as 
 they fade away and become a part of the almost universal 
 grey. The purple asters are beginning to come out; the 
 fireweed covers all the clearing with patches of silvery 
 white ; and in the lowlands the maples flare like fire. 
 
 We haven't left the Sound yet, and we see great brown 
 marshes with patches of cat-tails and sluggish, brackish 
 streams running through them. Then we come close to a 
 hill, "rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun," with yellow ferns 
 and birches climbing up its rocky sides, a flaming bit of
 
 ii2 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 color. Now the woods close about us, and we see into 
 their very heart, dim, cool vistas, with here and there a 
 flaming signal telling that the sun stirs and quickens even 
 their peaceful serenity. I can never forgive the stumps 
 and blackened trunks that stand gaunt and forbidding 
 against the sky. They are hideous. The briars refuse to 
 cover them, and even the friendly bushes seem to shrink 
 from them. They are like the sins of youth, once so beau- 
 tiful, now so uncompromisingly hateful. They are like 
 sins, too, in that it takes so long for them to decay and be 
 swept away; wind and weather cannot uproot or disinte- 
 grate them; like King Lear's sorrow, they will not down; 
 in the fairest landscape of the soul they are a blot forever. 
 
 Sunday A. M. 
 
 I'll take back what I said about the stumps last night. 
 We passed a great, steep hill, where every trunk and every 
 stump was on fire, trailing banners of smoke; and showers of 
 fire scattered from the blazing trunks or shot upward from 
 the immense stumps, spitting fire geysers. It was a grandly 
 beautiful sight, and as we rounded a curve in the moun- 
 tains, and only a red glow was left striving triumphantly 
 over the hill-top, I knew that the purgatorial fire of true 
 penitence would wipe away their gaunt outlines, and out 
 of their ashes, experience, would come that which would 
 strengthen and nourish and quicken the tender growths 
 at their feet. 
 
 My desolate tree trunks are beautiful in the sunlight; 
 it is their life for another's, and " greater love hath no man. " 
 
 We are passing through the Selkirks, slowly crawling 
 up and up; a leaden grey mountain stream passes swiftly 
 and silently below us, a hundred feet or more. The whole 
 sides of the mountains have been swept by fire; the trunks 
 stand thick to soften the outline of their rocky sides. Patches 
 of snow begin to appear on the distant mountain- tops; 
 rocks and rocks and rocks everywhere, the great storehouse 
 for future generations of farmers; they are the mills, the 
 millers, and the wheat, for they patiently grind them-
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 113 
 
 selves, and generously give for others. Isn't that the key- 
 note of all nature? An everlasting gift for the benefit of 
 something else. 
 
 Dearest and best, how I wish you could see these great, 
 silent sun fields, stretches of brownish-white, that lift them- 
 selves above the green of the fir trees that cover the moun- 
 tain-sides. Great solitary peaks that tower into the sky, 
 everlastingly alone, only the open sky above them, neither 
 hearing nor heeding the brawling, restless stream at their 
 feet. 
 
 " 'God's peace is everlasting' 
 Are the dream words of their rest." 
 
 I've seen my first glacier. A circle of grey rocks rising 
 in sharp peaks, bare as your hand, not a trace of verdure. 
 A great lake of snow, and, running out where the 
 peaks come closer together at each end, a river of snow, 
 grey-white, in some places smooth, in others twisted and 
 drifted. A great, desolate, isolated pile that you would 
 never suppose was the source of all the greenness and 
 beauty below. Out of the sides of the glacier are tiny rib- 
 bons of foam that look like silvery threads streaming down 
 the steep declivities. Some of the lateral basins are free 
 of snow, and you realize the grinding force of the ice when 
 you see the great piles of gravel cover the bottom and sides 
 of the fissure. 
 
 Now I have seen the two great agents at work chang- 
 ing the face of the globe. Fire and ice, one building up, 
 one tearing down. 
 
 We have crossed the divide, and the snow peaks I can 
 see at the end of the valley standing like a ghostly barrier; 
 the river, white-grey-green, comes tumbling, dashing, foam- 
 ing, and swirling along its rocky bed. We are out of the 
 interminable snow-sheds that stretched their ugly length 
 along. We are down among the peaceful hills again, the 
 land of the sunny birch trees. 
 
