Introduction to the Lesson
"I have just escaped with difficulty from three insatiable children clamouring for 'more poetry,'
and again more.... 'More about the Arabs' is their specific cry to-night, though I had already
given them half a dozen poems on the subject, covering that gentleman's views regarding his
sweetheart, his horse, his palm tree, & things in general."1 This is what Ellen Wilson wrote to her
husband Woodrow in 1894, when her daughters were between the ages of five and eight. That
same year Mrs. Wilson had written to him that while she was reading some verses of Tom
Moore's "Who Has Not Heard of the Vale of Cashmere," her daughter Jessie "interrupted [her]
with, 'Don't read that- read Shakespeare.'" She added: "How is that for six years old?"2 If this
literary interest seems unusual for girls of their ages, it is because the education of the Wilson
daughters was indeed well beyond average for their gender and time period.
Woodrow Wilson, who would later become the twenty-eighth president of the United States, had
married his wife Ellen Axson in 1885. The couple was soon blessed with three daughters, born
within three years of each other: Margaret Axson in 1886; Jessie Woodrow in 1887; and Eleanor
Randolph (nicknamed Nellie) in 1889. The children, being so close in age, spent much of their
childhood playing games and going to school together.
The Wilson girls had parents who were highly educated. Woodrow Wilson had received a Ph.D.
in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1886. His professional career took him
from college professor to university president to governor, and eventually all the way to the
White House as President of the United States in 1913. He was the first president with an earned
Ph.D. Ellen Axson enrolled in Rome Female College in the state of Georgia at the age of eleven,
and went on to take such subjects as algebra, geometry, trigonometry, philosophy, logic, and
botany, and excelled in French, English literature, composition, and art. Later she continued her
studies with postgraduate work in German, French, and art.3 Her academic accomplishments
catapulted her beyond the intellectual levels of most women and many men, and she found
potential suitors to be utterly boring4- that is, until she met her future husband Thomas Woodrow
Wilson.
Professor Wilson held teaching positions at Bryn Mawr College, Wesleyan University, and
finally Princeton University in 1890. It was while he was at the latter that the education of his
growing daughters became a pressing concern. Because no primary schools existed in Princeton
at that time for young children, Mrs. Wilson gave her daughters their basic education at home.
What a school it must have been!
Every weekday morning Margaret, Jessie and Nellie were taught the
1
Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, ed., The Priceless Gift: The Love Letters of Woodrow Wilson and Ellen Axson Wilson
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1962) 186.
2
McAdoo.
3
Frances Wright Saunders, First Lady Between Two Worlds: Ellen Axson Wilson (Chapel Hill: The University of
North Carolina Press, 1985) 14.
4
Saunders 23.
1
three R's, geography and history. On Sundays they learned the Presbyterian
"Shorter Catechism" by heart, and heard the Bible stories. But that was
not all. Homer, Dryden, Shakespeare, and many other great poets were
their daily fare, for Ellen believed that, when the meaning was obscure,
her children would feel the beauty and the music of the words. They did
not disappoint her.5
During the earlier years while Woodrow Wilson was establishing himself as a scholar of
distinction, his family did not enjoy the ease of wealth. In fact, in order to cut costs Mrs. Wilson
made her own dresses, as well as those of her daughters. Eleanor, the youngest of the three, often
had to wear the home-made hand-me-downs.6 Still, despite the necessary economizing, the girls
did not lack for a rich, intellectually stimulating home atmosphere where spirited conversation
and books abounded.
This lesson will explore the educational attainments of Woodrow Wilson's daughters through
letter and book excerpts. Taken together, they will give a glimpse into the academic and literary
environment that helped to nurture and prepare Margaret, Jessie, and Eleanor Wilson for the
world in which they lived.
Background Information for Teacher and Student
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States could boast the largest school
enrollment of any nation in the world.7 Statistics from the year 1900 reveal a telling story of
widespread, if basic, educational achievement among the populace. Despite the fact that most
children were not as advantaged as those of Woodrow and Ellen Wilson, nevertheless the
literacy rate was at almost 90% of the population. The number of pupils enrolled in schools stood
at sixteen million, with 100,000 graduating from secondary schools, double the figure from ten
years earlier. 240,000 students attended the nearly 1,000 colleges and universities. 2,200 news
organizations produced papers for the reading public; these were sold at newsstands and on street
corners across the nation.8 Clearly, many children during the time period of Margaret, Jessie, and
Eleanor Wilson had at least a rudimentary knowledge of how to read and write.
The literacy rate of the U. S. population was astonishing in light of the fact that many of the
youngest Americans, on the opposite end of the socio-economic spectrum from the Wilson girls,
were hard at work in factories, canneries, sweatshops, mines, and fields when the school bells
rang in the morning. Although numbers are hard to come by because of dishonesty on the part of
both parents and employers,9 it is reported that at least 1,752,187 children composed part of the
work force in 1900.10
The high numbers of child laborers resulted from the enormous growth of American industry in
the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Children could be paid less than their fathers and
mothers, and cheap labor allowed U.S. manufacturing to compete with foreign industry, or so
employers reasoned. Since they toiled daily in the workforce in order to bring home an extra pay
envelope for the family, they could not attend school in the traditional classroom setting. Statutes
5
McAdoo 186.
