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"The best known and best loved woman in Minnesota'
ti-ziioi
MARIA SANFORD
BY
HELEN WHITNEY
Formerly Assistant Professor of Rhetoric
at the University of Minnesota
MINNEAPOLIS
Published by the University of Minnesota
1922
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APRS 1923
DOCUMENTS L>iVio!ON
DEMOCRAT PRINTING COMPANY
MADISON, WISCONSIN
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PREFACE
No other Minnesota woman has been so
widely knoAvn and so nniversally loved as Ma-
ria Sanford. Her life was filled with self sacri-
ficing labor for others, and with earnest en-
deavor to forward every good cause. She was
constantly conminnicating, through her o^vn
vigorous personality, a zealous enthusiasm for
education, for character-building, and for civic
righteousness to all young people with whom
she came in contact.
A great throng of those whom she has inspired
will welcome a biography that will pass on to
other young people a portion of her glowing
spirit.
This story of her life has been written by one
who Avas closely associated with Miss Sanford in
the State University. The autobiography which
was already begun, has been incorporated and
much material has been furnished by friends and
relatives.
The Regents of the University have encour-
aged the publication by personal assistance and
have permitted the volume to be issued by the
University Press.
iii
iv MARIA SANFORD
The Alumni Association has appointed a spe-
cial committee to further its wide distribution
and sale. All proceeds are to be used for a Me-
morial for Miss Sanford.
The plan for the autobiography as well
as the biography was conceived and has been
successfully carried through by Mrs. David F.
Simpson. Special thanks for accumulating ma-
terial are due to Mrs.. Simpson, and Mrs. Fred-
erick Kenaston of Minneapolis, to Mrs. Fred-
eric Tryon of "Washington, to Miss Helen
Wilder of Philadelphia, to the Minneapolis Jour-
nal for permission to reprint the copyrighted
autobiography and to Mr. G. A. Hubner for per-
mission to use the copyrighted frontispiece.
Assistance in revision and correction of manu-
script has been rendered by Miss Elizabeth
Lynskey and Mrs. Simpson. To all of these as
well as to the author it has been a labor of love.
Alumni Committee.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. The Unfinished Autobiography . 1
II. A Connecticut Yankee . . .44
III. The Teacher 68
IV. The Minnesota Pioneer . . 110
y. Christian's P>urden . . . 132
VI. The Neighbor . . . .156
VII. The End of the Teacher's Eoad . 184
VIII. *' General Helping" . . .218
IX. Harvest . . . . . . 260
X. The Farewell . . . .301
MARIA SANFORD
CHAPTER I
THE UNFINISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY
I come of good, strong New England stock.
My ancestors were among the first settlers of
the town where I was born, Saybrook, Connecti-
cut, called later, since the town was divided,
Old Saybrook. Saybrook was named for Lord
Seal and Lord Brooke of the London Company,
who were sending over settlers to the New
World. Lord Fenwick came with the first set-
tlers to Saybrook, bringing his young bride,
who, after about a year, succumbed to the hard-
ships of the new country. Her Elizabethan
tomb, which her stricken husband brought over
and set up over her grave beside the fort, was
one of the most marked antiquities of old Con-
necticut, but it had to give way to the necessi-
ties of commerce. When the Valley road was
built it needed a terminal outside the bar at the
2 MARIA SANFORD
mouth of the Connecticut River, and Lady
Fenwick 's tomb and her remains were removed
to the cemetery. My cousin, a physician, super-
intended the removal, and he found her skele-
ton entire except the flange of one toe. And the
inner coil of her chestnut hair was still lustrous
after about two hundred years in the grave.
As Saybrook was situated at the mouth of the
Connecticut River, the settlers thought it would
be a city, and laid out the main street sixteen
rods wide and two miles long, with a double
row of elms shading the walk on each side of
the roadway; a magnificent street still. So
bravely our Puritan ancestors built for the
future.
Yale College was first located at Saybrook,
under the name of the Connecticut Colleague
School. But in 1716 it had been found that the
bar at the mouth of the river would hinder
commerce; and New Haven, with its unob-
structed harbor, was outgrowing Saybrook, and
the college was removed to that city and named
Yale College for a benevolent donor, Elihu Yale.
My father 's mother was Elizabeth Chapman.
Her great grandfather, George Chapman,
erected, about 1650, the first frame house in
Saybrook. This structure, about twenty feet
square, was so well built that it formed still the
MARIA SANFORD 3
snmmer kitchen of the house in which I lived
from my sixth to my eleventh year. George
Chapman bonght his wife, Annie Bliss, from
off ship when the London Company **sent over
chaste young women to be wives of the plant-
ers '', who paid the passage of the girls and
married them. This Annie Bliss became the
mother of a notable race. Those whom I re-
member were tall, straight, fine looking, intel-
ligent men with more of individuality and
initiative than are given to most people. I was
told, as a child, that my ancestors in two lands,
the Chapmans on my father's side and the
Clarks on my mother's for three generations
went up to the general court (legislature) to-
gether when the people sent their best men.
My mother 's father, Ruf us Clark, enlisted in
the Revolutionary army at seventeen years of
age, and this gives me my membership in the
D. A. R. He became a man much trusted and
esteemed, was made deacon of the church and
justice of the peace, and, I might say,, general
counsellor. He Avas a great reader and had
quite a library of his own, in those days when
the Bible and the almanac were considered suf-
ficient for everybody but the minister and the
doctor; and he read all the books he could
borrow.
4 MAEIA SANFORD
I had leaves of an old account book of my
grandfather's, and this is the way they read:
One gallon of rum, one gallon of molasses, one
pound of ginger, one gallon of rum, five pounds
of sugar, one pound of saleratus, one gallon of
rum. About every third item a gallon of rum,
and this a deacon and a justice! Everybody
drank in those days, and treated the help in the
field and the minister when he came to call. My
grandfather read of the temperance movement
in England before it was started in this country ;
and convinced of its importance, banished
liquor from his household and took coffee in-
stead to his laborers in the field. When some
years after, the temperance movement was
started in Connecticut, the workers, who were
told of his practice, came to get my grandfather
to sign the pledge. He told them he was heartily
in sympathy with temperance and practiced
it, but did not like to sign a pledge. They were
disappointed, of course. The next day he was
down street, and the temperance workers were
laboring mth a man who was ruining himself
and his family by drink.
**I think jest ez Deacon Clark does", he
said, **I ken leave off, but I don't want to
sign.''
* 'Where's your paper?" asked my grand-
MARIA SANFORD 5
father, and gave them his name. He didn't
want such hangers-on to his skirts.
My mother's mother, Lydia Bushnell Clark,
was a very handsome woman, with beantifnl
soft brown hair, sparkling bright eyes, clear
complexion and full red lips. Her husband,
my grandfather, was almost as homely as his
wife was handsome. My mother told me that
when she was a girl of sixteen, the youngest of
five children, an old suitor of my grandmother,
who had been twenty-five years out West (east-
ern Ohio) came to visit his old friends. She
said that she was aware, as she was sitting by
the fireplace, that he was looking at her very
earnestly. Finally he said: ^^You don't look
much like your mother." She said she knew
how to take the compliment. If she didn't
** handsome much" somebody had bequeathed
her a wonderful voice and a sweetness of dis-
position far richer than mere beauty. She sang
soprano, and her voice Avas full, rich and clear.
She would take the high tenor and carry it with
perfect ease and accuracy. But it was not so
much the range of her voice as its quality, what
the elocutionists call its ^Uimbre", that was
remarkable. It just took hold of your heart-
strings.
My uncle, her brother, William Clark, was
6 MARIA SANFORD
six years her elder. He was a school teacher,
and I used to tell my little companions with
pride that I had an nncle who had taught school
forty years. I little thought that I myself
should teach fifty-four years. In those early
days teachers had to be severe to be successful,
and my uncle was a very successful teacher.
My mother went to school to him, and he was
so much afraid of being considered partial to
her that he was so strict (nobody could be
severe with her), that she called him ^^Mr.
Clark '^ at home. He told me, after mother's
death, that when they used to go out into com-
pany together he was very proud of her, for
everybody loved her so. But she always obeyed
him as if he had been her father. Once they
were invited to a party given to the congress-
man of that district, who lived in an adjoining
town. There was a popular song at that time
which my mother did not like; she thought it
silly. She was urged to sing it at the party,
but declined. When she Avas still urged. Uncle
William said, *SSing it, Mary'', and she did.
When she was through, the congressman said,
much to her delight, *^I have heard better songs,
but never a sweeter singer."
My father, Henry E. Sanford, was like the
Chapmans, tall and straight, six feet in his
MARIA SANFOED 7
stockings. His characteristics were strength,
courage, energy and skill, and a good cheer
which no misfortune could crush. He had won-
derfully intelligent hands. He never wasted a
minute. He learned the shoemaker 's trade and
worked at it, giving his wages to his father, as
was customary, until he was twenty-one. Then
he worked for himself, and by the time he was
twenty-five he had laid up enough to warrant
his marrying. And he won a prize. The mar-
riage was an ideal one. My mother and father
were so proud of each other, so ambitious, and
looked to the future with such confidence and
hope ! I love to imagine those early prosperous
years, when my father bought and paid for the
comfort of a little house, which my mother's
neatness and good taste, and their mutual affec-
tion, made a beautiful home.
But their love was not dependent on good for-
tune. In the darken years that followed, when
loss and hardship came, there was never a flaw
in their trust and devotion. Until the final
parting, my mother always looked to my father
for courage and wise direction, and he to her
for inspiration and that graciousness wliich
a strong man gains from a loving woman of
refinement and delicacy. There was never any
bickering between them. I remember all too
8 MARIA SANFOED
well their very humble surroundings, their
hard toil, their careful economy, but I do not
remember — and I certainly should had it oc-
curred, for I remember that when my father
put up a stove-pipe we children kept out of his
way — I do not remember a single sharp or un-
kind word, but always the gentle tone and the
glance of love and sympathy.
I recall that when I was a very little girl
father came home one night from his work. I
do not know why this incident should be
stamped on my memory except
''Set by some mordant of fancy
It insists on its right to be there.''
My father leaned over my mother's shoulders
and said tenderly, **Been ironing today,
MaryT' (ironing was always hard for her)
and kissed her. And the radiant smile that
lighted up her face obliterated all signs of care
and weariness.
My father never felt it a hardship to go out
of his way to do the little delicate things that
pleased mother. His hours of labor were long
and hard, but he never sat down to the table in
his shirtsleeves, and when he was running a
farm, I think he would have gone without a
meal any time rather than sit doAvn to the table
MARIA SANFORD 9
without changing to his slippers, because he
knew mother noticed and disliked the odors of
the barnyard and stable.
They each loved to do what the other liked;
and the same spirit extended to us children
and to neighbors and friends. My father and
mother were both deeply reli,gious but never
bigoted. Father was superintendent of the
Sunday school and leader of the choir and al-
ways the minister's right hand man.
My parents were poor, but there Avas no sor-
didness in their poverty. I never heard my
father plead poverty when the contribution box
was going round. There was a bright, genial
hospitality in their home. My mother was an
excellent cook and could make the plainest and
simplest food attractive, and kinsfolk and
strangers loved to visit them; and distin-
guished guests, usually lovers of music, who
sometimes came, not only said but showed that
they wanted to come again.
Is it strange that having come from such a
home, I believe with almost the enthusiasm of a
zealot in the happiness and beauty of the
homes of the poor? Those so-called homes
where squalor and vice and disease and degra-
dation thrive, mil, I believe, be abolished by
social progress; but in the homes of self-re-
10 MARIA SANFORD
specting, hard working poverty, there may and
should be as much refinement and courtesy and
tender love as in a palace. I believe we should
bring up our boys and girls to expect to make
such homes, and to prepare for them by tender
care of their mothers and sisters at home, and
to save the time and money they spend at the
movies in preparing themselves to enjoy and
make others enjoy music and books and pic-
tures that give delight to the home. And I
want our young couples to feel that a single
room, with a bed in the wall, and a kitchen in
a closet, and a bathtub under the table, a place
from which they are obliged to go out every
night for entertainment, is not the nucleus of
a true home; that the plainest house in the
suburbs, where there can be trees and flowers
and children, where there will be burdens and
duties and simple hospitality, is far better for
the present and infinitely superior for the fu-
ture happy home. But I am getting ahead of
and away from my story.
Some time in the first seven years of his
married life, my father went to Georgia and
set up a shoe store, and he was successful.
But the years of 1836 and 1837 were not only
years of financial panic, but also of anti-slav-
ery agitation and of great prejudice in the
MARIA SANFORD 11
South against Northern people. Somebody
sent my father anti-slavery newspapers. He
never saw them. They were taken out of his
office and distributed among his customers.
All at once his business fell flat. He could sell
nothing, he could collect nothing, for even in
the best days Southerners, at that time, paid
their bills only once a year. He came home
to do the best he could by his business cred-
itors. He sold the place he and my mother
loved so well, moved his family into part of
his father's house, and when he had thus
raised all that he could, there still remained a
debt of a thousand dollars, for which he gave
his note; and of which, I rejoice to say, he
paid every cent. It was a heavy burden for
a man mth only his hands and courage, and
with a delicate wife and little children to care
for, but he bore it with unwavering cheerful-
ness. He might have taken advantage of the
bankrupt law, but he said proudly : * * No man
shall ever look me in the face and say I
wronged him out of a penny." My mother
was in perfect accord with this course, but it
was very hard on her. My grandfather's
house was not fitted for two families. My
father's mother had died years before; and
the stepmother who took her place, though
12 MARIA SANFORD
kindly at heart, was a little sharp with her
tongue, and mother was always sensitive lest
she should infringe on others' rights and
privileges. And with little children it was
not always easy to be sure. It was just three
months before my birth that, when the last
things were placed on the load, my mother
bade farewell to the home of so much happi-
ness, and with her two little girls walked up
to my grandfather's house. A prominent
man of the town met her on the way. He said
to his wife when he ,got home, ^*I hope I may
never see another woman look as Mary Clark
looked today," calling her by her maiden
name, which they all knew and loved.
In my young womanhood I was subject to
deep depression, and my mother said to me:
**It is no wonder to me, when I recall how I
suffered in the months before you were born."
Fortunately for me my father's spirit
triumphed in me. I outlived the days of dark-
ness and have been able, until bowed by the
weight of years, like my father to square my
shoulders to heavy burdens, and not only
stand erect but keep a cheerful spirit. But I
was doomed in the beginning to add to my
parents' trouble. I was born under a cold
star; in Connecticut, in December, the eigh-
MARIA SANFORD 13
teenth or nineteenth. It was near midnight,
and nobody ever knew whether before or after.
I have chosen to celebrate the latter day. The
old fashioned houses were built with great
beams resting for support on the chimney. It
was so cold that in the effort to keep my
mother's room warm by a fire in the fireplace
they set the house on fire, and when I was a
week old, mother and child had to be removed.
But this was not the worst. When I was
six weeks old my mother was taken with fever,
and I had to be weaned. I would have no
substitute for the mother's breast and opened
my mouth and screamed. By all reports, my
voice was strong even then. There were no
trained nurses in those days, and even if there
had been my parents could not have afforded
one, and I wore out the strength and patience
of aunts and cousins who waited from day to
day to see me starve to death. At last an old
woman back in the woods consented to take
the baby who wouldn't eat and would cry all
the time. When they were trying to feed me
with a spoon I snatched the cup and drank —
a rather novel proceeding for a baby less than
two months old — ^but I have always liked to
have a way of my own. After a week or two,
my grandfather, in going to the woods, went
14 MARIA SANFORD
out of his way to see the baby and came home
sayin,g, ^^I do believe that child is determined
to live." I nsed to tell my father and mother
laughingly that they could have spared me
then, for their hands were full. * I surely
ought to do some good in the world after such
a disastrous beginning.
As soon as my father could settle up his
business affairs, he went to Meriden, Con-
necticut, to work for his brother, who had an
auger factory there. My father took charge
of a room. The men worked ten hours, and
father had to open up and get things ready
before the men came, and straighten out and
close up after they had gone; so that he had
nearly eleven hours. And he received a dol-
lar and a half a day. I was six months old
when father moved his family to Meriden, a dis-
tance of about forty miles. He hired a little
house. It was dirty and dilapidated, but
there was a beautiful big willow tree in front
of it. Father fixed up the house, and mother
made it neat, and they were very happy in it.
There my first memories began.
I remember how the doctor took my head
between his knees and pulled out a back tooth
with turnkeys. The idea of putting that sav-
age instrument into the mouth of a little child!
MARIA SANFORD 15
And they had no way of dulling the pain ex-
cept with sugar plums that the teacher who
came in gave me if I would stop crying. My
father had gone to choir rehearsal when the
pain in my tooth became unendurable ; and my
sister, ten years old, walked in the dark the
long two miles and a half after the doctor. I
am very sure she was neither reluctant nor
afraid. Perhaps the experiences of those
days gave children stronger nerves.
What wonderful changes have taken place in
the compass of my memory! I remember our
first stove. It was called the ^^ Franklin'' stove
after Benjamin Franklin, who invented it. It
was really a castiron fireplace, set out in the
room and connected to the chimney by a stove -
pipe; but it had the great advantage that we
could get all around it. I remember our first
cookstove. It was a curious affair; just a
firebox with a hearth and covers and the flue
that was supported by the back leg, and an oven
in the stovepipe. But, crude as it was, it was
a great improvement; for before that time the
cooking had been done in the fireplace by means
of a crane and pothooks supporting the kettles
over the fire. It was back-breaking work, and
it is not strange that so many men buried two
wives and sometimes more. The baking was
16 MARIA SANFORD
done in the big brick oven, and for this it was
necessary to have dry wood. Green wood would
sizzle and at last burn on the hearth, but for the
oven the wood must be dry ; and it was counted
one of the evidences of a man 's provident kind-
ness that he kept on hand a good supply of dry
wood for the oven. As we used to sing in our
childish plays,
*'You must prove constant and prove good,
And keep your old woman in oven wood."
By the way, this form of expression, **my man''
and ^^my woman" and often ^'my old woman"
was common in those days when husband and
wife spoke of each other. It was remarked by
the neighbors that my mother always said ' ' Mr.
Sanford" when she spoke of father, and we
were a little proud, as children, that we never
said or heard at home, in speaking of the neigh-
bors, ' ' do^\ai to Spencer 's " or ^ ' Ingham 's ' ', but
always down to ' ' Mr. Spencer 's " or '' Mr. Ing-
ham 's", and even ^^doAvn to Mr. Sheffield's
store." We never, as children, called our
cousins who were young men and women simply
Azuba, Rufus, and Lydia Ann, but always
Cousin Azuba, Cousin Rufus, and Cousin Lydia
Ann.
I dwelt upon this because some children to-
MAKIA SANFORD 17
day seem to think it smart to be careless of the
handles of their words. "When they come to be
men and women they will be very glad if they
have early learned deference for their elders,
both in speech and thought. The time spent in
learning habits of courtesy yields big interest,
not only in the esteem of others, but in the de-
light in one's own soul.
Going back to the stoves — ^When I was young
there was no fire in the churches. Women car-
ried little foot stoves : a copper box about ei^ght
or ten inches square, cased in wood, in which
they carried a pan of hot coals; and at noon
they went to the near neighbors' and replen-
ished it. The children wriggled and kept them-
selves warm, and the men — they were accus-
tomed to cold. Wlien some of the neighboring
parishes had installed stoves the matter was
brought up in the church in Saybrook. A few
of the older people were **dead sot" against
it; but the young people prevailed, and the
stoves were put in. It was in December; but
the first Sunday after the stoves had been in-
stalled was warm and pleasant, and so they
built no fire, a fact that was not known by the
congregation generally. In the middle of the
sermon one of the bitter opponents of the stove
got up and walked out. He Avas followed by a
2-
18 MARIA SANFOED
second and then by a third. ^^Conldn't stand
the heat of them stoves", they said. *'Knew I
couldn't stand the heat of them stoves.'' The
ridicule when they came to find out that no fire
had been built silenced opposition forever.
Our houses were lighted, when I was young,
with tallow dips and sometimes by whaleoil
lamps ; and how they did smell ! Finally there
came the brilliant light of kerosene oil. It was
a great improvement, so far as eyesight was
concerned; but the cleaning of the lamps, in a
careful household, was a tedious and unpleas-
ant task. Where the housewife was careless the
oil would run down from lamps and be trans-
ferred from her fingers to her food. I remem-
ber teachers bewailed their experiences in such
households. One friend of mine said of one
such family, ^'They eat kerosene oil all the
time. They don't know it isn't good." If the
woman of that day could have seen one turn a
button and flood the room with electric light,
perfectly clean, she would have thought the mil-
lenium was surely coming.
The hardest of all the tasks of the household
was soapmaking. The big barrel had to be got
in, and the grease and the potash and the lye
from a barrel of wood ashes all supplied. It
required skill, and it was hard work, especially
MARIA SANFORD 19
when the soap didn't come, and they had to stir
it hour after hour with a big stick. It was con-
sidered the woman's privilege to be cross on
the day she made soap. I remember one of our
neighbors saying that when his wife made soap
he always threw his hat in when he came home,
and if that came out spitefully, he concluded
it was judicious to hang around awhile before
he went in himself. But my father always con-
trived to find time to make soap for my mother.
The means of transportation of those days
was very crude. Very few people had carriages
or carryalls; but most rode in open wagons,
sometimes with and often without springs. The
stage coach, as everybody knows, was the means
of public travel. My father used to insist, after
the railways came into fashion and were consid-
ered by most so dangerous, that they were far
safer, in proportion to travel, than the old stage
coach. He said that when he was coming home
from Georgia they would often start on a dan-
gerous road with a driver who came out of the
tavern ^^half seas over." The man would whip
his horses into a gallop at the top of a moun-
tain, and the stage would sway over to the edge
of a precipice; only a kind Providence and the
sure-footed horses keeping them from a sudden
death.
20 MARIA SANFOED
I remember the building of what I think was
the first railway in the United States. It was
the switch back at Mauch Chunk, in Pennsyl-
vania, for taking coal out of the mines by grav-
ity. But I believe the first road for passengers
was between Hartford and New Haven. I re-
member the hordes of Irish that built it; I
remember their little dump carts and their dirty
children. I remember how, in the middle of the
night, the men and women used to come howl-
ing home from a wake, drunk and quarreling.
But the grandchildren of these same Irish are
the prominent and honored citizens of Meriden
today. So let our present foreigners keep good
heart. The Scandinavians are already coming
into their own; but the Italians and the Poles
and the Russians, if they wdll but stand stanchly
by our American institutions and keep their
children in school, may hope to see their grand-
children the wealthy and responsible citizens of
Minneapolis in the decades to come.
My home was about three miles from the
church, and in those days everybody except
very little children went to church. My father
hired a sitting for my mother in a neighbor's
wagon ; but of my earliest recollection, when I
was about three years old I walked with my
father. My mother was too scrupulous about
MARIA SANFORD 21
infringing upon others ' rights, when one sitting
was hired, to have taken her little girl upon
her lap. And so I walked; and when I was
tired my father took me in his arms. I count
this experience one of the valuable ones of my
life : the close association of my father and the
early formed habit of enjoying a long walk.
This habit certainly contributed much not only
to my happiness but to my health and vigor.
All along the years, whenever I didn't have
household duties, I would take freely a wall^ of
five miles before breakfast, and enjoy it.
In regard to the church, there were some
curious customs in those days. One was that
a mother or some elder woman sat at the end
of the pew, and the girls next to her, and after
them the boys next to their father. I remem-
ber a wealthy man, a deacon of the church,
who had a large family of children. His wife
was usually at home with the baby, and he
would come with eight or nine little fellows.
The boys and girls would come crowding into
the church, and at the door of the pew he
would sort them out, pushing in this girl and
pulling out that boy until he had them all ar-
ranged with due decorum. The only excep-
tion to this rule was that the youngest, even if
it was a girl, could sit next to its father so
22 MAEIA SANFORD
that it could lay its head on his lap and go to
sleep.
Another custom was that the choir was
seated in a gallery over the door, opposite to
the minister and behind the congregation;
and when they sang the people stood up and
turned their backs upon the minister and faced
the choir. This position of the choir explains
what some of our young people fail to under-
stand in Lowell's description of the girl who
was in love:
She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! When he made Ole Hunderd ring,
She knowed the Lord was nigher.
An' she'd blush scarlit right in prayer,
When her new meetin '-bunnit
Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair
0' blue eyes sot upun it.
^^Blue Eyes" were in the choir loft heJiind the
congregation.
And in those days the colored people occu-
pied the seats in the rear of the church. I
think I must have been about three years old
when I first discovered them; and I know my
mother had considerable trouble that day in
keeping my face to the front. I continually
MAEIA SANFORD 23
turned to stare at these black faces ; and finally
I whispered to mother, ^ ' Why don 't they wash
themselves before they come to church f
And I seemed to cling to this idea as to the
cause of their being black. When I was six
years old, one cold night my mother took me
mth her to carry some things to a poor colored
family that lived in a windmill. There was a
pair of twins about a year old and now a new
baby of two or three days. They told me that
they would give me the little one. When we
came to leave I insisted on taking it. I was
usually an obedient child, but I remember
that I cried heartily because mother wouldn't
allow me to take the baby. As we were going
home mother asked me why I was so naughty ;
and I said plaintively, '^But, mother, why
didn't you take the baby, and then it wouldn't
be black 1" She asked me what I thought made
it black; and I said, **Why, they handle it mth
their dirty hands." It was not so much that
I wanted the baby, but I wanted to save it
from future misfortune.
Religious prejudices in those days were
very stron,g, and the different Protestant de-
nominations kept themselves a good deal
apart. At my earliest recollection almost all
the people in our vicinity were Congregation-
24 MARIA SANFORD
alists. There were a very few Episcopalians.
My father and mother Avere counted very lib-
eral, and united cordially with other denom-
inations. With the Irish came in the Catho-
lics and after them the Methodists and Bap-
tists.
I think it must have been about 1844 that a
Universalist preacher first came to our town
for a single service. Among the very few
that went to hear him was a rich, retired sea
captain, a wicked old sinner. As he was go-
ing home he was overheard saying to himself
solemnly: *^ Blessed doctrine! Blessed doc-
trine! If I could only believe it.'' I remem-
ber when I was about seven years old I
chanced to pass the Episcopal church, lighted
up for Christmas Eve services, and I looked
upon it with a feeling of horror, much as a
child of today would look upon a gambling
hell if the door had been opened. I had not
been taught this. It was the reflection of a
common prejudice. The fires of religious
war and persecution had burned out, but the
embers still smoldered. How grateful we
should be for the unity with which we can join
hands in any good work with all who, under
whatever name, are serving the Master !
I was four years old when I began to go to
MARIA SANFORD 25
school. There was a low bench around the
stove for the little children and a high bench
with a slanting board behind it for the older
ones. This counter was cut up in various
hieroglyphics, initials and pictures of many
kinds. I remember that two girls, in an idle
hour, dug a grave in the counter and buried a
fly with the customary funeral services.
There was no singing in the school. There
was no mental arithmetic, no literature, and
no history. And if w^e chanced to draw a pic-
ture on our slates we were severely reproved.
We read round in turn from the New Testa-
ment; and the few fanatics who now advocate
the reading of the Bible in school would be
cured of the notion if they could but hear one
day's blunders as I remember them. A friend
of mine bears testimony to this experience.
The children were reading the seventeenth
chapter of Matthew, the story of the Trans-
figuration; and one boy instead of reading,
*^And when the disciples heard it they fell on
their faces and were sore afraid, read, **and
were sore afterward."
I have two vivid recollections of this school
term when I was four years old. One is that the
teacher, anxious to make us acquainted with
useful facts, crowded into our heads long lists
26 MARIA SANFORD
of names of the Indian tribes of the United
States, which I can reel off today, mispronun-
ciation and all, just as I learned them. Use-
less lumber to give a child to keep in the brain
for fourscore years!
The other vivid recollection of my first term
at school was a thunderstorm. It was at the
end of two weeks of August rain; and on that
particular morning 'Hhey didn't sift it at all,
just poured it down by the bucketful.'' For
an hour the thunder and lightning had been
very severe, and the teacher had allowed us to
keep our aprons over our faces; but just as
she said, ^'I think it's over now, and you can
put down your aprons," there came a crash-
ing bolt, and the whole schoolhouse seemed to
go up in flame. The lightning had really
struck a haycock about ten feet from the
schoolhouse. Why it didn't strike the build-
ing I have never known. There was more
than one child who insisted the next morning:
*^The schoolhouse has burned down. I saw
it afire." We rushed out, teacher and all.
The street was flooded with water. There was
a shallow ditch, and I waded to my waist in
crossing it. We took refuge in the house of
the nearest nei,ghbor.
One boy, who lived on the hill behind the
MARIA SANFORD 27
schoolhonse, started to go home. His father
was a drunkard, and my mother had been to
their house many a time on errands of mercy,
so that the boy knew her. When he was part
way home he was too terrified to proceed, but
turned around and came down to our back
door. The rain had now stopped, but he was
wet to the skin. When he said to my mother,
**The schoolhouse is struck, and it struck me
once,'' of course my mother was alarmed. It
was ahnost noon; and father came in soon to
his dinner and went up at once to see what had
become of his little girls. I think he was very
much relieved to find us safe in the house of
the neighbor, for I remember that his right
arm pressed me close to his breast as he car-
ried me home. My next sister was holding
his left hand, and the oldest clinging to his
coat on the right. To me one of the most
beautiful sights is a father caring tenderly for
his little daughters; I think perhaps because
the scene is tangled up in my mind with such
precious memories.
The influence of that storm with me was last-
ing. None of my family was afraid of thunder
and lightning. Even in the next generation, my
sister's children were entirely free from this
fear. I remember when my little niece and
28 MARIA SANFORD
nephew of five and three years of age were
alone upstairs in a severe storm, I went up
thinking they must be afraid. Jnst before I
reached them there was a terrific bolt, and the
little girl clapped her hands and said : ' ' That 's
a good one! Give ns another." But no such
courage for me. All through my childhood the
very appearance of thunderheads would make
me quake and even cause actual nausea. It was
not imtil I was a teacher and responsible for
the impression made on children that I was
able to conquer this unreasoning fear, and I
admit that even now I don't enjoy a thunder-
storm at night ; so powerful are the impressions
of childhood. In this case, of course, it was
accidental ; but many parents are careless of the
influence of fear upon their children. Someone
told a little cousin of mine a blood curdling
ghost story; and he went to school next day
and picked out with a pin every place in his
Testament where Holy Ghost occurred. He
would have no ghosts in his book.
Going back to the schools of my childhood.
In summer we had Avomen teachers and in win-
ter men, because it was thought that women
couldn 't control the big boys ; and in the brutal
system of school government then prevailing,
physical strength was an important matter.
MARIA SANFORD 29
There were often twelve or fifteen boys of
man's stature; and in some schools it was a
favorite amusement to turn out the teacher.
I remember, when I was about twelve years
of age, in a neighboring town five men in suc-
cession had been turned out ; and the committee
was in despair, when one man suggested that
he knew a woman who could manage that
school. The committee in despair concluded to
take her. The boys thought it was a lark and
had things all planned out. When they went
out at recess they were going to assemble on a
rock at the rear of the schoolhouse, and when
she knocked on the window for them to come in
(there were no bells in those days) they would
stand up and glare at her, then go in and put
her out. One boy by the name of Jim was to
give them the signal. The teacher came and
knocked; but Jim, instead of standing up,
meekly slid down over the rock and went in,
and the others followed him and carried out
the work of the morning in an orderly manner.
At noon the boys said to him: *^Jim, what
made you go in f He answered : * ^ Golly ! Did
you see her eyes f In man or woman it is the
consciousness of mastery which gives success.
The prejudice that believed women could not
control older boys has passed away; but we
30 MARIA SANFORD
still retain the prejudice that a man teacher is
necessary for the dignity of a school. I admit
that the influence of both men and women is
desirable in the formation of the character of
the young. But when people put inexperienced,
callow youths in positions of importance in
schools or colleges simply because they are
** lords of creation", and pay them twice as
much as is given to the really valuable women
whose power alone keeps the man in his place
and the school running, then there is a call for
reform. And we do not have to go to the coast
of either ocean to find instances of this kind.
There are some men in the teaching profession
Avhose work is of inestimable value ; but we all
know that this profession does not appeal to
many men of power. The thing we need to
guard against is that we do not in these days
let the really priceless women who are in the
profession leave it for want of proper pay.
By far the most valuable educational influ-
ence of my childhood came from my mother. I
remember when I was not yet four years old
following her about in her work, begging her
to tell me more about the war. Her uncle had
been a colonel in the Revolutionary War and
had died on the prison ship. Behind my grand-
father 's house was a beacon hill on which a tar
MARIA SANFORD 31
barrel was kept to be set on fire when the enemy
landed; a signal, to another beacon hill in the
distance, of approaching danger, the telegraph
system of those days.
Long before I was ten years of age I had in
mind a gallery of worthies, embracing not only
our Revolutionary heroes and men like Hamil-
ton and Marshall and Henry Clay, but old world
worthies: Oliver Cromwell, John Hampden,
Alfred the Great, Gustavus Adolphus, and
Charlemagne. I knew and delighted in the
character and deeds of these men. My mother
realized the value of the word * ' service ' ' in its
modern application ; and she taught us the value
of time, and sought to inspire us to worthy lives
by keeping before us the achievements of such
women as Hannah More, Elizabeth Fry and
Mary Somerville, and in this country of Mary
Lyon, and later of Susan B. Anthony and Abby
Foster and Lucretia Mott. And to my mother'
I am indebted for my love of literature. I can
remember, when I still slept in the trundle bed,
waking before light in the morning and asking
if it wasn't almost time to get up. And mother
would answer, **Say over your verses." It
would take me at least half an hour to go over
the list. I began wdth the long cradle hymn of
Watts:
32 MAMA SANFOKD
Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed.
and
When'er I take my walks abroad^
How many poor I see.
What shall I render to my God
For all His gifts to me ?
And I remember with great delight I used to
say over those glorious lines, still in our hymn
books :
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid.
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.
and the remaining stanzas of that noble hymn. I
do not suppose a child of five or six years could
comprehend the beauty of this grand poetry,
but I know that some of its music entered my
soul, and its inspiration also. And I know that
this training not only made me familiar with
poetic diction and poetic imagery, but that this
and my familiarity with the Holy Scriptures
formed my literary taste.
I read and studied the Bible; chapter after
chapter I could repeat entire. And I am very
sure that when I was twelve years old no one
MARY CLARK SANFORD
Maria Sanford's Mother
MARIA SANFOED 33
could have made a mistake in quoting a pas-
sage from the early books of the Bible all
through Kings and including Job, the Psalms
and Proverbs and most of the New Testament —
no one, I say, could have misquoted, and I
should not have recognized the error. This ac-
quaintance with the exquisite diction and glo-
rious imagery of King James ' version has been
to me of unspeakable value, not only in the
strengthening of character but in the formation
of literary taste. This love for the grand old
diction makes me impatient with the weaker
forms of the Revised Version, which may be
sometimes a little plainer, but have so often lost
the noble imagery and poetic rhythm of the
Hebrew Scriptures.
My mother took for her motto in the training
of her children the saying of some distinguished
man: *^Fill the measure with wheat and there
will be no room for the chaif.'' I have often in
later years recommended to mothers that they
follow her example in teaching their children,
instead of senseless jingles, noble poems which
will be priceless seed grain in the mind of the
child, bearing rich harvest in later years. I
once gave this talk in a place where I was well
acquainted, and after the lecture a woman
whom I knew came to me and said : **But, Miss
3
34 MARIA SANFOED
Sanford, I haven't time.'' I knew that her lit-
tle daughter had dainty embroidered dresses
for summer, and rich, warm, soft ones for win-
ter ; and wraps and garments for every season
and every need, and I thought : * ' So much time
for the body that perishes and no time for the
immortal soul which starves in darkness, mak-
ing no moan. ' '
I have said that my parents were religious,
and I should say something of the religious
training of my childhood. While my parents
would have been shocked at the idea of a base-
ball game or a theatrical performance on Sun-
day, the day was never, in our home, kept in
that strict, dreadful fashion that too often
prevailed in those days, as in the case of the
little girl whose playthings were all put away
Saturday night, and who was allowed, after
sundown on Sunday, to go to walk in the
graveyard. She heard someone say that heaven
was an eternal Sunday. She came to her mother
in distress and said: ^^Mama, don't you think,
if I am real good all the week, God will let me go
down to hell Saturday afternoon and have a
good time 1 ' '
The schools, when I was young, had only a
half holiday on Saturday. Sunday was never
dreaded by me, except the hours spent in
MARIA SANFOED 35
church. I set myself the stint to read ten
chapters in the Bible on Sunday, and often
exceeded that number, but I didn't keep still.
I remember once my father offering me fifty
cents, if I would keep still half an hour. It
was a great prize. I think up to that time I
had never had so large a sum of money, but I
didn't get it. So sitting still in church or
prayer meeting was a terror to me. After a
little while I thought my stomach went round
and round. I now know it was a nervous sen-
sation caused by enforced quiet upon a very
active child. It was a great blessing to me
that when I was nine years of age my little
brother came. Somebody must stay at home
with the baby; and though I admit I was a
little timid — for there was nothing but the flies
and the chickens, both of which I thought sung
a different song on Sundays from other days,
and an occasional dog that passed, but I was
afraid of dogs — I preferred staying alone
with the baby to sitting still in church.
Religion was never a sad and doleful thing
in our household. We were taught to love
our Heavenly Father. Two incidents illus-
trating this are especially prominent in my
mind. One was when my oldest sister was
about sixteen and had a little party. All
36 MAMA SANFORD
along our childhood, father and mother en-
tered into our plays. Even when we were
little things and played ^^I spy the thimble/'
father would sit like a graven image, holding
up his newspaper to see nothing while we hid
the thimble in his coat collar or his ear. And
mother was never too tired or too busy to
rummage the garret for things that would help
us in our play. On this particular evening we
had had charades and other '* dress-up
games," and father and mother had been in it
as much as any of us, and the time had passed
in great glee. At ten o'clock, when the neigh-
bor young folks had gone, we sat around the
stove talking it over and laughin,g as we re-
membered hoAv funny this and how bright that
was. When father said ^'Let us kneel down
and thank our Heavenly Father for these
pleasures" — it was not his custom to have
evening prayer, he always had morning
prayer — we knelt down and he voiced our
gratitude to God for the fun and frolic that
had made our home bright. If Ave teach our
children to thank God for their pleasures,
they will not be likely to seek amusements on
which they cannot ask His blessing.
The other instance was when I was quite a
little girl. There were no orphan asylums in
MARIA SANFORD 37
those days, and children left without protec-
tors were bonnd by the selectmen to some
family who gave them support and schooling
for which they gave service until they were
eighteen. A little bound girl lived some dis-
tance below us. It was rumored that she had
not been kindly treated ; and one night in early
autumn, just before it was time for us to go to
bed, a man came by telling the story that the
people had accused this girl of stealing a
brooch (they afterwards found that she had
not stolen it). They had whipped her all they
dared, then they had kept her in the cellar on
bread and water; but she insisted that she
didn't know where it was. And at last they
had hun,g her in the well, thinking to frighten
her into confession. Her screams brought
the neighbors and relief. This story was very
exciting to little children; and when, soon
after, mother put us to bed after hearing us
say our prayers, and kissed us good night and
left us, we talked it over and began to cry, and
called mother. She told us that we needn't
be afraid, that we had father and mother to
take care of us; and we were pacified for the
moment. But we soon called her back, and a
third time. Then I remember she sat down
on our bed, and I can hear her voice as if it
38 MARIA SANFORD
were but yesterday as she softly said: ^^I
can't be with you all the time, and your father
can't be with you all the time, but your Heav-
enly Father is always near. Now say over
after me, ' Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on Thee; because he
trusteth in Thee.' " And she had us say it over
and over until we could say it alone ; and then
she said, */Now keep saying it until you go to
sleep." And so we did, and fell sweetly asleep,
trusting in the care of the Heavenly Father.
It was a little old brown house, and the
furniture was very plain; but not to have
toddled about in a palace and inherited mil-
lions would I sacrifice those precious memo-
ries of a Christian home.
