James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

[340] long as I live. I never look at them without thanking God that he gave me, in my childhood, so noble a friend.

At the time of Dr. Hosack's death, which was in Elizabeth's fifteenth year, her term at the Johnstown Academy was drawing to a close. Among the scholars, whether girls or boys, none could recite better, or run faster, than herself; none missed fewer lessons, or frolics; none were oftener at the head of recitations, or mischiefs. If she was detained from the class, the teacher felt the loss of her cheery company; if she was absent from the out-door games, the boys said that half the sport was gone. She who had been the loved companion of a sedate theologian had, at the same time, remained the ringleader of a bevy of mad romps. A schoolhouse is a kingdom; and Elizabeth was a school-house queen.

After graduating at the head of her class, a sudden blow fell upon her heart, and left a grievous wound. She had secretly cherished the hope, that as she had kept ahead of the boys, and thus shown at least her equality with the domineering sex, she would be sent (as Johnstown boys were then usually sent) to Union College at Schenectady.

The thought never occurred to her, that this institution, like most other colleges, was not so wise and liberal as to educate both sexes instead of one.--There will come a time when any institution that proposes to educate the sexes separately, will be voted too ignorant of human nature to be trusted with moulding the minds of the sons and daughters of the republic. To shut girls and boys out of each other's sight during the four most impressible years of life is one of the many conventional interferences with natural law which society unwittingly ordains to its own great harm. It is a happiness to see that most of the new colleges, particularly in the Western States, have been based on a more sensible theory.