Saunders 98.
7
John Milton Cooper, Jr., Pivotal Decades: The United States, 1900-1920 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
1990) 3.
8
Cooper 3.
9
Juliet H. Mofford, Child Labor in America (Carlisle, Massachusetts: Discovery Enterprises, Ltd., 1997) 9.
10
Mofford 11.
6
2
were passed in various states to guarantee a basic education to America’s youngest, but the laws
had loopholes and were often ignored or flagrantly disobeyed.11 In light of the large numbers of
children who worked long hours for six days a week, the U.S. literacy rate was indeed an
amazing national accomplishment.
While countless numbers of children trudged off to work before dawn every morning to help
their families buy food and pay rent, the Wilson girls awoke to have breakfast with both parents
and then school lessons with their mother. After spending time with their studies, they would act
out what they had learned. They played games involving Greek gods and goddesses and put
themselves in imaginary situations in countries around the world.12 They played school where
Jessie taught what she called "strongery," or how to leap, box, and wrestle like the Greeks, and
Margaret instructed her students on how to be Amazons. After reading “The Golden Legend,” a
medieval account of the lives of the saints, the three girls had disputes among themselves over
what constituted the best of the "cardinal virtues."13
The subject matter of their dialogue with their teacher-mother was quite learned. Ellen wrote to
Woodrow in 1895, when the girls were between six and nine years of age:
You know how busy they keep me trying to define words; now they are constantly setting
me a still harder task, viz. to sit in judgment on the relative “greatness” of every character
they ever heard of, real or imaginary. Who is the greatest, Shakspere [sic] or Homer,
Milton or Dante, Themistocles or Miltiades, Zeus or Odin, Aeschylus or Sophocles,
Epaminondas or Washington? I think that last “parallel” as coming from them quite
interesting, for I had never said a word to associate the two names in their minds….14
After a while the Wilsons were able to secure a governess from Germany by the name of
Fräulein Clara Böhm, who came to live with the family and teach the girls the German and
French languages, as well as German culture. Still later, Margaret, Jessie, and Nellie attended
private schools and went on to higher education.
In addition, the girls were privy to other kinds of high level discussions at a young age. Because
Professor Wilson was making a name for himself at Princeton University, many distinguished
men from the U.S. and around the world came to call on this scholar who was contributing
original ideas to age-old subjects. The conversations were animated and exciting, and Wilson
allowed his daughters to listen in, if they kept quiet and did not speak.15
These occasions were unusual not only because of the girls’ exposure to intellectual discourse at
such a young age, but also because the opportunities were afforded to girls. Although the
culture’s deep-seated reluctance to extend the full range of academic offerings to women was
beginning to wane by 1900, they still did not have access to all of the scholastic opportunities
afforded to men. It is true that much progress in equalizing access to academia had been made.
For example, by 1900 ninety-eight percent of the nation’s high schools were coeducational.16
The U. S. Bureau of the Census in 1900 shows the breakdown of male to female students, which
reveals that a little over 41% of the students attending school were female. On the university
11
Mofford 10-13.
Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, The Woodrow Wilsons (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937) 31.
13
McAdoo 187.
14
McAdoo 187.
15
McAdoo 209.
16
J. C. Furnas, The Americans: A Social History of the United States 1587-1914 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1969) 744.
12
3
level, the matriculation of women was on the increase; several elite colleges for women had been
established after the Civil War, and some previously all-male colleges were beginning to offer
admission to females. John Milton Cooper, Jr., writes that in 1902, “over half of the
undergraduates at the University of Chicago were women.”17
Nevertheless, a woman’s prospect for gaining higher education still lagged behind that which
could be anticipated by her male counterparts. In the year 1910 in Woodrow Wilson’s birth state
of Virginia, for example, four public colleges granted degrees to men, but there were no similar
degree-granting institutions for women. Although four non-accredited normal schools18 for
women existed, the first one getting its start in 1884, none granted its graduates regular diplomas
during the early years. Virginia women would have to wait for the years 1918 and 1920 when the
doors of the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia swung open for the first
time to admit women.19 Because of the times in which they lived, and the heights of scholarship
to which they were exposed, the Wilson girls’ opportunity to cultivate their minds was in fact
rare.
In later years, looking back on those childhood years when her father was a professor at
Princeton, Eleanor fondly recalled a family circle that was warm, responsive, and intellectually
stimulating:
Our evenings together ... were very happy ones. When we had finished our
lessons, we came down for a visit with father and mother; above everything
else in the world we loved being with them, hearing them read or listening to
their conversation. Time after time, when our playmates called us to join in their games,
we huddled together and pretended not to hear. Mother did most of the reading aloud.