We were by no means prize model children^
but a somewhat harum-scarum lot. We par-
took much more of the energy of our father
than of the quiet grace of our mother. I re-
member my mother's telling of a reproof her
father gave her. She was visiting at home
when her three little girls were small. Her
father's big house had been remodeled so that
her brother with his family of seven children
lived in half of it. Grandmother was very
fond of children and always had in her pantry
MARIA SANFORD 39
something nice, a piece of pie, cookies or candy
to give them. Sometimes the children from
the other part of the house would slip into the
pantry and help themselves. Grandfather
said to mother: *^Mary, your children are
perfectly honest. Not one of them would take
a thing out of grandmother's pantry without
permission any more than she would cut off
her right hand. But not one of them can go
through that door without hitting both sides.''
My earliest connection with the temperance
society was when I was four or five years old.
An organization called ^'The Cold Water
Army" extended throughout New England
and probably other states. All the boys and
girls were nrged to join this organization.
We had meetings and parades. Every mem-
ber had a paper diploma about a foot square
on which was printed our pledge and several
songs. I remember the first verse of one was :
We cold water girls and boys
Freely renounce the dangerous joys
Of brandy, whiskey, rum and gin.
The serpent's lure to death and sin.
People at that time were very hopeful of
speedily crushing intemperance. My mother
40 MARIA SANFORD
said she expected that when her children were
grown it would be a thin,g of the past. She
little thought that her youngest daughter
would be over fourscore years old before the
sale of intoxicating liquors would be made
illegal in our country, and that even then the
fight for temperance must still go on.
In the fall before I was six years of age my
father moved his family back to Saybrook;
and for four years he took charge of the farm
of his uncle, George Chapman, and we lived in
the old Chapman homestead, built by my
great-grandfather, to which was attached, as
a summer kitchen, the first frame house built
in Saybrook. The farm had been in the hands
of renters and was much run doAvn ; but father
was interested in it as if it were his OAvn, and
did much to build it up. My sister and I used
to help on the farm. We dropped corn and
potatoes in the spring, and picked up potatoes
in the fall, and husked corn ; and by this means
earned a little money to buy our clothes. It
was helpful and not hard work.
In those years, too, I rem.ember I used to pick
huckleberries. The huckleberry fields were two
miles and a half from my home, and sometimes
a lot of little girls used to go together. But
although I was a little lonesome I preferred to
MARIA SANFORD 41
go alone because then I stuck to my job and filled
my pail, I sold the berries to my grandmother
and aunts ; and bought in this way, more than
once, my winter dress. It was while we were
here on the farm that my father finished pay-
ing off the debt he had carried, and easier
times dawned for us. It was here also that
my only brother was born. This home was
half a mile distant from my grandfather
Clark's; and though as farmers my parents
rose early, I used frequently to go up to my
grandfather's and back before breakfast.
Grandfather used to say: **That child will
get over that when she is big enough to be
good for anything." But I never did get over
it; and I am as fond of risin,g early now as I
was then.
One more trivial incident of that earliest
home perhaps I should recall. It is my hav-
ing measles. My uncle Elias, my father's
younger half-brother, boarded "with us for
some months. He was very fond of me and
used to hold me in his lap. He thought he
was immune because he had had the disease in
childhood. But several members of my fam-
ily, including myself, seemed to require two
doses; and he took the disease a second time
42 MARIA SANFORD
from me. One day while I was confined to
the house a crazy woman came. Mother had
often been kind to her and taken her in.
There were no hospitals for the insane in
those days, and crazy people wandered the
streets unless some member of their family
could take care of them. I strayed out of the
house and down to the brook; and when
mother called me and asked me why I went
away, I said I didn't like to hear Becky "Wil-
liams talk. It is pitiful to think what those
poor creatures suffered in those days. In a
house not a mile below ours a man, violently
insane, was shut into a room in a part of the
barn by big posts, one of which he once sawed
in two with a comb and thus escaped. An-
other prominent family, where there was an
old woman mildly insane but not fit to live
with the rest of the family, kept her in a room
where she ate and slept. One day they
smelled fire and traced it to her room. They
went in and found the room full of smoke, and
she was in bed. They said, **"Why, aunt
Nabby, the house is on fire."
**Yes,'' she said, **I know it, but I poured
on all the water there was in the teakettle.''
It has seemed to me that Nabby 's philosophy
is much the way that many people attack
MARIA SANFORD 43
abuses that should be corrected. Instead of
taking the trouble to go to the root of the evil
and ferret it out they do the easy, handy thing,
**pour on all the water there is in the tea-
kettle" and then go to bed.
CHAPTER II
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Tlie Sanford Association of America trace
a great branch of the Sanford family to Thomas
Sanford, who came to Milford, Connecticut,
about 1639, and died there in 1681. The family
has been proud of its lineage, and holds re-
unions to keep alive family interest and ac-
quaintance.
Maria Sanford 's ancestors lived, as far back
as 1646, in that part of Connecticut where Rob-
ert Chapman was given a grant of land in what
later became the town of Saybrook. This land
has always remained in the family; a Robert
Chapman now living on the historic site. Maria
Sanford 's grandmother Lucretia was born on
the estate and was married in 1797 to Samuel
Sanford. The third of their seven children was
Henry Elisha Sanford, born in 1802.
Captain Elisha Chapman, great grandfather
of Maria Sanford was a soldier in the French
and Indian wars, and served as Captain
throughout the Revolution. There are many
44
MARIA SANFORD 45
interesting stories told of Mrs. Chapman's ex-
perience during the war, while her husband was
away and she cared for her large family of
children and her aged parents. One is that the
daughter Lucretia, Maria Sanford's grand-
mother, saw the great Lafayette when her
mother served him and his aide a dinner at the
homestead. Some of the older daughters
assisted, but the little Lucretia was shut with
the other younger children in an upper room
to be out of the way. So they had to content
themselves with looking at the great man from
an upper window. Such a family story could
not fail to seize the imagination of the small
Maria.
The parents of Maria Sanford, Henry and
Mary Sanford, had four children : Elizabeth, the
oldest, born in 1829, married Asa Kirtland and
had seven children. She died in 1880. The
second, Clarissa, born in 1834, married, and left
at her death in 1870 one daughter. The young-
est of the family, Rufus, born in 1846, is the
only one of the children surviving.
The third child of the family, Maria Louise,
was born at Saybrook, Connecticut, December
19, 1836. Of her earliest childhood she remem-
bered enough of the Christmas when she was
five years old to give a vivid picture scores of
46 MARIA SANFORD
years later of the loving care with which her
mother made the day a happy one for the small
family. The day before Christmas she made
little mince pies and quince tarts for the chil-
dren to give to their young friends. The eager
Maria delighted to watch the marvelous process
of notching the edges of the pies, and of cutting
delicate strips of crust to put across the tarts.
Christmas eve the children hung up their stock-
ings and coaxed their father to do likewise. But
they had to put their mts to work to fill it, for
he wore, according to the custom of that time,
long woolen stockings that came up over the
knee. When the gifts the children had been
preparing under their mother's direction had
been swallowed up by the stocking, and the
cavernous opening was seemingly as great as
ever, the mother brought thin delicious dough-
nuts, beloved of their father, and then promised
to put in plenty of popcorn balls and molasses
candy. The stocking w^ould not fill up, and the
oldest sister thought of a great red apple.
Wlien she returned from the cellar with that
she brought also a huge potato, seven inches
long, proposing to put it in the toe. Wliile one
girl scrubbed the potato and wrapped it in tis-
sue paper, another carefully removed all the
things from the stocking, and then put the
MARIA SANFORD 47
potato in first. As a final tonch, one pnt a
carefully wrapped wdshbone on the top^ and the
stocking was at last filled.
With nothing except what had been prepared
at home, an apron, mittens, a rag doll ; with no
Christmas tree — they had never heard of such
a thing — they enjoyed all the delightful mystery
and pleasure of giving that heart could \vish.
Seventy-five years afterward Maria remem-
bered the preparation for that day. Such hap-
piness in poverty, with simple pleasures, had a
lifelong effect on her character.
For nine years she was the youngest, and
was always an alert, eager, interested child.
She had an adoration for her mother so great
that when she neared home on her way from
school she would run as fast as she could, call-
ing ** Mother, mother, where are you?" When
the youngest child, a boy, was born, Maria
adopted him as her special charge, and felt that
she had a great new interest.
From earliest childhood she was accustomed
to the institution of family prayers, not only in
her own home but in the homes of relations and
friends. She learned to repeat the Psalms, and
had regular Bible study on Sunday afternoons.
Her life-long love of the Bible proves that this
was not made the irksome task which many
48 MARIA SANFORD
New England children have fonnd it to be. One
of the best lectures she was giving in the last
years of her life Avas entitled Beauties of the
Bible.
When Maria was ten years of age the family
moved to Meriden, Connecticut, where the
father worked for his brother. Up to that time
Maria attended country school. When she
reached the age of fourteen she began to attend
the academy at Meriden, walking three miles
daily to and from school and helping her mother
out of school hours with the housework. As
the older sisters had married soon after the
removal to Meriden, and gone to homes of their
own, Maria was her mother's only helper.
It soon became apparent that the young girl
thirsted for an education. She was always a
hard worker at school, and had an ambition that
hated to accept defeat. At one time, when the
teacher gave extra problems in arithmetic to
be worked at home, Maria had to return to
school with one unsolved. When she learned
that no one had been able to work it, she got
excused from school, returned home and worked
until she had solved it. She was the only one
who mastered the difficulty.
There was a family saying that Maria was so
good as a child that, according to the old Puri-
MARIA SANFORD
The Connecticut Yankee
MARIA SANFOBD 49
tan belief, she could not live to grow xip. Her
singular unselfishness was the cause of an
amusing story which is still told in the family.
Her small brother had always observed his sis-
ter, when helping herself from a dish of apples,
reach for one with decayed spots, and supposed
she liked them best. One day, therefore, when
he went to a neighbor's on an errand, and the
woman asked if he thought his family would
like some apples she had which had begun to
decay, he answered at once, * * 0, yes, I am sure
we can use them, for Maria loves rotten
apples.''
She seems to have been a healthy child; she
had inherited from her father a strong phy-
sique, and from her mother high ideaJs- From
the very outset she was taught that life was
given us to use for something worth while;
that it was a precious gift, and that it was
sinful to waste it. So lofty was the teaching
that it was considered sinful to read novels.
And at the mature age of eleven years the
young girl resolved, after realizing that she had
actually read one, not to read any more fiction.
Her older sister had had a year's subscription
to the Boston Atheneum given her, and one
rainy Saturday Maria took it to a favorite ref-
uge in the attic and read through a continued
4
50 MARIA SANFORD
story. After she sat back to think of it she said
to herself *^Why, that is nothing more nor less
than a novel V^ Then she made a secret resolve
to refrain from such wickedness; a resolve
which she kept until she learned in normal
school that some of the world's great literature
is cast in the form of narration.
A strong natural desire for reading was
stimulated by the study of history and church
doctrine. Her thirst for knowledge grew so
that by the time she was sixteen she knew much
of the world's history and had acquired a love
for it that remained one of her greatest inter-
ests in life. The mother had taught the Psalms
and other beautiful poetry to the children so
that they had a rich inheritance even without
novels. It is worthy of notice that as long as
she lived, Maria cared little for this most pop-
ular form of literature. When the oldest
daughter, on leaving home, received from her
father her marriage portion, Maria asked for
hers then instead of waiting for it until she was
ready to be married. Her explanation that she
wanted to use the money to go to the New
Britain Normal School found favor with both
her parents. With very little money, and a
scanty wardrobe in which a red delaine dress
was the most elegant item, the strong-hearted
MARIA SANFORD 51
young girl set forth upon her first journey away
from home. The New Britain Normal School
was a co-educational institution with pleasant
social relationships, but Maria Sanford was
studying too hard all the time she was there
to reap the benefits of them. She once let
several weeks go by without writing home ; and
when her father sent an anxious letter, she got
up at four o'clock to answer it. He replied
that she needn't mind writing often if she had
to get up before daylight to do it. So unremit-
tingly did she work that she completed the
course with honors, graduating in 1855, at the
age of nineteen.
At her graduation she wrote an essay enti-
tled What of the Future? the opening words
and the climax of Avhich she remembered word
for word when she was eighty years old. She
always regarded them with approval. The
essay began, ^^The future lies before us and we
can make it what we will ; no deed, no word, no
thought of ours but leaves its deathless record
there, and blots once made can never be ef-
faced. ' ' The climax she liked for its imperative
ring. She thought it was a good motto, and said
it was always easier for her to folloAv an excla-
mation point than a question mark. The climax
was **Fear not! faint not! fail not I"
52 MARIA SANFORD
Some time after her graduation from nor-
mal school, the Honorable John D. Philbrick,
who was principal at the time she was a student,
and afterward superintendent of the Boston
public schools, said of her: ^* Maria Sanford
had unconunon energy and vigor, and was con-
spicuous for industry, fidelity and earnestness.
What her hands found to do she did with all
her might. ' '
After finishing her course at Normal School
she began teaching in a country school at
Gilead, forty miles from home, at a salary of
ten dollars a month. So shy and so untried
was she in the solemn field of teaching that
she took a position as far away as she could
in order not to be disgraced at home if she
proved a failure. Forty miles was farther in
those days than four hundred now. The first
year was a bitter experience for her, because
she had not learned to love teaching. She
said she used to lie awake nights until she
could tell the time by the stars as well as a
sailor; thinking, wondering, pondering, and
praying to be guided aright. She was never
satisfied with her own work at Gilead, though
others did not seem to think it a failure; and
they hired her for a second term. But she
said there were many times when, if she could
MARIA SANFORD 53
have found lier way to the bottom of the neigh-
boring Atlantic Ocean without the sin of suicide
on her soul, she should have gone there. It
was bitter; but she was learning her trade,
with no teacher but experience and her own
conscience.
Her first triumph came in this school. One
day a county superintendent came to visit.
He sat all the afternoon saying nothing, and
when he left said nothing. Her heart stood
still. Later he told her, *'I have been watch-
ing your children all the afternoon. You said
nothing. Each one seemed ito be doing ex-
actly as he wanted to do, and each one wanted
to do right ! '^ She said it was the most beauti-
ful compliment she had ever received.
The first recorded instance of her noted love
of humor occurred in this school. The chil-
dren had a habit of chewing dried apples in
school instead of the spruce gum of a later
day; and just as country school teachers of
the eighties forbade gum chewing, this teacher
of the fifties forbade the chewing of dried
apples. One day she saw a great boy sitting
near her desk working his jaws suspiciously
and said, *^ Samuel, are you eating dried
apples?"
**No'm, lisped Samuel with difficulty, **I'in
54 MARIA SANFORD
thusth puttin' one to tlioak.'^ She treasured
that answer all her life.
After the second year there she improved
her condition and her income by going to Glas-
tonbury to teach in the lower room of a two
grade school. She was progressing a little.
The next year came still further progress, and
she got a better place nearer home; for she
wasn't afraid of failure any longer. She was
getting her feet under her and slowly gather-
ing what no human being can aiford to be
without if he is to be of any use in the world:
that is, self-respect. She taught the upper
grades now, and began to realize that she must
develop her disciplinary powers. She remem-
bered long afterward James McGuire, a strap-
ping Irish bo}^ of fifteen. He was bigger than
she and thought he could defy her. One day
he had refused to pick up some corn he had
scattered on the floor. She knew it was now
or never, and with a mute prayer for strength
started the first lesson in applied physical dis-
cipline that she had given. Greatly to James
McGuire 's surprise, he presently found him-
self on his back in the hall with her hand on
his collar and her knee on his chest.
*^Will you pick up that corn?'' she said.
MARIA SANFORD 55
And he blubbered a chokin,g reply, **Y-Y-es,
ma ^am. ' '
That was on Friday, and she went home for
Saturday and Sunday. When she returned
Monday morning she met one of the school
trustees who shook hands with her, laughed
heartily and said, ^'I guess you'll do, young
lady." And after she got to school she over-
heard one of the boys saying to another:
^^ Golly, but teacher's strong." After that
she had no more trouble with unruly boys.
She taught there for a year and then went
to Middlefield, Connecticut, for still better
wages. In 1859 her father died and Maria's
first terrible grief for a time prostrated her.
His death occurred after an illness of four
days while the mother was away from home.
He was a man of such sterling worth that his
loss was deeply felt in the community, and the
eulogy pronounced at the funeral was heart-
felt and comforting. Printed as a memorial,
it rings today with the solemnity of great,
simple truths. The delicate mother's forti-
tude enabled her to join in the hymn, which
according to the custom of that day was sung
by the friends gathered around the grave.
Her friends said she was uplifted as she sang,
and seemed to be looking within the veil. The
56 MAMA SANFORD
memory of her calm face came to the storm
wrecked Maria that evening when she was
startled by the call to supper. The shock of
realizing that the world must go on as before
brought to her one of the many times of read-
justment to the burdens of her life. Her
father had taught her never to sink under a
blow; her mother, always to be cheerful.
A passage from a letter written by a cousin
of Miss Sanford's gives a touch of the home
life in Meriden. **I am thinking of yon in
your room in the home at Meriden writing a
dialogue for the pupils, and reciting snatches
of prose and poetry, giving me a pleasant Sun-
day home while I was teaching in Yalesville.
I am afraid I did not thoroughly appreciate
then my good fortune to know you and your
saintly and sainted father and mother so inti-
mately, but I have looked back on those days
many times since with thankfulness and ap-
preciation. ' '
The home was broken up for a time, while
the mother went to live with the oldest mar-
ried sister, and the young brother returned
with Maria to Middlefield. She had as assist-
ant a young woman who had been with her in
normal school in New Britain; and she had
the distinction of teaching in what was for
MARIA SANFORD 57
those days a very fine new school building, a
model very much in advance of those around
it. Instead of the one room school with the old
wood stove in front of the teacher's desk, this
school-house had a recitation room provided
with a large library. Both the heating and
the ventilating were something very modern;
the latter was effected by large ventilators in
the roof which were connected with flues that
took out either warm or cold air from the
room. The heating system was so arranged
that pure air from the outside was brought in-
to the room over coils around a large box
stove. Maria Sanford had a lifelong hobby
for fresh air. She was liable to feel stifled
where others felt comfortable.
At this time she was a slender young
woman, considerably above medium height
and of somewhat florid complexion, and a
quiet, grave voice. She was very di^gnified,
thoroughly in earnest, and appreciated the
responsibilities of her position as a teacher.
Teaching did not by any means fill all her time.
Even then she was a great walker but her
walks invariably had an objective. On one
occasion she and her assistant walked nine
miles from Middlefield to Yalesville where the
mother was living; upon their arrival Maria,
58 MARIA SANFOED
without sitting down to rest, set to work iron-
ing a large basket of clothes, and kept at it
until the ironing was all done.
The small daughters of the widowed sister
who lived with the mother the three years
while Miss Sanford was in Middlefield, used
to run away at first when their Aunt Maria
returned for week ends and holidays, merely
because her energy was so great that her rapid
movements frightened them. She was very
kind to them, but she was so different from
their quiet, gentle mother and their grand-
mother that she had to work to gain their con-
fidence. Her own confidence and self poise
had come with success in her work, and with
the responsibility of supporting her frail mother
and delicate young brother.
Her unusual superiority of mind and per-
son were so evident that they attracted a young
man teaching at that time in Yalesville. The
attraction became mutual; when Miss Sanford
went to New Haven to teach and made a home
there for her mother and brother the young
people became engaged. The following ac-
count is in Miss Sanford 's own words, given
on her eightieth birthday: ^^Near this time
I had the bitterest experience of my life, which
I speak of with the utmost reluctance, but
MAKIA SANFORD 59
which had so intimate a bearing upon my life
and caused me to turn such a square corner
that it would not be fair to omit it. You have
asked me for the salient matters in my life,
and if they are worth anything to you, it would
not be right to leave out the most important
of them all.
'^I became engaged, while at New Haven, to
a young theological student who became,
eventually, editor of one of the leading Chris-
tian ma^gazines of this country. We were
both passing through that perilous period
when young people, brought up in strictest
doctrinal belief, begin to widen their view-
point about the essential matters of life — it
may interest you to know that I read Darwin's
Origin of Species before it was published in
this country. This book, among others on the
natural sciences and natural philosophy, en-
tranced and interested us beyond measure.
We felt that they must be true, and yet they
disturbed our fundamental faiths. We could
not see, as yet, that geology, astronomy and
the allied sciences reveal God in his goodness
and greatness. We thought they simply con-
troverted and tried to disprove God. Poor,
blind children that we were. Eeligion was first
of all things in my mind. I wrestled through
60 MARIA SANFOUD
weeks of doubt and despair. My reason was
arrayed against my conviction, and I was the
storm center in an awful void between the two.
^^My final peace and light came to me
through prayer, and I came to feel that all was
one, and that everything was somehow in per-
fect tune, thou,gh we could not read the har-
monies aright. And so I found the peace
which passeth all understanding. But my
friend did not; at least, not then, and I was
led to break my engagement with him and
throw myself more and more deeply into the
studies which, I now felt convinced, must fill
my life and make up my sum of days upon
earth. I passed through this before I was
twenty-five, and was given strength and abid-
ing peace to take up my studies alone.''
One can only conjecture how different her
life would have been if this estrangement had
not occurred. But late in life Miss Sanford
told a friend that she would have been much
happier had she married. To the reader of the
biography of the eminent divine whom she men-
tioned, it seems that if she had not had this
experience her development would have been
very different. The young man, at the time of
the engagement a professed atheist, came later
to be regarded as the most orthodox of evan-
MARIA SANFORD 61
gelical preachers, noted for his sincerity,
earnestness, and conservatism. Although he
never finished his college conrse, he had, later
in life, numerous honorary degrees conferred
upon him by various colleges. A great travel-
ler, a well kno^\'n speaker, he was noted for his
mde and accurate knowledge both of facts and
of literature, and for his remarkable memory.
He once stated that if the entire Bible should
be destroyed, he could reproduce two-thirds of
it from memory. The promise of power was
strong in the young man, and the similarity
between the two is very apparent to the reader.
Thrice married, he was a strong opponent of
woman suffrage. Miss Sanford, though she did
not espouse the cause of woman suffrage until
after she was seventy years of age, became an
ardent exponent of the cause. She died only
a few months before suffrage was granted to
the women of this country. Miss Sanford, like
him, became a great public speaker and
preacher; she too was noted for the variety
and accuracy of her knowledge. Very few peo-
ple could compare with her in her memory of
poetry. But it is odd to note that whereas she
says that she broke her engagement because
she felt that her friend did not hold fast to his
religious faith, she herself was loiown for most
62 MARIA SANFORD
of her life as unusually broad in her religious
views. One of her colleagues at Swarthmore
said that Miss Sanford was so far ahead of her
time in religious thought that it took him fifty
years to catch up with her. Her private happi-
ness was sacrificed in this case as it was all her
life long for what she believed to be the only
right course for a Christian to take.
With the removal to New Haven, where she
taught for five years, she took another step for-
ward. Her work and her salary were both ad-
vanced, and she could have her mother and
brother at home with her.
The nearness to Yale University inspired her
to obtain a higher education, but she knew of
no college that admitted women. Determined
in spite of circumstances to learn as much as
possible, she obtained an introduction to the
eminent historian John Fiske, and asked his
advice about her studies. He very kindly made
out a list of reading, mainly in history and sci-
ence, which she pursued with the aid of books
from the public library in New Haven. It was
a stiff course. She read through Grote's His-
tory of Greece in twelve big volumes, and was
surprised to find the first volume pretty well
thumbed, the second less so ; she had to cut the
leaves of the remaining ten volumes. She
MAKIA SANFORD 63
studied all this history with maps to guide her,
took up logic, science, and a number of other
subjects, and taught at the same time. In addi-
tion she took to board two girls who otherwise
could not have gone to school. She did most
of the housework because of her mother's frail
health, and still had time to help the girls with
their lessons.
When Miss Sanford was still in the twenties
she did something else which for a young
woman in those days, one who had to earn her
living and keep a home on a salary smaller
than any man in the same position would have
had, must have required both uncommon cour-
age and uncommon generosity. She asked a
young woman friend to lend a thousand dollars
to three young men in whom she was interested,
in order that they might undertake some busi-
ness venture in the South. Miss Sanford be-
came surety for the payment of the money, in
case the young men failed to pay it. The his-
tory of that loan, and the payment of the money,
principal and interest, is a remarkable instance
of high integrity on the part of Miss Sanford
and of the friend who made the loan.
In 1875, many years after this money had
been borrowed, the friend offered to give up
the notes she held, if Miss Sanford could raise
64 MARIA SANFORD
the principal ; she said she would gladly waive
the interest. Miss Sanford thought at that time
she could redeem one note in a few weeks. She
said she had been delayed in the pa^mient of
another debt of nine hundred dollars which she
had paid. She assured her creditor that if she
was spared life and health she fully intended
paying interest for the full time, and should
feel just as ready to do so if the notes were
redeemed as she should if they were held. Sev-
eral times the friend needed the money ; once at
the time of her approaching marriage. Miss
Sanford felt hurt when she was pressed; and
said she could not sleep in her grave if the
money was not paid. Her friend never lost
faith in Miss Sanford 's integrity, though it
was more than fifty years before the entire
debt was cancelled. Her friend, some years
Miss Sanford 's senior, wrote a letter of hearty
congratulation when Carleton College con-
ferred a doctor's degree upon Miss Sanford.
Even at that time the debt was not paid, and
Miss Sanford said the letter meant more to her
than the degree.
After five years of teaching at New Haven
Miss Sanford went again for a year to Middle-
field, because she was offered a better salary.
But even this, which was thirty-six dollars a
MAEIA SANFORD 65
montli and board, did not satisfy her ambition.
She wanted to become principal of a graded
school, but felt that the people of Connecticut
were too conservative to give such a position
to a woman. The lasting influence she wielded
over her pupils is evident in a letter written by
a university professor to her some years after
her retirement. The writer had been her pupil
that last year in Middlefield; and retained
nearly fifty years later vivid memories of the
teacher of his childhood.
'^It must have been somewhere between 1866
and 1868 when I was from ten to twelve years
old, that you kept me after school one after-
noon in the Cedar Grove schoolhouse in Middle-
field, Connecticut. I had been unusually mis-
chievous that day. The other children as well
as myself expected that a serious punishment
Avas forthcoming.
*^You drew me upon your lap, — great, hulk-
ing boy that I was, and spoke to me somewhat
as follows: *I never expect to become great
myself, but hope that some of my pupils will
become such. In that way I will hope to be-
come great indirectly. You have given me con-
siderable trouble by your pranks. You seem
to have an active mind, and you can become a
5
66 MARIA SANFORD
great man if you will apply yourself diligently
and give up your mischief making ways.'
*^ Before going home that afternoon, I prom-
ised amendment, and from that time on I had
and still have great love and admiration for
you. In my boyish enthusiasm I used to take
you out riding with old Ted, and used to take
you out coasting on a great sled that my father
had just made for me in his shop.
'* After you left Middlefield I did not seem
to know how to reach you, and as the years
went on I had left only pleasant memories. At
this late day I am rejoiced to learn of you and
am looking forward with pleasure to seeing you
in the early part of January. ' '
The fame of the unusual methods of the young
teacher attracted many visitors, among them
Mr. W. W. Woodruff, a long time superintend-
ent of schools in Chester county, Pennsylvania.
In a visit to a school in Connecticut he saw on
the blackboard the motto: **We endeavor to
do what we undertake.'' He was told it had
been placed there by a teacher who had left the
school five years before, and that the pupils
would not have it erased. This so impressed
him that he found out where she was teaching
and went to visit her school. She had been
called away by the severe illness of some mem-
MARIA SANFORD 67
ber of her family. She had made out a sched-
ule for the children; and when the visitor ar-
rived he found the school running itself. Such
an unusual proceeding strengthened the im-
pression he had already received, that he had
found a remarkable teacher, and he de^t^erguined
to try to get her to go to Pennsylvania.
The chance occurred the next fall and found
Miss Sanford ready to go farther west, where
she believed there would not be so much preju-
dice against giving women responsible posi-
tions as there would be in what she called
*Hhe land of steady habits". Superintendent
Woodruff told the school board who wanted a
teacher that she would not go for the salary
they offered — forty dollars a month, but that he
believed she would for forty-five dollars. And
he offered, if any member of the board was dis-
satisfied with the new teacher, or even * cleared
his throat over the matter', to pay the extra
twenty dollars for the four months' school from
his own pocket.
CHAPTER III
THE TEACHER
At the age of thirty-one Miss Sanford left
her native state for the first time. She taught
first at Parkersville, Pennsylvania, where she
made almost a sensation among the Quakers
of the community. Though she found herself,
on the whole, very much in accord with a sect
before unknown to her, yet her sturdy inde-
pendence did not easily give way to some of
their religious customs, and she had to endure
some opposition. She had always been accus-
tomed to opening school by reading the Scrip-
tures and kneeling in prayer. This custom of
course Quakers found obnoxious, but she ad-
hered to it in spite of unfavorable criticism.
Frhe fame of her unusual methods of teach-
in"^ -travelled so fast that in the first four
months' term she had two hundred visitors.
One novelty which impressed them was the
fact that pupils were trained to keep their at-
tention fixed on their work when strangers
came. Another- was the exercise of turning
68
MARIA SANFORD 69
poetry into prose in order to see whether the
children understood the poetry. The superin-
tendent visited her school many times. Each
visit strengthened his opinion that she was the
most remarkable teacher he had known in an
educational experience of twenty-five years,
during which he had examined three thousand
teachers, and made nearly as many visits to
schools. He made careful notes of the work of
the new teacher for publication in the county
School Journal. The phenomenal attendance
record of ninety-three per cent, instead of the
usual seventy-five per cent of rural schools,
testified to the hold she had on the pupils.
More than forty years afterward, a year after
she had retired from the University of Minne-
sota, a doctor in New Jersey, hearing that Miss
Sanford was going to be in Chestar County,
wrote to Superintendent WoodruffjJ^
**My brother tells me that Miss Maria L.
Sanford will be in West Chester soon. As an
original pupil of Miss Sanford when she came
to Chester County, and one of the bonnie twelve
which she prized so highly, I am very anxious
to again meet her.
** Forty-two years ago she taught at Parkers-
ville and it has always been a recollection of joy
when I think of that time, as she did more to
70 MARIA SANFORD
create in me the love of knowledge than any
teacher that I had the pleasure to go to. If
you can give me the time when I can meet her,
I shall consider it a great favor. ' '
The ^'bonnie twelve'' were the twelve pupils
whose names were beautifully printed on a roll
of honor which had been decorated in pen and
ink work by Miss Sanford's brother, who was a
draughtsman by profession. Each pupil had a
copy for his own and another is still carefully
preserved by the Sanf ord family.
At the conclusion of the first term Miss San-
ford's salary was raised one-third for the sum-
mer term, and she was offered sixty dollars a
month for the next year. But the neighboring
town of Unionville offered more, and she went
there to teach in Jacob Harvey's Academy.
Some of the pupils followed, and so paid a
double tax rate in order to be under her instruc-
tion. Here as in her earlier schools Miss San-
ford's tremendous energy continued to be the
marvel of every one. While she was in Union-
ville she used often to walk to the home of one
of the directors, a distance of ten miles, arriv-
ing in time for breakfast, in order to talk over
school matters. Here she would pick up the
baby, who was ill and fretful, and walk with him
on her shoulder while she talked with his father
MARIA SANFORD 71
on school matters. It was remarked that she
never failed to quiet the baby.
One incident of this period is still fondly
remembered by the pupils of the school. A
fifteen year old girl, one of her pupils, Avas so
impressed with Miss Sanford's spirit, that one
day when the worst snowstorm known for
years came and piled the snow as high as the
fences, and every one thought school impos-
sible, she insisted that Miss Sanford would
not expect any of them to give up school for
so small a thing as a snow-storm. So finally
her father got a horse, and took his daughter
on the saddle in front of him. After a time
the drifts were too much for the horse, and
the father turned back; but the little girl
slipped from the saddle and plunged through
on foot. Only a few children who lived near
the school were present, but they saw her
coming, and with shouts made a path for her.
Miss Sanford made a fire in a room upstairs
and sent to a near-by house for dry clothing
for the child. It was days before she was able
to get back home. This incident formed the
basis for the school motto, ^^ Nothing is impos-
sible to him who wills." The superintendent
told that story to every school in the county.
In the spring of 1869 twenty-five of the lead-
72 MARIA SANFORD
ing citizens in ten toAvns of the county began a
campaign to have her elected county superin-
tendent. They distributed a pamphlet that
set forth her qualifications and signed their
names to the leaflet. As to her scholarship
they stated that with the exception of the clas-
sics she was equal to the graduates of Harvard
and Yale. Miss Sanford made a whirlwind
campaign, visiting every voter and walking
sometimes sixteen miles after school. But she
was attempting something too radical; a
woman superintendent had never been heard
of, and she failed of election, a man gaining
over her by a narrow margin. Although she
did not become superintendent she was made
principal of a school in another town, where
she instituted the custom of having the four
schools of the town meet together once a month
for mutual improvement. Each school took
its turn in showing what it had accomplished
and demonstrated any new methods that had
proved successful. This was carried out so
much to the satisfaction of the townspeople
that they ,made up an extra purse of money
for her. So much antagonism from this arose
among some of the teachers that one left the
town. Her next innovation was to lecture at
a teachers' institute. It came about natur-
MARIA SANFORD 73
ally. Teachers' institutes were held once a
month and teachers had their choice of con-
ducting their regular work or spending the day
at the institute. In the absence of one of the
regular speakers Miss Sanford was called
upon to explain the method of some of her
work, and found her real vocation. She be-
gan to speak with great timidity, but gained
courage as she proceeded, and at the close of
the institute had added a new interest to the
gatherings. From the first, her force of char-
acter, her dignity, her earnestness, and her
enthusiasm impressed all who heard her.
Added to these she had inherited a voice of
remarkable purity, flexibility and power. In
a family of beautiful singers she could never
carry a tune ; but her speaking voice had such
power that it penetrated to the hearts of thou-
sands.
In order to understand why the young
teacher felt timid about speaking before her
colleagues, it is necessary to recall that as late
as 1856 it was considered almost disgraceful
for a woman to speak in public. In the His-
tory of Women's Suffrage the statement is
made that at the State Teachers' Association
in New York, in 1856, the president. Professor
Davis, of West Point, in referring to an ad-
74 MAEIA SANFORD
dress made by Susan B. Anthony in which she
advocated opening schools, colleges and uni-
versities to women, said: '*I am opposed to
anything that has a tendency to impair the
sensitive delicacy and purity of the female
character or to remove the restraints of life.
These resolutions are the first step in the
school which seeks to abolish marriage, and
behind this picture I see a monster of social
deformity. I would rather have followed my
wife or daughter to Greenwood Cemetery than
to have had her stand here before this promiscu-
ous audience and deliver that address."
Public opinion did not change so rapidly in
the sixties as it does now; it is safe to say that
when Miss Sanford delivered her first address
before a teachers' institute in Pennsylvania
in 1868 she was braving public opinion almost
as much as Susan B. Anthony had done twelve
years earlier. The editor of the Pennsyl-
vania School Journal, who heard the address,
in referring to it afterwards said: **We well
remember Miss Sanford 's paper before the
State Teachers' Association at Allentown in
1868. It was her first appearance before such
a public audience, and she read under an in-
tense nervous strain, little dreaming it was
the first of thousands of such addresses she
MARIA SANFOED 75
was to deliver, warm from her own heart to
the hearts of thousands of sympathetic hear-
ers. She stood in front of the audience just
inside of the rail, a young girl strung to nerv-
ous tension, pale but resolute. The paper
shook in her hand, but she had something to
say, was saying it earnestly as she had done
all her life, and her audience gave earnest at-
tention. I remember again reading the proof
of this paper for the report that was published
in the Journal. The summer rain was falling
on the maple leaves just outside the open win-
dows, and we heard the steady drip of water
through the pipes in the darkness. We came
upon the suggestive lines quoted in the paper,
Reach a hand through time to catch
The far-off interest of tears.
But it was the personality of the reader by
which we were most impressed.''
The same editor on a later occasion asked
Miss Sanford to deliver a lecture on astron-
omy. He was conducting a Star Study Group
in connection with the Young Men's Christian
Association, and had been disappointed in a
speaker for a certain meeting. When Miss
Sanford protested that she knew nothing
about astronomy the editor still urged her to
76 MAEIA SANFORD
give a talk. She finally consented, and after
some preparation she gave an excellent talk,
ending with Longfellow's poem. The Occulta-
tion of Orion, which she recited with telling
effect.
From this time on she was sought frequently
to give good advice to young teachers. One of
her earliest lectures was on Moral Training
in School, a subject which was always fore-
most in her esteem. Among other thin,gs she
held that, although moral training belongs to
the home, it also belongs to the school and
must begin in the character of the teacher.
She emphasized the fact that moral culture
never hinders but rather stimulates mental
growth. She urged teachers always to bring
a school under the dominion of love, to make
gentleness and kindness the law of the play-
ground, and industry and honesty that of the
classroom, *^to fill every heart with love for
all that is good and true, and kindle the soul
with a longing for a noble life. Then," said
she, ^' the intellect will brighten as if kindled
by the smile of heaven."
Another lecture was entitled How Can We
Elevate Our Public Schools? In this forceful
lecture she stated that we can work first to
gather the children into the schools, then to
MARIA SANFOED 77
seek for high scholarship in teachers, then to
show how infinitely superior is the spiritual to
the physical nature; work to prove that neat-
ness and beauty are better than the rod to
secure good order; teach thoroughness; per-
mit nothin^g in the schoolroom that would be
condemned in the drawing-room of a culti-
vated family, and teach the dignity of labor.
Everyone acquainted with Miss Sanford in
her later life will recognize these sentiments
as very dear to her heart.
Another lecture given many times at teach-
ers' institutes was entitled Lessons in Man-
ners and Morals. In those days it was a novel
idea to advocate the teaching of manners and
morals in school, but Miss Sanford was always
ahead of her time. Among the things she
urged upon the teachers in this lecture were
the following: *^ Without in any way enter-
ing upon the religious aspect of this question,
either by upholding or disclaiming special
tenets, I affirm that my experience leads me to
believe that love of truth is no more inborn
than love of mathematics. There are differ-
ent degrees of capacity for each; but each,
like the other, must be taught and learned. I
maintain that however moral ideas may be ob-
tained, moral training is necessary to secure
78 MARIA SANFORD
obedience to their requirements . . . But no
further than we would trust to the child ^s educa-
tion in mathematics to make him a good linguist
can we trust his training in either of these to de-
velop his moral nature and fit him for the re-
sponsibilities of life/'
Miss Sanford stated emphatically in this
lecture a belief she held throughout her life
when she said: *^Our ideas of education are
too narrow and exclusive ; we are the devotees
of books; we can conceive of no education
without them; we are ready to deny the iden-
tity of Homer and Shakespeare because they
were so independent of such aid. Even those
who avoid the cramming process still work too
absolutely for scholastic development . . .
It is urged by some that this moral training
takes time and there is none to spare. Noth-
ing was ever more ridiculous than this plea.
Is there time enough for grammar, but none
for honesty; time for mathematics but not for
truth? Shall we devote hours to geography
and grudge minutes to temperance? Shall we
with scrupulous care insist upon exactness
and elegance in speech and neglect that
thoughtful kindness which lends a charm to
the homeliest phrase? Is there time to pore
over battles and learn of kings and none to
MARIA SANFORD 79
wake admiration for the faithful performance
of daily duties? We can well fore^go some-
thing of scholarship for the blessings of
patriotism and virtue, but we are called to no
such sacrifice. Intellectual progress is ad-
vanced instead of being retarded by attention
to moral culture.
**Many are led to neglect all effort by the
feeling of disgust with which they recall the
ponderous and prosy lectures by which their
young ears were bored. Such teaching should
indeed be avoided, and any attempts at stated
periods for moral instruction Avill be very
likely to degenerate to formality and cant, but
if we are filled with a sense of the importance
of the subject and of our responsibility, the
fitting opportunity will not be wanting."
In the course of the lecture Miss Sanford
urged that the influence of poetry should never
be overlooked in teaching morals and man-
ners. She recalled the power that m.usic had
over her in her own childhood. ** Music," she
said, ^*is a potent charm to drive away evil
spirits. I remember in my childhood when
we became pettish and quarrelsome our mother
would call on us for a song, and by the time
it was over the clouds would be dissipated
and sunshine return again. Many a rock of
80 MARIA SANFORD
offense in the schoolroom may by this simple
means be avoided; and not only a weary, rest-
less hour be charmed away, but the moral tone
of the school raised because the right spirit
instead of the wron,g has prevailed. ' '
Because Miss Sanford had taught in all
kinds of schools, including a one-room coun-
try school, a two-room graded school, a high
school, and an academy, she was prepared at
teachers' institutes to aid teachers in all kinds
of work. She gave them advice on school dis-
cipline; she told them how to teach history;
she ^ gave instruction in reading. Hei" talks
were always very practical. She would urge
the teachers to train the voice, and remind
them that as a nation we are noted as nasal
talkers. She urged them to watch their own
faults and try to avoid them. In her advice
on reading she urged them not to call on the
best readers but to encourage good effort.