 Tuesday Noon. 
 Whizzing down through North Dakota. Will reach
 
 ii4 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 St. Paul to-night, we hope in time for the night train, but 
 very doubtful. 
 
 I am getting a little tired, and shall be glad to get home. 
 Pilakea, pilakea! I want a bed that doesn't rock. I long 
 for a bath-tub full to the brim of good, hot water. I want 
 a closet in which to hang up my clothes. I believe I have 
 seen enough scenery to last me for a month. 
 
 Out of the Car- window. 
 
 Blue sky, floating grey-white clouds, golden edges, 
 and feathery silver fleckings beneath. Hills, hollowed into 
 ravines, carpeted with green and gilded with trees; great 
 oblong bowls with green pines and russet oaks, full to the 
 brim. 
 
 I like the scars and rifts on these mellow old fields. 
 They laugh and twinkle like the furrows and wrinkles of 
 some friendly old face. 
 
 Brown, purple, and yellow-red and green, with here 
 and there a cotton- field flashing into sight like an untimely 
 frost, the fields stretch out on either hand. 
 
 Little rivulets slipping softly over flat, smooth stones, 
 shelving down the hillside. Every tree has a new fall car- 
 pet. Oak trees furnish russet-brown; maples, red; chest- 
 nuts, yellow. I would like to lie upon them and forget 
 the world. 
 
 The yellow maple leaves are like golden butterflies, 
 fluttering over the twigs and limbs: they are the only thing 
 that is alive and aware; all the rest are ready to sleep. 
 
 The sumac is burning out; in a moment it will be gone; 
 it is a last expiring flame. The evergreens are soberly 
 patient. They know that all this will pass away, and that 
 they alone endure to the end. They bide their time. How 
 defiantly the maples flaunt the crimson! the oaks are sober 
 and subdued out of the sun they are already old, 
 and know their day is over, holding humbly to life, 
 fastening and curling around the twigs and branches as 
 if they already felt the icy blast that would hurl them for- 
 ever away from their airy home, where all the long summer
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 115 
 
 they had revelled in the sunshine and danced in the 
 breeze. 
 
 In the midst of the wood are golden trees, surrounded 
 by flowers concentrated sunshine, glowing and intense. 
 
 It is time to say good-night. The clouds grow dim and 
 purple. Shadows grey and cold gather in the woodland; 
 the breeze comes cool and fresh through the valleys, only 
 the tops of the trees and the distant hills glow in the sun- 
 light. The river is below us in the shadow, a placid grey- 
 green mirror, reflecting the trees on the bank; shadowy 
 and dreamy, it holds them deep in its heart. 
 
 One last glow of light; the world is in shadow, only 
 memories are left. Good-night; no, O my beloved, day 
 will come again, and all the dull and drear will glow with 
 new life you will be with me again and my life will have 
 a new joy and a sure hope. I love you.
 
 MEMORIAL RESOLUTIONS 
 
 THE FORTNIGHTLY CLUB 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Mrs. Frances Parker 
 The Fortnightly Club of Chicago, in common with other 
 literary and educational societies, sustains a great loss. 
 
 Although, in consequence of ill-health, Mrs. Parker has 
 recently been unable to be much with us, her interest 
 in everything pertaining to the society has never nagged. 
 
 As Mrs. Parker belonged with the moderns, it is all the 
 more remarkable that the conspicuous feature of her his- 
 tory should have been her self-effacement in this life-work 
 of her husband. It became her life-work and happy inter- 
 est to supplement and sustain him in his educational 
 endeavors. 
 
 She was a patient worker along broad lines for the com- 
 mon good, and we feel sure that her efforts have lost nothing 
 in efficiency because they were unobtrusive and imper- 
 sonal. 
 
 It seems good to speak of and emphasize the fact that 
 the dear member who has gone did what she could to 
 make life's story fair, as the number of grateful testimo- 
 nials received from pupils all over the country, and from 
 others, old and young, abundantly testify. 
 
 Resolved, That this expression of our deep sense of 
 loss and of our appreciation of her worth be spread upon 
 the records and copies be sent to her husband and children. 
 Signed: ANNIE M. ELA. 
 