Her favorites were Wordsworth, Shakespeare and Browning, and at night she read us to
sleep with Chapman’s Homer…. [Father’s] performances [in family charades] were solo
and spontaneous and he did impersonations. I think the “drunken man” was the general
favorite. We made him do it over and over, and the whole household responded with
shouts of glee.20
The education of the Wilson girls can be described as elite because the scope of learning was
enjoyed by relatively few. It was exceptional to the degree that it instructed the whole personspiritual, intellectual, emotional, and moral; it was superior in its depth and diversity, even when
judged by the standards of its own day.
17
Cooper 63.
Normal schools were institutions of higher learning established for the purpose of training high school graduates
to be teachers. According to an article on James Madison University’s website,
http://www.jmu.edu/centennialcelebration/normalschool.shtml, the word normal “doesn’t mean normal in the sense
of average; it means normal in the sense of setting an excellent model- or ‘norm’- for other schools.” James Madison
University got its start in 1908 under the name “The State Normal and Industrial School for Women at
Harrisonburg.”
19
Suzanne Lebsock, “A Share of Honor”: Virginia Women 1600-1945 (Richmond, Virginia: The Virginia Women’s
Cultural History Project, 1984) 129.
20
McAdoo, The Woodrow Wilsons 26-27.
18
4
Book Bucks
Book Bucks
Book Bucks
5
Part One: Letter Excerpts
Note: The spelling and punctuation used by the Wilson girls have been retained in the letter
excerpts below. A full transcription, and a scanned image of the original, are located at
the link that is provided before each excerpt.
Margaret’s Education
1. From a letter written by Margaret, age 13, on July 19, 1899, available at
http://wwl2.dataformat.com/Document.aspx?doc=32193 .
My dear darling Father,
….
We read some history and poetry with mamma every day now We are reading out of an
English history named “English Lands Letters and Kings.” We are reading about the Celtic and
the early Saxon and Norman times. And about early Celtic literature and also Saxon and
Norman early poets and writers. We have read about Caedmon, and Beda, and King Alfred, and
Harold the Saxon, and King Arthur, and William the Conquerer, and Richard Coeur de Lion,
and King John. And last of all about bookmaking, and the erecting of monastarys, and religous
houses, and the life of the a Damoiselle in those times. It is all very interesting I am reading “The
fortunes of Nigel”, the thirteenth of Scots novels which I have read. Give my love to Uncle Stock
and tell him I will write to him also very soon. Good bye.
Your loving little Daughter,
MARGARET.
2. From a letter written by Margaret, age 15, on April 11, 1901, available at
http://wwl2.dataformat.com/Document.aspx?doc=32527 .
Dearest, sweetest, darling, Jessie,
….
We have just begun the fourth book of Caesar, and simultaneous equations in Algebra.
…
Your ever loving sister
MARGARET.
3. From a letter written by Margaret, age 16, on August 16, 1902, available at
http://wwl2.dataformat.com/Document.aspx?doc=32202
Darling Mamma,
….
I still get headaches when I read; so we have all decided that I had better not read at all for the
rest of the summer and so give my eyes an entire rest. If I dont read I have very few headaches
and they are not bad. Everybody is so kind to me in offering to read to me. I am reading
6
Middlemarch with Jessie and Oedipus with Will. Jessie, and Nellie Pauline, and I are going to
read Annias Lee together. I finnished Adam Bede sometime ago. Isn’t it interesting!
…
Your loving daughter,
MARGARET.
Jessie’s Education
1. From a letter written to Jessie, age 11, by her Uncle Edward, on November 6, 1898,
available at http://wwl2.dataformat.com/Document.aspx?doc=32405 .
My dear Jessie
….
You are beginning Latin you say—are you studying French too? If you keep on taking up a new
language every year this way you will be so learned we wont know you. Have you got to amo, amas
yet? When I come to Princeton now I suppose I will have to read Latin for three girls instead of
only Aunt Margaret.
….
Lovingly
ED
2. From a letter written to Jessie, age 17, by her teacher on March 18, 1904, available at
http://wwl2.dataformat.com/Document.aspx?doc=32577 .
My dearest Jessie;—
Good morning, my dear girl—You are sailing farther and farther away from us—but you
cannot get away from our love and thoughts—
I am so glad you are going to Rome, dear Jessie—I almost envy you, for I would rather go
there than any where else—but I am sure you will find lots to interest you at the Forum and the
Li[. . .] Rome and you will enjoy it more because of your Roman history and Cicero—
I am writing this Friday morning in a snow storm—so am especially envious of your sailing
away to sunny Italy—Perhaps by the time you come back in June—Spring may have come to us—
although that seems doubtful—
….
It has been a delight to teach you for you are always so quick and responsive—and that I have
grown to love you very dearly for yourself— … I am, yours as always,
MARY MARGARET FINE
3. From Jessie’s mother to her father on April 20, 1904, while Jessie, age 17, and her mother are
taking an educational trip to Italy, available at
http://wwl2.dataformat.com/Document.aspx?doc=32213 .
My own darling,
….