That last suggestion was characteristic of
Miss Sanford; she was known throu,ghout her
whole teaching life as a champion of the poor
student, the bad boy, the child not interested
in school work; and she had remarkable suc-
cess with the troublesome child.
It was also characteristic of her that she
gave talks to the teachers upon neatness and
MARIA SANFORD
The Teacher
MARIA SANFORD 81
order. She had the New England Puritan
belief that cleanliness is next to godliness.
She taught that neatness of person brings
carefulness of morals, and that by raising the
standard of neatness in the schoolroom the
teachers would raise it in the community.
She gave them the Puritan sentiment that
goodness of nature is better than beauty of
face, and urged them to give more attention
to the useful than the useless in dress.
With all this advice Miss Sanford urged the
teachers not to be sentimental and to avoid
the habit of reading either trashy or ** goody''
books, but instead to store the mind with beau-
tiful things. So helpful was her instruction
to country school teachers that one editor said
that Miss Sanford ou,ght to be the president
of a normal school, and that she would never
find her right place until she became a teacher
of teachers. She was as much interested in
her fellow teachers, and especially in the
younger ones, as she was in her pupils. She
used to tell them that there was so much to do
in the world that every one in it ought to work
with all his might. She constantly warned
them to keep their health and to keep on the
alert for opportunity. She urged them to
keep ever in mind the thought : * * No one but
6
82 MARIA SANFORD
myself can do my work/' Another thought
she was fond of presenting as long as she lived
was that they wonld always have trouble.
The world would knock them down sometimes,
but they must jump up with clenched fists and
go at their work anew. One of her many mot-
toes for her own guidance at this time was,
**Do something steadily. Forty years study-
ing birds."
The effect of the mottoes Miss Sanford had
for herself and for others all her life might
seem to be very small. But there is ample
evidence from old students that they had per-
manence. One woman writes fifty years after
Miss Sanford taught in Chester County, *^I
did not have the good fortune to be one of her
pupils, but one of the bright spots in my mem-
ory is a half day our school spent with hers as
visitors. One of the things that impressed
me that day was a passage of Scripture she
had written along the top of a blackboard in
the front of her room: *Buy the truth and
sell it not; also wisdom, instruction and un-
derstanding.' Before dismissing for the day
she had the children rise and read the above
in concert. Before I left the schoolroom that
motto was mine for a lifetime, and I naturally
MAEIA SANFORD 83
always associated the words with Miss San-
ford/'
In the short time she had been in Pennsyl-
vania, she had become so attached to the com-
munity that in later years she wrote to a
friend in West Chester, ** Those years in Ches-
ter County were among the most valuable of
my whole life, and endeared me so much to the
people that I feel that I have almost the inter-
est and claim of a mother in all that concerns
that glorious country/'
One of the many visitors to Miss Sanford's
school was a member of the board of the new
Quaker College at Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
He felt that such a teacher would be a great
help in the college ; and when the professor of
history at Swarthmore broke down in health,
Miss Sanford was engaged as an instructor
there. She entered the college in 1869, as
teacher of English and History and the next
year was made professor of history, the first
woman professor in the United States.
When she went to Swarthmore, the mother
and brother removed to Philadelphia, and Miss
Sanford maintained the home there, always
going in from Swarthmore over week ends. The
mother, always frail, died of pneumonia in
1874. Maria adored her lovely mother, but she
84 MARIA SANFORD
had learned from the mother's bravery at the
death of the father not to give way to over-
whelming grief. Her idolized brother then re-
mained her chief interest. When he married a
year later, Miss Sanford concentrated her at-
tention on an orphaned niece who had come
under her care when she first went to Swarth-
more, and who remained with her at Swarth-
more until she was graduated in 1880. The
following letter tells how she came to have the
little girl with her :
* ' My dear Aunt :
I write to you in tears and wish to tell you
that I have told a lie and would not own it to
Aunty. I have the dreadful fault and have told
a great many. Aunty sent me away this morn-
ing because I would not own it, and came up
this noon, but I told another ( !) She told me she
should send me away if I did not choose to stay
and obey her wishes.
**She bid me farewell this noon and said I
could see her no more, that she should write
to Uncle to come out and take me ; and I write
to you to see if you will take me. I will do my
best to obey your wishes if you will only let me
come. But I don't want you to take me if you
think I shall trouble you a great deal. I am
MARIA SANFORD 85
going to strive hard to break up this dreadful
fault/'
It was doubtless when Miss Sanford was
helping the little girl to break up this dreadful
fault that she sometimes kept her niece shut
into her room for a day at a time, and gave the
other girls in the school the idea that she was
too strict with her relative. The girl students
used to throw offerings into the room through
the transom above the door, and visit with the
little prisoner by the same means. The niece
lived with her in the intimate association of
mother and daughter.
A passage from a letter written by the niece
gives a glimpse of their life : *^ At Swarthmore
she had her study in the main or central part
of the building. The long girls' dormitory,
where she and I shared our sleeping room was
near, and at the opposite end of the building
was the boys' dormitory. One night I was
wakened by hearing her jump out of bed hast-
ily, and when I asked her what was the matter,
she said, * Listen.' I at once heard a dull noise;
and she, becoming satisfied that some disorder
was astir in the boys' region, quickly slipped
on slippers and wrapper and got over to the
scene of conflict at once. The boys had tied up
the door of the three or four men in charge of
86 MARIA SANFORD
their dormitory, and were having a riotous pil-
low fight, not expecting the noise would carry
to the other end of the building. So she caught
them red handed and white-robed, escorted
them to the various doors they had tied up, and
had them release their prisoners. There were
no more pillow fights after that. ' '
A letter reveals her power over her Swarth-
more students: *^When, as a Freshman, I sat
in a somewhat bare and dreary classroom, its
air carrying that faint odor of chalk and black-
boards — which I had learned thoroughly to de-
spise — the door opened and there swept in a
presence, a power, a force which might have
been called violent excepting for its control
and direction — in the shape and person of
Maria Sanford.
**I, and every student in the room, became
instantly and vividly alert and expectant. The
following hour seemed incredibly short. Miss
Sanford opened a new and wonderful field to
eyes eager to see, but till then blind.
**To me, history had been a matter of mne-
monics; dates — learned only for examination
and as quickly forgotten ; names — dead, dry and
lifeless; events having no bearing upon the
present — all assembled in book form with the
main purpose of robbing youth of its joy.
MARIA SANFORD 87
*'Biit the names became living, moving, act-
ing men; the dates — points of departure; the
incidents as real as thongh I were seeing them —
all with a bearing on the life abont me.
^^This was my first impression of Maria San-
ford. Her name brings before me her clear
eyes, her broad forehead, her quick and force-
ful movements, her voice ringing with enthu-
siasm, and best of all — her spiritual and intel-
lectual force, which has so largely and helpfully
influenced the lives of the thousands who were
privileged to know her. ' '
Miss Sanford never wasted a moment. She
made announcements to her class as she walked
to the platform. They never knew when a test
Avas coming. When she gave one she called
*^ Pencils and paper" as she opened the door,
and began her questions at once. The papers
were passed from pupil to pupil for correction.
In the freshman class she used to have a test
like a spelling lesson in which the pupils stood.
She gave a date; the pupil told what historical
fact occurred on that date. If he failed, the
first one who gave it correctly stepped above
him. She used to assign epochs in history on
which pupils were expected to do outside read-
ing and prepare special papers. She also used
to assign a certain number of pages of history
88 MAEIA SANFORD
to be condensed into a four minute recitation.
Besides this each pupil was required to write
several formal papers each term. In her zeal
she was often in danger of encroaching upon
the time due other departments. Pupils would
work over time for her.
^*One of the features of the school at Swarth-
more was an evening study period of one and
a quarter hours of undisturbed quiet study in
a large hall where all except Juniors and Sen-
iors assembled. President Magill and Miss
Sanford were the only ones of the faculty who
could maintain the required discipline, and so
few of the faculty ever attempted to take charge
of study hour. There were large doors from
the back of the room opening into the hall ; and
Miss Sanford usually staid in the hall or per-
haps went into her study. She almost never
staid in the room to watch them, but the effect
of her presence kept the pupils in perfect order
in the study hour. She had especial patience
with students who were backward and had not
had so many advantages as the average, and
would do double work with them to enable them
to rank with their more fortunate companions.
'* She was greatly beloved not only by the stu-
dents and teachers, but even by the domestics
of the school. At Christmas time it was her
MARIA SANFORD 89
habit to go to the housekeeper who had charge
of the many negro servants, and ask her who
among them were not well known or popular,
and who would be liable to be neglected at
Christmas time. She always got for them a gay
bandanna turban or some other gift dear to the
darkey heart, that there might be none among
them forgotten."
In appearance at this time she was notice-
able. Her hair, cut short, was already turning
gray. She always wore plain black gowns, with
long sleeves and high necked collar edged with
immaculate white. Her costume was always
the same, always exquisitely neat, made of the
very best materials, loosely fitted, simply but-
toned, with full skirts ; it allowed for the fullest
possible action, and was noticeably unbecom-
ing. Her rapid, long-limbed stride took no ac-
count of clothing and always left all her habili-
ments floating behind her in the wind of her
progress, as one student remarked, *4ike the
draperies of the Victory of Samothrace. ' ' Al-
though Swarthmore is a Quaker college, and the
people were accustomed to plain dress, even
Miss Sanford's warmest admirers bemoaned
the fact that she would not dress more becom-
ingly. Two men fifty years later spoke of the
ugly congress gaiters she wore. She never
90 MAEIA SANFORD
changed her style of dress as long as she taught.
The severity and simplicity saved both time,
thought and money, that she believed she could
use to better advantage in other ways. But she
was heard to say after she was eighty years of
age that if she had her life to live over again
she should do differently about dress. With-
out doubt she might have smoothed some rough
paths for herself if when she was younger
she had dressed more nearly in the accepted
fashion.
A student describes her at that time as tall,
slender, stately, spiritual, with mobile features
which lightened and darkened according to the
emotions within, filled with enthusiasm for her
subject ; the upturned faces of her students fol-
lowing her every gesture as she traced some
historic event upon a map or outline upon the
board. She never prepared any written lectures
in undergraduate work, but depended on sup-
plementing the classroom work with brief ex-
temporaneous talks in further illustration of
the subject. She was accustomed to making fre-
quent and apt quotations from her wide ac-
quaintance with poetry, and thus made history
an introduction to good literature. From rapid
fire drill in Eoman History with the freshmen
to informal talks and discussions with wide col-
MARIA SANFOED 91
lateral reading of the advanced classes, there
was never a dull moment anywhere. Student
after student testifies to an enduring love of his-
tory aroused in her classes at Swarthmore.
Henry of Navarre, Louis XI, and others lived
again for those boys and girls. Yet they used
to think they were very clever when they got
Miss Sanford to give the recitation hour to de-
scriptive narrative or to poetry connected with
the time. They knew later that they did not
deceive her, but that she was choosing to give
these things when she saw the time and the
interest right for them.
In addition to her work in history she con-
ducted one class in the elements of political
economy, based on John Stuart Mill as a text,
and she had charge of all the public speaking
in the college. In those days every teacher had
a heavy program; Miss Sanford in addition to
her teaching addressed teachers' institutes in
the adjacent counties, gave courses of lectures
on history and political economy in summer
schools, and eventually was called upon to lec-
ture in Ohio, Indiana, and Maryland. Before
she left Swarthmore she was giving illustrated
lectures on the art of European countries, a nat-
ural outgrowth from her work in history.
The trait, however, for which she was held in
92 MARIA SANFOED
fondest remembrance was the deep, personal
interest she took in the moral welfare of some
of the young men inclined to be wayward. She
placed character rather than scholarship first,
and had an especial fondness for boys who
were bright and at the same time bad. She used
to say ** There are plenty of people to love God^s
children, so I look after the devil's. '' One boy
who was expelled from college she took to her
home and kept for a time. After she went to
Minnesota his parents sent him to her when he
again got beyond their control.
At one time there were a number of trouble-
some boys in the school. They broke all the
rules (one hundred of them which the presi-
dent had posted) and the authorities regarded
them as very wild and intemperate. Most of the
faculty wished to expel them, but Miss Sanford
pleaded for them. She took them under her
especial care and gained their confidence, u.ntil
they would confess their wrongdoing freely to
her. She finally succeeded in getting them to
reform their habits and they all kept on at
school.
Sunday afternoon was a great day for those
she chose to take to walk with her. The coun-
try was comparatively wild then, and the
woods were very enticing. She used to lead
MARIA SANFORD 93
her little band through them, and then com-
ing to some nice spot to rest she would tell
them stories and recite poems. She seemed
to have an intuition of what they were going
to need in life. Then there were her books at
their service. Few could know how much it
meant to them. It was not a matter of instruc-
tion alone between her and her pupils; every-
thing she had was at their disposal. She gave
out of her life and her heart, and it was no
wonder she had such power over refractory
boys.
More and more time as the years went on
Miss Sanford spent at teachers' institutes. In
1873 she was the only woman speaker at the
state association, and in fact for many years
was the only woman to lecture. Even as late
as 1878 the institute circulars contained the
statement that **Lady teachers are expected
to prepare essays to be read at the day and
evening sessions. '^ But ^^Miss Sanford of
Swarthmore will be present the entire ses-
sion" was a drawing card; and she was the
only woman named. In 1876 she opened at
Beaumont a course of six lectures by different
speakers. Her subject was Honesty in Pub-
lic and Private Life. Single tickets were ten
cents; course tickets fifty cents. Her lifelong
94 MARIA SANFORD
custom was to charge comparatively little for
her lectures. From lecturiu^g on primary
teaching, geography, history, neatness and
order, reading, composition, school discipline,
she added to her subjects Luther and the
Reformation, and The Labor Question. The
Winter holiday seasons were utilized, insti-
tutes being held at those seasons; and Miss
Sanford finally sent out notices that she could
give three days a week to such work. A course
of fifteen public lectures in history was finally
arranged, beginining with a general survey;
then with several lectures each on Greece,
Egypt, Carthage, Rome, Venice, France, Eng-
land. The course began in June, one lecture
a week at first. Later the lectures occurred
oftener for the convenience of her audiences.
This course made the transition to the art lec-
tures of later years both natural and easy.
In fact the lectures with slides, an unsual
accompaniment in these days, began at this
time.
The Pennsylvania School Journal of Sep-
tember 1878 had the following significant re-
marks about one of the lectures: *'The Labor
Question was presented by Miss Maria L. San-
ford, Professor of History at Swarthmore
College in Delaware County. This was one
MARIA SANFORD 95
of the ablest papers of the session, and we
heartily commend it to the reader. The sub-
ject was discussed from a high standpoint,
which affords the advanta^ge of a broad view
to the unprejudiced student of history. Miss
Sanford's studies have eminently fitted her to
treat this subject from such a point of view,
as perhaps no other member of the association
is equally at home with herself in the wide field
of historical literature.
** *The trouble of our times,' she holds, *is
not accidental, but part of the long struggle of
centuries, a phase of that great strife between
the privileged class and the multitude, between
manhood and caste, which constitutes three-
fourths of the whole history of the civilized
nations. ' She preaches the gospel of labor in
no hollow-sounding phrase, and, what is bet-
ter, practices what she preaches, for in the
circle of our acquaintance we know no one
who is a more enthusiastic, more tireless, or
more effective worker. ' '
The quotation from the lecture has a very
modern sound, and the remark about Miss San-
ford was one that was very often on the lips
of her admirers and friends. It was largely
because she did practice what she preached
that her words carried conviction. A man
96 MARIA SANFORD
from Poughkeepsie, N. Y., wrote to her in a
letter in 1880 : * * I feel that yonr lectures are
among the best of those on our platform. I
believe in soul power and earnestness.'' He
is writing to tell her that a New York friend of
his wants her name in his lecture bureau,
where he has the names of Colonel Homer B.
Sprague, Wendell Phillips, and Mrs. Mary A.
Livermore. As this was just at the time Miss
Sanford went to Minnesota, she probably never
gave her name to the bureau.
It would be neither right nor best to omit
the account of the struggles and hardships
which finally resulted in sending Miss Sanford
to a larger field of work. If she had been an
ordinary person the hardships of her life would
have broken her in her youth. In her case the
result of the smelting process was pure gold.
As has recently been said of a great states-
man, there are natures which require austere
living always in order to bring out the best in
them. The statesman's fall from power was
credited to the fact that the austerity of his
early life was replaced later by luxurious liv-
ing. Maria Sanford not only never lived lux-
uriously, but she had many and fiery trials
which came at times near to breaking her won-
derful spirit. Three different factors entered
MAEIA SANFORD 97
into the final determination to resign her posi-
tion at Swarthmore.
Although Miss Sanford was the first woman
professor and for some years the only one,
there were other women teaching at Swarth-
more. One of these disliked Miss Sanford.
A strong woman herself, devoted to the inter-
ests of Swarthmore, she became little short of
a persecutor, and she made no secret of her
enmity. Miss Sanford was never known to
speak harshly of her, but it was partly due to
the unhappiness she caused her that Miss San-
ford wished to leave the college. Another
woman among other things felt that Miss San-
ford was neglecting her classes by givin,g so
much time to lecturing and teaching in insti-
tutes. Related to some members of the board
of trustees, she imbued them with her ideas;
so that the very thing which today is one of
the greatest factors in favor of a college pro-
fessor, was at that time considered a disad-
vantage. In this as in so many other things
Maria Sanford was a pioneer. It was years
before it was considered a mark of distinction
for a college professor to leave his classes in
order to deliver public lectures. The trouble
caused by Miss Sanford 's lectures induced the
president to write in regard to the matter:
7
98 MAEIA SANFORD
*'By one of those strange perversities in the
affairs of this world, the very person who has
done the most for our discipline here, whose
moral influence is the greatest and best, has
been the victim of a most unprovoked attack,
but fortunately at the very point where she is
strongest. She only needs time and a full
knowledge of the facts and motives from the be-
ginning, on the part of all, not only to defend
herself, but to make all concerned marvel that
any combination of circumstances could have
existed which could make it necessary to enter
upon a defense/'
Maria Sanford was born to lecture as well
as to teach, and it never occurred to her to
give up lecturing in order to please some of
the college authorities. She knew that she
was doing much good, and she believed then
as most people do now, that a college professor
was not necessarily neglecting classes because
he was giving public lectures. In 1878 her
salary was cut for a year from two thousand
dollars to fifteen hundred. Although it was
not stated that this was because of dissatis-
faction with her lecturing, it was easily in-
ferred that such was the case.
The President wrote to a number of the col-
lege trustees that under the circumstances he
MARIA SANFORD 99
could not ask Miss Sanford, as he had expected
to do, to take more work. She at once made
application for a position elsewhere. The
President, in writing to the president of an-
other college on her behalf, averred that she
was the best teacher he had met in his experi-
ence of twenty-five years. But she remained
some years more at Swarthmore. The next
year in a letter to a friend of his who had
charge of a school the President wrote that
Maria Sanford wished to give a course of six
lectures to her school. He continues, **I want
thee to know her better — I consider her indi-
rect influence over the students here as even
of greater value to Swarthmore than her in-
struction in history, highly as I esteem her as
an instructor in that department.
'^Our chief lack is the loss of the time of
Miss Sanford for three days of each week,
making it necessary to sacrifice the history in
our large classes A and B and the instruction
in Political Economy in the junior class. If
this were remedied I could not ask to have the
college in better condition."
The three days a week for institute work and
lecturing were doubtless granted because of
the five hundred dollar cut in salary. The
president makes his attitude^m regard to the
100 MAEIA SANFORD
matter clear to her in a letter in which he says :
**Thon hast enough extra work, I am sure, to
afford to lose a few classes once in a great
while, and no one shall censure thee for that."
In appreciation of her lectures a friend in
Baltimore, Maryland, wrote: **At a meeting
of Friends they resolved to adjourn their
meetin,g over next week in order to have op-
portunity to enjoy thy lecture. They never
did that before to hear any lecturer. It really
was for thee that all those Friends entered
into the above arrangement."
A letter written by a member of the firm of
Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Publishers, of
Boston, in 1905, shows the effect of her teach-
ing on one student:
*^My dear and beloved Professor :
Recently you have been brought to my mind
by a rather striking coincidence. I was re-
ceiving a call from an intimate friend, and we
were comparing notes on teachers who had
most influenced our lives and thoughts. I said
that one who influenced me strongly was a pro-
fessor of Ancient History who was so inter-
esting and enthusiastic that even the driest
parts of the subject became interesting. Mrs.
C. said that reminded her of a professor who
MARIA SANFORD 101
taught English Literature at the University
of Minnesota, and I asked could it by any pos-
sibility be Professor Sanford and wonderful
to relate, it was. I have a picture in my mind
of you as you used to sweep into the lecture
hall brimming over with enthusiasm so that
everyone in the class felt lifted up and carried
off to the heights of Ol^onpus. The leaven
you implanted has caused me to read exten-
sively in Mediaeval and Modern History, and
Social and Economic History."
Another written by a woman in Somerville,
Mass., in 1913, has this passage: *^One of my
dearest pictures on memory's wall is of you in
your alcove room and your smile of welcome
when I came to call upon you. If I were asked
for the names of those who had most influenced
me, yours would lead all the rest, for your
teaching gave me a love for history which has
never left me."
Letters from the president of Swarthmore to
Miss Sanford the year after she went to Min-
nesota show that he felt the loss of her influ-
ence over the students. ^^The place that thou
held is not likely to be so filled in this genera-
tion. We sadly miss the zeal and enthusiasm
which thou never failed to inspire in thy classes,
102 MAEIA SANFORD
and in my time I never hope to see it rekindled
to the same extent. Need I tell thee how much
I miss thy influence upon all the students, and
especially upon the children of the preparatory
school. Few are gifted with the power to con-
trol so effectually and withal so cheerfully as
thou art, and thy inspiring influence upon
classes I sadly miss. I had a recent conversa-
tion with a teacher who had trouble with cer-
tain students, and I advised her to go into the
classroom always in a kindly frame of mind
toward them if possible, and try the effect. She
reported to me that she observed a complete
change in these students. Besides many other
valuable things I learned this principle of gov-
ernment especially from thee/^
Another factor which few people knew any-
thing about caused Miss Sanf ord heartache and
despair. In a letter to an intimate friend writ-
ten in 1875 is this significant passage :
**With me as the years go by, I feel that I am
losing hope. I feel less strong, less confident,
less sure of what I am, of what I can do, of the
good in what I have done, and even in what I
have hoped for. This seems to me the saddest
of all the losses which the years have brought.
Mrs. Browning has expressed this beautifully
in these lines from The Lost Bower :
MAEIA SANFORD 103
I have lost the dream of Doing,
And the other dream of Done.
But in spite of all these things I hold that we
may and should be glad and rejoice ; if we have
done earnest, faithful work, we have a right to
triumph, to rejoice over our success.''
Miss Sanford was at this time thirty-eight
years old. She was now to undergo the most
tragic of all her experiences at Swarthmore,
and the one which must have been finally the
deciding factor in her resignation. Soon after
the letter just quoted above, she experienced a
memorable event which colored all her later
life. September 24, 1875, was ever after to her
and one other member of the faculty of Swarth-
more a day to be referred to again and again as
a wonderful day. She loved and was loved by
a colleague with whom marriage was impossi-
ble. Even to a woman of Miss Sanford 's lofty
soul and iron courage the five remaining years
at Swarthmore must have been little short of
torture. During these years she disciplined
herself constantly by writing mottoes and
* * thoughts ' ' for her guidance. As they are the
chief means by which she revealed the inner
working of her nature some of them are quoted.
Miss Sanford was not a voluminous letter
104 MARIA SANFORD
writer, seldom writing except upon business
matters. One motto which she gave to the man
she loved he referred to twenty-five years later.
*^The cabalistic * After suffering, glory' brought
a new peace to my mind. ' ' And at a later time,
<<Thy motto is often before me in dark and
cheerless days, * After suffering, glory!' "
That Miss Sanford's great soul was stirred
to its depths is shown in the poignant memoran-
dum she made out for her guidance at the begin-
ning of the year 1876 : * * I thank thee, oh my
God, for light. *Till death us part' it shall be
true. I can work for him, seek his happiness,
live for him; and receive no sign. Shall I not
then be his good angel ? That will not be cold-
ness, but the fullness of unselfish love. God
help me! My heart shall not grow cold for I
will keep it warm with sympathy and love for
others. I will throw my whole soul into my pro-
fession. Oh it is hard but it is the rugged path
that leads upward always."
The next day there was merely this sentence :
**The book is sealed."
A few months later appeared the following:
**To be read daily three times. To myself.
Goodness and truth and purity never fail to win
love and esteem. The utmost kindness that a
sister could give."
MAEIA SANFORD 105
Students and friends knew at times that Miss
Sanford was suffering, but none knew all the
causes of her trouble. Girls who roomed near
her heard her walking and talking to herself in
her room at night, and knew that their beloved
professor was greatly distressed. Older friends
saw her suffering in her face. But for some
years she struggled on, finding strength in strik-
ing out for herself the ^ thoughts" which kept
her on her upward path. Some of these clearly
have reference to the enemy who had caused her
such unhappiness: ^^ Success depends on pa-
tience. The patient are those who have learned
to suffer ; who have learned to fall and rise again.
What matter if others triumph outwardly?
Unless they can lead us also to give way to
jealousy and hatred they have not really tri-
umphed. But if we seek to retaliate then we
place ourselves on their level and are indeed
conquered. Keep to the upper path ! Make your
success consist in the growth and beauty of
your own soul ; then there can be no humiliation
from others. What they would make such but
strengthens your virtue through the effort to
resist the temptation to hatred and revenge."
**My citadel is my character, and this they
cannot reach unless they can tempt me to envy
and hatred. I will not stoop to this."
106 MARIA SANFORD
**Let others wear their laurels undisturbed;
Aviii yours in a field their petty souls cannot
enter. Be what they would seem, and the calm
dignity of real wealth shall be yours.''
^^It makes no difference what others have
that I have not. I am happy in the abundance
that I have, and in the privilege of contributing
to the happiness of others.''
^^We should be ever seeking to groiv in the
direction of all good."
*^It is a glorious thing to be the friend of
the unfortunate."
^ ' Put all your soul into your work. ' '
** There come to us sometimes visions of duty
from which we shrink ; we can do much, but not
this; we cannot nerve ourselves to take *The
last hard footsteps of that iron crag' which we
have climbed with weary feet. But if we tri-
umph in this, rise above our weakness and fol-
low the clear vision though all our selfishness
would drag us down, we shall indeed find * After
suffering, glory'."
She gathered strength at this time from one
of the type of books which she had resolved as a
young girl never to waste time in reading. Some
quotations from an anonymous novel published
in 1864 under the title of Annie and Her Mas-
ter evidently related experiences similar in some
MARIA SANFORD 107
respects to her own. **I have done the work
I felt called on to do in the way that it was
truest to myself to do it; with the rest I have
no concern/'
^*The words were nothing; the tone of such
deep and strong tenderness was everything. Is
it unbeautiful that an unreasoning fidelity of al-
legiance should endow with something of the
dearness of the man who so loves her, all things
that are or have been his ? He does not love with
the self-seeking passion some men call love, but
with a love, the strongest desire of which is the
good and happiness of what he loves.''
The strain after some years told too much on
Miss Sanford, until in 1879 she resigned at the
close of the college year, without knowing what
she was going to do next. Something of what
this step cost her is recorded in a note she wrote
soon afterward: **My resignation was the
fierce grasp of one drowning after something
stable, the attempt for mastery of one whose
brain was reeling. But that awful struggle was
the crisis, and it brought me peace. There are
still moments when I give way, but calm reason
is sure to triumph. ' '
Some years later a woman wrote to a friend
about Miss Sanford: **It sometimes seems to
me that some people are sacrificed at Swarth-
108 MAEIA SANFORD
more. There was great power in Miss Sanford.
And liow she worked and fought for others!
I know a time when she suffered tortures at
Swarthmore; I could see it in every feature.
For her to leave there heart-broken as she was,
and then rally all her forces and achieve the
success that she has since achieved shows a
power which very few women possess. I feel
deep interest in her welfare, and believe that
under some circumstances she might have re-
mained forever at Swarthmore. ' '
And that she achieved what she set herself to
do in regard to the man who loved her is testi-
fied to in a sentence from a letter some years
after she left Swarthmore : * ^ Thy blessed influ-
ence, when around and ever near me in those
memorable years that are gone, did more than
aught else in those days to make and keep me
worthy. ' '
For twenty years after Maria Sanford went
to the University of Minnesota this friendship
was kept up through correspondence. Her ad-
vice was asked about the careers of his chil-
dren ; her sympathy for the death of a member
of his family. And when it became possible,
after Miss Sanford was past sixty years of age,
he pleaded with her to become his wife. But
Miss Sanford, although she never told her rea-
sons for refusing, doubtless felt that she must
MARIA SANFOED 109
not burden any one else with the great debt she
had set herself, in the eighties, to pay to the
uttermost farthing. The debt had been con-
tracted after she had been some years in Min-
nesota; and the paying of the money occupied
her until she was eighty years of age.
It was a tremendous thing to decide to leave
Swarthmore after ten years of work there.
Miss Sanford was forty-three years of age, an
age when many women hesitate to make a
change from a certainty to an uncertainty; an
age which at that time was called a dead-line
for teachers. Her emotions were wrought to a
high pitch of intensity. While she hesitated in
doubt she had an experience which she regarded
as an omen, and which decided her to go. She
was so unused to such experiences that this one
always remained clear in her mind. She had a
dream in which she was standing at one end of
a long, curving bridge whose further end was
lost in mist. While she stood there wondering
if she should cross into the unknown, her mother
appeared at the other end and beckoned her
across. She regarded the vision as intended for
her guidance, and thereafter had no doubt of
what she was to do. She told a friend late in life
that it was the only experience of the kind she
had ever had.
CHAPTER IV
THE MINNESOTA PIONEER
In 1879 Miss Sanford left Swarthmore for
a year, and busied herself lecturing. The
following summer when President Folwell of
the University of Minnesota went east to
secure additional members for the faculty of
the rapidly growing young western institu-
tion, he met at Chautauqua among others
Maria Sanford, and after half an hour's talk
decided that he wanted her on his faculty. He
had seen her work at Swarthmore when he,
visited a friend on the faculty who took him to
the classroom of the enthusiastic professor of
history. In later years, long after his own
and Miss Sanford 's retirement, he expressed
himself as proud of having '* discovered'' Miss
Sanford for the University of Minnesota.
In 1880, the trip from Pennsylvania to Min-
nesota to one who had never been farther west
than the Middle Atlantic states, was like go-
ing into the wilderness, but Miss Sanford was
of adventuring spirit, and to her the new land
110
MARIA SANFORD 111
seemed full of promise. She brought with
her a young niece who had been attending
Swarthmore college. For the first year they
boarded, and the niece became a student at the
University. At that time the entire academic
college was housed in one buildin^g, known to
students of later years as the ''Old Main.''
There was a faculty of eighteen. Miss San-
ford, made assistant professor of rhetoric and
elocution that first year, was the only woman
of that rank in the faculty. The first year
there were only seventeen graduates in the
three colleges of the University. The second
year Miss Sanford was made a full professor
of rhetoric and elocution. The college was
growing but still had a sub-freshman class.
There were about three hundred students, one-
tenth of them in the Senior class. Miss San-
ford entered upon her duties with such energy
and enthusiasm that her classes were very
large. She gave instruction in composition,
in rhetoric, in elocution and oratory to sub-
freshmen, freshmen, sophomores, juniors and
seniors. The two upper classes were required
to write two essays a term, or to recite one
oral carefully prepared. This requirement
Miss Sanford in her zeal increased, until it
called forth from the President of the Univer-
112 MARIA SANFOED
sity some years later a letter in which he said,
*^ Complaint is made by the students of the
Junior class, and by members of the faculty
who instruct the Junior class, that the work
required in the rhetorical department is in ex-
cess of what is stipulated or designated in the
catalogue, — that instead of two essays a term,
the students are required to write one a week,
and that in consequence they are too much
burdened. I called to see you, but you were
not in. I, therefore, lay the matter before
you.'' To students at the University of Min-
nesota at the present time those requirements
would seem very small, as for more than a
decade freshman students have been required
to write at least two themes a week. This de-
tail is of interest because there were students
as well as members of the faculty during Miss
Sanford's three decades of teaching who
thought that she gave too little work to her
classes. She was perhaps influenced by being
criticised so early in her course for the oppo-
site reason.
Here as always Miss Sanford never spared
herself. She gave her time, her interest and
her encouragement from early morning until
late at night, wherever or whenever students
needed her. She frequently drilled students
MARIA SANFORD
The Minnesota Pioneer
MARIA SANFORD 113
at four o'clock in the morning for oratorical
contests. One District Court Judge in Minne-
sota, who was one of her early students, recalls
her work with him. He says, **She was not
only my instructor in a very large per cent, of
work during my years of school, but in addi-
tion we were very close personal friends. She
did me many favors totally disconnected with
school work, which materially shaped my fu-
ture activities. When she first came to the
University, I was in the freshman year. Miss
Sanford was splendidly equipped for the long
period of exacting work upon which she at that
time entered. She seemed never to tire. She
was continually alert mentally and physically.
Her cheerfulness never failed. Her patience
seemed never exhausted. She had a keen sense
of humor, which frequently tided over difficult
situations. I never knew her to use an unkind
or discouraging word to a student.''
Another student of those early days, a
former mayor of Minneapolis, says of her:
*^ Students in the University in those days
were constantly quoting Miss Sanford. Her
methods of teaching were unique and original
and she obtained a good amount of work from
her students because they liked to please her.
She had great enthusiasm and deep sympathy
8
114 MARIA SANFOED
for those who especially needed her guidance.
In her classes there never was a dull moment.
Who cannot remember those impassioned re-
citals of those poems which appealed to her?
I admit it was hard to keep tears from coming
to my eyes, as they did to her own eyes, when
she repeated The Angels of Buena Vista. I
think Miss Sanford put more soul into her
work than any other teacher I have known.
There was always a spiritual and upliftin,g
note in her work. She helped me in giving me
special training in speaking. How often she
asked me to come in her spare hour and re-
hearse to, her over and over again some ora-
tion I was to deliver. There was no limit to
the amount of work she would do for an indi-
vidual student. Years later when I had be-
come deeply involved in a local political cam-
paign in Minneapolis, I was obliged to do a
great deal of public speaking. Miss Sanford
watched my course with interest. One morn-
ing she came to me to my office saying she had
read the substance of an address which I had
given the night before, which included liberal
quotations. She remarked that she was sorry
to find, if the report was true, a grammatical
error which was unworthy of me and which
she hoped I would not make again. She then
MARIA SANFORD 115
gave me some good advice about the use of my
voice in large halls. Then, laughingly apolo-
gizing for her gratuitous criticism, she went
on her way, no doubt on some other errand of
goodness and kindness."
As it was uncommon in those days for a
woman to drill young men in oratory, the meth-
ods she used are of interest. She was no mean
orator herself. Her voice was magnificently
trained, and her methods were those of com-
mon sense. She drilled her students to ex-
press their thoughts adequately. She had no
stiff method of elocution or gesture. If a stu-
dent did not want to make gestures she never
tried to make him do so, remarking often that
many of the best speakers she had ever heard
stood still on the platform, while some of the
worst she ever knew about could saw the air
more violently than Hamlet's players.
Miss Sanford did not drill her students in
elocution alone. Taking their essays and ora-
tions she went through them laboriously and
severely; never if she could help it did she ap-
prove an oration which did not have something
to say. Her wide acquaintance mth history
and economics fitted her to guide and criticise
in a masterful manner, whether a student
wished to discuss Demosthenes or free trade.
116 MARIA SANFORD
In Miss Sanford's third year at the Univer-
sity she added to her duties the work of the
department of English, the head of which was
taken sick and later died. She did the work
so well that President Folwell publicly thanked
her for the wonderful way in which she had
handled it. The following year a new man
was called to the head of that department, and
Miss Sanford returned to her own work as
Professor of Rhetoric and Elocution.
Early in the ei^ghties , there came the first
great crisis in the history of the young Uni-
versity. There was considerable suspicion in
the state that the Agricultural department was
a colle,ge merely on paper, and was of little use
to the farmers of the state in any material
way. The state Legislature proposed to sepa-
rate it from the University and make it an in-
dependent institution. The President of the
University, feeling that it would be a calamity to
have the colleges separated, and believing that
the Agricultural College met a real need, made
before the Legislature a telling plea. Then with
the aid of Mr. 0. C. Gregg he inaugurated a
system of farmers ' institutes and asked some of
the professors of the University to visit them
and familiarize the farmers with the work of the
college. Among these speakers was Miss San-
MARIA SANFORD 117
ford. She had already begun her work as a
public speaker in Minnesota by teaching at the
close of her first college year in the teachers'
institute at Excelsior. Now she was asked to
speak to the farmers' wives, while the men on
the faculty spoke to the farmers themselves;
and her talks, which were always homely and
to the point, became so popular that the halls
in which she spoke soon became too crowded.
At one place, when she reached the town hall,
she found the stairs and the entrance so
crowded that she could not get into the room
where she was to speak ; with a friend she went
outside to a window above the platform on
which she was to stand. A ladder was procured
and Miss Sanford entered the room through
the window, to the enthusiastic applause of all
present. Her favorite talk on these occasions
entitled How to Make Home Happy proceeded
after this fashion: *' *But,' says this mother,
on whose forehead the wrinkles are becoming
deeply set, *If I were only rich and could have
things comfortable, I'd be as good-natured as
anybody ; but that old broken stove — and Josiah
will leave the door open, and he knows it makes
it smoke.'
<<My good woman, did you ever think that
those who have all these disagreeable things to
118 MARIA SANFORD
bear need all the more to have cheerful hearts ?
Have you ever noticed how even a smoking
stove will brighten up and puts its best foot
foremost for a pretty, bright-faced, smiling
woman! You used to be pretty, and you are
not old. Suppose you try a few bright smiles
and kind words on the old stove and on Josiah.
As for this matter of riches, the bottom plank
of my belief is 'money cannot make a happy
home.' "
During one of the institutes a railway strike
occurred and interrupted the train service. For
several days there were no trains of any kind.
Miss Sanford had an engagement to lecture
forty miles farther up the road. She was de-
termined to keep that engagement, and said if
no train came that day she would start the fol-
lowing day on foot. No train came; and so,
carrying a little cloth bag containing only her
toilet articles, she started up the track on foot.
Fortunately by noon a freight overtook her
near a station, and she was allowed to ride in
the caboose; but had it not come along she
would have walked the entire forty miles.
In 1889 enough information had been dissem-
inated among the farmers of the state so that
the Legislature passed a resolution ''That the
unity of the several departments of the Uni-
MARIA SANFORD 119
versity shall always be preserved and that the
Agricultural College shall be maintained as an
important department. Resolved that we here-
by convey the individual pledge of the members
of this Legislature that the interests of the
University shall be carefully guarded in the
future." This resolution, engraved upon a
large parchment, was framed and presented
to the University. It was hung in a conspicu-
ous place in a new building, Pillsbury Hall, pre-
sented to the University by Governor Pillsbury
in recognition of this action. Throughout this
crisis Professor Sanford rendered valuable
service. Many years later a former student
wrote to Miss Sanford: **We remember a
time when the University was not popular as it
is now, when it was hard to get appropriations
for it, but when one woman went about in ourl
state and interested people in the institution
through her own personality, and we shall not^
forget it."
The outside work that Miss Sanford did made
it necessary for her to have some of her class
work at unusual hours. For many years she
conducted a class called '^ Maria's sunrise
class." The ordinary professor who had felt
obliged to have a class at half-past seven o 'clock
in the morning would probably have asked the
120 MARIA SANFORD
weak students to attend the class. That would
have been in the nature of a punishment, and
the class would have been a drag. But Miss
Sanf ord was tactful enough to ask the very best
students to her sunrise class ; it was felt to be a
great honor to be selected as a member. One
student, recalling her experience a quarter of a
century later, said: **How clearly I remember
the cold and shivering discomfort I underwent
starting from my distant home before daylight
for that early class! The other students as
they assembled were equally uncomfortable.