 MARY H. WILMARTH. 
 ALICE L. WILLIAMS. 
 
 CHICAGO WOMAN'S CLUB 
 
 Whereas death has removed our former esteemed friend 
 and co-worker in the Department of Education, Mrs. Frances 
 Stuart Parker, it is therefore
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 117 
 
 Resolved, That we recognize the conspicuous position 
 which she occupied in the outposts of all educational and 
 progressive movements, and that we also recognize her liter- 
 ary ability and public spirit. 
 
 Resolved, That we deplore the loss of a friend and sister 
 member a woman of high aims, and one whose influence 
 has always been broad and elevating. 
 
 We request that a copy of these resolutions be forwarded 
 to Colonel Parker, who, like his wife, ever has been in sym- 
 pathy with the work and growth of this Club. 
 
 ELLA R. JACKMAN. 
 E. PARKER. 
 OLIVE WESTON. 
 
 THE CHICAGO POLITICAL EQUALITY LEAGUE 
 The following memorial tribute to Mrs. Parker was 
 given by Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley at the meeting of the 
 League, May 6, 1899, and adopted as an expression of the 
 League's regard : 
 
 "Mrs. Parker was a woman whose pleasing manners and 
 agreeable presence were the signs of a rich and harmonious 
 nature. Her tastes, disposition, and principles combined 
 to impart a moral unity to her character and create a dis- 
 tinct and happy personality. In her chosen life-work as an 
 educator she worked along the lines of true physical devel- 
 opment. She was a teacher of the Delsartean principles, 
 which aim through bodily grace and strength to afford the 
 living spirit within a freer means of expression. Her labors 
 as a teacher were, however, confined to no single branch or 
 department. She was actively interested in the entire work 
 of education, an intelligent and sympathetic co-worker with 
 her husband in his lifelong efforts to secure better methods in 
 the school-room and to enlarge and dignify the teacher's call- 
 ing. Mrs. Parker was a radical thinker, a woman of original, 
 progressive ideas, with the full courage of her convictions, 
 which her talent as a platform speaker enabled her to pre- 
 sent in the most convincing and pleasing way. She was of 
 a gracious and kindly temperament, and found warm friends
 
 n8 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 and admirers wherever she went. Her work among the 
 host of pupils who have been under her charge will bear 
 fruit in a widening power of usefulness and a growing love 
 and esteem. Death, that ends the earthly phase of a life so 
 well lived, brings both a sense of loss and gain, but the gain 
 shall exceed the loss. Whatever the world has once pos- 
 sessed in true inspiration or noble memory it can never really 
 lose. So our friend continues to abide with us as a beauti- 
 ful remembrance, an inspiring example and ideal. She has 
 joined 'the choir invisible,' 
 
 'Whose music is the gladness of the world.' " 
 MEMORIAL MEETING FOR COLONEL PARKER 
 
 At the memorial meeting held for Colonel Parker in the 
 Auditorium April 19, 1902, Mr. Orville T. Bright, Superin- 
 tendent of Cook County Schools, spoke as follows : 
 
 "This brief sketch of Colonel Parker's work in Engle- 
 wood would be incomplete without reference to his home 
 and the beautiful spirit that presided therein. Mrs. Parker 
 was her husband's constant adviser and oftentimes his 
 inspiration in all matters pertaining to his school work. Her 
 unfaltering allegiance and never-failing courage were his 
 strong support. A woman of rare accomplishments, of fine 
 literary and artistic tastes, her home became a centre of 
 attraction for teachers and townspeople of culture and 
 refinement. It was my high privilege to be frequently 
 welcomed as a guest in this home, and to share with a few 
 others each Sunday afternoon during the last few months of 
 Mrs. Parker's life the charm of her conversation, which was 
 unimpaired by physical pain and weakness. She was 
 dominated to the very last by the keenest interest in all that 
 pertained to the new school which was then under considera- 
 tion. And, though she could not live to see her dream ful- 
 filled, the memory of her glorious heroism and devotion will 
 ever be an inspiration to those who shall carry on the work. 
 