We are having a very pleasant & successful week;—have not finished up all the churches and
smaller museums & galleries which have, each of them, from one to six or eight masterpieces,
and now we have all the rest of our time mornings for revisiting the Vatican; the afternoons for
the Forum &c. and “villas,”—that is for the gardens of the villas. We have been to sixteen 17
churches & nine ten galleries not counting our four mornings at the Vatican.
….
7
Was called away here,—and have since spent the afternoon at the Forum. Of course we saw it
superficially before but now we have worked it all out. And who do you suppose acted as our
very efficient guide? Jessie! She had studied it so thoroughly that she knew it all by heart and
could lead us straight to everything and tell us all about it. The rest of us including Mrs.
Walbridge & Marguerite followed her about like school-children. She was perfectly charming,—
so eager & enthusiastic, so intelligent and, as always, so entirely without self-consciousness.
….
With love, love love unspeakable.
Your devoted little wife,
EILEEN.
Eleanor’s Education
1. From a letter written by Eleanor, age 10, on November 23, 1899, available at
http://wwl2.dataformat.com/Document.aspx?doc=32194 .
Dear dear darling Mamma
….
Perhaps we cannot go to school to-day because it is raining and I am very sorry because I like
school very much and we will have to miss one of the French lessons. I like French ever so much
and Mr. Adams is very nice.
We never have Arithmetic on thursdays so I did not have to do it last night but I had to get up
early in the morning and do my Geography and my German.
….
Mrs. Scott told us day before yesterday that she did not want us to study more than two hours a
day so we cannot stay up late any more. Margaret and Jessie are doing their history now and I
will do my lessons after I finish my letter because I have not many. I have only Geography,
History, and Arithmetic.
I am your loving daughter
NELLIE
2. From a letter written by Eleanor, age 15, on May 1, 1904, available at
http://wwl2.dataformat.com/Document.aspx?doc=32747 .
Dearest, sweetest, most precious Jess,
….
I have found out that dancing school wasn’t on last Wednesday, be[cause] Mrs Lewis was sick and
so it is going to be next Wednesday and I can go. Wasn’t that nice? Not that Mrs Lewis was sick
but that I can go.
….
Your ever loving little sister
NELLIE
3. From a letter written by Eleanor, age 15, on May 8, 1904, available at
http://wwl2.dataformat.com/Document.aspx?doc=32750 .
Dearest, sweetest, most precious, Jess—
….
The girls say that they will write to you just as soon as I give them your address which I will do tomorrow. They are getting up a play now and which I think is extremely silly.
….
8
The[y] want to have men in the play and as none of us are willing to wear trousers they are going
to have monks and nuns and have the most silly lovering thing you ever saw. I don’t want them to
know that I dont want think that the play is silly because I am afraid that they’ll think that,
because we wrote the last one, we think that no one else can write as
good a one—which I certainly don’t think.
….
Your loving little sister
NELL.
9
Part Two: Worksheet for Letter Excerpts
Answer the questions below that are based on the letter excerpts.
Questions
1. Give the names of some
books that the Wilson girls
read.
Answers
1.
2. What subjects did the girls 2.
take?
3. Why was Jessie able to act 3.
as tour guide through the
Roman Forum during her trip
to Italy?
4. Why did Nellie not want to 4.
have a part in the play in her
school?
5. How would you compare 5.
and contrast the education
received by the Wilson girls
with yours at the same ages?
10
Part Three: Book Excerpts and Comprehension Questions
The following excerpts are taken from books that the Wilson girls read. Read the excerpts for
comprehension, and then answer the questions that follow each selection.
Excerpt from English Lands, Letters, and Kings by Donald Grant Mitchell
"William the Norman"
We now come to a date to be remembered… It is the date of the Norman Conquest –
1066 – that being the year of the Battle of Hastings, when the Harold, last of the Saxon kings
went down, shot through the eye; and lithe, clean-faced smirking William of Normandy “gat
him” the throne of England. These new-comers were not far away cousins of our Saxon reign of
Alfred…
But they have not brought the Norse speech of the old home land with them: they have
taken to a Frankish language – we will call it Norman French – which is thenceforth to blend
with Saxonism of Alfred, until two centuries or more later, our own mother English – the English
of Chaucer and Shakespeare – is evolved out of the union. Not only a new tongue, do these
conquerors bring with them, but madrigals and ballads and rhyming histories; they have great
contempt for the stolid, lazy-going Latin records of the Saxon Chronicles; they love a song
better. In the very face of the armies at Hastings, their great minstrel Taillefer had lifted up his
voice to chant the glories of the Roland, about which all the histories of the time will tell you.
It was a new civilization (not altogether Christian) out-topping the old. These Normans
knew more of war – knew more of courts – knew more of affairs. They loved conquest. To love
one in those days, was to love the other. King William swept the monasteries clean of those
ignorant priests who had dozed there, from the time of Alfred, and put in Norman Monks with
nicely clipped hair, who could construe Latin after latest Norman rules. He new parcelled the
lands, and gave estates to those who could hold and manage them. It was as if a new, sharp eager
man of business had on a sudden come to the handling of some old sleepily conducted countingroom; he cuts off the useless heads; he squares the books; he stops waste; pity or tenderness have
no hearing in his shop.