How as Miss Sanford came sailing into the
room we forgot all about chilblains and frost-
bite in her brightness and enthusiasm!''
At these early sessions no students enjoyed
more than did the professor herself anything
that brought a moment of relief to the routine.
One morning when the members of the famous
class were called on to give their daily quota-
tions the first one repeated the first stanza of
the poem Early Rising, by John G. Saxe.
God bless the man who first invented sleep!
So Sancho Panza said and so say I.
And bless him also that he didn't keep
His great discovery to himself; nor try
To make it — as the lucky fellow might —
A close monopoly by patent right !
MARIA SANFORD 121
Miss Sanford's head went up, her eyes
sparkled, and her face kindled into animation.
When the next student went on with the second
stanza, she manifested the keenest enjoyment:
Yes, bless the man who first invented sleep
(I really can't avoid the iteration.)
But blast the man, with curses loud and deep,
Whate'er the rascal's name, or age, or station,
Who first invented, and went round advising
That artificial cut-off, early rising!
And when the eighth student finished the
eighth and last stanza she was convulsed with
mirth.
Miss Sanford's class room in the Old Main
building at first was a small dark room which
the students considered very unpleasant; but
perhaps no other room ever received so much
of the professor 's affection. Long after it had
been burned and another raised above its
ashes, she recorded her memories of it: *^The
Old Main was not a beautiful building archi-
tecturally, though when from the other side of
the river one caught a glimpse of its cupola ris-
ing from the rich green foliage of oaks sur-
rounding it, the view was by no means unat-
tractive. ... I well remember the little
room beyond the stairs where I for years met
my classes, a room so hard to ventilate, I often
122 MARIA SANFORD
thought with my cranky love for fresh air, —
so often over-ventilated, as the shivering stu-
dents thought as they met there the freezing
wind straight from the north pole. How viv-
idly I recall the members of those early classes,
so many of them the tried and trusted friends
of today, and some, with their eager hopes and
brief ambitions passed to the distant land.
Those days spent in the little,. dark, cold class
room were to me bright and beautiful years.
Years of prosperity and increasing numbers
of students and new buildings robbed the Old
Main of its dignity as President's office, library,
and chapel, and gave to me the more commodi-
ous front room for my classes, but though the
oaks were beautiful as seen from its windows,
and the distant view of the river at sunset glori-
ous, this room never had quite the charm of the
dingy little room beyond the stairs. They had
delightful associations which could not be trans-
ferred."
Miss Sanford wrote this years after the
building had burned. She closed her somewhat
pathetic memories with a characteristic note:
*^I should not be true to all my memories if I
did not record that when the fire finally took
the Old Main, and I stood outside watching the
destruction, not only of the building but of
MARIA SANFOED 123
books and pictures which were precious to me,
I could not repress a feeling of satisfaction as
I thought of the millions of cockroaches being
consumed in that holocaust. ' '
The love of fresh air to which she referred in
her writing of the Old Main was amusingly
illustrated by an incident which occurred early
in the eighties. During one winter's vacation,
when the fires were allowed to run low, and her
work did not. Miss Sanford secured permission
to have a wood stove put in her study on the
first floor of the Old Main. One afternoon fire
was discovered. It had evidently started from
a defective flue in Miss Sanford 's stove. Con-
siderable damage was done by the fire, and more
by the deluge of water that soaked every part
of the building. A special meeting of the fac-
ulty was called to consider how to care for
classes during the period when repairs were
being made. The boilers had been started with
the idea of drying out the building; and the
president's office, where the faculty meeting
was being held, was as steamy as a Turkish
bath. Finally she could stand it no longer and
said, *^ President Northrop, is it not possible
for us to have some fresh air in this room?"
President Northrop replied, — **Yes, Miss San-
ford, we might let you have another stove. ' '
124 MARIA SANFORD
The second year of her work in Minneapolis
Miss Sanford went into her own home, which
she later bought, and in which she lived until
a few years before her retirement. In spite of
this she spent many of her working hours out-
side the class in her office in the Old Main build-
ing. There she retired on Sunday afternoons
for quiet and reading. There she worked even-
ings when she was not away lecturing. There
she even, upon occasion, stayed all night and
slept on a couch in her private office. The
elderly night watchman would see a feeble light
glimmering in the front windows of the Old
Main and would feel it necessary to investigate
for fear of fire. Time after time he found
Miss Sanford working late at night ; and finally
for her own safety, as well as for that of the
building, she was asked not to spend the night
in her office. She had the misfortune, however,
after she had been in Minneapolis a few years,
to fall on the ice and hurt her back in such a
way that she could not leave her bed for a con-
siderable time. The doctor, in fact, told her
that she would never be able to walk again.
Miss Sanford did not propose to accept any
such decree. She ordered a dray and had her
mattress taken to her office at the University,
and herself transported to the same place and
MARIA SANFORD 125
there she stayed nights as well as days until she
was able to go back and forth. She would get
into the class room for her class work and then
return to the office, where she would hold her
conferences with her students. In this way she
kept her work going in regular order.
In spite of sickness, college work and public
lectures, the professor gave her home more at-
tention than do many people who have no out-
side duties. The niece who had come with her
to Minneapolis finished her college course, mar-
ried, and went west. Another young niece fif-
teen years of age then came to live with Miss
Sanford and pursue her education. She first
entered preparatory school, and later the Uni-
versity. Miss Sanford 's house was commodious
and she at once filled it with students, selecting
for the most part young men and women who
needed work in order to pay their own way
through the University. She asked an older
sister of the niece who was attending college
to come west as her housekeeper. Each of the
girls who lived with Miss Sanford was given
some duty to perform to help pay for her
board: one girl cleaned the lamps; another
did the sweeping and dusting; another used
to help with the washing. In this way the
girls paid a large part of their expenses. Miss
126 MAKIA SANFOKD
Sanf ord charged the young men more for board
than the women, because there was less that
they could do about the house. The plan worked
out satisfactorily as long as Miss Sanford lived
in that home. It became so popular that she
took a second house near-by in which some of
the boys and girls slept. She was always insist-
ent on the utmost cleanliness. The rooms were
simply but well furnished, and were cheerful
with white curtains. The lamps must be shiny,
and the dust must be carefully removed. Her
young niece who was intrusted with the dusting
and with some of the sweeping, was not tidy as
a girl, and when her aunt would look sharply
into the corners and be displeased if she found
dust the young girl would quake ; but she found
a way after such an experience of reinstating
herself in her aunt's good graces. She knew
that Miss Sanford did not like to darn stock-
ings. When a drawerful of them had accumu-
lated the young girl would surreptitiously put
them into immaculate order; and when Miss
Sanford found the stockings neatly darned, the
culprit breathed freely again.
Miss Sanford went to bed early and arose at
unearthly hours to work. Getting up at three
o'clock and finishing before breakfast she did
the washing for a family of sixteen with the
MARIA SANFORD 127
help of a young German girl who boarded there
for a time. One morning two of the girls were
frightened before daylight by hearing stealthy
movements outside their window. After shak-
ing in their beds for a time, one got up courage
to creep near the window, expecting to see a
burglar trying to enter, but found that it was
merely Miss Sanford washing the window on
the outside.
Another incident she was fond of telling as a
joke on herself. One night when she was in
great pain she decided that she must go to the
kitchen to heat some water for relief. As she
sat by the stove waiting for the water to heat,
she thought the kitchen needed some cleaning ;
and so she took the water heated and scrubbed
the walls. The next morning when she told
the students, she laughingly said she forgot all
about the pain, and when she got through scrub-
bing was surprised to find she was entirely well.
She worked outside her house as well as in-
side. She sodded the lawn on her hands and
knees ; she set out trees on the parking in front
of her house as an encouragement to the neigh-
bors on the street to do likewise; she piled
wood in her back yard early in the morning.
One of her colleagues passing by on the side-
walk one day heard her cheerful voice singing.
128 MARIA SANFOBD
** Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,"
and just then a stick of wood, came flying over
the fence almost in his face. One thing she
could never master was the use of the scythe.
She was always ,so busy that she hardly took
time to eat. She frequently came rushing to
the table after the others were seated, but she
did not neglect the students at her board. She
had, a habit of taking a book from which she
read; and especially if there was something
funny she would read it in order to add cheer-
fulness to the meal.
She thought the, students of those early days
had too few diversions. There were no sorori-
ties or fraternities then, and there was no or-
ganized recreation in the University itself, and
so she encouraged those of her household regu-
larly and often to dance on the parlor floors of
which she was so careful. She would have
them roll up the rugs and set back the furniture
and would watch and applaud a recreation in
which she herself had never indulged. One
time only did some of the students get Miss
Sanf ord to enter somewhat into their fun. Her
students had never seen her in anything but
plain black ; but one evening some of the girls
prevailed upon her to dress up in a beautiful
gown of the Governor's wife. They arranged
MARIA SANFORD 129
Miss Sanford's hair in the prevaili]i,g style,
and decorated it with a rose. She descended
to the parlor, a perfect stranger to every one
who saw her. Even her yonng niece failed to
recognize her annt, and when the young men in
the house learned that it was Miss Sanf ord they
were so astonished that they asked her why she
didn't always dress that way. Her own niece had
never before realized that her aunt was beauti-
ful. Miss Sanford was so pleased with their
appreciation that she ordered a dress made by
the same dressmaker but soon returned to her
severe black, which she wore up to the time of
her death.
Although she wanted her household to have
sufficient recreation, she felt great responsibil-
ity for their moral welfare. One woman has
never forgotten how bad she felt about disobey-
ing Miss Sanford 's express wish that no one
should leave the house late in the evening with-
out her knowledge. This young girl went coast-
ing one evening at ten o 'clock with some of the
other students mthout telling the professor.
That evening there was an accident, and in this
way Miss Sanford learned of the escapade. She
called the girls together and gave them a serious
talk which left them thoroughly repentant.
In addition to the students a little lame boy
9
130 MARIA SANFOED
from the reform school came into the family to
stay for awhile. She did so much for him that
many years later, a middle aged man, he wrote
to her from a neighboring city telling her how
much he owed to her help and how he was try-
ing to rear his OA^m boys in the way she had
taught him.
About this time she helped also a family of
entire strangers who were friends of another
professor at the University. The husband, a
minister, had broken down in health, and his
wife was planning to go with him to Colorado
when her friend wrote to her to try Minnesota,
and to go to Miss Sanford, one of the biggest
hearted women living, who would be a mother
to the family. Miss Sanford found a house for
them, and helped the wife to find enough stu-
dents to fill up her house, so that she could earn
her living, and bring the children to the west.
After the family was settled in the city Miss
Sanford became a true neighbor. More than
once on Sunday evenings after sitting awhile
with them she would say, *^ Where are the
clothes ? ' ' and with a cheery word would carry
off the wash and do it herself on Monday be-
fore (going to the University.
During these years, Miss Sanford lectured
some winters four or five nights each week all
MARIA SANFORD 131
winter, traveling from fifty to a hundred miles
for each lecture, yet never missing a class at
the University. As she was more and more
sought as a speaker, the people of the state
came to understand that she must travel at
night in order not to miss her classes; and so
when they thought of asking Miss Sanford to
lecture, the first question was, **Is there a night
train for herT' In these night travels she
never took a sleeper, but curled up on the seat
of a day coach, where, she insisted, she was
perfectly comfortable. She would go directly
from the station to her class room for her early
morning work, as fresh as if she had gone from
her home three blocks away.
CHAPTER y
CHRISTIAN'S BURDEN
Among Miss Sanford's students in the late
eighties, were some young men who became in-
terested in real estate. There was a real estate
boom in the city, and even the college boys be-
came enthusiastic about bu^dng lots and putting
up buildings. One of the young men in Miss
Sanford's home became so involved that he
gave up his college course and went into the
real estate business for a time. He was so
successful that the Professor succumbed to the
temptation to buy land and put up houses. She
bought many lots in her own neighborhood and
had dwellings built by some of her students who
earned their way through college by doing
carpenter work in the summer. Miss Sanford's
idea was not to get rich but to help others ; and
she asked some of her Quaker friends in Penn-
sylvania and other friends in Connecticut, some
of whom were elderly and had a small amount
of means, to invest their money in her enter-
prise, in the hope of providing for their old age.
132
MARIA SANFORD 133
It is worthy of note that her friends had such
confidence in her ability and her judgment that
they gave their money unreservedly into her
hands. The exact amount she borrowed for
this real estate enterprise cannot be deter-
mined, but thirty thousand dollars is probably
not too much to estimate. Some of it, however,
was loaned by rich corporations. For a time
everything went well, but the history of the real
estate boom was like that of most booms. A
collapse came, and caught Miss Sanford at the
wrong time. The young student whose exam-
ple she had followed had sold out before the
failure and was a good many dollars richer for
his experiment; but she unfortunately lost all
the money she had invested. Though this loss
was in one way the greatest trial of her life, it
was perhaps in another way her greatest bless-
ing. For a few years she was so harassed that
her work at the University suffered. Students
did not know what was troubling her ; some of
them thought that she was lecturing too much
and slighting her class work. They sensed the
fact that she was not her usual self. Without
knowing anything of the straits she was in they
resented what they thought was lack of interest
in her work and began to show dissatisfaction
with the overburdened professor. She was
134 MARIA SANFORD
caricatured in the Gopher, the annual produc-
tion of the Junior class, and a petition finally
presented to President Northrop asking to have
her dropped from the faculty. Hurt as she
was, she felt that her work was too valuable to
make it advisable for her to be dropped. She
redoubled her efforts, braced herself to meet
the trial, and keep on with her class work, giv-
ing of herself more and more every day. To
her firm friend Governor Pillsbury she confided
her difficulties ; and he with his strong business
sense advised her to go into bankruptcy and
pay as much as she could of her debts. Some of
the foremost bankers in the city gave her sim-
ilar advice, but she would not listen, and de-
clared that if her life was spared she would pay
every cent of the money she owed, both prin-
cipal and interest. To her glory and honor she
paid that debt, although it took her more than
thirty years. Not until she was eighty years
of age did she feel free. Men who urged her
repeatedly to do what any reputable business
man would have felt it right to do, honored her
so greatly for refusing that they are still talk-
ing of it.
Just how much money Miss Sanford bor-
rowed it has been impossible to learn, as she
never kept account books ; but large sums from
MARIA SANFORD 135
different people are on record. From one friend
in the east she borrowed eight thousand dollars.
After she had paid three thousand of the prin-
cipal, this man offered to forego the interest
and from that time on she paid fifty dollars a
month on the principal. This man, eighty-five
years old before the debt was paid, had an
invalid wife and a frail daughter, all of whom
had to live on the money that Miss Sanf ord was
able to send him. Yet he never lost faith in her
and in one letter wrote: *^I appreciate the
efforts you have made, and the severe trials
through which you have passed. Not many
men or women, I fear, would have done so nobly.
Still you have only proved yourself to be the
Maria L. Sanf ord that N. W. Terrell told us you
were, and that I believed you to be from what
I saw in Middlefield in May, 1867, and in Ches-
ter County later.''
Some years later, in another letter, he reiter-
ates: **I have absolute confidence in your in-
tegrity, and I have had abundant reason to
have.'' When this debt was finally liquidated
in 1908, the aged man wrote as follows : ' ' This
brings to a finis one feature of our protracted
experiences in finance that have been running
now for nearly twenty-one years. While we
have both been disappointed, it gives me pleas-
136 MARIA SANFORD
lire to know and say that I have found you in
all these trying circumstances the very soul of
honor and integrity. It was forty-one years ago
last May that I first met you. . . . Your
character has been put to a test that you did
not seek nor expect, and it has been strength-
ened and brightened thereby. These qualities
you will carry with you from this little island
of time on to the great continent of eternity.
Certainly thine has been a rather re-
markable career. I have lived eighty-four years
and have met many teachers, but I can recall
none whom I think entitled to the credit due
thee. Few have taught as long, and not one that
I have known contended so long and so bravely
against adverse fortune, and in behalf of kin-
dred and friends as thee has. . . . Then
the last twenty years of thy history; — well, it
reminds me of what I have read of the closing
years of Walter Scott. Although thee has not
been able to do all for me that I hoped finan-
cially, thee has fully sustained my ideal of
moral integrity. Very soon with us dollars will
disappear, but character, all that will be left
us, will endure. ... I enclose thy note;
as a relic it will be of more interest to thee than
to me. The pecuniary results of our acquaint-
ance have not fully met our desires and expect-
MAKIA SANFORD 137
ations, but with one result I at least ought
to be satisfied, for I have put Solomon in the
background! *One man among a thousand
have I found; but a woman among all these
have I not found. ' Ecclesiastes 7 :28. ' '
From an elderly woman Miss Sanford bor-
rowed six thousand dollars. That this friend
also appreciated the effort made to repay her
is shown in a letter written more than twenty-
five years after the money was borrowed : * ^ On
April ninth I wrote you and cancelled your note
and sent it in my letter. My daughter wrote,
hoping to get word to you at Seattle about see-
ing her friend, and as you did not refer to
either letter we know they could not have
reached you. I do not like to risk sending this
check back without asking you if it will be safe.
I do not consider it mine. Perhaps you will
receive my letters sometime after they have
traveled around the country awhile.'' Miss
Sanford was at the time on a lecture tour. A
few days later she wrote again: ^^I was glad
to get your good long letter, and thankful I
have relieved you of some of your financial bur-
dens. You give me credit for being more gen-
erous than I was, for with the April check you
finished paying all except the last thousand,
according to my accounts. I am glad to close
138 MARIA SANFORD
the book, so do not give yourself any thought
about it. I put that check in the stove." She
refused to let Miss Sanford pay the last thou-
sand dollars of the debt.
A letter from a Minnesota business man only
a year before Miss Sanford 's death shows that
still another one felt the force of her endeavor :
^^Both my wife and I are amazed at your great
activity and ability to give such constant atten-
tion to that heavy task of public speaking, with
its many inconveniences and discomforts.
When we think of all the good you are accom-
plishing these days of unrest and pressing
problems, we realize how great a blessing your
leadership is in directing our thou,ghts along
right lines, and I feel that I am almost heart-
less to let you strive to keep up these monthly
payments. Now I think it is time to say *Well
done' to you as an expression of our high re-
gard and esteem, and as a testimonial to your
great leadership and helpfulness Ave want you
to accept the remainder due ; and in any event
the obligation is truly paid, and you cannot pay
it twice.''
Other evidences of a similar feeling came to
Miss Sanford from people in various parts of
the country. From the family of a deceased
creditor she received a cancelled note for sev-
MARIA SANFORD 139
eral hundred dollars. Among all her creditors
there seemed to be only one person who had a
different feeling. To this man, a rich business
man, she owed eight thousand dollars. For
some years he was a prominent member of the
Board of Regents, and that may have had a
bearing on the difficulty that Miss Sanford had
in keeping her position in the University. On
different occasions he had his la^vyer Avrite to
Miss Sanford. One of the letters is as follows :
*'I must now insist that without any further
delay you give attention to my letter of the 29th
ult. in reference to the note. Not hear-
ing from you I have made several attempts to
see you, but without avail. I will ask you to
telephone us tomorroAV, and let me know when
and where I can see you in reference to the
note. To be entirely fair Avith you, I am
obliged to say that inattention and indifference
on your part will not only be of no avail to you,
but will prove a detriment. The propriety of
your course is another matter. The note must
be fully paid or its payment definitely and cer-
tainly provided for at once.'' In 1913 Miss
Sanford finished paying this member of the
Board of Regents.
Her method all the years of paying back the
money she owed was to set aside each month as
140 MARIA SANFOED
much of her salary as she could possibly spare
and pay each of her creditors in turn a certain
per . cent, of Avhat she owed. She began with
the oldest people and those most in need.
Some of these died before the debt was liqui-
dated. Naturally, those to whom she owed most
were the last, to be paid in fulL
The Chicago Banker of June 15, 1907, in an
article entitled The Banker a Man of Judgment,
gives this tribute to Miss Sanford's effort:
**0n the east side of Minneapolis and near
the University lives a woman involved in the
panic, who was paying her debts out of her
hard earned salary and meager income, money
which she needed for her advancing years. In
sympathy for her I said, — ^Professor, men go
through bankruptcy and get rid of such debts.
If you do not want to do that way, let me ar-
range a compromise, and you pay fifty cents
on the dollar. Your creditors are rich cor-
porations, and it will not hurt them to lose a
little.' Was she pleased at my proposition?
Did she thank me? Nay, verily! She rose in
her righteous indignation and, spurned my sug-
gestion. She , said, ^ My father taught me when
I was a child that when storms of adversity
attacked me I was not to yield weakly to the
MARIA SANFORD 141
gale, but rise and fight the blast. I could not
sleep in my ,grave unless I paid my debts, and
I shall pay them in full.'
*^I had to permit that noble woman to pay
my bank, as she paid others, to the last dollar.
If some morning you see in stirring headlines
that a new wonder has appeared in southeast
Minneapolis, and that Elijah's chariot of fire
and flaming horses have again swept down to
earth, and that our beloved j^rofessor has been
caught up to the heavens, do not be surprised.
Only pray that her mantle of integrity may fall
upon a worthy successor."
She said at one time that she allowed herself
only thirteen dollars a month for her personal
use ; and for more than thirty years, even until
she was past seventy-five years of age, she
walked Avhere much younger and more healthy
women rode on the street car. She ate always
the plainest food, she dressed always in the
simplest, most austere fashion, she did not even
allow herself Avhite at her neck and Avrists.
Her house had no luxuries. The rooms of stu-
dents were comfortably furnished; her oa\ti
room was austere to bareness, without even an
easy chair. She was a great lover of good liv-
ing, of good food, but one day she was speaking
with enthusiasm of a very good dinner she had
142 MARIA SANFORD
just eaten at her home, and remarked that she
had had a potato stew for dinner. She told
one friend that she did not even use a match
whenever she could use a paper spill instead.
She split her own wood for the kitchen fire.
She piled the wood in piles. She rose at two
o'clock on Monday mornings and did her own
washin,g for the house. She got down on her
hands and knees and scrubbed her own floors.
Students who were early risers sometimes saw
a strange sight, that of Professor Sanford
trundling a wheelbarrow toward her home from
some place. near-by where she had been picking
up wood or chips, but none of the students ever
knew why these strange, unheard of things were
being done. She was sensitive to criticism, but
when she knew she had something to do no
amount of criticism could swerve her from her
chosen path. Her feelings were hurt more
than once at class plays when some facetious
student would imitate Maria Sanford in dress
and action. Not even her colleagues on the
faculty were aware of the burden she was bear-
ing. Many of them considered her stingy be-
cause she spent so little money on herself and
was so averse to riding on the street cars when
that seemed the natural thing to do.
MARIA SANFORD 143
One other way of saving money became so
well knoA^^l and so mnch tallied of that the
papers of the country during the world war
spoke of the fact that an old lady, eighty years
of age, was travelin,g across the country, giving
patriotic lectures and refusing to ride in a
sleeping car as long as the boys were suffer-
ing such hardships in the war. The railway
conductors and passengers who spread this
story had no means of knowing that for thirty
years before this time Miss Sanford had been
doing a similar thing; in fact she never slept
in a Pullman car. She had always saved that
money. Once some years before the war she
was invited to lecture in northern Saskatche-
wan. Money was given her for her fare and
for her sleeper. She remarked that she had
ridden in a day coach; and when the horrified
listener asked if the Canadian people had not
given her money for a sleeper she said cer-
tainly they had, but she knew of no easier way
to make ten dollars than to save it and ride in
a day coach. The remarkable thing about Miss
Sanford 's riding in the day coach during the
war was not that she was jSavin,g money be-
cause the boys couldn't have comfortable sleep-
ers, but that she was riding in a day coach at
an age when most women are unable to ride on
144 MAEIA SANFORD
the cars at all. She was past eighty years of
age when America entered the war.
With this strenuous, ascetic, Spartan kind of
living she reduced little by little the great debt
on her shoulders, even though her salary at the
University was cut at one time one-third, and
was never raised until two years before her
retirement at the age of seventy-two. When
she retired she said to a friend that she hoped
in three years more to be able to finish paying
the debt, but ^ at the end of the three years told
another friend that she must make before her
death fifteen thousand dollars. How she made
that amount of money in the next eight years
it is impossible to tell. She averaged probably
not more than ten dollars a lecture. She gave
many lectures for nothing; some for two or
three dollars ; a very few lectures for one hun-
dred or two hundred dollars; but as nearly as
can be estimated from the very imperfect and
irregular accounts she kept, her lectures prob-
ably did not average more than ten dollars
each. She once made a written statement to
the effect that she earned on an average four
or five hundred dollars a year lecturing. Yet
at the time of her ei,ghtieth birthday, in 1916,
she wrote on a little scrap of paper a memoran-
dum in which she said, ^*Mv debts are now all
MARIA SANFORD 145
paid but four thousand dollars. Now I can
begin to live for others instead of living for
myself as I have always had to do." A re-
markable statement for one who never had
lived for herself ! How the four thousand dol-
lars Avas paid in the next four years it has been
impossible to learn ; but that her debts were sat-
isfied in some way or other seems probable from
the fact that her executors stated a year after
her death that nobody had presented any
claims.
When in the late eighties the petition men-
tioned above was written asking for her re-
moval, there were many students to stand by
her. A group of men in the junior class went
to see President Northrop to intercede in her
behalf. One of the girls in that class was so
troubled by the attitude toward her beloved pro-
fessor that now, after thirty years, she feels
that her University course was spoiled for her.
There were only six girls in the class, but each
of the six was particularly interested in some
man of the class, several of whom were opposed
to Miss Sanford. This young woman refused to
have any thing to do with the Gopher of that
year, and succeeded in thwarting some of the
plans for the class play. The managers of the
Gopher had the temerity to ask Miss Sanford
10
146 MARIA SANFORD
to excuse them from the recitations while they
were at work on the book, which was to hold
her up to, the ridicule of the state.
Some students believed that the opposition to
Miss Sanford was founded on a sort of sex
antagonism. Miss Sanford 's ideas for and
about women were then fifty years ahead of her
time. That Susan B. Anthony's appearance at
the chapel should be the signal for nearly all
the young men to cut the exercises is a case in
point. When one of the boys was asked his
reasons for the discourtesy he answered, ^^We
despise all she stands for.'' Though Miss San-
ford was not at that time a suffragist she was
a friend of Susan B. Anthony and a believer in
woman's rights. Her method of dress without
doubt was another factor that created antago-
nism among some of the men, as well as among
many of the women. Her methods of teaching
also were at the opposite pole from that of many
of the other teachers. She paid little attention
to the text book, whereas it was common in
those days for instructors to stick closely to the
words of the text. She was not methodical,
and did not adhere closely even to a subject.
She was not logical in her thought, but was con-
stantly carried away by the beauty of some lit-
erary gem which she would give to her stu-
MARIA SANFORD 147
dents. Those who profited by it thought this
of more value than all the textbook work of
their other instructors. This unusual method
of teaching, with her unusual appearance and
advanced ideas brought about the trouble with
the students which added to her already over-
burdened life.
Her heart communings over the distress in
her life resulted as so many times with her in
the writing out of thoughts for her guidance.
Those written at this time reveal much of her
belief in the purpose and end of life : *^No mat-
ter what comes to us, how we are ^battered by
the shocks of doom,' if it but develop what is
highest in us. What is the highest? I think
it is the power to stand alone, power to seek
the best things. Is not the highest end of life
power and will to minister unto others? How
can we minister if we have not been taught in
the school of adversity? The best thing we get
is not joy but strength."
Another undated ^^ thought'' may well belong
to this period. It is too helpful to pass by:
*^We know that some people are speaking well
of us all the time. Why not believe it of all, and
get the reward of joy in our own hearts, and if
we should chance to smile cheerily on some one
who was cherishing unkind thoughts of us the
148 MARIA SANFORD
smile will not make those thoughts any more
bitter and may perchance awaken kindly ones."
In spite of her harassed state of mind Miss
Sanford's teaching was not at this time con-
fined to University class work. For several
years she taught three evenings a week at the
Woman's Boarding Home in Minneapolis, a
home conducted for young working women. She
asked only to be assured of enough students to
give her two dollars an evening. Each girl paid
twenty-five cents a lesson, and the superintend-
ent was enabled to fill up her owm room with
girls for each class. So enthusiastic were the
young women that instead of two dollars she
received seven or eight dollars each evening.
In the three years she gave a course in Brown-
ing, one in Kipling, and one in Riley, and some
years later, after she had had a wonderful trip
to Europe, she gave an art course to these
young women using the beautiful photographs
she had brought back.
Another group of women in the same house
took a course of lessons from her. These were
teachers who wanted to refresh themselves with
authors they already knew. Miss Sanford
gave them two or three hours an evening in-
stead of one. She was .so enthusiastic about
her work that one very blizzardy day when she
MARIA SANFORD 149
fell on the ice and dislocated her shoulder she
appeared at seven o'clock sharp for her class;
and at nine o 'clock insisted on going home alone
instead of staying all night as she was urged
to do.
Her interest in the individual was so sincere
that the superintendent at one time ventured
to send to her a girl who had come mysteriously
from the east, a college girl without money.
She had probably run away from home, but
never explained how she came to be in want.
The superintendent in a puzzle sent her to Miss
Sanford, who gave her money from time to
time, and tried in various ways to help her
earn some for herself.
In addition to teaching and lecturing, house-
keeping and looking after her neighbors, she
preached upon occasions. The one Friends'
church in Minneapolis, small and frequently
without a pastor, was one in which she was
especially glad to preach whenever she was
asked.
At one period she preached for six months
in a Universalist church which was without a
pastor. ^Vlien asked on various occasions what
she talked about, she said ** Religion." Indeed,
it was difficult to gather from Miss Sanford 's
preaching whether she had any formulated
150 MARIA SANFORD
creed. She was considered very liberal, and
every one who spoke of her preaching remarked
npon its lofty spiritual quality. A judge who
attended this church said he always went out
from the service feeling lifted up, glad that he
had heard the sermon, but unable to reproduce
even the main points in the talk. He always
had the feeling that Miss Sanford's sermons
were not well thought out, were not logical ; but
that the spiritual effect was very marked. Her
preaching never jarred ; she was general, never
specific. He was always reminded of Whittier 's
Eternal Goodness when he thought of her.
A part of one sermon, which has been pre-
served, may throw some light upon Miss San-
ford's belief. Her text was, **God is a spirit,
and they that worship Him must worship Him
in spirit and in truth.'' ^'I do not Avish to deny
the personality of God, but I cannot conceive
or comprehend what a spirit is. That which I
see of God is law, unerring and changeless, but
none the less beneficent, none the less our
Father. It is the very fact of the changeless-
ness of God that makes His greatness, that
makes our trust in Him. The old idea of a God
dealing out only goodness and kindness makes
necessary the idea of a devil. God was good,
but here was evil; God was just but here was
MAKIA SANFORD 151
injustice ! But our idea of God being laiv gets
rid of this difficulty. ^I am a jealous God, vis-
iting the iniquities of the fathers upon the chil-
dren unto the third and fourth generations of
them that hate me/ I think that all through
the operations of law right is stronger than
wrong, and goodness stronger than evil. Law
goes on. It develops certain organisms. They
have their weaknesses, and these lead to their
destruction. The weaker creations always yield
in the battle to the stronger, the purer, the
nobler ones. The things that are nearer to per-
fection, nearest to God are the things that will
at length inherit the earth. But this is a proc-
ess that is slowly worked out, and worked out
through the lines of law, not by the absolute
crushing of God's hand, wiping out all wicked-
ness. . .
**God comes near unto us. He is not far
off even though we call him long and seemingly
in vain. I do not disclaim a personality in God.
I am not able to comprehend. I have nothing
to say. I only say that these are but a part of
His Avays. The grandeur of eternity I cannot
comprehend, but we see Him on earth and near
to us. The most trivial things are under the
law that is unerring. The greatest movements
of the universe are bound by that same law."
152 MARIA SANFORD
To some who knew her in her home Miss San-
ford 's religions feeling seemed more a matter
of feeling for what is beantifnl in morals and
in the literature of the Bible than the outcome
of strong, personal faith. This was probably
due to the fact that like many Puritans she sel-
dom talked about her private beliefs. The care
with which she kept and referred to a passage
from George MacDonald is perliaps as clear an
indication as one needs of her attitude towards
religion : 'VLife and religion are one or neither
is anything. Religion is no way of life, no
show of life, no observance of any sort. It is
neither the food nor the medicine of being.
It is life essential.''
So indifferent Avas she to some observances
which many consider essential that she some-
times surprised and at other times shocked con-
ventional people. Early one Sunday morning,
for instance, after noticing a hole in the road
near her home, and fearin,g some one might be
hurt in passing, she wheeled ashes to fill the
place and continued until good citizens began
to pass by to church. At another time she dis-
covered on Sunday morning that the potatoes
in the cellar were sprouting; and as that was
the only day she could spare she took care of
her vegetables then. In such respects she de-
MAEIA SANFOED 153
parted from the Puritan teachin^gs of her
youth. Necessary manual labor was at all
times and in all places dignified and natural.
One Saturday when she had been asked to
speak to a gathering of teachers she rose early
and cut up a quarter of beef before going to
her lecture. At the home of a superintendent
of schools in a town where she often lectured
she used to help her hostess with the work.
No small amount of unpleasant comment re-
sulted from her long time custom of collecting
in her skirts on her way to the class room in
the Old Main stray papers defacing the beauti-
ful campus knoll. These she deposited in a
safe place until some gloomy morning when she
used them to make a bright fire in the fire place
in her class room; remarking smilingly as the
students assembled that the material for the
fire had cost the University nothing. As the
University hired men to keep the campus clean
critics thought a professor might find a worth-
ier and more dignified use for her time.
Some time after her death a student of the
earlier days related another incident which had
always touched her deeply. Before University
Avenue was paved, there was at one time a
mud puddle of some size just at the main en-
trance to the campus which girls had consid-
154 MARIA SANFORD
erable difficulty in crossing. Miss Sanford on
her walk of three blocks from home several
times a day carried each time a little bag of
sand which she emptied into the water until the
girls could cross dry shod. Not heralded like
Sir Walter Raleigh's picturesque act but of
essentially the same type !
The more thoughtful students began at
length to see something of the purpose animat-
ing the unconventional acts of the only woman
professor in the University and the ^^ Gopher''
from time to time recorded the change in senti-
ment. In one number toward the close of her
first decade in Minneapolis appeared the ad-
miring tribute :
A woman tropical, intense,
In thought and act, in soul and sense.
A longer characterization in verse by the stu-
dents of this period has the whimsical tone of
abashed admiration and affection:
AFTER ALL
Though she 's always in a hurry, in a flutter and a flurry,
And she never seems attired for the ball;
Noble qualities defend her and her soul is warm and
tender —
She's a pretty good Maria after all.
MARIA SANFORD 155
Though sometimes her little dealings may not soothe a
person's feelings,
And he lets his temper fly beyond recall;
Still these deeds are done in blindness, and her heart is
full of kindness —
She's a pretty good Maria after all.
Though she may not quite remember in her bustle each
September
All the names of those who came to her last fall :
Still perfection's a delusion, and we come to the conclu-
sion —
She's a pretty good Maria after all.
When her spirit has departed where the true and noble
hearted
Find reception in the great celestial hall;
When her mortal dust is sleeping, we shall whisper softly
weeping —
She's a pretty good Maria after all.
CHAPTER VI
THE NEIGHBOR
Miss Sanford's love for Minneapolis was
shown in her attempt to make it more beautiful.
The desire for municipal beauty was hardly
awake in this country but the Professor deter-
mined to arouse her own city at least to its de-
sirability. To this end she founded in 1892
the Minneapolis Improvement League. Its
sole purpose was the beautifying of the city.
Miss Sanford conceived the ambition of keep-
ing the city as it increased in size free from the
slums which used to be considered an unavoida-
ble nuisance in any large city. Her endeavor
was always to prevent evil rather than to re-
form it. A favorite motto of hers was an epi-
gram of Horace Mann : * ^ One former is worth a
thousand reformers.'' Thirty years have
passed and the league is still in existence. For
the most part, the members were women, but at
different times prominent men of the city were
active in the work of the association. The con-
156
MAEIA SANFORD 157
stitution stated that *Hhe object shall be to
promote the cleanliness, health and beanty of
the city. This organization shall keep clear of
all political or party complications, its object
being to promote intelligent co-operation be-
tween the people and the people's officers in
making Minneapolis one of the most healthful
and beautifnl cities in the world." Meet-
ings have been held monthly for the past
thirty years except during the summer season
and during the world war.
The idea of the formation of the League
came from work that had been done in New
York and Chicago and in Whitechapel in Lon-
don. Early in its organization seventy-five
women were enrolled as members. The presi-
dent proposed to distribute circulars that ad-
vertised cleanliness and beauty, and to cultivate
friendly relations mth building authorities.
Placards were placed in the street cars asking
people not to spit on the floor. Spitting on the
street cars at that time was such a nuisance
that one member of the League said she was
obliged to buy newspapers to put on the floor
before she got on the car. The Lea,gue was
also asked to attend to the matter of spitting
on the floor in the post office. By strenuous
work in time they secured a city ordinance
158 MARIA SANFOED
making it unlawful to spit on floors of street
cars or of sidewalks.
Professor Sanford herself attended person-
ally to various improyements. She prepared
a pamphlet on the disposal of garbage and
other similar subjects helpful to young house-
keepers ; this paper she was asked later to read
before the Women's Council. A doctor on the
health board a few years later, told the League
that the arrangements they had made for house
to house collection of kitchen refuse was a vast
improvement over any previous arrangement.
Miss Sanford saw the commissioner of one of
the city wards and persuaded him to have snow
cleared from gutters and manholes. The So-
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
asked the League to see what could be done to
prevent having rubbish in the streets that would
injure horses. Miss Sanford called attention
to the matter through the newspapers. In
1895 she proposed a year of experiment with
public bath houses, the friends of the measure
to finance the experiment. In order to arouse
interest in this measure she gave an account of
her visit to the Health Protective Association
at Philadelphia. The League was the first
body to discuss the early closing of business on
Saturday afternoons, and in other ways the
MARIA SANFORD 159
bettering of conditions of employees, such as
the cashing of checks by employers.
As was natural with a society of this kind
the work of greatest interest was with the
school children of the city. Beginning in 1893
and continuing for ten years, the League gave
flower seeds to the small children ^ for planting
in their gardens at home, giving seeds at first
to two schools. The results were so gratifying
that the work was increased from year to year.
At first Miss Sanford visited the schools and
gave prizes for the best flowers raised. Later
a special committee from the League member-
ship went to the homes and inspected the gar-
dens, giving prizes to the best ones. The first
year twenty such gardens received prizes. As
the work grew, the room in each school having
the largest number of prize gardens was
awarded a beautiful framed picture. These
were the first works of art in the public schools
of the city. When money was needed to pay
for the pictures Miss Sanford gave courses of
lectures on the subjects of the pictures selected,
charging ten cents admission. In the course
of ten years she gave half a dozen courses of
such lectures.
The fourth year fourteen thousand children
were supplied with seeds, and the tenth year
160 MARIA SANFORD
forty thousand. The fifth year more than one
hundred pictures were given as prizes. Though
the membership of the League had increased
by this time to nearly two hundred, Miss San-
ford's lectures were needed to raise money
enough to pay for so many pictures; notwith-
standing that the art dealer, a public spirited
citizen, gave several outright.
The children were asked to give some of their
flowers to the sick. They were also asked to
co-operate with the League in the extermina-
tion of the Russian thistle and the sand bur.
For this they were formed into brigades which
brought loads of the obnoxious weeds and
burned them at the school. A street inspector
of Chicago was so much interested in their re-
sults that she organized the school children of
that city into bands to help keep Chicago clean
and beautiful.
The Minneapolis Park Board one year pre-
sented bulbs for winter planting to a number
of schools; and the State Fair Association ex-
hibited one year sixty bouquets from the gar-
dens, awarding prizes to six of them. Teachers
found the work the most enjoyable of the year,
and the Minneapolis School Board sent a
formal vote of thanks to the League.
Two years after the formation of the League
MARIA SANFOED 161
it was admitted to the National Federation of
Women's Clubs, and three years later to the
State Federation, which asked the League to
give a report of its work to the Omaha Exposi-
tion. In this year, 1897, Miss Sanf ord resigned
from the presidency because of the pressure of
other duties; but promised faithfulness to the
body as far as her time would permit. The
members then thought it fitting to make her an
honorary president for life. Some years later
she was again made active president for four
years.