 CHICAGO NORMAL SCHOOL 
 
 The members of the Normal Training Class of 1899 wish
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 119 
 
 to express their sincere sympathy for you in your great 
 bereavement. As a slight expression of appreciation of Mrs. 
 Parker's work in connection with the school, they wish to 
 provide a permanent memorial in her honor.* 
 On behalf of the class, 
 
 EVA KENDALL, 
 
 Pres. of Class. 
 
 ILLINOIS ASSOCIATION OF ELOCUTIONISTS 
 
 Since the organization of our Association, in 1892, the 
 silent messenger of death has never laid its hand on any 
 of our members till now. One of our ablest, most beloved, 
 has been taken from us. Mrs. Frank Stuart Parker was 
 made First Vice-President of our Association at the date of 
 its organization. Her naturally high ideals of life, art, and 
 education in its various phases; her early training in the 
 aesthetics of expression; her rich experience as a member 
 of the faculty of the Boston Monroe School of Oratory; 
 her ability and experience in and enthusiasm for organi- 
 zation designed to promote the betterment of society and 
 art all combined to make her one of the ablest and most 
 useful members. Her text-book on expression, together 
 with her other written contributions to art, her lectures all 
 over America, most beautifully and potently emphasize 
 her nobility of life and character, and have left an indelible 
 impression upon the world, and especially upon our Asso- 
 ciation that so deeply mourns her loss. 
 
 Therefore, be it Resolved, That this Association note 
 with deepest sorrow the death of Mrs. Frank Stuart Parker; 
 that we cherish with immortal remembrance her courtesy 
 and hospitality, her inspiring lectures and kindly criticism, 
 her purity and sweetness of life and manner, which so 
 endeared her to us all, and that we extend to her bereaved 
 husband and family our profound sympathy. 
 
 HENRY M. SOPER, Chairman, 
 MARTHA FLEMING, 
 MYRA POLLARD, 
 
 Committee on Resolutions. 
 
 * This memorial was a large picture of Watts' Sir Galahad.
 
 120 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 CHICAGO NORMAL SCHOOL ALUMNI 
 
 We, the Alumni of the Chicago Normal School, wish to 
 express to you our deep sympathy for your irreparable loss 
 in the death of Mrs. Parker, and our appreciation of how 
 much her enthusiasm and steadfastness of purpose have 
 given to the spirit of the school. 
 
 Some of us knew her as a great personal influence for 
 good in our lives, and others as a familiar presence in the 
 school. All of us felt her interest and love behind things, 
 and all have been helped and inspired in our work by the^ 
 great collection of art and literature upon which she spent 
 so much time and loving care. 
 
 With you, we have been glad of her presence ; with many 
 people, we rejoice that she lived. For such lives there is no 
 death. 
 
 We would that our love and sympathy could make your 
 grief even a little less. 
 
 ELSIE WYGANT, 
 MARY HATTENDORF, 
 ELSA MILLER, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 EASTERN BRANCH OF THE COOK COUNTY NORMAL SCHOOL 
 
 ALUMNI 
 
 We wish to express our deep sympathy and heartfelt 
 appreciation of the loss which the school has sustained in the 
 past year through the death of one who combined to a rare 
 degree intellectual brilliancy and womanly tact; who pos- 
 sessed the keen insight and ready sympathy which made her 
 friendship an inspiration to faithfulness, an incitement to 
 courage, and a challenge to strength.
 
 LETTERS OF CONDOLENCE 
 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 My dear Colonel Parker, I write to express my deep 
 sympathy with you in your loss. While I did not know 
 Mrs. Parker well, I knew her well enough to be acquainted 
 with her unflagging courage, her disposition, so full of cheer 
 and hope, and her never-failing interest in all the realities 
 of life. I can imagine what a break in the firm-knit com- 
 panionship of such long years means. Her memory is a 
 deep inspiration to many, who share to some degree in 
 your loss, and it is in this community of loss and hope and 
 love that we must hope to find our strength. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 JOHN DEWEY. 
 
 Brookline, Mass. 
 