I mentioned not far back an old Saxon Chronicle, which all down the years, from shortly
after Beda’s day had been kept alive – sometimes under the hands of one monastery, sometimes
of another; here is what its Saxon Scribe of the eleventh century says of this new-come and
conquering Norman King: It is good Saxon history, and in good Saxon style: “King William was a very wise man, and very rich, more worshipful and strong than any of his
foregangers. He was mild to good men who loved God; and stark beyond all bounds to those who withsaid his will.
He had Earls in his bonds who had done against his will; Bishops he set off their bishoprics; Abbots off their
abbotries, and thanes in prison. By his cunning he was so thoroughly acquainted with England, that there is not a
hide of land which he did not know, both who had it, and what was its worth. He planted a great preserve for deer,
and he laid down laws therewith, that whoever should slay hart or hind should be blinded. He forbade the harts and
also the boars to be killed. As greatly did he love the tall deer as if he were their father...He took from his subjects
many marks of gold, and many hundred pounds of silver; and that he took – some by right, and some by mickle
might for very little need. He had fallen into avarice; and greediness be loved withal. Among other things is not to
11
be forgotten the good peace that he made in this land; so that a man who had any confidence in himself might go
over his realm, with his bosom full of gold, unhurt. Nor durst any man slay another man had he done ever so great
evil to the other...Brytland (Wales) was in his power, and he therein wrought castles, and completely ruled over that
race of men...Certainly in his time men had great hardship, and very many injuries...His rich men moaned and the
poor men murmured; but he was so hard that he recked not the hatred of them all. For it was need they should follow
the King’s will, if they wished to live, or to have lands or goods. Alas, that any man should be so moody, and should
so puff up himself, and think himself above all other men! May Almighty God show mercy to his soul, and grant
him forgiveness of his sins.”
There are other contemporary Anglo-Saxon annalists, and there are the rhyming chroniclers
of Norman blood, who put a better color upon the qualities of King William but I think there is no
one of them, who even in moments of rhetorical exaltation, thinks of putting William’s sense of
justice, or his kindness of heart, before his greed or his self-love.
Questions
Answers
1. Give a character description
of William the Norman (also
known as William the
Conqueror). What was said of
him that was positive, and what
was negative?
2. How would you rate the
difficulty level of this excerpt,
which the Wilson girls read
when they were 10, 12, and 13?
Excerpt from Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, Book Four, By Julius Caesar
Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui
ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt.
Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit.
Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae, propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate provinciae longissime
absunt, minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos
pertinent important, proximique sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, quibuscum continenter
bellum gerunt. Qua de causa Helvetii quoque reliquos Gallos virtute praecedunt, quod fere cotidianis
proeliis cum Germanis contendunt, cum aut suis finibus eos prohibent aut ipsi in eorum finibus bellum
gerunt.
Question
1. Can you read this, as
Margaret could at age 15? If
you know Latin, see if you can
translate it into English.
12
Excerpt from Middlemarch by George Eliot
Miss [Dorothea] Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor
dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style
than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters… She was usually spoken of as
being remarkably clever, but with the addition that her sister Celia had more common-sense…
And how should Dorothea not marry? – a girl so handsome and with such prospects? Nothing
could hinder it but her love of extremes, and her insistence on regulating life according to
notions which might cause a wary man to hesitate before he made her an offer, or even might
lead her at last to refuse all offers. A young lady of some birth and fortune, who knelt suddenly
down on a brick floor by the side of a sick labourer and prayed fervidly as if she thought herself
living in the time of the Apostles – who had strange whims of fasting like a Papist, and of sitting
up at night to read old theological books! Such a wife might awaken you some fine morning with
a new scheme for the application of her income which would interfere with political economy
and the keeping of saddle-horses: a man would naturally think twice before he risked himself in
such fellowship. Women were expected to have weak opinions…
The rural opinion about the new young ladies, even among the cottagers, was generally in favor
of Celia, as being so amiable and innocent-looking, while [Dorothea's] large eyes seemed, like
her religion, too unusual and striking…
Yet those who approached Dorothea … found that she had a charm … Most men thought her
bewitching when she was on horseback. She loved the fresh air and the various aspects of the
country, and when her eyes and cheeks glowed with mingled pleasure she looked very little like
a devotee. Riding was an indulgence which she allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms;
she felt that she enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to renouncing it.
She was open, ardent, and not in the least self-admiring; indeed, it was pretty to see how her
imagination adorned her sister Celia with attractions altogether superior to her own, and if any
gentleman appeared to come to the Grange from some other motive than that of seeing Mr.