By 1897 the work of the League was so well
known that women from other states were eager
to learn the various methods used for improve-
ments. The Park Outdoor Art Association
asked Miss Sanford to present the work of the
League to its members, as a result of which the
League was invited to become an auxiliary to
this body. Her paper was printed in the annual
report of the association and also in the south-
ern magazine American Homes. The League
thus became so well known that inquiries
poured in from all over the country.
The work with the school gardens increased
in scope when in 1898 the Government and Min-
neapolis seed firms gave vegetable seeds to
boys who wanted them. Professor Shaw of the
11
162 MARIA SANFOED
Agricultural College gave wheat to any who
wished to experiment in raising it; for some
years, too, he showed the boys of two schools
near his home how to care for vegetable gar-
dens. The League showed their appreciation
of his services by making him an honorary life
member of their association.
The children had by this time learned to raise
flowers for their o^vn sake, because they loved
them. So many of the schools had been fur-
nished with pictures that the committee ex-
perimented with plaster casts for prizes; but
as it was difficult to interest the children in
them, prizes of any kind were at length discon-
tinued. Instead, the children were given shrubs
with which to beautify their home lawns. Eose
and lilac bushes and strawberry plants were
given to those children who wanted them. The
standard work on horticulture by Professor
Green of the Agricultural College was put into
all these schools and into the library, and the
children encouraged to inform themselves on
the best method of gardening.
Interest in what the women had accomplished
became so "wide spread that a group of public
spirited men asked them to undertake the open-
ing of a summer playground in some public
school yard, the men to pay for the expense of
MABIA SANFORD 163
the experiment. The permission of the School
Board was obtained, a supervisor hired, and
the public asked to contribute toys and sand.
Miss Sanford was made chairman of the com-
mittee on this work. One member of the League
taught swimming at this school, and another
collected reading matter. The men who paid
for the playground were made honorary mem-
bers of the League. The experiment was so
successful that the next year two playgrounds
were conducted. The following season the
School Board offered to conduct a manual
training class; and the society of the D. A. E.
presented the playground schools with flags.
In the year 1902 the League supported the
industrial and playground work, with the prin-
cipal of one of the schools to overlook it. The
following year five hundred were attending the
summer schools; three buildings were in use,
and nine teachers employed. Letters from as
far east as New Jersey and Boston were re-
ceived asking about the results of the work. In
1904 a thousand children were taught manual
training, cooking, sewing and nature study.
After five years the League turned this work
over to the School Board, which has conducted
it since.
Another field of work suggested by Miss San-
164 MARIA SANFORD
ford had a far reaching effect. She set forth
the need of an educational committee which
should see that the schools were visited by per-
sons competent to suggest needful changes and
improvements. The suggestion was favorably
received; Miss Sanford was made chairman
of the mothers' educational committee. They
worked for better janitor service in the schools,
for the abolishment of basement school rooms.
Such were the modest beginnings of the present
thoroughly organized parent-teachers' associa-
tions in the city schools.
Many other improvements for which the
League worked met with less notable success.
It tried to have the street car signs im-
proved ; to have signs removed from trees and
posts; and to have a law forbidding the de-
facement of the landscape by huge signs in
glaring colors; but the city still suffers from
them all. Not until an outspoken European
visitor wrote of the horror of the billboards
everywhere confronting the traveler in the
United States did a planning commission take
steps to do away with unsightly advertising.
The city water of Minneapolis had for some
years been unsatisfactory, and the League took
up the question of a pure water supply.
Through its sub-committee on pure water, it
MARIA SANFORD 165
secured the appointment of the first Pure
Water Commission and the first submission to
the people of filtration bonds. This was accom-
plished by arduous effort on the part of the
League. Meetings were held in different parts
of the city to arouse public interest, dodgers
were printed urging attendance, and an expert
was brought from New York. In the course of
time an improved water supply was obtained.
In 1898 the state fire warden aroused public
spirited women to the necessity of preserving
for a state park the handsome body of forest
around Cass Lake, which included the Cass
Lake Indian reservation. The women ^s clubs
at once became interested, and the next year the
president of the Federation of Women's Clubs,
accompanied by Miss Sanford and one other
woman, went to Washington and interviewed
the President, members of Congress, commit-
tees on Indian affairs, the Bureau of Indian
Rights, the Commissioner of Public Lands, and
the Secretary of the Interior with encouraging
results, although nothing was done that year
with reference to the reserve. The clubs con-
tinued to Avork vigorously to prevent the de-
struction of the valuable forests by lumbermen.
After four years a bill was finally passed in
1902 saving this and eventually other valuable
166 MARIA SANFORD
forest areas to the state. During these years
Miss Sanford worked untiringly toward this
end.
At the close of the first ten years of the work
the League was acting with the Park Board, the
Commercial Club, the Board of Education, the
City Council, the Board of Health and the State
Legislature. Affiliation with so many organiza-
tions made the members consider the advisabil-
ity of disbanding. But as after deliberation they
felt there was a real place for such a club, they
discontinued their work only during the world
war, and resumed it in 1921. Twice the League
gave public expression of appreciation of its
founder and most untiring worker; once in
1912, when it made Miss Sanford its delegate
to the Biennial of the General Federation of
Women's Clubs at San Francisco; and again
in 1916, when it held a public reception at the
West Hotel in honor of Miss Sanford, who had
again for four years been active president.
As long as Miss Sanford remained an active
member of the University faculty civic work
of any kind occupied only a minor place in her
activities. As the University increased in size,
her classes increased in proportion. In 1890
there were a thousand students. The money
available for her department was not sufficient
MARIA SANFORD 167
to give her an adequate amount of help, so that
both the number and the size of her classes in-
creased with time. To stimulate the work in
oratory in Miss Sanford's department, Gov-
ernor Pillsbury gave for some years prizes for
the best orations of the year.
Miss Sanford conceived in 1890 a plan by
which the members of her classes could have
the use of many of the best text books in Rhet-
oric and the history of art, sculpture, and archi-
tecture, the lives of artists, copies of beautiful
poems and essays, ^\dthout being asked to buy
a great number of books. For her work she
considered the few copies of such books access-
ible in the library to be inadequate. She there-
fore bought sets of books and rented them
to the students for a dollar a year. This method
required the work of assistants to give out and
collect the books and keep the records. In spite
of their best efforts so many books were lost
every year that she was out of pocket. The
method was not altogether satisfactory to the
students, either, nor to some members of the
faculty. There was for a considerable time a
suspicion that she Avas making money renting
books. As that was not considered ethical for
a university professor, she had to endure con-
siderable criticism.
168 MARIA SANFOED
As the years passed those who had left col-
lege began to appreciate the value of Miss
Sanford's teaching. One former student in
writing to her said, ^*I have thought of you at
different times, — how much you have had to put
up with in many ways ; how brave and cheerful
you always are, and with what vigor you meet
each new discouragement and perplexity. I
wish I might hope that my life troubles, when
they come, would find as brave and true a
spirit, a heart as warm and tender, and a mind
as able and vigorous as yours. ' '
Another student the same year wrote from a
larger university in an eastern state. This
man remarked in his letter that he was sixteen
years of age before he saw this country, and
had to earn his own living while he went
through the whole school system of the state
of Minnesota. Said he : *' This is a great insti-
tution of learning. I am proud of it, and glad
to be one of its students, but I miss here that
pleasant, intimate and confidential relation with
persons in whose good will and superior intel-
lect and character I could firmly believe. I have
often heard you say in the class room that you
did not consider it your only duty to teach
rhetoric and composition, but also to help us
to become better men and women. I think that
MABIA SANFOED 169
I even then appreciated your kind thoughtfnl-
ness to a very great extent, because I had occa-
sional individual talks with you, and always re-
ceived your more than kind assistance in what-
ever form I needed it, but I am learning to ap-
preciate it still more now when I miss it and
can no longer have it either in the class room
or elsewhere. I have found nothing of that
here. Miss Sanford. My professors are chem-
ists, and I know them only as such. Of course
they are good chemists and good teachers of
chemistry, and as I came here to study chemis-
try, I ought to be satisfied. I get all that I pay
for, — all that I expected to get. I only wanted
you to know how I feel about it, and that my
memory of you will always be a little more
fresh, a little more pleasing than that of any
other professor, because you are something
more than a paid instructor, — a kind and
trusted friend."
In the spring of 1895 Miss Sanford was away
from the University for a time and her assist-
ants carried on the work. A letter written by
one of them gives not only an insight into the
work of the department, but some pleasing
touches about the University: *'I have felt im-
pelled to break through the thick crust of habit
that makes the writing of letters a rare and
170 MARIA SANFOED
strange thing to me, and to assure yon that in
the place of your far eastern sojourn you are
not quite unthought of by your friends and fel-
low workers at home. It is a good thing per-
haps to have the invisible cords that bind you
to Minnesota pulled a little by the people of the
western end so that you may not grow wanton
in your freedom and forget that, however far
the ball may have been unwound, the stake that
holds it is j)lanted firm and deep in the soil of
our own college campus. But I do not believe
that your memory of Minnesota friends needs
more than a very gentle jogging. I can fancy
you thinking of us, not so very often perhaps ;
for the happy present craves, I doubt not, the
largest part of you all for itself. Miles unite
as well as divide people, and I can well imagine
that even in a milder climate, and amon,g your
own kinsfolk your heart warms toward frosty
Minnesota.
*^The little world of which you are center
and sovereign seems to run on with tolerable
smoothness in your absence. You gave the
hoop so strong a push before leaving it, per-
haps it will keep on rolling from its own mo-
mentum until you get back to it. A few events
have broken the university routine since you
left us. We have entered a term; we have
MARIA SANFORD 171
moved into the new building; we have had a
visit from the Legislature. There was much
begging by the Governor and many sallies by
the President, and no end of compliments and
promises from the flattered legislators. The
Minnesota Magazine, which I have not read,
but which strikes me as rather light, scrappy
and popular, has taken the air for the first time
in a delicate pink costume. And we have had,
too, the Chicago man. Professor Moulton, a
little fantastical and theatrical, but of delight-
ful vigor and withal a man of larger build than
the usual lecturer on his class of subjects.
^'I hope you are doing for yourself in an in-
tellectual sense what you are fond of doing for
your class room at home, — suspending the rou-
tine, throwing open all the windows and taking
a good general airing, — ^letting your cares flut-
ter and blow away as your papers are wont to
do under like circumstances, and drinking in
with greedy lungs the refreshment and stimu-
lus of the great outside world. I mil not advise
you to take a rest; I should almost as soon
hope to persuade old Time to take a vacation;
but I hope you will be moderate in your indus-
try, and not work more than thirty-six hours
out of the twenty-four. You must understand,
last of all, that you are not on any account to
172 MARIA SANFOED
answer this letter. If it gives yon any pleas-
ure I do not want that pleasure to be taxed
with an associated responsibility and duty.
This letter of mine is a pure gratuity, and you
are not to insult the beneficent donor by any
offers of repayment. It will not be many days
anyhow before the sunbeam that wakes you in
the morning will have to come to the Mississippi
valley in order to be able to do it. ' '
In the middle of the nineties the department
of oratory which Miss Sanford had labored so
hard to build up was asked to become a member
of the Northern Oratorical League. The en-
trance into this League gave new impetus to
the work in oratory, and the Professor then
turned her attention to the classes in debat-
ing. With characteristic energy she began to
solicit money for prizes in debate. She wrote
a great many letters to former students, ask-
ing for five dollar contributions. These were
sent each year, as she asked for them, by the
majority of the men, but sometimes with words
of disapproval. One man thought that a
group of wealthy men or some of the alumni
should be assessed a regular yearly sum for
this purpose. One woman helped Miss San-
ford out by asking fifty men to pay five dollars
each. One man, a member of the Board of
MARIA SANFORD 173
Regents, and a former student, refused because
he had paid so much for football. Miss San-
ford got the money needed for the prizes, but
always at the expense of great effort to her-
self, and sometimes disappointment from people
whom she had expected to contribute.
The undergraduates as well as the graduates
were coming more and more to realize the value
of the services she was rendering, and at-
tempted in various ways to show their appre-
ciation. In 1899 the daily paper printed at the
University, kno\vn at that time as The Ariel,
dedicated one issue to Miss Sanford. A poem
in her honor was written by one of the editors.
To her wha wi' the winter's frost
Her spring-time freshness hasna lost,
Nay wark can iley, nor toil exhaust
I* day or night,
For duty never coonts the cost
Gin 'tis but right.
Wha can her youthfu' vigor bear
Wi' wisdom o' a riper year,
An' speak her min' wi' sic a clear
Emphatic soun'
She's weel respeckit everwhere —
The country roun'.
174 MARIA SANFORD
Wha gars the lass take off her bonnet
And frowns if there's a burdie on it,
And yet her heart 's as true as granite
An' kind as true,
An' if nae mon has never won it,
It's yet to do.
Wha disna crimp an' bang her hair,
Nor triflin ' gewgaws disna wear,
For nature's plainest is maist fair,
An' weel she knows 't,
An' what the warl' thinks, disna care.
For that's her boast.
We dinna gie this as a bribe
We canna thus betray oor tribe.
Nor is't intended as a gibe.
When we confess
This Ariel fondly we inscribe
To M. L. S.
Joe Guthrie, '00.
The students also took active part in a cam-
paign whicli resulted this year in giving Miss
Sanf ord one of the unique pleasures of her life.
In the sprin,g of 1899 the Minneapolis Daily
Journal conducted a public school and favorite
teachers' contest. There were to be three
prizes for the three most popular teachers.
The first was a trip to Europe; another a trip
to the National Educational Convention in Los
Angeles; another to Yellow Stone National
MAEIA SANFORD 175
Park. Friends of Miss Sanford began to col-
lect coupons with the hope of obtaining the first
prize for her. She finally won third prize ; bnt
some of the undergraduate students went to
the Journal, offering to add to the money
needed for the trip to Yellowstone Park enough
to take Miss Sanford to Europe, provided the
Journal was willing to make the arrangement.
The Journal agreed, and Miss Sanford had her
one and only trip abroad. A party of twelve
left Minneapolis together, on a beautiful day in
the middle of June. Miss Sanford 's household
were as excited as she at the great event. The
occasion was one of solemnity to her, and she
made an unusually beautiful prayer at dinner.
The party left for Montreal and from there
sailed for Liverpool.
On the boat trip Miss Sanford became the
center of interest to passengers. She gave
readings and lectures to entertain them, and
they hovered around her. A man and his wife
from Minneapolis who had never met her had
passage on the same boat ; and a common friend
wished to introduce them to the Professor. The
wife, after a short visit with her, wished her
husband to meet Miss Sanford too; but she
knew that if he were forewarned he would not
allow the introduction to take place. He had
176 MARIA SANFORD
never seen her, but lie had heard of her at the
University and was strongly prejudiced against
her; for even at that time not many women
were occupying prominent positions, and in
general he was opposed to women's ** usurping
men's places". So his wife did not say any-
thing until they were near Miss Sanford's
steamer chair on the deck. The Professor im-
mediately began to talk about some of the places
she hoped to visit, and about architecture, a
subject in which he was intensely interested.
He sat down and listened to her, fascinated by
her intelligence and womanliness. It was an
hour or two before he again joined his wife in
their walk about the deck ; much of his time the
rest of the journey was spent in listening to
Miss Sanford. The circle of men around her
chair gradually grew larger; attractive, pret-
tily dressed young girls were deserted for this
plainly clad woman with her rare charm and
magnetic personality.
In London as elsewhere Miss Sanford spent
much of her time in the art galleries. Though
her taste was largely conventional, she was yet
independent enough in her judgments to ex-
press a preference often for paintings not
highly regarded by the critics. She was most
interested in the old paintings, especially of
MARIA SANFORD 177
the Virgin and Child, and in the saints. She
made notes of her impressions, sometimes not
at all what an art critic would notice, bnt things
that particularly interested her. The Doge Leo-
nardo Loredani of Giovanni Bellini she noticed
had beautiful bro'\^^l eyes, and Crivelli's Ma-
donna and Child Enthroned interested her par-
ticularly because of the red canopy above the
throne. Rembrandt's Woman Taken in Adul-
tery she thought beautiful because of the sorrow
and repentance of the woman.
When she crossed to Paris she found the
days hardly long enough, and got up at four
o'clock one morning to walk about the city.
Another day she arose at three o'clock to see a
cathedral. She did not go to the hotels, but
found the cheapest rooming places for herself,
and took her meals at restaurants, keeping a
daily account of everything she spent for lodg-
ing, fees, and food, and for pictures. Her ex-
pense account from day to day usually showed
a much larger sum spent for pictures than for
any other item, and sometimes as much as for
all other items put together. In Italy she con-
tinued to visit cathedrals as early as she could
induce any one to allow her to enter; some-
times she had to bribe attendants. In Florence
the work of Fra Angelico particularly pleased
12
178 MARIA SANFORD
her. The other early artists, Gentile da Fab-
riano, Botticelli, and Giovanni da Bologna
pleased her much better than some later paint-
ers. She always expressed herself in later years
as loving the Madonnas of the older artists;
she thought the work of the modern painters
less spiritual. Her breadth of religious sympa-
thy made her feel at home in the Catholic ser-
vices and on one occasion she wrote: **I at-
tended early mass at the Cathedral. I have
rarely seen one more impressive. As I listened
to the low, musical words of the service, not
hurried through as our English ritual often is,
but given with reverence and feeling, my own
heart cried out to God for forgiveness and
blessing."
Though she had no friends in Europe she had
carried from home letters of introduction to
people who would give her shelter during her
stay in Venice and Rome. After two months
of sight-seeing she set her face westward. On
her way home she checked up her account and
noted that the trip had actually cost her one
hundred forty-one dollars. She had saved in all
twenty-seven dollars of the money given her
for the trip. The sum did not include the much
larger amount paid for pictures which she had
bought to use in her art lectures. She returned
MARIA SANFORD 179
to her classes in the best of spirits, having actu-
ally seen and absorbed more in the two months
than many people with more leisure and many
times more money sometimes get in the same
number of years.
Her pathway was not yet however to be one
of ease. The next school year was one of great
stress for her. Early in the year she received
a letter from the President requesting her to
discontinue taking money from students for
private tutoring, on the ground that all the time
she gave to students belonged to the Univer-
sity. He told her that the faculty had been
very much excited over the matter. Two weeks
later he wrote her another letter saying that a
resolution had been introduced into the Board
of Regents and laid on the table for considera-
tion at a meeting to be held early in June,
1900, providing that several members of the
University faculty, including Miss Sanford,
should terminate their connection with the Uni-
versity at the end of the college year 1901.
For this blow Miss Sanford was wholly un-
prepared. It staggered her at first, as it did
the other members who were in the same situa-
tion. Miss Sanford was the only woman among
the professors mentioned, but she was the first
to recover courage. Long before the next
180 MAEIA SANFOED
meeting of the Regents the daily papers printed
an account of the proposed action. A student
reporter from the University had obtained the
news. This at the time was thon,ght to be a
great misfortune ; but in the end turned out hap-
pily for the professors. Friends and alumni
and clubs from all over the state began to pro-
test. One prominent man wrote to Miss San-
ford: **Ever since I read in our daily papers
of the prospect of your severing your relations
with the State University at the end of the
present year, I have been much distressed about
the whole matter. I cannot remove from my
mind the impression that a serious blunder has
been committed somewhere. As one of your
old students, and as one who has sat under
your instruction for four years' time, my
acquaintance with you and your work since,
and from the multitude of testimonials of your
work and influence at the University, I feel
sure that the Board of Regents are taking a
step which can only be a subject of serious re-
gret if your resignation should be accepted as
has been intimated. A great number of your
friends have also in my hearing expressed
similar sentiments, and I have reason to be-
lieve that this sentiment is very mde spread
throughout the community.
MAEIA SANFORD 181
**Yoii have acquired a prominence in connec-
tion with the moral and artistic upbuilding of
our city and state at large which our citizens
can not help remembering; and in ways which
it is hard to explain we can not afford to dis-
pense mth your services in this community.
I am not only willing, but shall take the first
opportunity to speak to any Regent of the State
University whom I know and may meet in
reference to this matter. ' '
These sentiments were echoed on every side.
The same month the Woman's Council of
Minneapolis, which later became the Woman's
Club, wrote the following resolution of appre-
ciation and presented it to President Northrop
of the State University.
''Be it resolved y That the Woman's Council
takes this opportunity to extend to Professor
Maria L. Sanford its heartiest thanl^s, and as
mothers, sisters and daughters to express our
confidence in her as a guide and inspiration to
all those who have come under her instruction
at our great University. We have abundant
testimony of her far-reaching influence in her
home city, throughout our state and adjoining
states, and we desire that this expression of
our love and confidence in her as an educator
182 MARIA SANFORD
should be conveyed to the Board of Regents of
the University of Minnesota."
Similar expressions of confidence in Miss San-
ford and of protest at her resignation from the
University poured in, and the result was that
none of the members of the faculty who had
been named was dismissed. Miss Sanford,
however, in the summer of 1900, applied for the
presidency of the University of Idaho, feeling
that it might be better for her to go away ; and
turning her face toward the pioneer sections
of the country she went herself to Idaho; but
as had been the case all her life, the Regents
objected to a woman in the position that she
was seeking. She remained at the University
of Minnesota ; but a year later was notified that
the Regents had reduced her salary from twen-
ty-four hundred to ei^ghteen hundred dollars.
There were some members of the faculty who
added to Miss Sanford 's trials by criticising
her method of conducting her department.
This caused her so much trouble that she was
obliged to appeal to the President, and to ex-
plain to him that although she did not work
exactly as some of the others did, she could do
as good and lasting work as they could. She
reminded him that she had won wide reputa-
tion by her success as a teacher before some of
MARIA SANFORD 183
her critics were out of the grammar school;
remarking that it was as much an impertinence
for them to interfere with her department as
it would be to interfere mth some of the men
heads of other departments. Her plea was ef-
fectual to some extent, but peace was never of
long duration.
cb:apter VII
THE END OF THE TEACHER'S ROAD
The great cut in Miss Sanford's salary of
course rendered it more difficult for her to make
the payments on her debt. In addition she had
some new calls for help from members of her
family which were as urgent as they would be
to a mother. She felt with Thomas Carlyle
that **If you have brothers, sisters, a father, a
mother, weigh earnestly what claim does lie
upon you in behalf of each, and consider it as
the one thing needful to pay them more and
more honestly and nobly what you owe. What
matter how miserable one is if one can do that !
That is the sure and steady disconnection and
extinguishment of whatever miseries one has
in this world/' The family of one of Miss
Sanford's near relations was in distress and
Miss Sanford had to spare from her meager
salary enough to help them out. Throughout
her entire life the call of her family always
came first.
She did not overlook her neighbors in these
184
MARIA SANFORD 185
distressful times as the following note from
one of them shows: ^* Thank you very much
for the wood, but you mustn't send any more.
I feel that you surely could use it yourself some
time if you would only keep it. You have done
so much for us that we could never repay you
and I do not want to think of it that way; but
for a year I have longed to show you how much
we think of you and do something in our turn ;
only the way has not opened up yet. If you
knew how I loved to bake you a little loaf of
bread when I baked for our own people you
surely would let me do it every time I bake. ' '
From time to time tributes continued to ap-
pear in the University publications. One Val-
entine Day the Registrar of the University, a
former student of Miss Sanford and also a for-
mer member of her household, printed in the
Alumni Weekly the following characterization :
Vivid, buoyant,
Tireless, fluent;
Full of vim.
An occasional whim;
Never a shirk.
Not afraid of work.
For mind or heart or hand;
A lover of beauty,
A doer of duty,
As quick to obey as command;
186 MARIA SANFORD
A brain right clear,
A heart full of cheer,
Eloquent lips touched by altar's coal;
She was still humanly,
Just plain womanly,
With a face index of a beautiful soul;
Just as good as she was great,
The best-loved woman of the North Star State.
E. B. Johnson.
The next year in the University Magazine
appeared another student poem.
Ripe wisdom, fruit of long experience,
To grace her work she brings;
The Brotherhood of Man she cherishes.
And hopes of better things.
In doing good she goes about, like One
Who taught us long ago;
Her lips speak from a heart forever young;
God bless and keep her so!
Vesta Cornish Armstrong.
The Governor of Minnesota in 1903 ap-
pointed Miss Sanford a delegate to the Prison
Association. She understood this to imply that
he had confidence in her ability and wished to
show himself friendly to her ; and in her letter
of thanks for the appointment she wrote: ^*I
believe I shall be able to prove that those who
had confidence in me were right. I shall try to
MARIA SANFORD 187
bear my present humiliations with dignity and
by my faithfulness and devotion to duty to con-
vince all who are willing to be fair minded how
grave an injustice has been done me.''
This does not mean that Miss Sanford made
no protest at the great reduction in her salary.
She wrote the Board of Regents a moving let-
ter in which she said: *^I do not ask at this
time any change in my salary. I appreciate the
difticulties of the present situation and I am
willing to wait for better times; but I do
earnestly request you as men who want to do
what is just and right to inform yourselves as
to the condition of my department. It is not
the reduction of this year against which I pro-
test but my reduction from the rank I held. My
pride in my professional reputation is very
great and the degradation which I have suffered
has been far harder than the iDrivation which
the change has brought, although the latter
would be considered very severe by any one
who knew its extent. My age has been men-
tioned as a reason for this reduction, but where
can you find a woman of thirty-five or forty or
a man of that age who has more vigor and endur-
ance, and where a professor Avho puts in more
hours of effective work? I am carrying now
eighteen hours of recitation per week besides
188 MARIA SANFORD
managing my department and giving it super-
vision and preparation of public debates and
oratorical contests which take a large amount
of time. Is it right that a person doing this
work and doing it well should be hampered and
crippled by a salary which compels her to do
menial work to pay for a bare living? Under
the circumstances under which I am placed,
and which when all told would hardly be con-
sidered discreditable to me, I can not live with-
out such labor. Years ago I made pledges of
monthly payments which I must keep, and I
have with my present salary just thirteen dol-
lars left to meet my own expenses. Trusting
to your honor and sense of justice, I shall go
on working hard and meeting privations cheer-
fully, believing the time will come when I shall
have the great delight of full vindication and
the complete restoration of my salary."
Miss Sanford's troubles however were not
yet over, as was indicated by a remark made to
, her by the President in June, 1904. Referring
to the Regents he said, * * They are after your
/ department anyway and will be as long as you
are there." That this was known outside the
University was shown by a letter written by
the President of the Minnesota Federation of
Women's Clubs to Miss Sanford, telling her
MAEIA SANFORD 189
that she had heard that there was a scheme
against the professor and asking if the Fed-
eration might be allowed to protest, saying that
they did not want to meddle or in any v/ay want
to interfere nnless they conld be of help.
In April 1905 Miss Sanford at the request of
the President sent to the Chairman of the Sal-
ary Committee of the Board of Regents a com-
parison of her work mth that of five other
heads of departments closely associated with
her. The comparison gave the work of each
professor in each department, the number of
his classes, the number of students in each, and
the number of hours a week given to each class.
This comparison showed not only that her de-
partment had the largest number of students
but that she taught the largest number of
classes. She asked to have enough money for
her department with which to employ compe-
tent teachers and also to give her the salary
which her work should command. She closed
her letter with the following plea: *'More
earnestly than I ask for justice for myself I
ask that I may have for my department the
salaries that will retain efficient instructors and
encourage those that are doing good work for
small pay. ' '
This year she, as well as many other members
190 MAKIA SANFOED
of the faculty, had the hardship of being obliged
to hunt for recitation rooms in any vacant spot
on the campus. The Old Main building had
burned to the ground the year before and many
of her pictures and books had been destroyed
and others ruined by smoke and vrater. Miss
Sanford found a desk for herself in the Libra-
rian's private ollice, and for class work she had
to go from one building to another. The classes
of her assistants were scattered all over the
campus. Some were held in the store room of
the School of Mines, where the students dis-
cussed the poetry of Browning and Kipling in
the uncongenial company of liarrels and boxes
of ores. Other classes were held in the base-
ment of Pillsbury Hall in the Animal Biology
department; and two classes at a time, one in
Ehetoric and one in French, were held a few
feet from each other in the museum of the Bio-
logical department with skeletons of prehis-
toric animals as decorations for the class
rooms. Some were held in the Physics build-
ing. As Miss Sanford 's department was the
largest one in the University this meant more
scattering about for her work than for that of
any of the others. This continued for two
years until Folwell Hall was completed in the
fall of 1907, when she had her department to-
MAEIA SANFORD 191
gether again on the third floor of the new build-
ing.
This year was memorable also as the one in
which she was obliged to leave the home in
which she had lived since 1881, and which stu-
dents had so long felt to be unalterably asso-
ciated with her. Many owed their chance for a
university education to their being sheltered
there. The single pine tree on the corner of
her lawn, slanted but never bent or broken by
the frequent Minnesota blizzards, seemed sym-
bolic of the life she had led in the home she
loved so well. Though it never attained the
size of a forest pine it was for many years a
land mark of the South East side and asso-
ciated in the minds of hundreds of students with
a professor whose memory remained as fresh
as its evergreen branches. Financial embar-
rassment obliged her to give up this home and
take a house in a new neighborhood a mile from
the University. To one of her friends she said
that the removal from that home tore her heart
up by the roots ; it seemed like tearing an oak
out of the ground for her to move. Yet she
began at once to make herself felt in her new
environment. She took her church letter to the
small church near her. She often preached
when the minister was away or sick. She fre-
192 MARIA SANFORD
quently said she loved more to preach than to
teach or to lecture, and thought her real life
work should have been preaching. In a year
from the time she moved, an old resident of that
part of the city said Miss Sanford had done
more for the neighborhood and the church in a
year than any one else had done in all the
twenty-five years of her own residence there.
Miss Sanford, in writing to a friend at this
time, said, **I do have a good time. I do enjoy
my days — every one of them — and I often say,
*The lines have fallen to me in pleasant
places.' "
Her real power in the work of her church is
sho^vn in the history of Congregational Work
In Minnesota compiled by the archaeologist
of the State Historical Society of Minnesota.
In the chapter on Women's Work For Mis-
sions written by Dr. Margaret Evans Hunt-
ington, for many years Dean of Women of
Carleton College, is the following: ^Congre-
gational women have had their due part in the
educational progress of Minnesota. The out-
standing example among these women is Miss
Maria L. Sanford . . . her magnetic per-
sonality and resonant voice and sympathetic
womanly understanding gave a new atmosphere
to the University and especially to the young
MARIA SANFORD 193
women there . . . her co-operation in every
good work, her fearless advocacy of unpopular
causes are noteworthy . . . she by her ethical
standards, her ever ready sympathy with all the
efforts of her pastor or felloAV members had a
large place in church life. Her best memorial
will be the noble lives of those whom she has
stimulated and helped. ' '
In the same work the Rev. S. W. Dickinson,
in his chapter The Part Congregationalists
Have Had in the Charities of Minnesota, in
reference to Miss Sanford wrote : **More than
any other woman of her time she had an abid-
ing influence upon the young men and women
who passed through the State University.
It was through her efforts that the girls were
separated from the boys in the Training School
at Red Wing and that a home was established
for them at Sauk Center.''
Miss Sanford 's ncAv home had some apple
trees, a garden, a lawn and a barn. She
planted more trees in front of her house, and
got some chickens for the barn. For a time
one of her elderly friends to whom she had for
many years owed money lived with her in this
house and for amusement cared for the chick-
ens. Miss Sanford became as much interested
in pure blood Pl^miouth Rock chickens as she
13
194 MARIA SANFORD
had always been in fresh air. She always
w^alked back and forth from the University to
her home, and usually winter as well as sum-
mer, went bareheaded. Nearly always her
arms were filled with books or baskets or
bundles of some sort. Frequently she carried
home a basket on the top of which a pile of
books was placed. Men students on their way
would always relieve her of the baskets. Smil-
ingly she told some friends that underneath the
pile of books she had some scraps from the
kitchen of a friend, which she took home for the
chickens. She had placed the books on top of
the basket so that the boys would not be humili-
ated by the knowledge that they were carrying
chicken feed.
But her ^greatest interest in her new home
was in her beautiful apple trees. She watched
the blossoms in the spring. She had a sleeping
porch built at the back of the house and a door
opening close to the green boughs. She used
to say that no king had a more wonderful place
than she in her sleeping porch right among the
branches. She had never before had fruit trees
of her o^vn, and she anticipated the time when
her apples would be ready to eat. But the first
fall just when the fruit was getting ripe Miss
Sanford found out that small boys are no re-
MARIA SANFORD 195
specters of other people's apple trees. She
said that she took to sleeping under her trees
nights to prevent boys from taking the fruit;
but she soon realized that she could not stay by
them all day, and the boys could take apples in
the day time as well as at night.
She, however, thought of a remedy which
was characteristic of her, but which no one else
in the neighborhood had ever thought of. She
went around to the seed houses in Minneapolis
and to the nursery men and asked them to give
or sell her for a small sum seedling apple trees
and other fruit trees or flowering shrubs and
plants. Then she called the children of the
neighborhood together and told them she had
these things to sell to them at a very small
price. To those who were unable to pay Miss
Sanford gave an apple tree. But it was never
her policy to give things which people ought to
buy, and in some way or other she made the
children pay; if not in money, then in labor.
She told the children that they could each have
their own apple trees, raise their oAvn apples,
and have their own flower and vegetable gar^
dens. She encouraged them by visiting their
gardens and offering prizes for the best flowers
the children could raise. Whether she ever
had any more trouble with children stealing her
196 MARIA SANFOED
apples she never said; but if so, it is safe to
say it was not from the same children who re-
ceived these trees. This incident so endeared
her to the neighborhood that she was ever after-
ward regarded as its benefactor. In the next
fifteen years of her life she grew into this
home as she had done in her earlier one, but
doubtless never had quite the same affection
for it that she had for the other. She felt such
an attachment to it that in the memorandum of
her wishes she asked the niece to whom she left
the home to continue to live in it and not sell it.
December 19, 1906, Miss Sanford reached her
seventieth birthday and her tAventy-sixth year
in the University. The Women's League of
the University held a reception for her in Alice
Shevlin Hall, the woman's hall which had been
built on the site of the Old Main. The Presi-
dent and his wife, the Governor of the state and
his wife, the deans of the University with their
wives, and the only other woman professor in
the University received with Miss Sanford.
Hundreds of former students and friends were
present on this occasion, and the hall in the new
woman's building was crowded. All seemed
anxious to make Miss Sanford feel how much
they owed her. The Alumnae had a portrait
of Miss Sanford painted by a Minnesota artist.
MARIA SANFORD 197
Miss Grace McKinstry, wMch was placed in
Alice Shevlin Hall as a fitting expression of
their appreciation. The artist said later that
Miss Sanford was the most difficult sitter she
had ever had; because the only time she had
free was at noon when she was so weary
she fell asleep. The Women's League of the
University in memory of the occasion desired
to make Miss Sanford a present personal
enough to remind her of the very affectionate
regard in which she was held; and they with
other friends made up a purse which they gave
her to buy a coat and muff. She told them she
never had expected to own so fine a garment,
but that they might rest assured it was the same
woman inside that they had known all along.
She wrote to a friend after the reception *4f I
had not been battered by the rebuff of years I
might have had the big head, but I think I am
safe. It did, however, make life seem very
beautiful to me to feel so much of sympathy
and love." One other gift which she received
late in life gave her unique pleasure because it
was the only jewelry she ever possessed. This
was a beautiful gold watch and chain given her
by her Sunday School class. The satisfaction
she took in wearing these could hardly be un-
derstood by the many women to whom a watch
198 MARIA SANFORD
is as much a part of every day dress as a hat
or gloves.
There was very general appreciation of Miss
Sanford's service to the State of Minnesota of
more than a quarter of a century, but there
were still troubles ahead of her at the Univer-
sity. Five months after this celebration she
wrote a will, one among many which she wrote
out and dated from time to time, knowing that
they had no legal value, but believing that her
heirs would respect her wishes. She kept all
of them. In the one written at this time, she
was in such stress of mind that she closed it
with the sentence, *^If I should lose my mind
and live, do, I beg, quietly put me to sleep.''
In May, 1907, Miss Sanford not having suc-
ceeded in getting from the salary connnittee
of the Regents what she felt she needed for her
department appealed to the Governor regard-
ing what she felt to be injustice. Among other
things she stated, ^*I do want recognition of
the value of my work, and there are other grave
reasons why my salary should be made equal
to others in the same rank. In the first place
I am determined to make my department shine,
I shall work as never before to improve it in
every way. I am hindered by poverty, by many
petty cares and economies which take time and
MARIA SANFORD 199
energy. For years I have put in all my salary
to pay my debts. The lecturing which I have
done in order to get money on which to live has
brought me about two hundred fifty dollars
yearly, but it has really been more wearing
than all my University work. Ought I to be
compelled to do this? I do not let it rob the
class of my time, but it does take my strength.
It is good for me and for the University that I
give some lectures, but not that I be obliged to
depend upon them to live. If my salary could
be made three thousand dollars for five years
I could clear otf all this debt that weighs me
do^oi. I know I have no claim because of my
debt, but I do think it is some credit that I chose
to pay it when even Governor Pillsbury advised
me to repudiate it, and the fact that I have this
burden is an added reason why I should have
the salary I justly earn. ' '
By the close of the school year it was known
that Miss Sanford would retire in two years
more. Her salary was increased as she had
requested to three thousand dollars, but as she
had only two years more of University work,^
she was, at the time of her retirement, still
heavily in debt. The increase, however, en-
abled her to retire on a Carnegie pension of
fifteen hundred dollars.
200 MARIA SANFORD
About this time the result of Miss Sanford's
lectures at the University on the History of Art
began to be shown in letters from former stu-
dents. Some of them said that their first wish
to travel had been aroused by those lectures,
and that their interest in what they saw was
wonderfully enhanced by her vivid descrip-
tions. To understand why a professor of
rhetoric gave art lectures, it is necessary to ex-
plain that for most of the years Miss Sanford
was at the University there was no art depart-
ment. Her lectures were therefore the only
means hundreds of students had of getting any
knowledge whatever of the great art of the
world. She felt that justified her in departing
from the work strictly belonging to her depart-
ment.
After Miss Sanford w^as seventy years old
she sent to her niece in Smyrna for three of the
young children of the family, whom she pro-
posed to educate. These she sent to a private
school in Minneapolis, but outside school hours
they were left at home many hours of the day
with no older person to look after them. Born
in a foreign country, they were unable to adapt
themselves at once to American life. After a
time one of them returned home; one to the
father's relations in Scotland; the youngest
MARIA SANFORD 201
remained in this country, and is still pursuing
his education. Miss Sanford had raised so
many children that the task of taking three at
once in her old age did not seem too much for
her.
In February, 1909, shortly before she was to
retire. Miss Sanford was obliged to have an
operation for mastoid abscess. Her age and
the difficulty of the operation made her recov-
ery seem a matter of doubt. She herself was
not unprepared for an unfavorable outcome,
and before leaving her work appointed two
members of her department her literary exec-
utors in case she should not recover. The opera-
tion was successfully performed, and Miss San-
ford was back at her home long before the doc-
tors gave her permission to raise her head from
the pillow. One morning she announced that
she was going home that day. The doctor
emphatically refused permission; but she re-
peated her intention, and as soon as he left the
hospital ordered the nurse to call a carriage.
She departed in triumph for her home, and in
less time than anybody had predicted was back
at the University at her regular class work.
The Senior class of this year wishing to show
her due honor on the occasion of her retire-
ment asked her to give the commencement ad-
202 MARIA SANFORD
dress. She felt this to be the greatest honor
that had ever been shown her. At commence-
ment time papers in various parts of the conn-
try noted this as being the first time that a
woman had ever been asked to make such an
address in a great university. This memorable
address entitled What the University Can Do
For the State, was considered one of the best
commencement addresses that had been given at
the University of Minnesota. The Armory
was filled, and every word of Miss Sanford's
address could be heard to the farthest corner
of the great building. She had that week been
made a member of the graduating class, and
at the close of her address they presented her
with an enormous bouquet of six dozen roses,
one for each of her seventy-two beautiful years.
A poem in honor of her retirement was written
by a former student of her own who had
been for many years a member of her depart-
ment.
EVEN-SONG
The full orb brightens as it rounds —
We hail the life that onward fares,
To kindly leisures, gracious cares,
To lessened labors, ampler crowns.
MAKIA SANFORD 203
happy in the powers that flee,
And happy in the charm that stays —
Light streams from toilful yesterdays
And clear to-morrows, calm and free.
Let gentle hours in rhythmic sands
Glide on; and Time in reverence stop.
And, gazing on her, pensive, drop
The edgeless sickle from his hands.