 My dear Colonel Parker, The news that Mrs. Parker 
 has passed to the other side was heard with deep regret. 
 I know how much she has been in your life, and how hard 
 it will be for you to go without her. I hope and pray that 
 the help and strength which she has given you may remain, 
 and that you may be enabled to complete and perfect the 
 "ood work which you are doing. True education is eter- 
 nal, and we may be sure that what we accomplish will stand 
 and will be a source of satisfaction through all the future. 
 With kind regards and sincere sympathy for you and 
 the members of your family, who are with you, 
 
 I remain your friend, 
 
 SAMUEL T. BUTTON. 
 
 New York. 
 
 My dear Colonel, God bless you, my dear old friend ! 
 I know it is almost useless to say, "Bear up," but I do say 
 it and know you will struggle with all your might, and you
 
 122 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 will march on in the devotion you have for the great cause 
 of education, in which she was such a coadjutor as no man 
 ever had before. Moved by her spirit, you will labor as 
 you have never hitherto labored in the great cause she dig- 
 nified with her high courage and brave heart throughout a 
 rarely beautiful and useful life. 
 
 Yours sympathetically and faithfully, 
 
 CHAS. H. HAM. 
 
 Winnetka, 111. 
 
 My dear Friend, . . . Hers was a beautiful, 
 valuable life, generously spent for her friends and the grand 
 work of helping to ennoble and enrich our educational system. 
 We all rejoice to have had her beautiful ministry, and are 
 richer to the end of time because she dwelt for a space among 
 us. ... Your friend, 
 
 JESSIE WILLARD BOLTE. 
 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 My dear Colonel Parker, I in common with thousands 
 of teachers in this city and state and country bow my head 
 in sorrow and sympathy at notice of that great silence that 
 has fallen upon your home and life. The long struggle, 
 needing more courage than to face an army with banners, was 
 bravely made, and to-day the weary victor is at rest. 
 
 Most sincerely, 
 
 W. H. CAMPBELL. 
 
 Hinsdale, 111. 
 
 Dear Colonel Parker, . . . When I was a shy 
 and ignorant young girl, she saw that I needed the help 
 she knew so well how to give. She offered it quietly, and 
 she gave me fully and graciously this assistance toward real- 
 izing my best self though it cost her many a leisure hour. 
 Her influence has helped me ever since, though this was many 
 years ago and with the influence lives a tender memory 
 of the giver. . . . Yours, 
 
 BERTHA PAINE.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 123 
 
 Montebello, Charlottesville, Va., 
 
 My dear Colonel Parker, . . . Though I have 
 met Mrs. Parker but once, I have never forgotten her. Her 
 sweet, sympathetic nature, her enthusiasm for progressive 
 efforts, and her remarkable intelligence are still in my 
 memory as I observed them during my short visit to your 
 home. . . . 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 MAXMILIAN P. E. GROTZMAN. 
 
 Pray let me have a word from you in regard to my dear 
 friend. What has happened, what has come to her to end 
 that still so young, so hopeful, and so promising a life? 
 
 She seemed so well when we last saw her, and her last 
 letters to me sounded so joyous, so full of life and pride for 
 you on account of your re-election, and the recognition that 
 had come to you for your services to education, and I already 
 rejoiced at the expectation of meeting her on my intended 
 summer trip West. Louis PRANG. 
 
 I am shocked and deeply grieved at the news of Mrs. 
 Parker's death, which has just reached me, and I hasten to 
 express my affectionate and deep sympathy with you in your 
 irreparable loss. 
 
 Keep up a stout heart, and be of good cheer; the end is 
 not yet. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 
 
 I have just opened the Sunday " Inter-Ocean" of April 2d, 
 in which I find the announcement of the death of your dear 
 wife. 
 
 I have always remembered my brief visit at your home, 
 so many years ago, with a great deal of pleasure. 
 
 Mrs. Parker was a marvel of a woman to meet. Her 
 kind, unobtrusive manner was very attractive. 
 
 We have lost a good worker in the suffrage cause, as 
 weltfas in every reform for the uplifting of humanity. 
 
 SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
 
 124 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 Looking out upon the purpling hills to-day, it comes to 
 me that your dear one has found the only repose that satis- 
 fies the hungry soul, and it makes me glad to feel sure that 
 the activity of her mind and the energy of her zealous spirit 
 have found in the universe infinite subjects of investiga- 
 tion, and answers to every problem that interested and 
 pleased her during the journey to the stars. If we might 
 only lift the veil! CLARA CONWAY. 
 