Brooke, she concluded that he must be in love with Celia: Sir James Chettam, for example,
whom she constantly considered from Celia's point of view, inwardly debating whether it would
be good for Celia to accept him. That he should be regarded as a suitor to herself would have
seemed to her a ridiculous irrelevance. Dorothea, with all her eagerness to know the truths of
life, retained very childlike ideas about marriage. She felt sure that she would have accepted the
judicious Hooker, if she had been born in time to save him from that wretched mistake he made
in matrimony; or John Milton when his blindness had come on; or any of the other great men
whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable handsome
baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks even when she expressed uncertainty,--how could he
affect her as a lover? The really delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort
of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it.
13
Questions
Answers
1. Give a character description 1.
of Dorothea. Was she given to
enjoyment of life, or selfdenial? Why? Explain.
2. How would you rate the
2.
difficulty level of this excerpt,
which Margaret and Jessie read
when they were 16 and 15?
Excerpt from Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
[King Oedipus has just been informed that his predecessor King Laius was murdered, and
that this assassination has brought a plague on the city. He inquires of the seer Teiresias,
to find out if the wise, blind prophet can reveal to him who killed the king.]
OEDIPUS
Teiresias, seer who comprehendest all,
Lore of the wise and hidden mysteries,
High things of heaven and low things of the earth,
Thou knowest, though thy blinded eyes see naught,
What plague infects our city; and we turn
To thee, O seer, our one defense and shield.
…
The messengers have doubtless told thee--how
One course alone could rid us of the pest,
To find the murderers of Laius,
And slay them or expel them from the land.
…
O save thyself, thy country, and thy king,
Save all from this defilement of blood shed.
On thee we rest. This is man's highest end,
To others' service all his powers to lend.
TEIRESIAS
Alas, alas, what misery to be wise
When wisdom profits nothing! This old lore
I had forgotten; else I were not here.
OEDIPUS
What ails thee?
Why this melancholy mood?
TEIRESIAS
Let me go home; prevent me not; 'twere best
That thou shouldst bear thy burden and I mine.
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OEDIPUS
For shame! no true-born Theban patriot
Would thus withhold the word of prophecy.
TEIRESIAS
_Thy_ words, O king, are wide of the mark, and I
For fear lest I too trip like thee...
OEDIPUS
Oh speak,
Withhold not, I adjure thee, if thou know'st,
Thy knowledge. We are all thy suppliants.
TEIRESIAS
Aye, for ye all are witless, but my voice
Will ne'er reveal my miseries--or thine.
OEDIPUS
What then, thou knowest, and yet willst not speak!
Wouldst thou betray us and destroy the State?
…
TEIRESIAS
I have no more to say; storm as thou willst,
And give the rein to all thy pent-up rage.
OEDIPUS
Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words,
But speak my whole mind. Thou methinks thou art he,
Who planned the crime, aye, and performed it too,
All save the assassination; and if thou
Hadst not been blind, I had been sworn to boot
That thou alone didst do the bloody deed.
TEIRESIAS
Is it so? Then I charge thee to abide
By thine own proclamation; from this day
Speak not to these or me. Thou art the man,
Thou the accursed polluter of this land.
OEDIPUS
Vile slanderer, thou blurtest forth these taunts,
And think'st forsooth as seer to go scot free.
…
OEDIPUS
I but half caught thy meaning; say it again.
TEIRESIAS
I say thou art the murderer of the man
Whose murderer thou pursuest.
OEDIPUS
Thou shalt rue it
Twice to repeat so gross a calumny.
TEIRESIAS
Must I say more to aggravate thy rage?
OEDIPUS
Say all thou wilt; it will be but waste of breath.
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TEIRESIAS
I say thou livest with thy nearest kin
In infamy, unwitting in thy shame.
Questions
Answers
1. What does King Oedipus ask 1.
Teiresias to do?
2. How does Teiresias respond 2.
at first? Why does he change
his mind?
3. Whom does Teiresias reveal 3.
as the murderer of King Laius?
What did this person do that
caused the calamity?
4. How would you rate the
difficulty level of this excerpt,
ready by Margaret when she
was sixteen?
4.
16
Multiple Choice Quiz
1. All of the following are names of the daughters of Woodrow and Ellen Wilson, except:
a. Mary
b. Margaret
c. Jessie
d. Eleanor
2. Which of the following best describes the educational level of Woodrow and Ellen
Wilson?
a. no education
b. poorly educated
c. moderately well educated
d. highly educated
3. Woodrow Wilson was the first president of the United States to have
a. a high school diploma.
b. a college degree.
c. a Master’s Degree.
d. an earned Ph.D.