Let Rest come with the touch benign
That soothes and stills the hurts of man,
And Age, the kind Samaritan,
Pour in the healing oil and wine.
With harvest trophies round her shed
May the good sheaves, in order filed.
The sheaves her own hand reaped and piled,
Be prop and pillow for her head ;
And may in glad revival rise
For her the deeds her bounty wrought
In others ' warm and grateful thought,
In cordial clasp and tender eyes;
Nor ends the joy of service now;
'Tis autumn's glow — and not the grief —
The bright fruit, not the withering leaf.
That reddens on the orchard bough.
Oscar W. Firkins, '84.
This was the greatest day of Miss Sanford's
life. She was leaving after twenty-nine years
204 MARIA SANFORD
an institution which she had seen grow from
three hundred students to nearly five thousand,
at this time one of the largest universities in the
country. At the close of the public exercises
she was invited to the home of an old friend
where a dinner to which some of her neighbors
and closest friends had been invited was given
in her honor. With her enormous bouquet she
rode in state in her friend's car first to her own
home, where she deposited her seventy-two
roses in a wash tub full of water in the middle
of her kitchen floor and then returned to the
banquet. The next day one of her friends took
a photograph of Miss Sanford standing on her
lawn, holding in her arms her ** graduation
bouquet."
Many of the beliefs Miss Sanford had un-
waveringly held from her youth were reiterated
in her commencement address. First she de-
clared that the University should teach its stu-
dents to help solve the social problems of the
time. **It is the glory of the Anglo-Saxon peo-
ples", said she, **that among them in the great
struggles of the commons against the nobles,
of the downtrodden against the privileged
classes the oppressed have always found strong
supporters and wise leaders among the upper
classes, especially among the educated; and
MARIA SANFOED 205
therefore the commons have been restrained
from that bitterness and those excesses that
have marked political and social revolutions
among other races. If this is to hold true in
bur state and nation it will be by the training
of the youth in the traditions of our race, so
that the rich and gifted may hear the cry that
comes up from the poor in their ignorance and
squalor, and be proud to come to the rescue, to
give their minds and hearts to devise and carry
out plans and measures of relief. The great-
est difficulty in the way of such efforts is the
unwillingness of the upper classes to believe
that there is really any wrong to be righted,
any injustice to be redressed. Here is the op-
portunity of the University. It takes the youth
of wealth and position, and puts before them
facts, and opens their eyes to conditions they
might otherwise ignore. It stirs them with
ambition to throw in their power and their
means among the helpers ; and sets before them
instead of the paltry ambition to outshine others
in luxury and show the high aim of helping to
solve the social problems of their time, to make
our state a shining example of justice, happiness
and peace."
She also held it to be the duty of the Univer-
sity to teach democracy, and as a preparation
206 MARIA SANFORD
for this believed in the necessity of sending
children of wealth to the public schools.
She felt that the University had hardly be-
gun to enter upon its privilege of stimulating
to high scholarship.
^^We cherish with pride," she continued,
** these first fruits of scholarship, but we long
for a fuller harvest. Our University is coming
into its manhood and should show a manly
grasp on intellectual things. It is the atmos-
phere of learning, an eager grasp on the hard
tasks of scholarship which is the greatest need
of the student body of the University today.
. . . Everywhere there is a demand and
opportunity for those who combine intellectual
insight with a high order of training and skill.
Life and health, business and civil polity are
all more or less resting upon half knowledge
and empirical deductions. They sorely need
the facts and principles which the search light
of discovery will reveal to the sound judgment
of the broad-minded, patient, tireless scholar.
Such scholars we have a right to look for among
the alumni of the University."
Her belief that it is rather will power than
greater ability which is needed to accomplish
great things was set forth with force and vivid-
ness : ^^The causes of intellectual development"
MARIA SANFORD 207
she said, **are recondite, and at best are only
imperfectly understood, but there is good
reason to believe that what is needed for high
attainment is not so much more brain as more
will, or as some psychologists would phrase it,
Hhe motive power of those impulses and aims
that lead to action. ' My own conviction is that
more than half our brain lies dormant, smoth-
ered under weak and narrow aims. As proof
of this witness the intense power that individ-
uals and connnunities sometimes develop under
the stress of strong emotion and passion. Let
each one recall how he has sometimes gone quite
beyond himself and done what he beforehand
would have deemed impossible. His muscular
and nerve power w^as unchanged but a strong
purpose summoned the brain and its minions
to full activity. How great would be our
achievement if we could keep to this high plane,
not feverish excitement but full and vigorous
activity, always intently alive. Individuals
have done this, have lived year in and year out
with all their faculties awake, and we look with
wonder on Avhat they have accomplished.
There are many whose lives illustrate my point.
I will mention only two, both women, Mary
Somerville, and Alice Freeman Palmer ; women
of calm, sane, womanly lives, but of wonderful
208 MARIA SANFORD
activity. Mrs. Somerville was so clear-headed
a mathematician that she made a perfect trans-
lation of La Place 's Mechanism of the Heavens
when not one hundred men in England were
able to read it; and was withal so careful and
competent in her domestic duties, so devoted
a wife and mother, so charming a hostess, that
the critic Jeffrey, who was, as we all know,
chary of compliments, when he was visiting in
Scotland and received a letter from a friend
asking if he had met the women of Dumfries,
*one of whom aspires to be a blue-stockin,g and
an astronomer' replied, *I have met the lady
to whom you refer; she may wear blue stock-
ings but her petticoats are so long I have never
seen them.' Of the wonderful life of Mrs.
Palmer I hardly need to speak, it is too fresh in
the memory of all; we are all too proud of her
to need to be reminded of what she accom-
plished. The one thing I do wish to say is that
it was with her, as with Mrs. Somerville, vital-
ity which was her remarkable gift, which made
her so charming in society, so successful as a
college president, such a wonder-worker in
charity, so deft and skillful in the duties of her
home — here as every^v^here making *her labor
her delight.'
*^I have dwelt fuU}^ upon this point because
MARIA SANFORD 209
I believe men and women would be spurred to
far higher development if they were convinced
that it is not some special genius conferred
upon the few, but the wise use of the gifts com-
mon to all, that makes life rich and valuable.
Nations as well as individuals have shown the
marvelous results of this intellectual activity,
of living up to the full measure of their powers.
England under Elizabeth, Athens in the days
of Pericles and all Western Europe in the
Renaissance are examples of what is possible
when every man is awake, when full life throbs
in every vein. We cannot believe that men
were then born with more brain than is given
at other periods, but some influence led them to
use to their full bent, and for worthy ends, the
powers that men at other times let sleep.
There is direct proof of this theory in the vital
power that certain men have given to a whole
people. I need mention but a single instance,
the influence of William Pitt on England. We
all know how his voice transformed the whole
nation, how it sprang up at his call conscious of
its strength. This has been the secret of the
success of nearly all the great leaders of men;
they knew how to call up the latent energy of
their followers, to put into them a purpose and
a determination that made them giants. Under
14
210 MABIA SANFORD
this influence they seem to be of other birth;
and the glory of it is that so far as this trans-
formation goes, once made conscious of their
power they can never shrink back into the idle
weaklings they were before. The men that
fought with Caesar, that stood by Clive, and
that conquered with Gustavus, could never after
rank themselves with cowards.
**The moral of this for the University is
plain. It may, it can, it should, give to the
youth of the state this awakening impulse,
breathe into them this breath of life, rouse them
not to mere physical courage but to the courage
of high conviction, give to them aims, ambi-
tions, purposes, which shall transform, trans-
figure their whole lives.
*'It is the rare privilege of an institution of
learning thus to speak to the soul.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Tliou must,
The youth replies, / can.
The specific things which she urged the stu-
dents to work for were those she had for many
years been advocating at every opportunity;
things within the ability of all. Said she : **If
but a tithe of the students who go forth each
MAEIA SANFORD 211
year could carry with them the determination
to do something worthy and do it with their
might, what a glorious work would be done!
Then the most obstinate skeptic would cease
to doubt the value of the University and the
most hard-fisted economist would no longer
grudge it abundant resources.
*^ First and foremost the student must be
himself an example of sound, healthy living.
His OAvn farm, his own store, his own school
must be kept trim ; he must be diligent and suc-
cessful in business, because no mere shallow
enthusiast can be a leader of men. It is always
what a man is that reinforces a hundred fold
what he says and does. But he must be awake
to opportunities to help his neighbors, ready
to lend a hand to every good work. He must
believe in his neighbors, see the possibilities
that lie dormant in them ; nothing is so deaden-
ing as the conviction that nobody but one's self
has any desire for progress. Each one must
work out his own problem; the opportunities
in no two places are the same, but in a large city
or small village there are always opportunities
for the willing. Let me speak of a few out of
many things that may be done. The ambition
to make every town beautiful has already found
a lodgment in many minds, and new plans and
212 MARIA SANFORD
helpful old ones will be gladly welcomed ; shady
roadsides stretching out from every town, the
changing of unsightly places into lovely nooks,
and the utilization of all natural objects of
beauty, these are some of the means by which
taste may make Minnesota the most charming
of all places to live in.
' ' If there is no public library no stone should
be left unturned until by means of Mr. Car-
negie 's generous provisions one has been estab-
lished. To secure the right kind of books, so
that the Library may be a real educational in-
fluence and not merely a means of amusement,
will demand the efforts of an educated man or
woman; and still more to put into the library
pictures that shall be instructive in the history
of art. There is, all over the state, an awak-
ening interest in art ; and to cultivate this taste
is to open for the many a rich mine of enjoy-
ment, and possibly to develop in the few real
artistic gifts."
The awakening interest in art to which she
referred had largety come about through her
art lectures in the University and in other parts
of the state. Her last suggestion was so novel,
and felt to be so timely, that it has been put into
practice in a number of Minnesota towns ; that
is, some means by which young men after
MARIA SANFORD 213
graduation can continue their instruction.
Her advice was as follows: **To establish in
every town some systematic instruction for
adults is a much needed work. Large sums
are freely spent to educate the children, but
as soon as the young people leave school they
are considered able to provide their own men-
tal food; and the consequence is, most of them
starve. I regard this as the great weakness of
our educational system. The women's clubs
are in a measure filling up the gap ; but for the
young men who have completed high school or
college there is in most towns no influence what-
ever outside of their home to stimulate their
intellectual life ; a hundred hands are ready to
drag them down, but none are stretched out to
keep them up. The recent provision of the
University for lecture courses is an important
step in the right direction; but the value of
these lectures will be increased ten fold if in
the towns there are organized classes to study
and discuss the subjects presented. The old-
fashioned lyceum was a strong educational
force; we need something today to supply its
place. Let the graduate, wherever he makes
his home, plan to do something in whatever line
he is best fitted to bring his University training
to bear directly upon the intellectual life of his
214 MARIA SANFORD
town. A dramatic club, a reading circle, a
band, a musical society, — each and all are up-
lifting.''
She closed by asserting her belief in the
essential religious influence for righteousness
of the University, even though no creed or
dogma is taught. **The narrow zeal of the
bigot," said she, ^*may declare that the Uni-
versity is irreligious; but any one who with
jealous care and watchfulness for the interests
of religion has studied for years the influence
of the University upon the student body and
upon the state must emphatically deny the
charge. If students sometimes give up tenets
which they held before, they learn to reverence
* their conscience as their king' and to accept
*true religion and undefiled,' Ho deal justly,
love mercy, and walk humbly before God. ' ' '
During that commencement week telegrams,
congratulations and letters poured in from all
over the world. One document of great im-
portance was a parchment presented by the
alumni: '*We, the alumni of the University of
Minnesota, thank you for what you have been
to your students. We recall your eloquence,
humor, deep thrilling tones, and the earnestness
and vigor of your teachings. The students of
twenty-nine college classes acknowledge with
MARIA SANFORD 215
gratitude the debt they owe your kindness and
wisdom.
* * We thank you for the part you have played
in the up-building of the University. You came
to it when it was small and struggling. Your
strength has gone into its growth and your free,
magnanimous spirit has been wrought into its
substance. For what you have meant to the
University the Alumni honor you.
**We thank you for your service to the State
of Minnesota. By your lectures you have car-
ried inspiration to thousands who have never
seen the University. In all the state no woman
is so widely known and so generally loved and
respected. For your wide-spread and noble
influence the Alumni will always revere you.
**In their appreciation of your wonderful
personality and the great value of your work
the Alumni of the University of Minnesota pre-
sent to you this token of their love and grati-
tude.''
A shorter document which gave Professor
Sanf ord great pleasure was sent by the Secre-
tary of the Board of Regents the week after
commencement informing her that by a vote of
the Board she had been made Emeritus Pro-
fessor of Rhetoric.
Miss Sanf ord was in active service long after
216 MAEIA SANFORD
the emphasis began to be laid upon research
as a necessary part of the work of a college
professor. As she was well known not to be
a research scholar the editorial tribute in the
Alumni Weekly at the time of her retirement
was especially apt. *^We have no quarrel with
the *new' college professor who looks upon his
students as a * necessary evil/ desiring to de-
vote his whole time to investigation. Such
professors have their place to fill in the econom-
ics of the modern educational world, but we
are glad of an opportunity to honor the teacher
and to point out such notable examples of suc-
cessful teaching as those of the three profess-
ors who sever their connection with the Uni-
versity at this time.
''Dean Jones, Dr. Brooks and Professor San-
ford have all won their honors as teachers
rather than as investigators. We do not know
that any one of the three has ever made a 'con-
tribution to knowledge' in the ordinary accept-
ance of that term, but we do know that they
have all left their impress upon the lives of
thousands of men and women, and have given
those men and women higher and nobler ideals
of life and its meaning as well as an ambition to
attain. They may have discovered no new laws
but they have so applied laws as old as the
MARIA SANFORD 217
world as to have made the world better for their
having been in it. We honor these professors
with their old-fashioned ideas of the dignity of
teaching, and we are free to say that we would
rather have their records than the honor of dis-
covering the most abstruse law that has to do
with mere things. We are glad to do honor to
those who, in these days, dare to lay emphasis
upon mere teaching.''
CHAPTER VIII
*^ GENERAL HELPING '^
Only one as intensely devoted to a life work
as was Maria Sanford can understand what a
wrench it was for her, in full vigor of mind and
body, as she felt herself, to give up her class-
room work. At seventy-two years of age she
had no desire to rest quietly at home as her
pension would have enabled her to do. In some
way she determined to be of service as long as
her strength lasted.
The people of Minnesota felt that she still
belonged to the public, and they believed she
would be willing to continue to serve it. The
Minnesota Federation of Women's Clubs, feel-
ing that Miss Sanford would be of great value
to young people, asked the Regents of the Uni-
versity of Minnesota that, if possible. Miss San-
ford might be continued for at least one addi-
tional year in the same capacity as before. If
that were impossible they asked the Regents to
consider and formulate a plan or method under
which the influence and attainments of Pro-
218
MARIA SANFORD 219
fessor Sanford might be made available to the
high schools of Minnesota in a series of Bib-
lical or other classical lectures, to be known as
a University Extension Course. Editorials in
the papers all over the state, with one exception,
were of the most laudatory character. One
writer expressed the hope that the Regents of
the University would make suitable arrange-
ments for Miss Sanford to continue her use-
fulness educationally in Minnesota as long as
her strength permitted. He considered that she
would accomplish more for the public good in
the capacity of a lecturer than would any trav-
eling library ; because a gifted woman like Miss
Sanford was capable of exerting a stronger
influence than a mere book. He concluded by
saying that she should be passed around for
the good of all communities that were capable
of appreciating her as a brilliant woman phi-
losopher, and the sage of Minnesota.
Miss Sanford herself was undecided for a
time just how to be of most service. One old
time friend in another state urged that she
should write stories for young people in which
her own high ideals of life and living would be
inculcated. Miss Sanford made some attempts
in that direction but was not satisfied with the
results. Another old friend in a distant state
220 MARIA SANFOED
asked her to have her lectures collected and
published in a volume. There is no indication
that she ever considered the advisability of
doing this.
The first work that presented itself was a call
to Atlanta, Georgia, to make an address at the
dedicatory services of the First Congregational
church, the largest negro church in Atlanta.
Miss Sanford not only lectured in this institu-
tional church but solicited five hundred dollars
for its work so that she was made a patron of
the church; and her name now appears on the
glass door of a room next to that of Theodore
Roosevelt, who was another patron. The min-
ister of the church arranged for Miss Sanford
to speak in a dozen other churches, schools and
universities for colored people in Tennessee,
Florida, North Carolina and Washington. So
popular were her talks that she was asked to
all of the places again.
The next year Miss Sanford was still actively
interested in the colored schools and churches
where she had lectured. President Taft that
year wrote a recommendation urging people to
give to funds which Miss Sanford was solicit-
ing for a normal and industrial institute con-
ducted for colored people in Georgia. The prin-
cipal of the school had written to Miss Sanford,
MARIA SANFORD 221
**If you could raise fifteen thousand dollars
for us we would raise an additional amount to
secure equipment and teachers' salaries, but if
you would prefer to give the amount to the city
I feel sure that the white and colored people
would give the other five thousand dollars."
Such faith did the people have in a woman past
seventy-three years of age, a woman known to
have not a cent of money of her o\\m ! She con-
tinued for fiYe years longer to visit the south-
ern institutions, and in a six weeks ' tour of the
eastern and southeastern states in 1914, when
she was seventy-eight years of age, she gave
twenty-five lectures; the southern lectures, as
before, were arranged by the minister of the
church in Atlanta where she had first spoken.
After the trip that year Miss Sanford wrote
to the President of the United States, request-
ing him to use his personal influence in a mat-
ter which threatened that spirit of unity and
mutual respect which all earnestly desire to
see prevail. This was to prevent the rekindling
of sectional feeling which must result from the
tendency of the present if not wisely controlled.
She referred to the disposition to change the
present status of the negro in Washington, and
mentioned the fact that the north for many
years had wisely abstained from interference
222 MARIA SANFORD
with conditions in the south. '* Should not,''
she said, **a delicate sense of courtesy impel
the chivalric spirit of the south to decide that,
in so far as our nation's capital is concerned,
they will respect the convictions of the north?"
Another interesting experience for Miss San-
ford was the invitation in 1910 to give the me-
morial address to the G. A. R. It was noted
that she was the first woman to be invited to
address the Grand Army of the Republic. On
this occasion she made a proposal that the vet-
erans of the North and the South together
should unite in a campaign for world peace,
and that Theodore Roosevelt should be com-
missioned to lead the movement on behalf of
the United States. Resolutions were offered
that day recommending that her suggestion be
carried out. Ex-Governor Van Sant of Minne-
sota, commander-in-chief of the G. A. R., was
asked to bring the resolution to the attention
of comrades at the national encampment of vet-
erans at Atlantic City the following Septem-
ber. Letters were written to Miss Sanford by
commanders of G. A. R. posts in different parts
of the state, thanking her for her timely, wise
and patriotic words and suggestions. One in-
teresting letter was sent to her from New York
enclosing a clipping from the New York Times
MARIA SANFORD 223
in reference to her address to the G. A. R. posts
in Minneapolis. The writer said that he had
spoken on the same topic in New York on that
day.
The wish to associate her name permanently
with the women of the University was ex-
pressed the year after Miss Sanford's retire-
ment, when the first dormitory for University
girls was bnilt upon the campus and named in
her honor Sanford Hall. The dean of women
wrote to her ^*You have never been a believer
in dormitories, I know. I hope that your disbe-
lief is not so strong as to make you reluctant
to see your name upon the face of one.''
Miss Sanford now began to be made a mem-
ber of many clubs, not only in Minneapolis but
in other parts of the state. Early in 1910 she
was made a life member of the Rambler's club,
which she always thereafter visited whenever
she was able. One of her last lectures was be-
fore this club; she was so feeble that she had
to lie down after speaking. It was the Ram-
bler's which first suggested the Sanford schol-
arship which the State Federation of Women's
Clubs started the same year. This was a re-
volving loan fund for Senior girls, preferably,
with a maximum loan of two hundred fifty dol-
lars, to be paid in three years. So promptly
224 MARIA SANFORD
did the students discharge their obligations
that the treasurer in her tenth annual report
said that the young women * ^ seemed to partake
of the energy and spirit of her for whom the
scholarship was named." The Ladies' Shakes-
peare Club, at their nineteenth annual banquet,
gave honor to Miss Sanford as their chief guest
and addressed her in a toast entitled *^Our Her-
oine, Maria Sanford, her gentle spirit of devo-
tion, self-sacrifice and culture. Here's to the
magic influence that has been an uplift to thou-
sands and has touched the lives of each one of
us in so many countless ways. Here's to our
heroine — the best known and best loved woman
in our state, who is so deservedly styled the
preeminent woman philosopher and sage of
Minnesota." It was this club, also, which in
1921 presented a beautiful picture of Miss San-
ford to the State Historical Society.
Though she was so greatly interested in the
women's clubs of the state, she had not yet de-
cided that her future work was to be largely
lecturing. When she was asked by friends
what kind of work she was doing she always
answered that it was '* general helping." As
in her earlier days so now she was at heart a
pioneer. Few people at her age would have
dreamed of going to live in a new country ; but
MARIA SANFORD 225
Miss Sanford became interested through
friends and former students in a scheme for
clearing wild land in Florida. She thought the
warm climate of that state would be an excel-
lent place for the family of the niece who was a
missionary in Smyrna to live after they retired
from the missionary field. Some people told
Miss Sanford that she could make fifteen hun-
dred dollars an acre on celery plants in Florida.
She decided late in 1910 to go down to the west
coast to an out of the way place, buy some land
and clear it. For a beginning she planned to
take some small celery plants. The weather
was so cold that she had to thaw out frozen
dirt, sift it and make it suitable for planting
celery seeds. She finally started out with some
fine plants, which she carried in her hands all
the way from Minneapolis to Florida. Her
only companion on the lon,g journey was a
young boy of fifteen, a grand nephew. As
Miss Sanford knew that she was going to a
place far from stores and railways she carried
with her also a hoe, a spade and a rake ; and set
out, a woman in her seventy-fourth year, laden
as few young people would msh to be. In the
station in Chicago she had the misfortune to
have her purse and her ticket stolen from her,
but the agents were kind enough to present her
15
226 MAEIA SANFOED
with a ticket to her destination. When they
reached Florida a man who had formerly lived
in Minneapolis drove them at night from the
toA\ai where they left the train to the place
selected in Largo ; and as he left Miss Sanf ord
with the pines for her only shelter, he was so
awed that he drove away with tears in his eyes.
Miss Sanf ord and her yonng companion found
nothing bnt pine and wild palmetto scrub on
the thirty-five acres of land which she had
bought. There was no sign of near neighbors.
They had a tent which they put up and in which
they lived for two months with a floor three feet
above the ground to keep out snakes and in-
sects. A heavy rain and mndstorm one night
left them without shelter, and Miss Sanford
went a mile to the one-room shack of her near-
est neighbor, where they had to sit up all night.
Their Jersey cow wandered off during the
storm and the boy hunted two days before he
found it twelve miles off. Immediately after-
ward she began to build a one-room shack on
her o^Yn place, insuring for herself a dry shel-
ter. A sleeping tent for the boy and another
for storage made up their home.
One of the family of missionaries in whose
interest she had thought of going to Florida
wrote to her: **Your experiences are amusing.
MARIA SANFORD 227
if the bites and sunburn were not such stern
realities. A picture of you and Walter tryin,g
to milk a cow would, in common parlance, be
^fetching.' I wonder what the cow thought of
it 1 By now you and Walter are no doubt quali-
fied dairy maids. I think you both are doing
splendidly. Two acres cleared in less than six
days is good work, but surely King Sol is
shocked at your early hours. ' '
In addition to the cow they had some chick-
ens. These they fed so liberally that the fowls
never gave them any eggs. As they were five
miles from the nearest to^\m, and as none of the
people anywhere near them had horse or car-
riage, Miss Sanford bought also a wagon and a
driving horse, and carried supplies for her
neighbors as well as for herself from market.
She knew so little of horses that she bought at
a high price a very inferior animal which was
unable to work, and almost unable to travel to
and from town.
The celery plants she had carried so care-
fully to Florida did not grow because condi-
tions were not risfht in that place for celery.
Miss Sanford, nothing daunted, set out cabbage
plants and tomatoes. A neighbor who had
been a truck gardener in the west helped them
at night because it was too hot to work in the
228 MARIA SANFORD
day time. Light for their work came from a
bonfire made of dried pahnetto leaves. Miss
Sanford thought that as the palmetto scrub
was not very tall it would be easy to clear it
from the land, and that she could be of material
assistance. She began with her own hands to
try to dig it up ; but the Florida days were too
hot, and the roots of the palmetto reached too
far down for her to make much headway in the
day time. So she rested a part of the day and
dug palmetto scrub by moonlight.
She did not succeed in clearing the land very
rapidly ; and after a time, leaving the wild land
for stronger hands, she went up to Washington
to deliver some lectures. She also wished to
see if a federal anti-fight bill could be intro-
duced into Congress. She had been urged to
undertake this work by friends in Minneapolis
who believed that she would make the best
leader in a movement aimed primarily to pre-
vent the sending of ** fight films" around the
world, as a syndicate was planning at that time
to do. Of the results of this effort she wrote
to a friend in Minneapolis, **My errand here
has been, as I feared it might be, fruitless. I
should not, however, have been satisfied not to
make the attempt. I have no sympathy with
people who bewail wrong and say so and so
MARIA SANFORD 229
ought to be done but never lift a hand to do it.
Only after we have tried and failed have we a
right to cease our effort, and not always even
then. I am not entirely sure that I am through
with this business, but for the present there is
nothing I can do. There is a bill Avhich has
been referred to the committee on interstate
commerce, the object of which is to stop prize
fights. The chairman of that committee told
me that they could not possibly consider it in
several weeks, other bills having precedence of
it. This, of course, means nothing will be done
this session. I am not sorry I came, though I
could ill afford either the time or the money;
but I should have been ashamed of myself not
to come, feeling as I did that it Avas my duty. ' '
While she was in Washington Miss Sanford
kept in close touch by correspondence mth what
was going on on her place at Largo, and wrote
to friends in Minneapolis that she was home-
sick to get back, ^* because, '^ she said, ^*this is
the time to plan for the sprin,g crop, and I am
anxious to be there to get things well started.
I have enjoyed the life on the farm and the
freedom and quiet of that new country. I am
not sure how long it would be attractive to me
but it has not yet lost its charm. ^'
"WHien Miss Sanford returned to Largo, how-
230 MARIA SANFORD
ever, she found that worms had eaten her cab-
bage plants. The tomatoes were in fine condi-
tion but she was unable to market them. Her
enthusiasm cooled considerably and she said
to herself, ^*A woman who can thrill an audi-
ence as you can has no business to raise the
best cabbages in the world. ' ' And she started
forthwith on her return trip to Minneapolis,
leaving the land to be cleared, and ten acres in
orange and grapefruit trees to be set out and
cared for by the man who had helped her be-
fore. She left in Florida her live-stock and all
her implements, and closed the house. She
sold her wagon to the man who looked after her
place; but the horse, as he wrote to her after
her return, was too weak to work or even to
drive. That was therefore a complete loss.
A year later the barn burned.
Miss Sanford., after her return, looked after
the place for some years, keeping up a constant
correspondence with the bank and with differ-
ent people who were hired to care for the land.
One overseer did not take the pains he should
in cultivating the grove, and caused extra ex-
pense for renewing blighted trees and planting
others in their places. Part of the land had
to be drained. Then a fence had to be built to
keep out the cattle of some people who moved
MAEIA SANFORD 231
near. But the land was still so wet that the
fence posts soon rotted and the cattle broke in
and destroyed many of the young trees. Miss
Sanford, however, had too much of the pioneer
spirit to be discouraged; and kept on, writing
cheerful letters to the man who was taking care
of her property, and spending for a consider-
able time, as she estimated, fifteen dollars a
month on an avera,ge for the care of the place.
The man who was looking after the land came
to regard Miss Sanford as the best friend of
himself and his family. His own venture was
not successful, and Miss Sanford lent him
money. After some years he moved to the Pa-
cific coast. The man who next took the place
wrote that pine roots needed to be dug up. She
had removed only palmetto. The fruit trees
needed to be set higher. Fifty trees had died.
Miss Sanford sent money ; but he needed more,
as he wanted to clear more land. The care
taker sent her an itemized monthly account of
work done and money needed, but at the end of
another year Miss Sanford was discouraged
and finally exchanged both her own land and
that of her niece in Largo for property in the
town of Lakeland, Florida. It is some satisfac-
232 MARIA SANFORD
tion to know that the missionary niece, her hus-
band and several of her children are enjoying
their home in Florida today.
As soon as women ^s clubs realized that Miss
Sanford was free to come as often as they could
afford to have her, she was in request for more
lectures than she could possibly give. A
woman's club of about twenty members in the
northern part of Minnesota was so eager for
her presence that they had her on their pro-
gram once a month for six months. In the even-
ings each time she visited this city she lectured
under the auspices of the club at church; her
lectures to the club were on literary topics and
the evening lectures on art subjects.
In March, 1912, President Vincent planned a
new kind of University Extension to carry the
University to the people. The schedule provided
for a week's program in twenty-four small cities
of the state, with popular applied education in
every department through the medium of a staff
of seventy-five lecturers, educators, demonstrat-
ors and entertainers. Miss Sanford was asked
to appear on Art and Literature Day twice
each day of the week in six towns which were
in easy communication with each other. In the
mornings she gave her popular talk on Liter-
MAMA SANFOBD 233
ature for Everybody and in the afternoons she
gave a reading from one of her favorite poets.
Two of her favorite poems were sure to be
given on these occasions. Kipling's Mother
o' Mine she recited with such feeling that one
woman said to her, **I do not see how one who
has never been a mother can possibly recite that
poem as you do.'' Lowell's My Love she be-
lieved everyone should know. One stanza of
that poem has been quoted again and again as
applicable to her.
She doeth little kindnesses
Which most leave undone, or despise;
For naught that sets one heart at ease,
And giveth happiness or peace,
Is low esteemed in her eyes.
Her favorite passage of all English poetry
was from Browning's Eabbi Ben Ezra. Who
that knew Miss Sanford could fail to associate
her with that poem on old age! Her favorite
lines were,
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry, ^ ^ All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now.
Than flesh helps soul."
In going from place to place her associates
remarked that she was more active and ener-
234 MARIA SANFORD
getic than most of the young people. She was
the only person of the entire company who never
rode in a sleeping car on the night jonrneys.
Her efforts were so much appreciated that the
President wrote her a personal letter for her
disinterested service, Avhich was a distinct con-
tribution to the idea that he wished to make
widespread in the state — that the University
was interested not alone in the students who
resorted to it but in all the people of the Com-
monwealth.
This short period of freedom had resulted in
making Miss Sanford better known outside the
state than was possible while she was teach-
ing. But perhaps the one occasion which made
her kno\^Ti to the greatest number of women all
over the country was the address she gave at
the National Federation of Women's Clubs at
San Francisco in 1912. A former student of
Miss Sanford 's suggested to the women of the
Minneapolis Federation that Miss Sanford
should be asked to make an address at the
biennial. The matter was taken up with the
proper authorities and Miss Sanford received
an invitation to make an address. She had at
that time been made an honorary member of
the State Federation of Women's Clubs, the
first and only honorary member. It was found
MARIA SANFORD 235
that she belonged to every club in the state, and
the women of the state by contributing twenty-
five cents apiece raised money to defray all her
expenses. Twenty members of the Woman's
Club of Minneapolis presented the invitation,
written as follows:
**You must guess that twenty women de-
scending upon you this bitter cold day — so soon
after your return from a fatiguing trip — ^must
have something very much at heart.
*^You have doubtless heard that there is to
be in San Francisco this summer the most nota-
ble gathering of American Womanhood, called
together by the National Federation of Wom-
en's Clubs. We feel that you, representing the
most distinguished women of our city, should
be among them, and we, representing the club
women of our city, have come to ask you to
honor us by going as our guest to San Fran-
Cisco. We say guest and not representative,
feeling that thus you will be relieved of the
burdens of representation, and yet open to all
the social gifts and courtesies of the Federa-
tion.
**We might mention many reasons for our
special hope that you will accept our request
with favor, but Ave mil mention but two. A few
days ago the wife of the president of one of our
236 MARIA SANFORD
largest banks said, * There is no name in the
city that commands more honor and respect
from my husband than the name of Maria San-
ford, because at great personal sacrifice she
stood by a debt of honor which most men would
have felt quite justified in repudiating. '
*'For this reason, and because in a long pub-
lic and private life you have stood every test,
and been true to the highest ideals of woman-
hood, we want you to do us this honor. The
wings Svherewith you are to fly withal' have
been provided, and it only remains for us to
take to our waiting clubs your favorable answer,
that the final details may be completed.
**We have the honor to wait, many of us
your former pupils, all of us your loving
friends, for the answer we hope to carry with
us/'
One club presented her with a beautiful gray
silk dress for festive occasions and another
gave a rose point lace collar to go with the silk.
Miss Sanford's devoted niece made her a beau-
tiful dress of this material. She made a tri-
umphal journey from Minneapolis to San Fran-
cisco. Former students and friends in cities
and to^\ms in every state through which she
would pass were notified by one of the club of
the date of her coming and she was urged to
MARIA SANFORD 237
lecture and to be the guest of students. Her
heart was warmed and her pocket-book filled
as a result of these chances to lecture. She still
had need of all she could earn, because she still
owed fifteen thousand dollars.
The greatest event of the trip was the day of
her address in San Francisco. She spoke on
a subject which had been near her heart for
many years, and on which she had spoken many
times, The Value of Moral Power in the School-
room. As the slight old lady rose before that
great audience she was greeted by the silent
tribute of the Chautauqua salute. A San Fran-
cisco reporter, in referring to this address,
wrote: ^^Seventy-five and active; seventy-five
with a voice that has the power and resonance
that moves thousands of young women to envy,
seventy-five and able to move with enthusiastic
admiration and devotion the immense audience
of club women that packed the auditorium this
morning ; such is the unique distinction of Pro-
fessor Maria Sanford of the University of Min-
nesota." A reporter for another paper said
she made the most profound impression of any
speaker at the biennial. One of her best known
sentiments was expressed in this speech: *^At
seventy-five my message to the world is : Let
.every human being so bear himself that the
238 MARIA SANFORD
place where he stands is sacred ground. And
I charge the old to teach the young the value of
education, not as a means to wealth, but as a
means to life/' Another, equally well known^
was repeated here :
^^We would urge those who select either pri-
mary teachers or college professors to look not
to preparation only, but to power ; to remember
that learning, forei,gn university degrees, skill
in research, are not sufficient evidence of a
teacher's fitness unless these are accompanied
by a spirit and purpose which ennobles the
life."
Miss Sanford enjoyed every minute of her
trip. She appeared at a special luncheon ar-
ranged for her by club w^omen who were en-
thusiastic about her address. Yet she refused
an invitation to one great function, and went
instead to speak to the women prisoners at San
Quentin. When asked about it afterward she
said, *^I tried to make it the best tall^ I had
ever given."
It was while she was at this biennial that Miss
Sanford saw the success with which the Cali-
fornia women had used the rights of suffrage
and came out openly herself as a suffragist.
From that time she lectured frequently for the
cause and never hesitated to tell why she had
MARIA SANFORD 239
changed her point of view. Before her return
to her home she spoke to the Woman's Club of
Los Angeles. She told them that the women
of the states without suffrage Avere w^atching
California. She urged them not to form a
woman's party, nor support a woman candidate
just because she was a woman, but to vote for
the highest principles. She reminded them
that one unanswerable argument for equal suf-
frage would be the voting woman's use of the
ballot in the interest of social purity and home
protection. She charged them to keep before
them the better guardianship of home and
family. j
On her return home she was at once asked to
accept a place on the legislative committee of
the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association,
and asked to give Avhat free time she had from
her lecture engagements outside the state, in
which to make her presence felt in her home
state.
Some months later when she spoke on the
same subject in Poughkeepsie, New York, she
entitled her speech When the Sun Rises in
the West. She remarked that she always had
known some women were as able as some men,
but had thought the ignorant vote would be bad,
and also that women would lose their delicacv.
240 MARIA SANFORD
But her observation in California had taught
her better. A year previously she had deliv-
ered a lecture against suffrage. She had never
been in sympathy with the plea that suffrage
was a right; and when she joined the ranks of
the suffragists she always emphasized her be-
lief that it was an opportunity for service. She
had come to see that women were called upon
for public service ; that as the last century was
one of invention, of material progress, this is
one of social advancement; that imbecility, in-
sanity, drunkenness, and poverty were the re-
sult of conditions which might be improved;
and that women were seeking a way to help
their fellowmen by protection of childhood
against severe labor conditions, by securing re-
lief for the industrially oppressed, and by the
suppression of the social evil. In her attempt
at ** general helping'^ she had a hand in all
these efforts.
In the winter following the biennial at San
Francisco the clubs belonging to the Minnesota
State Federation in twelve of the larger cities
of the state engaged Miss Sanford for a series
of lectures, many of these as a direct result of
the enthusiasm aroused by her address at San
Francisco, although most of the clubs of the
state had for many years been familiar with
MARIA SANFOED 241
Miss Sanford's work as a lecturer. That win-
ter, shortly before her seventy- sixth birthday,
Professor Sanford made eighteen addresses in
ten days, and on her birthday she lectured
twice. On that occasion she remarked con-
cerning her health, ^*I was never better in my
life. I know as time goes on that I have not
long to work, and I want to be busy during the
rest of my days. There is so much to be done
in the world and such a loud call for those who
by insight, by earnestness and by tact are fitted
to do it well ; there is so much to be learned, so
much to be discovered that will lift up and bless
the world, that no one who has a skillful hand
and a trained eye can afford to hold back from
help." At an earlier time, in referring to her
health, she said that long before Mrs. Eddy had
been heard of she had laid down for herself
the general principle that she must never plan
or think about being in anything but good
health. Her experience had convinced her that
the habit of chronic illness unfitted many who
might do better if they would cultivate a differ-
ent attitude of mind.
One of Miss Sanford 's favorite lectures, given
many times, was entitled How to Make Home
Happy. This lecture was full of homely wisdom,
of anecdotes of her early years, and was eagerly
16
242 MARIA SANFORD
listened to on all occasions. She believed that
poor homes are the happiest, that thoughtful-
ness for others, self-denial and willingness to
give are found oftenest in homes of poverty.
*^In ourselves,'' she said, ^Sve find the wealth
that makes home. Ambition, contentment, thrift,
health and religion are necessary to a happy
home. Thrift is the most important and the
most often neglected. ' '
In addition to the lectures given in Minne-
sota Miss Sanford was in request in California
and all through the western states. One lec-
ture given to high school students entitled Pock-
ets of Gold made such an impression upon the
boys and girls that they gave her a pin made
from a nugget of gold found in the county. The
students, teachers and principals of the high
school presented her with an engraved scroll in
memory of their pleasure and the value they had
received from her lecture.
On her return journey she spoke in Port-
land, Oregon, before a congress of mothers on
a subject which had recently become of public
interest, that of sex hygiene for girls. This
was a new departure for Miss Sanford, but with
her usual sanity, courage and sincerity, she told
the mothers that she believed this subject
should be taught, but she did not believe in
MARIA SANFORD 243
having it taught in school. She was of the
opinion that mothers should give their girls
the necessary instruction, and that very early.
On her return to Minnesota that summer Miss
Sanford spoke again on sex hygiene, and one
friend in writing to her said, ^*I have heard
nothing but favorable comment on your sex
talk. One woman who, I know, has evaded her
duty and even been untruthful to her three
children, was thoroughly impressed. I was
eager to hear her opinion on the talk. She is
the aristocratic, unsympathetic type, and I was
fearful that even you could not convince her;
but you did."
She was in demand for high school com-
mencement addresses in Minnesota. She spoke
before the Women's Press Club in New York
City. She lectured for the endowTnent fund of
the General Federation of Women's Clubs.
Everywhere her humor was remarked with
keen appreciation. Even on the subject of cre-
mation, which she advocated for many years,
she had a favorite humorous story. Believing
that cremation was the only hygienic method in
large cities of disposing of the dead, she ex-
pressed her views as she did on other unpop-
ular subjects, whenever she found an occasion.
But she never made the topic seem gruesome.