 Almost irresistibly I take my pen to express to you the 
 exceedingly high esteem in which I held Mrs. Parker, and 
 sincerely regret that the educational world has lost one of 
 the greatest women this country has produced. 
 
 C. S. YOUNG. 
 
 To have known and loved such a dear woman as Mrs. 
 Parker, even from afar, has been a privilege, and those who 
 lived within the charmed circle of her nearer influence can 
 never, while they live, pass beyond its power and abiding 
 presence. 
 
 What a record of years and talents devoted to uplifting, 
 educating, and purifying the world! How her memory will 
 burn brighter, as we all rise to a fuller realization of all to 
 which she aspired and largely accomplished ere she was 
 called away! 
 
 The few hours in which I knew her have given me an 
 inspiration for the rest of my life. 
 
 EMMA L. DILLINGHAM. 
 
 There are many women Mrs. Parker helped who will 
 feel as I do, that a noble and helpful woman has left us for 
 a little while. I did not know until long afterwards how 
 much she had done for me, for all true work that we do 
 for each other is as a seed planted. LAURA STEELE. 
 
 Mrs. Parker's influence upon the thought of the teachers 
 is so potent still, and every room in our school is so eloquent 
 of her helpful spirit, that I can scarcely pursuade myself that 
 I have never met her. ANTOINETTE B. HOLLISTER.
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 125 
 
 Other letters and resolutions were received from the 
 following friends and associations: 
 
 Sarah Hackett Stevenson. E. O. Lyte. 
 
 L. Seeley. Edmund J. James. 
 
 James L. Hughes. Clarence E. Meleney. 
 
 Sadie American. Edgar Burgess. 
 
 Amos L. Kellogg. C. C. Van Liem. 
 
 Lydia Avery Coonley-Ward. Jessie Warder. 
 
 W. E. Pulsifer. W. A. Mclntyre. 
 
 Russell Hinman. Carrie E. Myers. 
 
 Kate S. Kellogg. Carlo tta P. Scobey. 
 
 Nellie Lathrop Helm. Frances Effinger Raymond. 
 
 Elinor O. Westcott. Mrs. J. V. D. Pennypacker. 
 
 H. D. Fulton, Graham Taylor. 
 
 Commander Meade Post. 
 
 George G. Meade Post No. 444. 
 
 Ella F. Young Club. 
 
 George Rowland Club. 
 
 Hilo Teachers' Union. 
 
 Cook County Teachers' Association. 
 
 Faculty of the New Orleans Normal School. 
 
 Englewood Woman's Club. 
 
 Woman's Club of Austin. 
 
 Home Club Fortnightly.
 
 NEWSPAPER EDITORIALS 
 THE WOMAN'S TRIBUNE, Washington, D. C., April 22, 1899 
 
 A woman whom, once having met, you could never forget, 
 and whom, knowing in a capacity which admitted of calling 
 her friend, you would always have a sense of richness added 
 to life, was Frances Stuart Parker. The first time I came 
 within the influence of her gracious presence was hi 1884, 
 when attending a meeting of the A. A. W. in Chicago, and 
 stopping at the hotel where were Colonel Parker and his 
 wife, then recently from Boston. I did not meet them, 
 but saw and heard much of them, and a year or two after- 
 wards found Mrs. Parker active in a suffrage convention 
 at Englewood. It was arranged that I should be her guest 
 that night, and since then my Chicago home, in transit, 
 has been with her. 
 