4. Which one of the following was the first teacher of the girls?
a. a private school teacher
b. a public school teacher
c. their mother
d. their governess
5. The girls took all of the following subjects, except:
a. English literature
b. history
c. Spanish
d. geography
6. Which list below includes the foreign languages that the Wilson girls learned?
a. French, German, Italian
b. German, French, Latin
c. French, Latin, Swedish
d. Latin, German, Portuguese
7. All of the following were favorite poets of the girls, except:
a. Shakespeare
b. Homer
c. Dryden
d. T. S. Eliot
8. Which one of the following girls understood Roman history well enough to
conduct a guided tour of the Roman forum while visiting Italy?
a. Jessie
b. Margaret
c. Eleanor
d. Fräulein Böhm
9. Which one of the following girls did not want to participate in the school play
because she would have to wear trousers?
a. Margaret
b. Eleanor
c. Jessie
d. Fräulein Böhm
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10. All of the following are games the girls liked to play, except:
a. games with words and their meanings
b. games involving imaginary people from around the world
c. games concerning the arrival of aliens from outer space
d. games involving Greek gods and goddesses
11. All of the following were subjects in the girls’ home school curriculum, except:
a. Bible stories
b. foreign languages
c. statistics
d. English literature
12. All of the following were reasons why the Wilson girls had unusual educational
opportunities, except:
a. They spent half of the year abroad touring European countries.
b. They were schooled by very educated parents.
c. They listened to conversations between Professor Wilson and his scholarly visitors.
d. They had a live-in governess from Germany named Fräulein Böhm who taught
them the German and French languages.
13. Which nation could boast the largest school enrollment of any nation in the world at the
beginning of the twentieth century?
a. Great Britain
b. Germany
c. France
d. United States
14. The United States literacy rate in 1900 stood at _____ of the population.
a. 10%
b. 50%
c. 75%
d. 90%
15. The U.S. literacy rate in 1900 is surprisingly high in light of the fact that:
a. Americans did not value education during this time.
b. Many children were forced to work in industries to help support their families.
c. Very few schools were in existence at this time.
d. Books and newspapers were scarce; very little printed material was available for the
reading public.
16. All of the following are true statements concerning child labor, except:
a. Employers often preferred child labor over adult labor because children could be
paid less money for the same work.
b. Employers thought that child labor was necessary because it allowed them to
compete with foreign industry.
c. Children who worked in industry nevertheless found time every day to attend school.
d. Statutes were passed in various state legislatures to restrict child labor, but laws
had loopholes and were often ignored.
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17. All of the following were indications that the numbers of females who were able to
obtain an education were rising at the end of the nineteenth century, except:
a. More females were attending both high school and college.
b. Several elite colleges had been established for women after the Civil War.
c. A few previously all-male colleges had started to admit women.
d. In 1902, over half of the undergraduates at the University of Chicago were men.
18. All of the following statements show that educational opportunities for women
still lagged considerably behind those for men, except:
a. By 1900 the nation’s high schools were almost invariably coeducational.
b. In Virginia in 1910, four public colleges granted degrees to men, but there were
no similar degree-granting colleges for women.
c. Four normal schools were established in Virginia, but none of them granted
regular diplomas to women in the early years of their existence.
d. Virginia women had to wait for the years 1918 and 1920 when the first two
all-male colleges began to admit females.
19. Despite restricted educational opportunities for women, the Wilson girls were an
exception, and Eleanor described her home experience in all of the following ways,
except:
a. The girls looked forward to evenings with their parents when they could listen to
their conversations.
b. Mother read poetry to the rest of the family.
c. Although they enjoyed evenings spent with their parents, they preferred to go
outside and play with the neighborhood children.
d. Father entertained the family with charades and other spontaneous performances.
20. The education of the Wilson girls a century ago was exceptional and unusual
because:
a. their parents were in a unique position to give them an excellent education since
they were both so educated themselves.
b. they were able to enroll in the best primary schools available at that time.
c. it was provided to girls who did not have the same opportunities as boys.
d. they lived in a stimulating home environment where their father who was a
university professor often entertained visiting scholars from around the world.
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Optional: Multiple Choice Questions on the Book Excerpts
1. Which one of the following positive character descriptions does not match what the author
said about William the Conqueror?
a. efficient in his management of property
b. showed kindness toward the slow-moving Anglo-Saxon priests
c. strong and wise leader
d. concerned enough about the people’s welfare to keep the country safe from thieves
2. Which one of the following negative character descriptions does not match what the author
said about William the Conqueror?
a. greedy
b. proud
c. unmerciful
d. lazy
3. Which one of the following character descriptions does not match what the author said
about Dorothea Brooke?
a. practical concerns about everyday life
b. deeply concerned with religious piety
c. self-denying
d. compassionate toward the sick and less fortunate
4. What did King Oedipus ask the seer Teiresias to do?
a. reveal who had killed King Laius
b. seek the gods to determine who had killed the king
c. remain at court to be the King’s spiritual adviser
d. go on a spiritual quest for truth
5. What did Teiresias tell Oedipus about King Laius’ assassins?
a. The murderers were still in hiding and he knew their location.
b. King Laius’ death was already avenged because the murderers themselves had been
killed.
c. Oedipus, by his own sin, had brought on Laius’ death.
d. Because too much time had elapsed, it would be impossible to find the assassins.
