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Mary Baker Eddy: a concise story of her life and work
Mary Baker Eddy: a concise story of her life and work
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An excerpt from the chapter:
Her Early Life and Education
What was it that differentiated the career of Mary Baker from that of hundreds of her contemporaries among the New Hampshire hills? Her early environment was in many respects the same as that of other girls of her time, girls who became good and useful women, yet whose lives made but a passing ripple in the human current.
If one is familiar with country life and its conditions, he can easily depict the setting of the scene that portrays the first stage in the wonderful career of Mrs. Eddy. Her parents, Mark and Abigail Ambrose Baker, were of the second generation of the pioneers in that section of New Hampshire, and the town of Bow in which she was born, July 16, 1821, was and is typical of the hundreds of the smaller country towns of New England.
Life on the farm in the first quarter of the nineteenth century was not far enough removed from pioneer days to offer much outside of the daily routine of toil which the rearing of a large family necessitated, but the best that the town could offer in the way of social, educational, and religious advantages was, in the opinion of Mark Baker, none too good for his children. Mary, as the youngest of six, and more delicate in health and sensitive in temperament, was " favored" perhaps more than the others, and was more susceptible to the strongly religious atmosphere which pervaded her home.
In the busy life of which this tender little flower had become a part, she became the special charge of her grandmother Baker, a descendant of Scotch Covenanters and imbued with all the religious fervor which such kinship implies. The stories this impressionable child heard at her grandmother's knee, the regular instruction received from her spiritually-minded mother, the discussions to which she eagerly listened when the men of affairs came to talk over with her stern Calvinistic father the topics of the day, — all these were molding influences that helped to prepare her for the great work to which in later years she was to be called.
Mary was early marked as a precocious child, and many anecdotes have been preserved which go far to show that the influence of her destiny, though as yet unknown, hovered over her childhood. Often she amazed her family and the many visitors at the homestead with sage remarks far beyond her years; presumably an over-development of her brain which caused the customary prediction that she would "never live to grow up."
From her earliest years Mary had been the special favorite of her brother Albert, who at this period was preparing to enter Dartmouth college. The smaller children, however, had a hard time in the ungraded schools of those days, where the boisterous spirits of the older boys and girls required a strong hand to keep them in check. It had soon become evident that the noisy schoolroom was no place for one of Mary's sensitive temperament, and she was allowed to continue her studies at home.
Mark Baker's home was amply supplied with the literature of that day. It was a home, too, where questions of public interest were freely discussed, and near enough to the capital of the state so that a man of his prominence in local affairs was in close touch with the great men of the time.
Browsing at will among books far beyond her years, with an imagination early fired by the tales of heroism heard again and again at the knee of her Covenanting grandmother, together with a store of spiritual wisdom and sundry verses said to have been written by Mary's great-grandmother, it is not surprising that the child early conceived a reverence for learning, and adored the kindly big brother who had helped her with her lessons and in whose plans for a higher education she had been deeply interested.
Naturally, then, deprived both of her school and the companionship of this much loved brother who had gone to college, the little nine-year-old girl was lonely. Her inherent love of nature and all that pertains to an outdoor life, her intense interest in birds and flowers and bees and all the farmyard pets, crops out every now and then in the writings through which from early girlhood she sought to express her inmost thoughts and feelings; yet even these joys could not compensate her for the loss of her brother's companionship.
Alone, as she must largely have been in her outdoor wanderings, she had brooded over the book learning which was to open up such wonderful possibilities in her brother's career, and deep in that childish soul was born the resolve that she too would be a scholar, and when she grew up would write poetry, even as had the pious Hannah More, with whom grandmother Baker claimed kinship.
When her brother came home Mary lost no time in imparting to him her determination to write a book, and he, in turn, impressed by her seriousness and her already admitted precocity of thought,...
Her Early Life and Education
What was it that differentiated the career of Mary Baker from that of hundreds of her contemporaries among the New Hampshire hills? Her early environment was in many respects the same as that of other girls of her time, girls who became good and useful women, yet whose lives made but a passing ripple in the human current.
If one is familiar with country life and its conditions, he can easily depict the setting of the scene that portrays the first stage in the wonderful career of Mrs. Eddy. Her parents, Mark and Abigail Ambrose Baker, were of the second generation of the pioneers in that section of New Hampshire, and the town of Bow in which she was born, July 16, 1821, was and is typical of the hundreds of the smaller country towns of New England.
Life on the farm in the first quarter of the nineteenth century was not far enough removed from pioneer days to offer much outside of the daily routine of toil which the rearing of a large family necessitated, but the best that the town could offer in the way of social, educational, and religious advantages was, in the opinion of Mark Baker, none too good for his children. Mary, as the youngest of six, and more delicate in health and sensitive in temperament, was " favored" perhaps more than the others, and was more susceptible to the strongly religious atmosphere which pervaded her home.
In the busy life of which this tender little flower had become a part, she became the special charge of her grandmother Baker, a descendant of Scotch Covenanters and imbued with all the religious fervor which such kinship implies. The stories this impressionable child heard at her grandmother's knee, the regular instruction received from her spiritually-minded mother, the discussions to which she eagerly listened when the men of affairs came to talk over with her stern Calvinistic father the topics of the day, — all these were molding influences that helped to prepare her for the great work to which in later years she was to be called.
Mary was early marked as a precocious child, and many anecdotes have been preserved which go far to show that the influence of her destiny, though as yet unknown, hovered over her childhood. Often she amazed her family and the many visitors at the homestead with sage remarks far beyond her years; presumably an over-development of her brain which caused the customary prediction that she would "never live to grow up."
From her earliest years Mary had been the special favorite of her brother Albert, who at this period was preparing to enter Dartmouth college. The smaller children, however, had a hard time in the ungraded schools of those days, where the boisterous spirits of the older boys and girls required a strong hand to keep them in check. It had soon become evident that the noisy schoolroom was no place for one of Mary's sensitive temperament, and she was allowed to continue her studies at home.
Mark Baker's home was amply supplied with the literature of that day. It was a home, too, where questions of public interest were freely discussed, and near enough to the capital of the state so that a man of his prominence in local affairs was in close touch with the great men of the time.
Browsing at will among books far beyond her years, with an imagination early fired by the tales of heroism heard again and again at the knee of her Covenanting grandmother, together with a store of spiritual wisdom and sundry verses said to have been written by Mary's great-grandmother, it is not surprising that the child early conceived a reverence for learning, and adored the kindly big brother who had helped her with her lessons and in whose plans for a higher education she had been deeply interested.
Naturally, then, deprived both of her school and the companionship of this much loved brother who had gone to college, the little nine-year-old girl was lonely. Her inherent love of nature and all that pertains to an outdoor life, her intense interest in birds and flowers and bees and all the farmyard pets, crops out every now and then in the writings through which from early girlhood she sought to express her inmost thoughts and feelings; yet even these joys could not compensate her for the loss of her brother's companionship.
Alone, as she must largely have been in her outdoor wanderings, she had brooded over the book learning which was to open up such wonderful possibilities in her brother's career, and deep in that childish soul was born the resolve that she too would be a scholar, and when she grew up would write poetry, even as had the pious Hannah More, with whom grandmother Baker claimed kinship.
When her brother came home Mary lost no time in imparting to him her determination to write a book, and he, in turn, impressed by her seriousness and her already admitted precocity of thought,...
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