 Mrs. Parker, who had been, before her marriage, teacher 
 of elocution and Delsarte in the School of Oratory hi Bos- 
 ton, threw herself heartily into the educational work of her 
 husband, Colonel F. W. Parker, in the East in the Martha's 
 Vineyard Summer School, and then in the West, where 
 Colonel Parker has made a distinctive name in the educa- 
 tional world, as writer and as advocate of new methods 
 in education, which were being worked out in the Cook 
 County Normal School. Mrs. Parker has been intimately 
 associated with her husband's work. Whatever she might 
 have been doing in her own special line as a lecturer and 
 writer on dress reform and voice culture, or in the asso- 
 ciations for various lines of woman's work, hi which she 
 was an active and influential member, the unique and pro- 
 gressive work of her husband hi the educational field 
 seemed always nearest her heart. One of the beautiful 
 services she rendered it was to arrange and classify clip- 
 pings and pictures on all subjects that would be likely to 
 interest or instruct the pupils, and these were placed in
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 127 
 
 the Normal School Library for reference. Mrs. Parker has 
 done more to popularize a healthful and artistic style of dress 
 than any other woman. Her book, " Dress and How to Im- 
 prove It," is the standard on this subject. Notwithstand- 
 ing the rich achievements of her life along so many lines, 
 Mrs. Parker was only fifty-one years of age at the time of 
 her death. Before the mysteries of life and eternity, which 
 make it right that she whose earthly existence meant so 
 much to family, friends, and the large circle outside who 
 knew and appreciated her, should pass on thus early from 
 surroundings and companionship which were all that 
 could make a human being happy and useful, we must be 
 dumb and patient. Perhaps it may help us to have faith 
 that it is right and just if we keep in mind the broad scope 
 of life and work, and realize that one may be all the more 
 needed for the larger mission, that can only be performed 
 by the disembodied soul, by reason of the very perfection 
 of life here. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, May, 1899 
 
 After a long illness, heroically borne, Frances Stuart 
 Parker, wife of Colonel Francis W. Parker, has passed away. 
 Even old friends hesitate, at such a time, to give expression to 
 what is in their thoughts. But it is permissible to record 
 here our sense of appreciation of the grave loss which educa- 
 tion has suffered in Mrs. Parker's death. Wise, far-seeing, 
 vigilant, enthusiastic, untiring, Mrs. Parker, both in her own 
 name and as her distinguished husband's helpmate, was a 
 potent force in the struggle for higher ideals in American 
 education and in American life. Her influence and her 
 example are not time's servants. 
 
 THE SCHOOL JOURNAL, April 15, 1899 
 
 In the death of Mrs. Parker, Chicago has lost an excellent 
 teacher and Colonel Parker his mainstay. Ever since their 
 marriage, in 1882, Mrs. Parker's work has been so united with 
 that of her husband that it would be difficult to say what part
 
 128 FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 has been his and what part hers. She has been, moreover, an 
 excellent teacher, and the pupils who owe to her their present 
 success as teachers and elocutionists number many hundreds, 
 and probably several thousands. She has been a powerful 
 factor in interpreting Colonel Parker to the world. Many 
 times in the presence of a class he has attempted to state his 
 ideas when, seeing her shake her head, he felt that he was not 
 always understood, and the statement would be re-made by 
 her, always with clearness and force. 
 
 AMERICAN PRIMARY TEACHER, May, 1899 
 
 The death of Mrs. Frank Stuart Parker, wife of Col. Fran- 
 cis W. Parker, on April 2d, removes from among us a woman 
 widely known and much respected and beloved. Her devo- 
 tion to the Chicago Normal School (formerly Cook County 
 Normal School), her service to the Colonel in all his educa- 
 tional activities, her influence in many lines of philanthropic 
 and educational work, as well as her charming personality, 
 will cause her to be greatly missed. 
 
 HAWAIIAN GAZETTE, April 21, 1899 
 
 Mrs. Frances Stuart Parker will be remembered as hav- 
 ing given a course of lectures at Progress Hall last summer. 
 She made many friends while here, who were shocked to 
 hear the sad news of her death. She was born in Boston, 
 where she became well known through her connection with 
 educational work. She was one of the leading exponents 
 of Delsarte of the country. She possessed a trained and 
 pleasing voice, and was an able lecturer. At the time of her 
 death she was a prominent member of educational societies 
 and women's leagues. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL JOURNAL OF WESTERN CANADA, April, 1899 
 
 There are few teachers in Manitoba to whom the news of 
 the death of Mrs. Frances Stuart Parker will not come as a 
 painful shock. A few of Mrs. Parker's many warm friends 
 in the province were aware that since her visit to Mani-
 
 REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS 129 
 
 toba, during the autumn of 1897, under the auspices of the 
 Provincial Teachers' Association, her health had been some- 
 what uncertain, but none even suspected that her condition 
 was so serious as to betoken a fatal issue. 
 
