A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Hill, Frances M.
HILL, FRANCES M.,
Deservedly honoured for her long and beneficial exertions in the cause of female education in Greece, was born in the city of New York. Her father, John W. Mulligan, Esq., still living, is a lawyer of high repute, one of the oldest members of the bar in that city. Besides Mrs. Hill, two other daughters of Mr. Mulligan have been teachers in the missionary schools at Athens; the father who has educated his children so wisely, and encouraged them to employ their talents in the service of God and humanity, must be worthy of the exceeding great reward he is enjoying in their extended usefulness and wonderful success.
The marriage of Miss Frances M. Mulligan with the Rev. J. H. Hill, seems to have been one of those unions ordered in heaven for an example of the conjugal happiness Christians may enjoy if suitably mated, while by their united faith and labours, every obstacle in the path of duty is surmounted, and the good accomplished is almost incredible. Such has been the mission of Mr. and Mrs. Hill.
In 1831, there was an attempt made by the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, to assist the most ancient Eastern Church of Christ, that of the Greek. In pursuance of this plan the Rev. John H. Hill and his wife were sent to Athens, to found and superintend such seminaries of learning and Christian morals as they might find practicable and useful. Athens, on their arrival, presented to them, when entering within its crumbling walls, a scene of desolation such as inevitably follows in the bloody train of war. The city was one mass of ruins, over and among which these missionary teachers had then to pick their almost pathless way. In the course of a few weeks they began to gather around them the destitute half-clad and ignorant daughters of Greece, although many of these were among the well-born, who had been reduced to poverty by the war, which had, for a time, levelled all classes. Upon Mr. and Mrs. Hill was devolved the momentous task of moulding the new social features of the Greek people just escaped from Turkish bondage, and soon to take their position among the civilized nations of Europe.
Mrs. Hill immediately commenced her school for girls, in which Mr. Hill has always been her coadjutor, adviser, and what God designed the husband should be to his wife, her protector and head.
Mr. Hid opened a school for Greek boys at the same time; it has succeeded and done much good, but the greatest blessing to Greece has been the school for girls. Divine Providence is thus surely working out, through the special influence of the female sex, a wonderful system for regenerating the Eastern World. That such a change of sentiment should occur respecting the capacity of women to acquire knowledge, and become the teachers of national schools in the country where, until twenty years ago, all learning was confined to the other sex, seems little short of a miracle. We might describe, in the words of Mrs. Hill herself, did our space permit, the blessings resulting to the Greek people by this mission, and the great popularity it enjoys; might tell how the rulers of that land pay homage to the moral power of the missionaries, and consider it an honour that Mrs. Hill's school for girls is in their chief city; how distinguished foreigners give praise to her noble deeds, and acknowledge this institution as the chief agent of improvement in Athens; how the whole nation looks to her and her husband as its benefactors. It is enough to say that the great work of the American Mission in Greece is acknowledged to be the means of incalculable and unqualified good to the land of Pericles and Aspasia; who never, in their proudest triumphs, enjoyed that of ruling over the moral sense and enlightened conscience of their admirers.