244 MABIA SANFORD
and often repeated the remark made by an un-
married woman to a widow whose third hus-
band had recently been cremated: ^^I never
had a husband, and you have had husbands to
burn. ' '
On the subject of Our Duty to the Degraded
Classes she had some original and vigorously
expressed opinions. She believed that habitual
paupers as well as criminals are defectives
whom society may deprive of their freedom as
it does the insane. Pauperism is not, as we
think, a necessary evil, but a foul disease. Even
the worthy poor should not receive alms, but
should work or in some way give an equivalent
for what they receive. Pauperism should not
be tampered with, but stamped out. It is not
an accident, but a disease which can be con-
trolled and prevented.
For many of her lectures at this period, as
had been the case for many years, she received
no money. The year 1914, five years after her
retirement, was financially the most profitable ;
in this year she received more than two thou-
sand dollars from her public speaking.
In the summer of 1915 Miss Sanford made an
extended Avestern trip, lecturing in northern
Montana, and for the first time longing for
home she w^rote to her niece in Minneapolis;
MARIA SANFORD 245
^*How glad I am that I am engaged in Minne-
apolis for September. It will be so delightful
to be at home, and so good to be earning the
money I need.'' Her gratitude to her niece
found expression when she said, **I am indeed
happy that you enjoy our home, and more
thankful than I can tell that I have you to make
it home for me. I hope we may have some de-
lightful years together yet." On this trip she
wrote almost daily to her niece, and in every
letter repeated her desire to be at home. In
one letter she began by saying, *^It is 5:30 in
the morning and I am all ready for the day's
work. Of course I have not had breakfast yet,
but I have had my bath in this delicious, soft,
clear water. All the work I have to do is done,
and with warm clothing on I am sitting outside
my cabin door writing. It is glorious sitting
here and seeing the sunlight creep down on the
mountains and to feel this life-giving air, I am
sure these weeks are being a great benefit to
me. I feel now so well and sound and so thank-
ful for this vigor. I am alone in my cabin now
and I enjoy it hugely. You had better send me
more papers here. We get no news at all, and
I leave the papers when I have read them in
the schoolroom where the girls can see them."
A snap shot of her here standing before her
246 MARIA SANFORD
log cabin shows the vitality of a woman half
her age. Another surprising photograph shows
her in a mountain clearing seated astride a
pony. She has on a cowboy hat, and has a ban-
danna handkerchief knotted around her neck.
Her attitude indicates that she expects to start
at once on a morning journey. Alert and eager,
she seems keenly pleased at the prospect. She
had left the railroad and journe^^ed over the
roughest of stage roads thirty-five miles into
the wilderness to lecture to a camp of normal
school students. For two weeks she spoke to
them three times a day. Just at twilight each
evening a big bon-fire was started, and the
whole community gathered around it while Pro-
fessor Sanford repeated some of her favorite
poems.
For a woman nearing eighty years of age the
strenuous travelling she describes in her let-
ters is marvelous: ^^It was a queer jaunt up
here from Glendive. I left there at seven in
the morning and got here after six at night. I
rode a little way, then changed cars, or rather
waited at the station to change, then went on a
little ways further and changed again; and so
on four times." "Within a week Miss Sanford
was writing from another town in Montana:
**My work here is somewhat strenuous but very
<
MARIA SANFORD 247
satisfactory. Everybody is so much pleased!
The people of the town croAvd in every after-
noon to hear. This evening I am to give a
lecture for them. Sunday I am to take part of
the service , and Tuesday afternoon at four
'clock I am to speak to the mothers. They pay
me for this evening but not for Tuesday. They
said they should be so glad to have the talk to
the mothers, it was so much needed. So I told
them I w^ould give them the talk Tuesday after-
noon free.''
On leaving this town Miss Sanford wrote to
her niece: **I may go to LewistoAvn. To go
there I change at Bainville, then change again
at Havre at 2:00 A. M., leave Havre at 4:40
A. M., and reach Lewistown at 7:30 P. M. I
do not earn much by going there, but I occupy
vacant days and get my fare, which counts, and
1 had rather be at work than idle. ' ' Again her
longing to be at home is expressed a few days
later in a letter to the same niece: ** Another
Monday morning, and I am beginning the last
full week before I go home. I am wondering
how it would seem to me if I could stay at home
and not be going away all the time. I feel sure
I should enjoy it if I were busy and you were
there. ... I am so thankful for my health
and strength. I shall need it all when I come
248 MARIA SANFORD
to the Minneapolis campaign. That will be
hard, I know, but I am more than glad to be in
it/'
As the month of August drew to a close Miss
Sanford's longing increased. From Havre she
wrote, *^I am in a hurry to see you. It is only
one week from tonight that I shall be at home,
I hope ... I am beginning to feel a lit-
tle easier about my affairs. I have still a lot
to pay, but it is good to be home, and that work
in Minneapolis will help. It looks now as if by
next May I should be where I need not worry.
I will hope for freedom — not quite from debt,
but from anxiety.'' A day or two later she
writes again to her niece, **I had another de-
lightful surprise yesterday in getting your let-
ter. I had not expected to get any letters here
and it seemed such a long time not to hear from
you, but these two letters make it short. Soon
now I shall be at home ... I have to go
the same round about way I came. It doesn't
matter. I am feeling so well and strong I shall
not mind the waits. The only one I really dread
is at Glendive. I get there at 4 :40 P. M. and
stay until 2 :00 A. M., and the station is swarm-
ing with flies. When I came on I Avent outdoors
and lay on a truck. It was a warm night. ' '
After the Minneapolis campaign Miss San-
MARIA SANFORD 249
ford started on an eastern trip, stopping in
Chicago, then going on to New York and later
to Virginia. Her lodging to be at home grew.
She still wrote to her niece almost daily and
looked eagerly for letters from home. From
Chicago she wrote, * ^ I am certainly a great deal
better than I was a year ago, for I gave three
addresses on Thursday and then came down
here yesterday, and I do not feel tired at all.
. . . Work is abont the best thing we get in
this world except such loving friends as yon are
to me. ' '
While she was in Chicago at this time she re-
ceived a letter from the Minneapolis Journal
asking her to go to Gary, Indiana, to visit the
famous Gary schools. She wrote two letters
for the Journal about this visit and advised the
Minneapolis educators not to hurry to intro-
duce the Gary system in Minneapolis. Al-
though she found many of the novel features
of the school good in theory, she did not feel
that they always worked out satisfactorily.
One of the greatest objections to the system, she
felt, was the overworking of the teachers.
Miss Sanford made such an impression on the
school children of Gary that one small child
wrote of her: **The little old-fashioned lady
appeared quite suddenly in the big new-fash-
250 MARIA SANFORD
ioned school. Her quick light step was that of
a girl. Her snow white hair, combed straight
back from her forehead and coiled in a knot at
the nape of her neck, was just the way our
grandmothers do. Her black silk was just the
kind we would want her to wear and just the
kind our grandmothers wear today. As she
stepped on the platform a breathless hush fell
on the audience. Everyone wanted to hear the
message that the little old-fashioned lady had
to bring to us. When she spoke a look of sur-
prise came into the faces of those in the audi-
ence. Her voice was as clear as a bell. It rang
through the room, strong and clear. Everyone
was quiet from the fourth grade to the twelfth.
She recited geometry propositions which she
had studied sixty years ago. She told us — 0,
so many things! Miss Sanford's talk is one
that will be long remembered. The words of
the little old-fashioned lady will echo and re-
echo through the halls of the big new-fashioned
school.''
Miss Sanford wrote to her niece about her
visit: **I had a very nice time at Gary but it
was pretty hard work, and I am feeling a little
tired. They remembered me from last year
and treated me royally. Yesterday I spoke
five times, including a story I told to a class of
MAMA SANFORD 251
children." After her visit to Gary Miss San-
ford wrote to her niece, ^'You can't tell how I
look forward to next spring when what I earn
will pull me out of trouble. I shall have to be
careful and save ri^ght on, but I shall not have
to worry as to how I am to meet necessary pay-
ments nor to worry as to Avhat would be done
if I should die."
As she went on further east she continued
to ride in day coaches and to have to change in
the middle of the night. Although she Avas a
pioneer woman and in many respects ahead of
her time, in other ways she was a Puritan of
the Puritans. She told some friends that it
never seemed quite nice to her to go into a
sleeper. She could curl up comfortably on the
seat of a day coach and sleep mth her clothes
on. She didn't like to undress in a railway
train. From somewhere in New York Miss
Sanford wrote to her niece, **I have had a very
comfortable night. I had to change in Buffalo
and wait from 2:30 to 4:30 A. M. That was
the only unpleasant thing, but I stretched out
in the station and slept for a while. I am all
right now."
After going south as far as Virginia she re-
turned to her native state to rest a few days
before filling lecture engagements on her re-
252 MARIA SANFORD
turn journey. On New Year's Day she was in
Yalesville, Connecticut, staying with a cousin,
and for the first time in many years relaxing
somewhat and enjoying a pleasant visit. She
left the house in the afternoon one day to go to
the post office. There had been an ice storm
and she had the misfortune to fall on the ice,
dislocating her shoulder and injuring herself
so severely that with difficulty she reached a
doctor's office. An examination showed that
there were no broken bones, but she had to be
carried back to the house. The cousin urged
her to go to bed, but Miss Sanf ord insisted that
she must take the train that night for Troy,
New York ; and in spite of the fact that she was
unable to stand she insisted on travelling.
She was put aboard the train, and when she
reached Troy, still unable to walk, she was
wheeled to the platform at the hall where she
was to lecture. From there she went on to
three other cities in New York, still unable to
walk, and in this way she filled all her lecture
engagements between New York and Minne-
apolis. "When she reached home she was obliged
to go to bed and unable to raise her hand to
her mouth, yet in less than a week she was on
her way to keep lecture engagements in Cali-
fornia. Her niece packed her trunk, friends
MARIA SANFOED 253
took her to the train. No one knows how she
was cared for on the road, but she reached her
journey's end in California much better than
when she left Minneapolis and never failed in
a single engagement.
Her niece, who was in doubt about the wis-
dom of such a long journey was re-assured by
the letter her aunt wrote at her first stopping
place: **I reached here yesterday at 3:00 A.
M. There had been landslides, which blocked
the trains. We had to get out and walk about
two long blocks through slush and mud, and
once a trestle bridge on the ties. The men in
charge were very kind and did all they could
for us. They took charge of the valise, and
they put me in charge of two Italians who led
me, one on one side and the other on the other.
I got along very well mth their help so far as
my lameness was concerned, but you should
have seen my dress. The mud on the right side
was up at least four inches and spattered up a
foot and a half all around. M^^ cloak was held
up by the men's arms and so escaped. My
shoes were all mud to the very top, hut ive got
tlirougli and were thankful we were not in the
river that was ragin,g by our side. My trunk
did not come until this morning. When I got
to the hotel I had a warm room with plenty of
254 MARIA SANFORD
hot water. I just put the bottom of my dress
into the bowl and washed it through several
waters and hung it on the radiator. Then I
took a Avash cloth and washed my shoes and my
rubbers and set them up to dry. It was four
o'clock when I got them cleaned and I went to
bed happy. I did so good a job of cleaning my
clothes that by some more sponging I was
decent for my lectures in the afternoon and
evening. ' '
A week later, **I have given eleven lectures
at Eureka and five at Areata. Oh, if they only
fill my time so that I can get this load of debt
off I shall be happy as a bird ! I count every
day how much I have earned . . . Oh, how
glad I shall be to get home ! But I want to get
the work here and the money, and they all say
I do them so much good. I have been delight-
fully entertained, but I want to see you and be
at home."
Three days later from another town in Cali-
fornia came the following: ** Yesterday morn-
ing before I came here I was feeling so home-
sick I could have cried. I had been comfort-
able enough but I was disappointed about one
town not taking a full course of my lectures,
and I did not know whether any of the to^vns
would do so, and I felt like giving up and com-
MAEIA SANFORD 255
ing home. But here the people are very en-
thusiastic, and with these kind friends around
me things look bright again."
In spite of the strenuous traveling Miss San-
ford gave lectures which were not required.
From one town she wrote in February, * * I have
arranged to speak twice tomorrow and to ad-
dress the high school Monday. Of course this
isn't my business. All I am strictly required
to do is to give the lectures when they have
planned for them, but if I can help I am glad,
and then too I do some good by speaking . . .
They thought that they could not possibly pay
for a course this year, but I preached twice on
Sunday and spoke in the schools three times
yesterday, and they are so much pleased they
are going to work hard to get a course. It is
very pleasant to feel that people always like
my work.
"When I was dressed this morning about
seven o'clock I felt the old impulse I used to
feel to take a real run before breakfast in the
open air. The rain had not begun and I had
a nice walk. It is a good while since I have
felt like doing this . . . Your good care
while I was home helped to bring me out right.
Nobody knows how thankful I am that I have
you to care for me when I need it."
256 MARIA SANFORD
A month later from San Francisco Miss San-
ford wrote to her niece, **I am trying hard to
pay up my debts. I have been counting up,
and if I do not have anything new to meet, I
ought to have all but the mortgage on our house
and my other house paid up by next January.
I do want very much to pay that off. ' '
Her thought for others when she was sac-
rificing herself was as generous as when she
was young and strong. One unusual bit of
thoughtfulness was sho^^^l in the following : ^*I
don't like to be at a hotel where servants ex-
pect tips unless money is provided for that;
and I cannot afford to give it myself. I rather
deny myself a meal than go where waiters ex-
pect to be paid and give them nothing. I have
done so many a time."
About the fair in San Francisco she wrote:
^*I intend to go to the fair. I grudge the dollar
it will cost, but I think it hardly best to come
home without ha\T.ng seen it at all.''
Miss Sanford's anxiety about her independ-
ence was voiced in a letter to her niece later in
the same year: **It seems to me dreadful to
be old and not have assured means of support.
I rather work and pinch all my life if only I
could know I was provided for. It was this
feeling which made me so troubled when I
MAEIA SANFORD 257
thought the Carnegie pension might not be
paid. ... If one only has a small sum,
but it is sure and lasts as long as one lives, it
is protection against that dreadful thing, be-
ing dependent. Saving and scrimping are not
agreeable but they are heaven compared to
that.''
Miss Sanford's two seasons of lectures in
California in 1915 and 1916 were given in the
extension department of the University of Cal-
ifornia. The first season she gave single lectures
from Berkeley to Los Angeles, travelling at
night to keep her appointments. The next sea-
son the manager, in order to conserve Miss San-
ford 's strength, arranged to have her lecture
a week in a place. It required some persua-
sion to get the people to agree to have one lec-
turer for so long a period. The manager said
that in eight years of extension work there had
never been another speaker who could be de-
pended on to arouse keen interest and always
give something worth while. The work in one
place shows how she appealed to the interests
of all classes. In Santa Cruz she lectured to
the high school students on Shakespeare, and
to the teachers on English ; at the men 's lunch-
eons she spoke on patriotic subjects; in the
afternoons she addressed the parents' and
17
258 MARIA SANFORD
teachers' associations; Sundays she preached
in the churches. She left the toAvn stimulated
and revived, a wonderful achievement.
She was straining every nerve at this time
to get her debts paid by the middle of the year.
She succeeded in her endeavor so well that on
June 8, 1916, she made a memorandum : * * This
seems my day of emancipation, the beginning of
life — the life I have always longed to live, but
I have been forced to work for a living. Yes-
terday I went over my accounts, and while I
still owe about four thousand dollars, it is all,
except my note to Mrs. secured; so I
need not worry about getting work, but I can
work for others."
To celebrate the great occasion Miss Sanford
for the first time bought something for herself
that she considered a luxury. She had always
loved beautiful gloves but she never wore them.
Slie had always loved beautiful lace but had
never alloAved herself even a white ruching in
her dress. She would have loved to dress in
white but instead had always dressed in black.
She always loved to take out from her dress
pocket a fresh handkerchief, neatly folded, to
be used to 'SA^pe dust from her hands, but she
had never had all the handkerchiefs she wanted.
She alwavs used men's handkerchiefs because
MARIA SANFORD 259
they were used only for her hands; and now
when someone gave her thirty dollars and
urged her to buy with it something for herself,
she bought thirty men's linen handkerchiefs for
a dollar apiece, and for once in her life had
enough of something she wanted. Her hands,
which were large, were compared by artists to
Lincoln's. After her death Miss McKinstry
painted a second portrait of her, selecting for
her model a photograph which shows the beauty
of her hand. Five portarits of her are known
to have been painted.
Miss Sanford planned every birthday to
make some improvement. She chose for her
seventy-fifth to wear white at sleeves and neck.
Thereafter clerks in the best store in Minneap-
olis took pains to keep for her boxes of ruching
even when that article of dress was not in
fashion.
CHAPTER IX
HARVEST
In the fall of 1916 Miss Sanford received no-
tice from the secretary of the Minneapolis
Board of Education that one of the public
schools was to be named in her honor. She was
deeply appreciative and at once adopted the
school, which, to her great delight, was in one
of the newer parts of the city. True to her
pioneering instinct she remarked many times
that she was very glad the school which received
her name was a small and struggling one. It
consisted of four portables, and comprised only
the first four grades. As soon as possible Miss
Sanford visited the school, spoke to the chil-
dren, and from that time on became their fairy
godmother. At her first visit she gave to each
grade a motto. To the first she gave the four
B's: '^Be clean, be kind, be courteous, be
true," the meaning of which was explained,
word by word, by their teacher, and which was
kept on the blackboard. The children memo-
rized the motto and learned to write it. To the
higher grades she gave to the boys, **I am going
260
MARIA SANFORD 261
to be a fine, strong, noble man''; and to the
girls, *^I am going to be a true, strong, beauti-
ful woman.'' These were copied at stated inter-
vals in their best hand writing and sent to Miss
Sanford so that she could see the improvement
in their penmanship.
Because her eightieth birthday occurred in
the year that this school was named for her,
the children of each grade sent her a birthday
gift. Each of the first grade sent a hand made
birthday card, and letter. One said, ^^I hope
you will have a good time. Christmas will be
coming soon. I love you. How do you feel to-
day! " One of the second grade, *^I wish you a
happy birthday. I go to the nice little school
that is named after you. We are very glad that
you are coming to see us Wednesday."
Another, ^^I should like to live to be as old as
you and do as many lovely things for people."
One of the third grade, **We would like to have
you tell us about your school days and the chil-
dren of that time. Our building is not as good
as some of the buildings but we have the best
play grounds in the city. We play in Farview
Park. This is the highest grade in the school.
We are the only children who have ink to use.
We hope you will like our school."
Every child in the school sent Miss Sanford
262 MARIA SANFORD
a birthday greeting, and the principal of the
school sent a message from the teachers. Miss
Sanford treasured all these letters as long as
she lived. The grade school teachers of Minne-
apolis also sent her a birthday greeting of
eighty dollars in gold, presented in two beauti-
ful gilt boxes made for the purpose, and a
card: *^To our dear Miss Sanford: You have
done so much cheerfully for the grade teachers
of Minneapolis that we venture to ask you to
grant us one more favor, to accept the accom-
panying birthday gift that we may know that
our gratitude for your eighty golden years is
recognized by you.''
The University of Minnesota celebrated the
occasion by a general convocation of all the col-
leges of the University at the University Ar-
mory. **It was an event. University and
alumni representatives had been at work for
weeks arranging for this all-state convocation
to pay tribute to Miss Sanford. On the stage
with the honored guests sat a group representa-
tive of the whole span of nearly thirty years
in which Miss Sanford had been a member of
the University faculty. There was Dr. William
Watts Folwell, first president of the Univer-
sity, the man who * discovered' Miss Sanford;
Dr. Cyrus Northrop, President Emeritus of the
MARIA SANFOED 263
University, co-worker with Professor Sanford
for twenty-five years; Professor John Corrin
Hutchinson of the Department of Greek, who
was on the faculty when Miss Sanford joined
it ; Professor Leroy Arnold of Hamline Univer-
sity, Miss Gratia Countryman, public libra-
rian, and Professor Oscar Firkins, formerly a
member of Miss Sanford 's department; all
three of these were her former students. Pres-
ident Vincent presided. The group contained
the three men who had presided over the ad-
ministration of the University since its begin-
ning, and also the three veterans of the Univer-
sity — Dr. Folwell, eighty-five years old; Dr.
Northrop, eighty-two; and Miss Sanford,
eighty. Dr. Northrop spoke of Miss Sanford
from his long friendsliip and years of profes-
sional relationship; Professor Hutchinson
spoke of her from the standpoint of a colleague.
Professor Arnold from the standpoint of the
student before the teacher ; and Miss Country-
man told of Miss Sanford as a citizen.'' At
the close of her address Miss Countryman, on
behalf of the alumni, presented Miss Sanford
with a bouquet of eighty pink roses, one for
each year. Professor Firkins then read a poem
written for the occasion, entitled
264 MARIA SANFOED
MARIA
What name, said you? No, not '^Mary,"
Debonair, sedate, and chary.
Not ** Marie," demure and wary,
Fits the presence I acclaim:
No, the thing I chant is bigger.
It is impetus and vigor,
Truculence it is and rigor.
It's a crisp and couchant trigger,
And ** Maria'' is its name.
She's no April, self-beguiled.
With a dimmed and dropping eyelid,
Nor a May, by zephyrs shy led.
To some brook's enameled play:
She is winter, lusty, stinging.
Winter, martial, cordial, ringing.
Fire-glow with frost-gleam bringing.
All the geese, affrighted, winging
From its presence far away.
Of reforms she keeps the tally ;
When the civic virtues rally,
Leads the cry and heads the sally,
With her besom sweeps the alley,
And the handle of the same
As a club she stoutly uses.
Stroke for stroke she ne'er refuses,
Satan, when he counts his bruises
Pours confusion on her name.
On through hootings and applauses
She can steer her drove of causes,
Propaganda fierce as Shaw's is
MARIA SANFORD 265
Crashes through the crapes and gauzes
Raised to screen the bar or slum;
If reform of vigor short is,
She injects the aqua fortis,
Egging on to speedier sorties
The millenium, that tortoise,
And that creeper, Kingdom Come.
Quaking beam and trembling rafter
Knew her hurricane of laughter,
Strong to lift and buoy and waft her
To some far-off land of mirth;
And we guessed she had been tippling
On that liquor blithely rippling.
That intoxicant called Kipling,
When the thunder-peal had birth.
At her word, compelling fiat
Tumult shuddered into quiet.
Despotism fringed with riot
Stamped the sway Maria bore;
Did some student, bold of feature.
Strive to challenge or impeach her,
Override or overreach her.
Debris from that hapless creature
Made mosaic of the floor.
When from sharp examination
Back came themelet or oration,
His own son — in that mutation —
Scarce the student parent knew;
Back it came with strange injections,
Drawn and quartered, slit in sections;
266 MAEIA SANFORD
Hintings at august perfections,
Charities iced with corrections,
At his head Maria threw.
' ' Shall ' ' and ' * Will, ' ' from mixed embraces,
Scudded to their law^ful places,
Pronouns rummaged for their cases,
Mincing airs and maw^kish graces
Vanished to some kindlier shore;
How the air grew calorific.
When she thundered, "Be specific!
Prune it ! Write hieroglyphic
When you're mummies — not before!"
Let the years keep up their snowballs;
They are gossamers and blowballs;
Charon mourns his stinted obols.
Time bewails his unpaid score;
Hers were sixties hale as Goethe's,
Romping seventies whose fate is
On into the madcap eighties
Fearless and uncurbed to pour.
Praise her not with smug obeisance.
Sleek and millinered complaisance!
Save your peppermint and raisins
For the dupe of sugared lies!
Praise her, travel-soiled and dusty.
Praise her, vehement and gusty,
Praise her, kinked and knurled and crusty.
Leonine and hale and lusty,
Praise her, oaken-ribbed and trusty.
Shout "Maria" to the skies.
0. W. Firkins.
MAEIA SANFORD 267
During the reading of Mr. Firkins 's poem,
Miss Sanford showed her evident enjoyment of
its lines in the way which all her students knew
so well — her face aglow, her eyes sparkling
with an appreciation of its humor and her
whole body frequently shaking with scarcely
suppressed merriment. Her response to all
these greetings was brief, but full of the fire of
her indomitable personality. She spoke with
feeling of her pride in the love of her students ;
and for the first time alluded to her recent need
to care for her health.
Following the exercises at the University
Miss Sanford was entertained at luncheon at
the home of one of her friends ; for days after-
wards she was kept busy reading scores of
letters from people of prominence, from former
students, and from people who were grateful
for help she had given them. One of the let-
ters she especially treasured contained this sen-
tence: *^It is hardly necessary to ivisJi you
happiness and merriment, since you were the
original inventor and patentee of those states
of mind ; but we can tell you how glad we are
that you did invent them. ' '
Another writer remarked: *^ Herbert Spen-
cer some where says (I quote this to show my
learning) that life should not be measured by
268 MARIA SANFORD
its length but by its amount. Judged by this
standard, Metbuselah, dear Miss Sanford, was
an infant compared to you. You have had both
length of life and fullness of life. That it has
been a life of renunciation and sacrifice of per-
sonal happiness I knoYv% but I know also that you
would be the last to regret the self-forgetful
service that has meant so much to the many
who have come under your influence during the
long years of your unceasing activity/' The
director of the Minneapolis Art School sent his
appreciation of the noble work she had done
for the advancement of culture and a better
understanding of art among the young people.
A more personal letter came from a well
kno^vn Minneapolis woman: *^It won't hurt
you, I know, to have a bit of a love letter once in
awhile, so this comes to tell you what a joy you
are to all our hearts. You must know that
already, and yet one's capacity to assimilate
the expression of such love is seldom overtaxed,
and you — who have no children after the flesh
to call you * Mother', yet have hundreds of chil-
dren after the spirit who sustain that relation-
ship to you — will understand a word from one
of them. To see a spirit incarnate, triumphant
over all the material things of life, taking on
each year added strength and beauty and with
MAEIA SANFORD 269
a heart large enough to understand the bond
and the free, and to pour daily in overflowing
measure insjDiration for all, makes one under-
stand the great of all the past, and reach for-
ward with faith and hope for the womanhood —
nay, the manhood as well — of all the future.
All this you do and we love you and revere you
for it.''
Among all these letters from prominent peo-
ple came one from her grand-nephew ** some-
where in France". The soldier was again the
boy living mth his great-aunt and going to
school. He said: ^*You must be careful of
yourself and not strain that back of yours. I
read in Mother's letter that you had strained
it working in the barn. I wish I were there to
help you and make you stop lifting those heavy
things which hurt your back."
To all these friends Miss Sanford sent
through the press a printed message: **When
I heard that my friends had been asked to write
letters I felt sorr^^ I feared that it would be a
perfunctory service, a kind of duty, like going
to a funeral ; but the letters, messages of love,
warmed my heart. I was not puffed up. I have
all this week felt like the wicked old sinner who
heard a sermon on universal salvation. He
went home, saying to himself, * Blessed doo-
270 MARIA SANFOED
trine, blessed doctrine ! If I could only believe
it!''^
An editorial in the Minneapolis Tribune paid
her an especially warm tribute: *^Dr. George
E. Vincent was right when he once referred to
Miss Sanford as 'the woman who had been re-
tired and didn 't knoAv it. ' Representative Clar-
ence B. Miller, of Duluth, was right too when
he called her Hhe best known, best loved woman
in Minnesota'; and Dr. William W. Folwell,
first president of the University of Minnesota,
has a clear title to the pride that is in him be-
cause he * discovered' Maria Sanford. Man-
kind's biggest item of debt to Maria Sanford,
however, is that she discovered herself away
back in her girlhood days in New England, and
that she has made the most of that discovery
ever since."
The other papers of the city and most of
those of the state did Miss Sanford honor on
this day ; and, as she had done once before, she
gave her message through the press to the pub-
lic. The one for this day was perhaps the most
notable of all. She said, *^Work is life to me.
It always has been and always will be. I am
hoping that my health and strength will hold out
for another ten years, to enable me to do things
MARIA SANFORD 271
for others that I have always longed to do but
never had the time.''
The next great event of Miss Sanford's life
occurred in June, 1917. Although she had been a
university professor for nearly thirty years she
had no degree. The University of Minnesota
had never granted an honorary degree, so that
Miss Sanford was in the peculiar position of a
professor with no degree at all. Many of her
friends had expressed the wish that this honor
might be given to one so worthy; but it was a
retired public school teacher who took the first
definite steps toward the accomplishment of the
desire ; and a trustee of Carleton College, one of
Miss Sanford 's old students, who carried it out.
At the June commencement, 1917, Carleton
College conferred upon President Emeritus
Cyrus Northrop, of the University of Minne-
sota, the degree of Doctor of Laws. Although
other universities had long before conferred the
degree on him. President Cowling stated that
in the whole fifty years of its existence Carle-
ton College had never before conferred this
degree. At the same time Miss Sanford was
made a Doctor of the More Humane Letters.
In a simple undergraduate's gown, she was
presented for the degree by a former student
of her own, who was at that time Dean of
272 MARIA SANFOED
Women of Carleton College. The most memor-
able passage in the presentation went to the
hearts of the hearers : ^ ' She is an example of
noble Christian womanhood, with an energy of
fire and a heart of peace . . . gracious,
loving, and beloved, to whom nothing human is
alien."
President Cowling said that the College hon-
ored itself in thus showing its appreciation of
the two best loved educators of Minnesota. At
the age of more than eighty years Miss Sanf ord
was as happy to have a right to the title of
Doctor as only one could be who had had so
stressful a life. It gave her a justifiable pleas-
ure thereafter to have her letters addressed to
Dr. Maria Sanf ord ; and her friends were mind-
ful of their opportunity to give her the new
title.
Her health during the summer was so much
improved that she was busy in the state with
work for child welfare, liberty loan campaigns,
and woman suffrage. She talked to business
women's clubs, to Jewish and Catholic Associa-
tions. Every kind of body working for the pub-
lic welfare wanted her advice and approbation.
Her interest in the public school which had
been named for her was largely an indication
of her firm loyalty to the public school system
MARIA SANFORD 273
of the country. She believed private schools
for young children in a democracy were a grave
mistake. When an opportunity offered itself
for her to express her belief to one of the prom-
inent supporters of several private schools she
wrote as follows : ' ' Though until last evening
you were a stranger to me, I have long known
and honored your reputation for wisdom and
public spirit, and I have wished I might say to
you what I am now taking the liberty to say. I
have been thinking deeply of the subject
touched upon in our conversation on the way
home. You will, I think, agree with me that the
public school is one of the most valuable insti-
tutions, and that all good citizens should be
jealous of its popularity. Now, suppose that
you were devoted to the public schools as Mr.
Pillsbury was to the State University. Let me
say first that I feel enthusiastic admiration for
the particular private schools in which you are
interested but I am a devotee of the public
schools and I have regarded with deep regret
the devotion which such men as yourself are
giving to private schools. When people with
shallow notions of pride choose private schools
it does not matter, but when men like yourself
and the other trustees of these private schools,
men of public spirit and good judgment, stand
18
274 MARIA SANFORD
for exclusive schools, it is a public loss. If a
hundred men like yourself, having taste, refine-
ment and wealth, had each been giving to the
public school which his children attended as
much time, enthusiastic interest and money as
you are giving to the private schools, and some
one should induce them to transfer their inter-
ests to a private institution, could any advan-
tage their children obtained equal the loss of
their interest in and devotion to the public
schools?''
At this period Miss Sanford was glad to be
able to stay nearer home for a time, especially
in cold weather. Each succeeding birthday was
felt to be an event of public significance. Her
eighty-first birthday was celebrated by a din-
ner given at Senator James ElwelPs, at which
the President of the University and his wife, the
two ex-presidents and their wives, and friends
to the number of fourteen were present. On
the day following, the children of the Maria
Sanford School celebrated the occasion. Each
pupil had written and sent through the mail an
invitation to their patron to attend the celebra-
tion. On this occasion they brought gifts from
home. Some had baked pies and cakes and
cookies. Others made candy and crullers,
bread, book marks, handkerchiefs and paper
MARIA SANFORD 275
wreaths. One little girl who could not cook
brought two eggs, each bearing on its shell the
penciled legend that it had been laid on Miss
Sanford's birthday. Some of the small boys
made a cake holder with a place for eighty-one
candles around the edge. The littlest children
made decorated birthday cards with their own
drawings and some of the cards with the sen-
tence, ^ ' I love you ' ' printed on them, and signed
their names to the cards. The other children
wrote little birthday letters. All of these gifts
Miss Sanford kept.
The school at this time was presented by the
Thomas Lowry School of Minneapolis with six
beautiful pictures in honor of Professor San-
ford. A friend of Miss Sanford 's also gave
to the school a beautiful reproduction of the
sculptor Daniel Chester French's frieze. The
Teacher, executed for Wellesley College. Miss
Sanford took lunch with the teachers on this
day, talked to them as a body, and gave four
talks to pupils in four different rooms, because
there was no assembly room to which they
could all repair. She received their great array
of gifts and heard dozens of presentation
speeches. When it was all over she put a star
after this one of a long list of birthdays, and
asked that the names of pupils neither absent
276 MARIA SANFORD
nor tardy each term should be sent to her to be
placed on her roll of honor.
During the winter, while she was on a trip to
Montana, she sent some sleds to the children of
the school. Farview Park adjoining the school
gave them the most wonderful playground in
the city; and the children enjoyed sliding in the
park. So much did they enjoy the sleds that
the teachers took a novel way of getting obedi-
ence. The child who was best in each room
during the day was allowed to take a sled home
over night, returning it to school the next day.
At the end of the week the child who had been
best all the week took the sled home Friday
night to keep until the following Monday.
As the school was in need of funds for some
apparatus Miss Sanford gave four lectures for
that purpose. At the request of the teachers
she gave them on several occasions a model
reading lesson. The children, on their part,
whenever they had anything they could share
with Miss Sanford were eager to do so. The
school had been presented with a victrola which
the children wished to have some one enjoy
during the summer vacation, and so sent it to
Miss Sanford ^s home. They had learned to sing
with its aid her favorite songs. Home, Sweet
Home, Annie Laurie, and Brahm's Lullaby.
MARIA SANFOED 277
This exchange of good wishes and gifts made
a very strong bond between the children and
their benefactor. She did not forget them even
when school was out. She was interested in
clean-up week observances by the schools, and to
encourage the pupils to keep up the observance
throughout the year she drove around the neigh-
borhood in the summer, inspecting the home
yards and praising all the good work she saw.
Her interest extended to each pupil. She talked
privately, for instance, to one boy who was try-
ing to break the habits of truancy and smoking,
and told him she was proud of the efforts he had
made. She also told the children that she wanted
her Liberty Loan bond purchase made through
the school.
The first principal of the school gives a vivid
account of the relation of Miss Sanford to the
children: **From beginning to end the circum-
stances of Miss Sanford 's connection with the
school, its pupils and teachers, were those rare
in human experience — ^without a flaw. Her
first visit was on the twentieth of December,
1916. Our little school was completed in No-
vember, so we planned for a party on Miss San-
ford's birthday. The weather turned bitterly
cold, 28° below zero, and as our portable build-
ings were stove heated and the floors cold, T
278 MAEIA SANFORD
telephoned her on the evening before, that al-
though it would be a disappointment to the chil-
dren, I preferred our plans should be post-
poned rather than that she should run any risk
of taking cold from exposure. She replied, in
her energetic way, that she would be with us,
and the next day, there she was, and so inter-
ested in the little people of the school ! As for
them it was a case of love at first sight. They
said, * How little she is, but how big a voice she
has, and her eyes are so bright ! "We love her ! '
*^0n that first visit she told them that they
were all her children. I am sure that the boys
and girls who were there that day will never
forget her talk. After the pupils were dis-
missed she talked to the teachers, young assist-
ants who were just beginning their work in
Minneapolis. She told them of her early teach-
ing, of its failures and its triumphs. One of
the girls, Avho had been seriously considering
giving up the profession said, *Miss Sanford
has given me a new outlook. My discourage-
ment has vanished in thin air. I feel that she
has made teaching the noblest of professions,
and I am glad to follow where she has led. '
''One incident which greatly amused Miss
Sanford grew out of her talk on the use of good
English. Some of the larger boys were so im-
MAEIA SANFORD 279
pressed that they constituted themselves a vig-
ilance committee to stop the use of profanity.
There was an immediate improvement in the
choice of words on the play ground as the cul-
prits were brought to the office. One recess a
delegation appeared dragging in a boy who
stood with averted face while they reported,
^He has been swearing.' I questioned him and
he admitted that the charge was just. Then I
inquired what he had said and a chorus replied
*He said gee whiz, he did!'
^^She took a personal interest in the children.
One bright little French boy, whose home was on
the river flats, made a recitation which pleased
her. She noticed the ragged condition of his
clothes, and insisted upon ordering for him a
new outfit. Knowing that her purse was not so
large as her heart I refused to permit her to do
this, and through the Children's Eelief Society
had the boy better clothed before her next visit.
A dwarfed child excited her sympathy and in-
terest, and, at her solicitation, a specialist ex-
amined him and reported that in his case there
was no remedy She gave sympathetic advice
and praise to a lad who had a terrible inherit-
ance and wlio was making a valiant and success-
ful struggle against an appetite for drink.
*^To encourage the habit of saving, she
280 MARIA SANFORD
bought thrift stamps to be given as rewards to
those who earned and saved their pennies. Ev-
ery month slips containing specimens of the chil-
dren 's penmanship were sent her, and she faith-
fully compared them with those of the previous
month. Her honor roll contained the names of
those neither absent nor tardy during the term.
In a letter written from Montana she says *I
am keeping the list carefully in my trunk and
when I get home I shall hang it up in my room. '
In the same letter she refers to the fifth grade
pupils who had been transferred to the Bremer
School. She says, *I want you to tell the boys
and girls who have gone to the Bremer that they
are still my boys and girls, and that I shall
look for their names on the roll of honor just
the same as before'; and again she says, * I can-
not tell you how dear to me that school is, how
I love the teachers and the children, and how I
long to see them. I am sure the school is, and
is to be, one of the brightest and most blessed
spots in Minneapolis. '
**0n one occasion after her return from an
eastern trip Miss Sanford said to the pupils
that when she was away from Minneapolis her
first thought was of her home, but her second
was always of the school. The pupils held her
in the deepest reverence. Their regard for her
MAEIA SANFORD 281
was, I believe, unusual in the hearts of children
so young. We think of reverence as a tribute
from more mature natures, but over and again
it was manifested there. Their greatest joy,
their highest reward, was to have Miss Sanford
visit the school. They loved to WTite to her, to
make for her Christmas cards, valentines and
Easter greetings.
^^Miss Sanford 's last visit to the school was
in the spring of 1919. The occasion was the
presentation of the white ribbons and pins at
the completion of the campaign for cleanliness.
The exercises were held in the ravine on the
east side of Farview Park. It was a perfect
day, and an ideal setting for our pageant. The
pupils who had left our school to attend the
higher grades in the Hawthorne and Bremer
were excused in time to join us. One of the
lads, acting as king, knighted those who had
kept their vows (brushing teeth, bathing, deep
breathing in the open air), and then the young
knights marched to where Miss Sanford sat
embowered in flowers and knelt before their
Queen to receive their badges and her blessing.
Her talk, interspersed with the songs of birds,
was like her life, earnest, pure, inspiring, up-
lifting. Since it was to be her last time there,
I am deeply grateful that it was so perfect an
282 MARIA SANFOED
ending of the sweet relationship which from
first to last was a benediction to ns all. ' '
During the winter Miss Sanford's health was
so ranch impaired that she wrote to a former
student and member of her faculty : ' ' The doc-
tors have found by X-ray a very serious aneu-
rism of the aorta. I am forbidden to do any
manual labor and to have any mental excite-
ment. Fortunately lecturing does not come un-
der either of these heads, and I spoke four
times last week and have another lecture for
this afternoon. It is mostly work without pay,
but that is what I have laid out for myself for
these years, and I am willing to be dreadful
careful if I may only be allowed to help in the
work in which I am interested; if not I shall
fold my hands and trust that the work may be
put on those more capable. ... I can
enjoy fun just as well as ever, even though I
know I am walking in the shadow of death. God
meant life to be bright, and we serve him in
making it so; and then I may live years, and
it would be a pity to carry a long face all that
time. ' '
A doctor at a distance who knew of Miss San-
ford 's poor health wrote to her concerning it:
*^I am taking the liberty of writing the *best
loved woman in Minnesota' a little note. I feel
MARIA SANFORD 283
that I also belong to the circle of your friends,
for you have given me a share in your hope and
good cheer. I realize the gravity of the news
that the doctor conveyed to you with regard to
your health, but after all what does it matter
what gate God leaves open when he wants to
bring his children home ! I admired your pluck
in going on with your life as you had planned,
and I also think your judgment was sound.