 Frances Stuart had achieved a national reputation as a 
 teacher in the Boston School of Oratory when, in 1882, she 
 became the wife of the distinguished educationist, Col. 
 Francis W. Parker, who was at that time supervisor of the 
 Boston Schools. It is not enough to say that she has been the 
 devoted helpmate of the most heroic figure in the educational 
 life of this continent. She has followed her chief to the field 
 and has stood by his side in the heat and stress of the battle 
 for educational reform, for sounder methods, for broader 
 sympathy, until in the discussion of the Cook County Nor- 
 mal School and the educational forces that have radiated 
 therefrom we have come to speak of the influence of the 
 Parkers. It is not too much to say that, of all the outside 
 influences which have directed and moulded educational 
 thought in Manitoba, the most potent for good has been the 
 influence of the Parkers. Mrs. Parker's talks on Expression 
 and Child Study are still fresh in the minds of teachers and 
 have exercised an influence for good which cannot be esti- 
 mated. She not only pleaded earnestly and eloquently for 
 the development of that divine instrument, the human voice, 
 but she set before us a well-nigh perfect model. Here was a 
 lesson in which theory and practice were in perfect accord. 
 Her addresses on Child Study have done much to lead 
 teachers to a more loving and sympathetic knowledge of 
 child life. Mrs. Parker was an example of well-poised 
 womanhood the new woman in the highest and best sense, 
 the true teacher, one whose influence shall "roll from soul to 
 soul, and grow forever and forever." 
 
 JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, April 6, 1899 
 
 Mrs. Frank Stuart Parker, wife of Colonel F. W. Parker 
 
 of the Chicago Normal School, died in their home on April i, 
 
 after a painful illness of several weeks. She knew from the 
 
 first that recovery was impossible, that she could not live to
 
 i 3 o FRANCES STUART PARKER 
 
 see the brightness of another summer, and yet she was as 
 cheerful and courageous as in the days of her most exuberant 
 life. She always talked, and insisted that others should talk, 
 as if she were to live for years. She planned for herself 
 and others just as if she were to get up and renew her 
 service to the world. It is needless to say that her husband 
 devoted himself to her with all the enthusiasm of his nature. 
 Her daughters, who are married and living in the East, both 
 went to her and added to the courage and cheer of the home. 
 At last there was a warning of a few hours that the end had 
 come, and then they faced the inevitable, but there was not a 
 flutter of anxiety on her part. It was beautiful recognition 
 of the relation of life to its close. 
 
 WESTERN SCHOOL JOURNAL 
 
 On April i, in Chicago, Frank Stuart, wife of Col. Francis 
 W. Parker of the Chicago Normal School, died, in the fifty- 
 first year of her age. Mrs. Parker was almost as well known 
 as the Colonel himself. She was a brilliant woman, of 
 fascinating personality. Colonel Parker has the sympathy 
 of all his friends, and they are wherever teachers are to be 
 found. 
 
 MANCHESTER DAILY MIRROR, April 3, 1899 
 
 DEATH OF MRS. F. W. PARKER 
 
 Wife of the distinguished educator of Chicago, and well- 
 known in this city 
 
 Mr. John Cayzer, of West Manchester, is in receipt of a 
 telegram from Col. F. W. Parker, of the Chicago Normal 
 School, announcing the death of his wife. Mrs. Parker was 
 well known in this city, where she had frequently visited, 
 and was greatly beloved by all who enjoyed her acquaintance. 
 Her last visit here was about a year ago, on the occasion of her 
 husband's address before the Parker Veteran Club at the 
 high school building. This club is an outgrowth of the 
 Fourth New Hampshire Volunteers, which regiment Col. 
 Parker commanded during the war between the North and 
 South.
 
 C. L. BICKETTB 
 CHICAGO
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBAN* 
 
 B.P2395P1 C001 
 
 FRANCES STUART PARKER; REMINISCENCES AND 
 
 30112025408474