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Answer Key for Multiple Choice Quiz
1. a
11. c
2. d
12. a
3. d
13. d
4. c
14. d
5. c
15. b
6. b
16. c
7. d
17. d
8. a
18. a
9. b
19. c
10. c
20. b
Answer Key for Optional Questions
1. b
2. d
3. a
4. a
5. c
21
Excerpt from The Fortunes of Nigel by Sir Walter Scott
The long-continued hostilities which had for centuries separated the south and the north divisions
of the Island of Britain, had been happily terminated by the succession of the pacific James I. to
the English Crown. But although the united crown of England and Scotland was worn by the
same individual, it required a long lapse of time, and the succession of more than one generation,
ere the inveterate national prejudices which had so long existed betwixt the sister kingdoms were
removed, and the subjects of either side of the Tweed brought to regard those upon the opposite
bank as friends and as brethren.
These prejudices were, of course, most inveterate during the reign of King James. The English
subjects accused him of partiality to those of his ancient kingdom; while the Scots, with equal
injustice, charged him with having forgotten the land of his nativity, and with neglecting those
early friends to whose allegiance he had been so much indebted.
The temper of the king, peaceable even to timidity, inclined him perpetually to interfere as
mediator between the contending factions, whose brawls disturbed the Court. But,
notwithstanding all his precautions, historians have recorded many instances, where the mutual
hatred of two nations, who, after being enemies for a thousand years, had been so very recently
united, broke forth with a fury which menaced a general convulsion; and, spreading from the
highest to the lowest classes, as it occasioned debates in council and parliament, factions in the
court, and duels among the gentry, was no less productive of riots and brawls amongst the lower
orders.
While these heart-burnings were at the highest, there flourished in the city of London an
ingenious but whimsical and self opinioned mechanic, much devoted to abstract studies, David
Ramsay by name, who, whether recommended by his great skill in his profession, as the
courtiers alleged, or, as was murmured among the neighbours, by his birthplace, in the good
town of Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, held in James's household the post of maker of watches and
horologes to his Majesty. He scorned not, however, to keep open shop within Temple Bar, a few
yards to the eastward of Saint Dunstan's Church.
The shop of a London tradesman at that time, as it may be supposed, was something very
different from those we now see in the same locality. The goods were exposed to sale in cases,
only defended from the weather by a covering of canvass, and the whole resembled the stalls and
booths now erected for the temporary accommodation of dealers at a country fair, rather than the
established emporium of a respectable citizen. But most of the shopkeepers of note, and David
Ramsay amongst others, had their booth connected with a small apartment which opened
backward from it, and bore the same resemblance to the front shop that Robinson Crusoe's
cavern did to the tent which he erected before it.
To this Master Ramsay was often accustomed to retreat to the labour of his abstruse calculations;
for he aimed at improvements and discoveries in his own art, and sometimes pushed his
researches, like Napier, and other mathematicians of the period, into abstract science. When thus
engaged, he left the outer posts of his commercial establishment to be maintained by two stoutbodied and strong-voiced apprentices, who kept up the cry of, "What d'ye lack? what d'ye lack?"
accompanied with the appropriate recommendations of the articles in which they dealt.
22
This direct and personal application for custom to those who chanced to pass by, is now, we
believe, limited to Monmouth Street, (if it still exists even in that repository of ancient garments,)
under the guardianship of the scattered remnant of Israel. But at the time we are speaking of, it
was practised alike by Jew and Gentile, and served, instead of all our present newspaper puffs
and advertisements, to solicit the attention of the public in general, and of friends in particular, to
the unrivalled excellence of the goods, which they offered to sale upon such easy terms, that it
might fairly appear that the venders had rather a view to the general service of the public, than to
their own particular advantage.
The verbal proclaimers of the excellence of their commodities, had this advantage over those
who, in the present day, use the public papers for the same purpose, that they could in many
cases adapt their address to the peculiar appearance and apparent taste of the passengers. [This,
as we have said, was also the case in Monmouth Street in our remembrance. We have ourselves
been reminded of the deficiencies of our femoral habiliments, and exhorted upon that score to fit
ourselves more beseemingly; but this is a digression.] This direct and personal mode of invitation
to customers became, however, a dangerous temptation to the young wags who were employed
in the task of solicitation during the absence of the principal person interested in the traffic; and,
confiding in their numbers and civic union, the 'prentices of London were often seduced into
taking liberties with the passengers, and exercising their wit at the expense of those whom they
had no hopes of converting into customers by their eloquence. If this were resented by any act of
violence, the inmates of each shop were ready to pour forth in succour; and in the words of an
old song which Dr. Johnson was used to hum,-"Up then rose the 'prentices all,
Living in London, both proper and tall."
Desperate riots often arose on such occasions, especially when the Templars, or other youths
connected with the aristocracy, were insulted, or conceived themselves to be so. Upon such
occasions, bare steel was frequently opposed to the clubs of the citizens, and death sometimes
ensued on both sides. The tardy and inefficient police of the time had no other resource than by
the Alderman of the ward calling out the householders, and putting a stop to the strife by
overpowering numbers, as the Capulets and Montagues are separated upon the stage.
23