Talking is not so much an effort to you as
forced retirement, and, strange as it may seem,
few people ever died of aneurism but rather of
some of the inter-current diseases. Some day
when I am in the city I am going to call just to
see you in your home, so I can have that picture
of you in my mind. ' '
Early in the year 1918 Miss Sanford stated
that to her Carnegie pension of fifteen hundred
dollars she had added an irregular sum of
from four to eight hundred dollars a year by
lecturing. During this year she spent much
more than her earnings in the support of her
niece and children who were refugees from
Turkey, and in the education of other children
belonging to her family. She still felt that she
must do as much lecturing as possible.
Starting from her nephew's home in North
Dakota early in the year Miss Sanford pro-
284 MARIA SANFOED
ceeded westward, making patriotic speeches on
an average of two a day, until she reached the
University of Montana at Missoula. There she
ended a two day patriotic speaking campaign in
which she appeared before the high school once,
at the university twice, at a luncheon in her
honor at noon and at the church in the evening.
This lecture tour was her contribution to her
country in its crisis. She said as she had no
husband, sons or grandsons to send to the war
she must do something on her own initiative;
and that was what she chose to do.
Her spirits were saddened by the news from
the front. In a letter to her niece at home she
wrote: **I really was very blue yesterday. I
felt as if this would be my last trip. You see,
Saturday night the paper brought Haig's ad-
dress to his army and I was very much de-
pressed by it. That night I did not sleep, but
last night 's news was more hopeful. I do hope
the reserves will come to the help of those brave
British soldiers. The loss of the channel ports
would be dreadful. Well, last night I went to
sleep about nine o 'clock and did not waken until
morning. Such a thing has not happened in a
long time, and all the world looks brighter this
morning." A few days later, ** Isn't it good
the English are still holding firm! I do hope
MARIA SANFORD 285
they will not fail. ... I make my ex-
penses just as little as possible but I can't re-
sist the desire to get a paper morning and even-
ing." In the month of May Miss Sanford was
traveling so rapidly that she wrote her niece
where she could be found. From Great Falls,
Montana, she wrote : * ^ I have two lectures to-
day. Tomorrow I go to Fort Benton. Monday
I go to Chouteau, Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday I lecture here and Friday twice. Fri-
day I leave here, stopping at Highland to give
their commencement address. Then Saturday
night I start for home. This has a pleasant
sound to me, I assure you.''
Miss Sanford gave five lectures in one day at
Lewistown, Montana, talking three hours and a
half in all. At the Lewistown High School she
spoke at 8:30 A. M., at the Clarkson High
School across the river at 11 A. M., at the Lew-
istown Normal School at 2 P. M., at another
school in the afternoon, and at a Red Cross
meeting at the same place in the evening. This
she said was the most strenuous day she ex-
perienced on this trip, during which she gave a
hundred talks in about six weeks. Our Duty
to Our Country was ahvays the subject of the
evening talks. She was particularly proud of
the ovation she received at a big Red Cross
286 MARIA SANFORD
meeting at Great Falls, Montana. The hall was
packed and nearly three hundred people had to
stand. A silver collection was announced, and
to spur the people on to give freely for the Red
Cross Miss Sanford told them an old Connecti-
cut recipe for pieplant pie: **Put in all the
sugar your conscience will let you, and then
shut your eyes and put in another handful."
This appeal brought eighty-five dollars in about
a minute.
While Miss Sanford was urging people to
forego luxuries in order to give for the war,
she felt that she herself must do what she asked
others to do. She did not feel that she had a
right to go into a dining car and spend a dollar
for a meal ; so she stopped at the lunch counters
and bought her meals for twenty or twenty-five
cents. The other seventy-five cents, she felt,
belonged to the Government for the successful
prosecution of the war.
On this trip Miss Sanford made one of her
visits to the Indian School at Browning, Mon-
tana. The Blackfeet Indian Reservation she
had visited three times during the preceding
six months, at her own expense, because she
knew that the Indian children were suffering
with trachoma, and she hoped to be able to help
them by encouraging them to treat their eyes.
MARIA SANFORD 287
The control she had over the children was so
great that the agency physician wrote through
the special supervisor in charge of the Black-
feet School to the Commissioner of Indian Af-
fairs at Washington, asking if there was any
way by which Miss Sanford could be identified
with the Indian service. If so he felt that it
should by all means be done. Miss Sanford in
writing home to her niece said: **I hope to
make the children anxious to take the treatment
and do just as the doctors tell them, but I tell
you it is pretty hard to think of having a pain-
ful application to your eyes two or three times a
week for a year! Then they must use their
own towels, and this is hard in homes where
people are careless; but I hope to reach all of
them at last."
She made another effort to do something for
Browning by writing to the Department of the
Interior at Washington to see if Browning
could not be made a townsite. Then the people
could put in water and lights and could bond
the town for such a school building as they
needed. This would also give the vote to many
men who were not then voters.
On a previous visit Miss Sanford had urged
the people to interest the young Indians in en-
listing in the army. She felt that for the sake
288 MARIA SANFORD
of the younger children the young men who
were loafing about the town should be sent
away, and that for the young men themselves
nothing could be so valuable as the discipline
they would get in the army and the habits of
constant employment which they would there
learn. She knew that some Indians from Min-
nesota who had joined the army were reported
as excellent soldiers; that the discipline had
had an admirable effect upon them. Influenced
by what Miss Sanford said the people of
Browning had an enthusiastic patriotic meet-
ing, as a result of which a number of the young
Indians enlisted. But after Indians were sent
back on the ground that as wards and non-
citizens they could not be employed in the army.
Miss Sanford asked the Assistant Commis-
sioner at Washington if there was not a possi-
bility of correcting this by allowing the Indians
to enlist as they were, or by granting citizen-
ship to any willing to enlist.
During this trip to the west Miss Sanford
wrote to her niece at home **My own affairs
have not gone very prosperously. I hoped to
get two lectures that I did not get, and one in
the west that I planned on paid me less money
than I expected. Still I keep up pretty good
courage so long as I feel pretty well. I feel that
MARIA SANFORD
In Wyoming
MARIA SANFOED 289
I have been of real benefit to these Indian chil-
dren and that pays me for all I have spent and
suffered. I should not have decided to come on
only I wanted to see and talk to them.
**The doctor said every child must have a
separate wash basin as well as towels. The
afternoon of the day I spoke to them there was
a regular rush for the store to get the basins.
This shows they did heed.
**I have been a little down hearted some days
because I do not see my way clear, but I know
that does not help.
**I was quite successful in my errand for the
Indians and I hope my coming may be a source
of good to them. I had an interview with the
deputy commissioner. The commissioner was
out of to^vn, and I had a very pleasant inter-
view with a senator who is much interested in
the Indians. I am very glad I came."
It is safe to say that the people of Browning
were as glad as she ; for as a result of her visit
there sixty per cent, of the terrible scourge of
trachoma was stamped out. And a visit she
made to Washington at her o^^ti expense enabled
the people to get fifteen thousand dollars toward
their much needed school house.
On her return home in July she took part in
a historic pageant presented by the Civic Play-
19
290 MARIA SANFORD
ers of Minneapolis on the steps of the Minne-
apolis Institute of Fine Arts. This pageant,
entitled The Torch Bearers, was given for the
Conncil of National Defense, the proceeds to go
to the Jewish War Relief Fnnd. The proceeds
of a second presentation were nsed by the Min-
nesota Division of the National Conncil of De-
fense for patriotic propaganda.
A prologue in verse and five episodes with
an interlude were prepared by the president of
the Civic Players, who Avas one of her former
students. After the fifth episode of the pageant,
Miss Sanford appeared on the steps of the Art
Institute to represent the Voice of the People.
A reporter began his review of the pageant:
**A little old lady in a black dress stood on the
topmost step at the entrance to the Art Insti-
tute, framed in an orgy of gorgeous color. On
pedestals at the side were groups of Belgian
refugees, who had trailed painfully up the long
flights of steps to find shelter with Mother
E,arth and with Liberty. Beside her, with the
great white pillars of the Institute as a back-
ground were Columbia, Justice, Fraternity,
Equality, and the women of Columbia's Court,
holding in their arms an abundance of flowers
and grains. Flags of the allies waved trium-
phantly. The little old lady looked do^vn into the
MARIA SANFORD 291
faces of hundreds of soldiers and sailors,
massed row on row on the white steps. Then she
raised her arms and spoke so clearly that she
could be heard by every one of the nine thou-
sand people in the audience. No moment of the
pageant of The Torch Bearers approached in
beauty or impressiveness this picture with
Maria Sanford, * Minnesota's Grand Old Lady,'
exhorting the audience on the white stairway:
^' 'Go forth; you are the torch bearers of a
higher civilization. Over there is darkness and
oppression and misery. Go forth, bear light
and freedom and joy! Your courage shall de-
feat the oppressor ! Your strength shall tram-
ple his ranks in the dust! Your self-sacrifice
and devotion shall bind up the broken hearted
and bring to those who sit in darlniess and the
shadow of death light and life, victory and
peace. Go forth triumphant on this glorious
mission !
^' ^Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee; are all with thee.'
'*No cheers greeted Miss Sanford as she fin-
ished her address. Heads were bowed through-
out the audience and the voices that sang the
Star Spangled Banner a few seconds later were
softened into reverence."
292 MARIA SANFORD
As much as Miss Sanford appreciated the
praise of her friends she felt that the reporter
had given too much prominence to her appear-
ance on this occasion and wrote him a note to
that effect. It happened that he was one of her
former students, and in reply to her letter he
said: *^Out of the thousands of students who
enjoyed your guidance it is unlikely that you
can remember me personally and you probably
have no recollection of me, yet when your hap-
pily phrased note came yesterday it brought
back to me the eagerness with which I antici-
pated your classes when I attended them nearly
fifteen years ago, and because I did enjoy them
and gained much from them it was not only a
great privilege but a great pleasure to be able
to review the pageant and to say a few words —
however much they fell short of intention —
about one of the most stirring speeches to which
I ever have listened. It seemed to me that you
did a very wonderful thing that evening, and I
don't believe it possible to measure the amount
of patriotism that you stirred. You may not
know it but yours was the only voice that car-
ried to every part of the huge audience. I do
appreciate what all the others have done
towards making the pageant the success it is.
However, I can not change my opinion that
MARIA SANFOUD 293
yonr oration aroused a tremendous patriotic
thrill — and it is the one thing that is taking me
again to the Art Institute tonight."
During the summer Miss Sanford continued
work she had begun for a Minnesota unit which
was to be sent to France. As a part of her con-
tribution one Minneapolis woman, a graduate
of the University, sent her a check for several
hundred dollars, and a letter as follows : ^'This
is sent unsolicited as I want every dollar to
enter active service as a volunteer, not as a
draftee. You may wonder why the check is
being sent to yourself. In the first place it
probably would not have been given except for
hearing you talk last week. This being true,
you have really earned the money and should
count it on your list of funds raised. Again,
I want to take advantage of this opportunity
to express personal appreciation of your own
fine, sturdy qualities of spirit and leadership.
You never can be made to realize what you
mean to the rest of us as an example of initia-
tive and a spirit that always recognizes the
finest in things and people, fearlessly and
keenly following what you perceive to be the
right, but tolerant to all."
Shortly afterward Miss Sanford received a
smaller check for the same purpose, and a note
294 MARIA SANFOUD
whicli said: **It is with pleasure that acting
under the instruction of those behind your
meeting at Stillwater on Sunday I send you the
entire proceeds of the collection. You are to
use this for the college work as you deem best.
We would be glad if you wish to have it applied
as a part of your contribution to the fund. ' '
In this patriotic war work Miss Sanford did
not forget the children, and the same week that
she received the checks above mentioned she
received also a letter from one of the third
grade children at the Maria Sanford School.
The little girl wrote : **I earned one of the thrift
stamps that you left. I got the thrift stamp
because I earned the most money of any child
in the school. The way I earned the money was
by washing dishes for my mother. For that I
received twenty-five cents a week. My father
gave me twenty-five cents a week for shelling
beans. I get two thrift stamps each week. I
thank you very much for the thrift stamps that
you left.''
Miss Sanford wrote a typical letter to the
little girl, telling her that she was much pleased
to get her letter and was delighted that she had
been so persevering in her work; and assured
her that the habit she had formed of working
faithfully was even more valuable than the
MARIA SANFORD 295
stamps. She closed by saying, **I shall be
proud to meet you when I visit the school
again.'' Any one who ever knew the Maria
Sanf ord School children can imagine how proud
the child was to receive that letter.
While working for the Minnesota Unit Miss
Sanford was notified by the State President
of the Minnesota Women's Suffrage Associa-
tion that she had been appointed a member of
a ratification committee to serve in what the
association believed would be the final drive in
the enfranchisement of the women of the
United States. The President of the United
States had been advocating the federal sufcage
amendment as a war measure, and with his ac-
tive cooperation the National Committee be-
lieved that success was assured in the near fu-
ture. Miss Sanford hoped to live to see suffrage
granted to women, but that was not to be.
A new tribute was paid to her this year by
the dedication to her of a new patriotic song en-
titled Loyal Minnesota. The proceeds of the
song were to go to war relief work. The song
was dedicated to *^ Professor Sanford, Minne-
sota 's Grand Old Lady — ^who never grows old. ' '
Miss Sanford 's optimism and her desire to
help others involved her several times late in
life in further financial difficulties at the same
296 MARIA SANFOED
time that she was straining every nerve to lift
her heaviest bnrden. According to the Puritan
tradition she felt herself charged with the well
being of all the .members of her family and she
tried to provide for their welfare when she
should be taken from them. In this attempt
she spent money for stock in a rubber planta-
tion in Mexico, in a marble quarry in Colorado,
and in copper mining in Montana. None of
these ever gave her any returns. A few people
who knew of her investments blamed her for
wasting money ; but one judge of large experi-
ence said that among all his acquaintances he
knew of no one who had not succumbed to a
similar temptation. The bankers who took care
of Miss Sanford's affairs for many years gave
similar testimony.
When she at last gave up hope of securing
money in that way, she took part in a land
drawing contest at the Fort Peck Indian Ees-
ervation in Montana, and was awarded a claim,
but felt that she was too old then to become a
farmer. A former student of Miss Sanford's in
Montana wrote to her that the number she had
draA\m would entitle her to a homestead. He
said that if she would go to Montana he would
select the very best piece of land on the Reser-
vation that her number would entitle her to,
MARIA SANFORD 297
and would take her to examine her claim. He
assured her that all of the Montana people
wonld endeavor to make her stay among them
not only pleasant but profitable. So gieat was
her vigor even now that these business men did
not think of her as too old or too feeble to un-
dertake the life of a pioneer farmer.
As the state of her health permitted she con-
tinued to travel long distances in the interest
of any cause for which her help was wanted.
She went to New York City, sent by the Gover-
nor of Minnesota to the first national conference
on unemployment. The delegation of several
hundred men and Avomen met in the City Hall
and was welcomed by the Mayor. Professor
Sanford was prominent among the labor lead-
ers, state labor officials, settlement workers,
factory inspectors and heads of charity organ-
izations. At this conference she made a telling
speech at the morning session. The value of
her work here caused the Governor to appoint
her the follomng month as a delegate to the
tenth annual conference of the National Child
Labor Committee in New Orleans. So much
interest did she manifest in the work of the
Child "Welfare League of Minnesota, especially
in the work for the feeble minded, that at the
meeting of the State Conference of Charities
298 MARIA SANFOED
and Corrections in 1919 she was made honorary
president of the association.
The girls of the new Vocational School asked
Miss Sanford to give the first commencement
address. Fonr years later the principal de-
clared that it was the best address that had
ever been given to the school. Miss Sanford
was so much interested in this new school that
she asked the class to write to her abont them-
selves, their work, their hopes and their
troubles. Many of them, after returning to
their homes in various parts of the state, did
as she had asked, and so pleased her that she
kept their letters and wrote to them once a
month. As always she met them upon their
own ground. In one letter she said: **If you
are at work I wish you would tell me in your
next letter how much you have earned in the
month past and how much you have been able
to save either to pay money lent you for your
education or to put in the bank. I shall be very
glad when each of you has a bank account and
saves a little each week to add to it. I don't
want you to lay up the money which you ought
to give to your mother but I want you to save
the money which other girls spend for candy
and ice cream and to go to the movies. Save
this money carefully and by and by you will be
MARIA SANFORD 299
pleased and proud to see how much you have
laid up."
Another of Miss Sanford's activities this
year was a four weeks' service as speaker for
the Citizens' League of Hennepin County. The
chairman of the executive committee had writ-
ten to ask her, because of her thorough devo-
tion to the cause of temperance and her inter-
est in working men, to assist the League in the
campaign for prohibition. Although it was
some years before the dry law was passed Miss
Sanford was felt to have done great service in
the cause. She was more at home this year
than she had been for some time, yet her attach-
ment to her home surroundings was often ex-
pressed. Writing to her niece who was away
for a few days she said regarding her work in
the temperance cause: **I enjoy the work and
do not get very tired but it does seem lonesome
to eat alone every day. I have had three invita-
tions to lunch this week and I am going down
to take breakfast with a neighbor this morning.
She is to be all alone. I hope ... I shall
get another letter from you today. It makes
you seem near and I love to get even a hasty
line such as I am sending you."
At the meeting of the Minnesota Educational
Association in Minneapolis this year Miss San-
300 MARIA SANFORD
ford was asked to be one of the speakers. She
received the most spirited recognition ever
awarded a public speaker by this association.
The crowd stood cheering, waving handker-
chiefs and making demonstrations which took
on the air of an ovation to a great political
leader, and lasted for some time after she
reached the platform. At this meeting she was
nominated for the presidency of the association^
but declined because she was too busy and exr
pected to be out of the state much of the time
until the following May. She thanked her
friends for the courtesy but asked them not to
vote for her. She was made instead an honor-
ary member of the association.
CHAPTER X
THE FAREWELL
The year 1919 was marked by perhaps a
greater variety of talks than Miss Sanford had
been called upon before to give. One Sunday
she spoke at St. Mark's, the largest Episcopal
church in the city, to an audience of twelve hun-
dred at a memorial service for British war
heroes; and for several Sundays during the
illness of its minister she preached in the Con-
gregational church of which she was a trustee.
She received the thanks of the secretary for
speaking to the women of the Minneapolis Steel
and Machinery Company; and she was asked
by a Minneapolis High School teacher of his-
tory and commercial law to read to his Ameri-
can history classes on the abolition movement.
Easter services in Minneapolis in 1919 were
observed, not only in the churches but on the
military field; and undenominational services
were held at Farview Park in North Minneap-
olis. At this park, which adjoins the Maria
301
302 MARIA SANFOED
Sanford School, Professor Sanford was asked
to speak. With her head bared and her face
lifted to the large audience standing above her
on the natural amphitheater of the hillside, Miss
Sanford with a clear and exultant voice gave
her Easter message like a seer of old. The clos-
ing paragraph was heartfelt :
' * Now our boys are coming home triumphant
and we are rejoicing that the land is free, but
there is another freedom for Avhich Christ gave
his efforts, the freedom of the spirit, the spirit
of God. Today we are remembering that peace
and right and justice are His attributes. I feel
we shall obey His inspirations and make our
land really free. On this glorious Easter morn-
ing shall we not, one and all, come and hold
open the windows of our souls to the light of
the Sun of Righteousness! Shall we not con-
secrate ourselves to that light of God which
shall go on brighter and brighter ? Let us live
the life of His children, the life of Christ the
risen Lord, whom we today honor."
As the season drew toward summer, Miss
Sanford was in frequent request for baccalaure-
ate addresses, although she did not travel long
distances from the state. A passage from a
letter to her niece in Smyrna indicates the ful-
ness of her days : ^^I am home from the bacca-
MARIA SANFORD 303
laureate service where I gave the sermon this
morning, and for the first time in weeks I have
at least twenty-fonr hours when I have no
speech to prepare. Tomorrow night there is to
be a grand rally on the steps of the capitol in
St. Paul in honor of the passing of the suffrage
bill by Congress. At this time I am expected
to speak, but my part will be a few words
only." Her sense of humor was gratified on
one of these occasions by a remark sent her
from a young girl's letter to a friend in which
she said, *^I hope to see Jeannette tomorrow at
the bacchanalian sermon which Maria Sanford
is going to preach."
Her homely common sense was as marked as
in her younger days. A high school principal
in a letter of appreciation for a lecture she had
given before his school wrote that the senior
class at a meeting held the afternoon after her
address for the purpose of choosing a class
motto, had ended a long and arduous argument
by unanimously adopting a striking sentence
from her morning address : ''Keep your back-
bone straight and your head on top of it. ' '
At the opening of the University summer
school an unusual experience proved that she
did not falter even when a request came for
that which was hardest for her to give. A
304 MARIA SANFORD
strange young woman went to her house on the
morning when the summer school opened. Miss
Sanford's house was a mile from the Univer-
sity, and the young woman appeared at half-
past eleven to ask Miss Sanford to lend her
twenty-five dollars with which to register before
twelve o'clock. The young woman was a
stranger in town and had come to the city with-
out money for her fees. There was only half an
hour before registration closed. Miss Sanford,
when she told the story, said that although it
was very unusual for her to have so much money
in the house she happened to have that amount
and gave it to the girl without knowing whether
she should ever see or hear from her again. She
was rather annoyed ; but she felt that she could
not allow anyone to say that Miss Sanford did
not practice what she preached — kindness.
At Christmas time this year Miss Sanford
was far from well. She told a friend that she
was having the ^ ^ horrors ' ' ; cold sweats and an
agony of mind not to be described, but so much
worse than physical pain that she was in terror
at the thought of a recurrence of the attacks.
She became very much interested in her
friend 's explanation of the new psychology and
her assurance that the '* horrors" could be
overcome. She began at once to study the sub-
MARIA SANFORD
MAEIA SANFOED 305
ject, resolutely putting her troubles behind her ;
shortly again she was lecturing.
In the spring of 1919 she had been invited
by the St. Anthony FaUs Chapter of the D. A. E.
to become a member of that chapter, and had
accepted the invitation. Before the election in
the fall, however, it w^as found that she was a
**real grand-daughter of the Eevolution"; and
so she was asked instead to become an honor-
ary member of every chapter in the state. She
was accepted October 18, 1919, by the board of
management of the National Society of the
Daughters of the American Eevolution. At the
state midmnter conference in February she
gave an apostrophe to the flag. Once before
she had given an impromptu address of a sim-
ilar kind. The spirit of these addresses had so
impressed her hearers that she was once again
asked to speak on the same subject. This time
the speech, expanded into a powerful address,
became famous as her true valedictory. Deliv-
ered at the heart of the nation, on the subject
which had always been with her a passion, it
formed a fitting and beautiful close to her long
and fruitful life. Early in the spring of 1920
the Minnesota State Eegent of the D. A. E.
asked Miss Sanford as the guest of the state
chapters to attend the national convention in
20
306 MARIA SANFORD
Washington to be held in April, her expenses
to be paid by all the chapters. One chapter
gave an additional sum for their honored guest
to use for what would give her most pleasure.
The proprietor of a large hat shop, herself a
stranger to Miss Sanford, asked the honor of
making her a new bonnet for the occasion. Cau-
tioned not to make it too modern to be appropri-
ate to Miss Sanford 's distinctive style of dress-
ing, she produced a beautiful creation worth on
sale thirty dollars, but so modest appearing and
so perfectly suited to the wearer that Miss San-
ford, as she exhibited it with delight to friends
constantly surrounding her during the journey,
told them it must have cost as much as ten dol-
lars. The bonnet now reposes among other
objects of historic interest in the old Sibley
House, at Mendota, Minnesota.
Miss Sanford, at the request of the President-
General, was to give her apostrophe to the flag
at the opening session of the convention, April
19. In order to save her strength one woman
was assigned to guard and watch over her
throughout the journey. The special train was
filled with former students who could not re-
sist the temptation to visit with their beloved
professor, and to shower her with fruit, candy,
and flowers. Though she appeared feeble she
MARIA SANFORD 307
showed that she thoroughly enjoyed every min-
ute of the trip.
On reaching Washington she was accompa-
nied to the home of Senator Knute Nelson of
Minnesota, where she had always been wel-
comed on her visits to that city, and where she
rested quietly until the opening session of the
convention. On Monday morning she was ac-
companied to the convention hall and allowed
to rest quietly until the time of her address.
The prettiest girl among the ushers, a dark
southern beauty, was chosen to hold the great
silk convention flag as the aged orator ad-
dressed it. When the hundreds to whom she
was a stranger saw a little, frail old lady come
forward to the speaking stand they resigned
themselves with hearts of compassion, expect-
ing to hear not a word of the address. As the
first words rang upon their ears the great audi-
ence was hushed to attention. Not a syllable
was lost. At the close of the inspired address
women through a mist of tears cheered and
cheered. One reporter said never in years of
reporting had she knoAvn so long a period of
uninterrupted applause. Miss Sanf ord received
an ovation such as Avas given to no one else
during the convention.
At noon Miss Sanford left the hall and re-
308 MARIA SANFORD
turned to Senator Nelson's. The next morning
she went again to the convention and stayed
an hour. The Minnesota delegates that day ar-
ranged for a luncheon in her honor at the New
Willard. This celebration she enjoyed very
much; although, as before, she ate very little.
After the luncheon she shook hands with every-
one. She showed that she was tired but said
that she had enjoyed every minute. As she left
the hotel she spoke to the friend who had spe-
cial charge of her, saying she knew that she
had been tended very carefully but that she
hadn't been conscious of it. She appreciated
the thoughtfulness, and as she departed she
kissed her friend on both cheeks.
She left the delegates at two o'clock; that
was the last time they saw her. Her friend tel-
ephoned in the evening to know if she was com-
fortable, and learned that she was enjoying a
visit from a former negro student. On leaving
her hostess for the night she remarked *^I bid
you good-night on the happiest day of my eighty-
three years. ' ' She was planning to leave Wash-
ington the next morning for her brother's home
near Philadelphia, and to go from there to New
York where a phonograph record was to be
made of her Apostrophe to the Flag; but the
MARIA SANFORD 309
next morning, April 21, they found only her
body lying smiling peacefully in her bed.
As it was Miss Sanford's expressed wish
that she might be buried wherever she happened
to die, there was no thought of a return to Min-
neapolis. The remains were taken to her broth-
er 's home and buried in the family lot in Mount
Vernon Cemetery in Philadelphia. The funeral
ceremony, in accordance with Miss Sanford's
wishes, was of the simplest sort.
Some friends who did not understand Miss
Sanford very well felt that she should not have
been subjected in her feeble state of health to
such a long journey and so much excitement;
but people who were nearest to her knew that
to her life was action, and that she wished to
go on to the end. In fact, although feeble on
the journey, she felt so well in spirit that she
told the friend who was caring for her that she
would love to go to her summer home in the
woods of Northern Minnesota. Believing that
she would go that summer, she asked how to
get there.
At the time of the funeral in Philadelphia on
the twenty-fourth of April a tribute was paid
at the University of Minnesota by the students
and the faculty, who united in five minutes of
silent prayer. The faculty of the college of Sci-
310 MAEIA SANFORD
ence, Literature and the Arts printed a tribute
of appreciation of lier work and influence. They
recommended that a scholarship in literature
be established in her honor and that every grad-
uate of the University be allowed to participate
in this tribute to her memory. President Bur-
ton of the University of Minnesota in his tribute
the day after her death closed with this beau-
tiful thought: ^*In reality she symbolizes the
* death of death.' As with all truly great per-
sons the path of death has been the path of
life."
One writer remarking that it was wholly in
keeping with her noble spirit that her last pub-
lic utterance should have been an apostrophe
to the flag, called her
A grand, sane, towering, seated mother,
Chair 'd in the adamant of time.
Another who felt most deeply concerning her
years of struggle suggested that **The best me-
morial Minnesota could devise for Maria San-
ford would be ample provision for a teacher's
wage that would insure those who follow her
footsteps against the privations she so bravely
bore in pursuit of her calling."
One editorial beautifully summarized her
character: ^'Miss Sanford's distinction was
that she did ordinary things in an ordinary way
MARIA SANFOED 311
but with an individuality of enthusiasm, of sin-
cerity and self-expression that swept all before
it. She was eccentric only in the neglect to do
for herself what others do for themselves.
Dress to her was to cover nakedness, food was
to sustain life, business activities were to ad-
vance the cause of well doing, not to exploit
personalities. Work was not for pay, but for
accomplishment . . . She mil be missed
the more because she died in an era against the
tendencies of which her personality shone as a
star in blackest night."
The Minneapolis Teachers' League in their
memorial wrote: **In her was the sense of
beauty of the Greek, the love of law and order
of the Eoman, the integrity and fervor of the
Puritan, the religious aspiration and devotion
of a Christian, whose virtues she exemplified."
In the same number of the '* League Scrip" ap-
peared the following poem :
Friend she was, revealer of visions —
Calm-browed, star-eyed, gracious and kind,
Mother- wise, rugged, firm in decision,
Freeing, uplifting, inspiring the mind.
Power, unrealized, throbbed at her pleading;
Souls were attuned to ideals again,
Brotherhood, work of the heart and the hand,
Made immortal her creed in the lives of men.
Emma Kennedy Ballentine.
312 MABIA SANFORD
The National School Digest printed the fol-
lowing tribute from Aldena Carlson, a graduate
of the University in 1915 :
A fragile cup, Hp-worn, of priceless ware,
Sweetening with gracious service daily fare;
A band of flawless gold, thin worn with common use ;
A costly weft, of lustered, wear toned hues ;
A treasured book, in life-long labor wrought,
Offering from open page its store of love and thought.
The editor of the Alumni Weekly later, in
commenting upon the numerous tributes from
the press, remarked that ^^ ... One is
struck with the prevalence of four recurringly
descriptive words: * dauntless,' * untiring,'
* loyal,' * inspiring.' Are they not a character-
izing host in themselves — those four words —
with the lamp of a life of eighty-three years to
read them by?"
Eesolutions regarding Miss Sanford were
sent from all over the state, from all kinds of
clubs: mothers' clubs, women's clubs, hospital
clubs, teachers' clubs, the Women's Christian
Temperance Union, and a host of others. Me-
morials to Miss Sanford began to be heard of.
The newspapers stated that a copy of her apos-
trophe to the flag would be placed in the Sibley
House at Mendota, Minnesota. In memory of
MARIA SANFORD 313
her two scholarships for the Thomassee School
in South Carolina were provided by the Na-
tional Society of the D. A. R. The students of
this school were nearly all descendants of Rev-
olutionary heroes.
A memorial service was held in St. Mark's
Episcopal church in Minneapolis, Sunday, May
9, at which more than a thousand people were
present. The rector of the church. Dr. Free-
man, and President Ejneritus Cyrus Northrop
of the University of Minnesota were the speak-
ers. The service was arranged by the American
Overseas Club with the rector of the church.
At this service money was contributed for a
bronze memorial tablet to be placed in Shevlin
Hall the woman 's hall on the University campus.
A memorial service was also held in the Como
Avenue Congregational church, of which Miss
Sanford was a member. The former pastor
gave the eulogy here. Another memorial ser-
vice was held in a church near the Maria San-
ford School. At this church the eulogy was
pronounced by Professor Emeritus John Cor-
rin Hutchinson, formerly head of the Greek
department of the University of Minnesota, a
long time colleague and warm friend of Miss
Sanford. The opening of this address con-
314 MARIA SANFORD
tained one of the finest tributes: ^^I suppose
the work of the teacher is twofold, to instruct
and to educate. To instruct is a comparatively
simple matter. Granted the adequate informa-
tion on any subject and a reasonable modicum
of common sense almost anyone can perform
that function. To educate is a vastly different
matter. One may instruct standing on the
threshold; to educate one must enter into the
Holy of Holies of personality and only the High
Priest can safely and efficiently enter there.
The Instructor deals with means and as an in-
structor looks no further. The Educator con-
siders ends and these ends functions of person-
ality. The Instructor as such is interested
mainly in his subject; the interest of the Edu-
cator lies primarily in the persons with whom
he is concerned and whose harmonious develop-
ment in all distinctly human attributes is the
object of his endeavor. This calls for a true
philosophy of life — a just estimate of human
values, a balanced ideal of the complex person-
ality; its emotions, its judgments and its voli-
tions. It calls for an understanding of the
paradox of the Great Teacher, *He that saveth
his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life
for my sake shall find it.'
** Dealing with all kinds of dispositions and
MARIA SANFOBD 315
tastes and abilities, the successful educator must
be possessed of an unfaltering faith in the edu-
cability of every normal person who comes to
his hand ; that is, he must believe in the essen-
tial value of the soul as such, to slightly alter
Wordsworth's words, he must look upon the
soul of man with awe. He must have a confi-
dence that cannot be shaken in the power of
goodness and truth and beauty to charm the
human spirit and win its adherence ; and it will
be his most strenuous task to bring those for
whom he labors under the spell of a worthy,
nay, rather let me say of the worthiest ideal of
thought and conduct, that is, of life.
'*It goes without saying that such ideal must
be before his own spirit clear as the artist's
vision, as clear and as compelling; begetting
in him an enthusiasm and devotion that no in-
tractability of material can quench, no delay in
execution diminish, no imperfection of realiza-
tion destroy.
** Clear as the artist's vision, yes, and as the
prophet's vision, too — the one mth its promise
of beauty, the other with its promise of right-
eousness. Manifestly such enthusiasm and such
devotion imply a sensitive sympathy which
beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth
all things, endureth all things; no less than a
316 MABIA SANFORD
sternness of love which can in due season re-
buke and chasten; but towards all a patient
and persistent ministry of unselfish service.
**Have I made the character clear? It must
be plain to you that I have been mentioning
some of those qualities which were finely illus-
trated in her whose memory we honor on this
occasion. I do not mean to say that she per-
fectly attained the ideal — not perfect, nay, but
full of tender wants — ^who looked all native to
her place and yet — On tiptoe seemed to touch
upon a sphere too gross to tread. Her ideals
of life were so noble and so clearly revealed
by precept and example that multitudes caught
her vision and are today endeavoring to trans-
late it into reality. ' ^
At the University of Minnesota a tribute was
paid on the last convocation of the school year
by the entire student body. President Emeri-
tus Folwell, who was president of the Univer-
sity when Miss Sanford came to Minnesota,
President Emeritus Cyrus Northrop and Presi-
dent Marion Le Eoy Burton, with President-
elect Lotus D. Coffman, all participated in this
tribute. President Burton presiding announced
that the Alumni planned a memorial through
the establishment of an extensive course of
scholarships. Miss Sanford 's favorite hymns,
MARIA SANFORD 317
Jesus, Lover of My Sonl and Hark, Hark My
Soul, were sung by the students. Prayer was
offered by Professor Hutchinson and the ad-
dress was made by President Emeritus Cyrus
Northrop.
President Northrop took for his text a part
of the last chapter of Proverbs which describes
the ideal woman. The two verses quoted as an
introduction he had used in his letter of con-
gratulation on her eightieth birthday: **She
openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her
tongue is the law of kindness. Give her of the
fruit of her hands ; and let her own works praise
her in the gates.''
He called Miss Sanford a Puritan without
any of the bigotry or narrowness of Puritans ;
and he closed his eulogy by saying: *^ Useful
as her life before retirement was, the last eleven
years were more glorious than anything in her
previous career. When the war came she
pleaded for Red Cross hospitals. Christian
Associations, temperance, government loans,
suffrage, improvement leagues, Hooverized
self-denial, national patriotism and confidence.
*He hath borne our griefs and carried our sor-
rows,' was said of the Divine Man, and it may
in some measure be said of Miss Sanford, for
she carried in her heart the sorrows of univer-
318 MARIA SANFORD
sal humanity. ... In the morning when
they went to her room to call her they fonnd
that someone had been there before. The Angel
of Death had visited her in the silence of the
night and claimed her. . . . Apparently
she lay there with placid fignre, but in reality
it was only her deserted tenement. She was not
there, for God had taken her. We shall miss
her — never again shall we hear her eloquent
voice — never — never — never ! The last echo to
reach us is her splendid apostrophe to the flag
— almost an echo from the spirit world. ' '
A neighborhood paper published in Miss San-
ford 's home district contained tributes from
neighbors, both men and women, and the school
children of the district ; among them was a poem
written by a former student, the wife of a pro-
fessor in the University.
IN MEMORY OF MARIA L. SANFORD
Silent, forever silent, now that voice
That like rich organ tones so often thrilled;
Quiet, forever quiet, now those hands,
So long with deeds of love and service filled.
Long years ago she prayed that in her age
Life would with autumn glory touch her soul,
That the bright-colored leaves might symbols be
Of her own spirit, resolute and whole.
MARIA SANFORD 319
Faith its own answer wrouglit — for hearts like hers
The passing years can bring no winter chill,
But only ripened wisdom, golden hoards
Where lesser men may free their coffers fill.
Sturdy as her Xew England hills she stood.
Nor sought the path that knows not toil and pain;
Fullness of life she craved that from that fount
She might a richer sjTupathy attain.
Thrice blessed those whose privilege it was
To call her teacher in that former time.
But happy all who from her lips have learned
The dignit}^ of toil, her simple creed sublime.
Lillian Marvin Swenson.
In memory of Miss Sanford a girls' literary
club at the Crookston, Minnesota, agricultural
station is named the Maria Sanford Club. The
young women students of the University of Min-
nesota formed a Maria Sanford Republican
Club which was the pioneer middle western
Republican organization among college women.
The Como Avenue Congregational church has
now a woman 's club named after her.
The Women's Shakespeare Club of Minneap-
olis in June, 1921, presented a beautiful photo-
graph of Miss Sanford to the Minnesota His-
torical Society, and held appropriate exercises
on the occasion of the presentation. A devoted
friend of Miss Sanford also presented to the
320 MARIA SANFOED
Maria Sanford School a beautiful photograph
to be hung in the school so that the little chil-
dren who never had the privilege of seeing her
might have an idea of her in their minds. This
photograph is the one that her University col-
leagues always considered the best picture of
her ever taken.
The Minnesota D. A. R. has planned a ten
thousand dollar memorial, the nature of which
has not 3^et been decided. The greatest me-
morial of all, however, and the one which would
please her best, is the quickened and ennobled
lives of the thousands who called her blessed.
The apostrophe to the flag, beautifully illum-
inated by a Minneapolis artist, a former stu-
dent of Miss Sanford 's, was given by the Min-
nesota State Regent to be placed in the Me-
morial Continental Hall, Washington, the place
in which the address was originally given.
Apostrophe to the Flag
Hail, thou flag of our fathers, flag of the
free ! With pride and loyalty and love we greet
thee, and promise to cherish thee forever. How
wonderful has been thy onward progress of
conquest through the years ; how marvelous the
triumph of thy followers over the vicissitudes
MARIA SANFORD 321
of fortune that met thee on their way. Daring
men have reverently placed thee on the highest
crag of the frozen North, and have as rever-
ently stationed thee on the cloud-swept wastes
of the far-off frozen South. They have followed
thee in willing service over the wastes of every
ocean and into the depths of the impenetrable
blue.
Stalwart, strong hearted men have willingly
laid down their lives at thy command, to guard
the outposts of freedom. Millions of men, women
and children have stood at attention listening
for the first sound of thy need, mlling to give
their all, if need be, for thy defense. Thousands
upon thousands of our bravest and our best fol-
lowed thee across the seas for the glorious privi-
lege of defending the weak and the helpless or
of reinforcing the hard pressed lives of brave
men who would not yield.
Our flag — it has long been known as the em-
blem of strength and power. The stricken na-
tions of the earth have learned sweeter attri-
butes, kindly sympathy, loving service, gener-
ous helpfulness. By these thou art welcome
throughout the earth.
Glorious and beautiful flag of our fathers, the
Star Spangled Banner, beautiful in thine own
waving folds, glorious in the memory of the
21
322 MARIA SANFORD
brave deeds of those who chose thee for their
standard !
More beautiful, more glorious is the great
nation which has inherited their land and their
flag, if we who claim, who boast our lineage
from those heroes gone, if we inherit not alone
their name, their blood, their banner, but inherit
their nobler part, the spirit that actuated them ;
their love of liberty, their devotion to justice,
their inflexible pursuance of righteousness and
truth.
Most beautiful and most glorious shalt thou
be as the messenger of such a nation, bearing
to the lends of the earth the glad tidings of the
joy and the glory and the happiness of a people
where freedom is linked with justice, where lib-
erty is restrained by law, and where ** peace on
earth, good will to men" is the living creed.
Press on, press on, glorious banner, bearing
this message to all the peoples:
* ' Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee ;
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears;
Our faith, triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee; are all with thee.**
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