Democratic Ideals (Brown)/Chapter 1
CLARA BEWICK COLBY
A SKETCH
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE
Clara Bewick was in every sense of the term a pioneer. Born in England, she came while a child with her parents to Wisconsin, then a new and sparsely settled country. Like other pioneers the Bewick family bore the burdens, endured the privations, and experienced the dangers of life in a new country. Opportunities for education and culture were few the public school was scarcely established and public libraries were unknown. But the members of the family were people of sturdy minds and strong character and not without a heritage of scholarly tastes and scientific ability. Clara's grandfather, Thomas Bewick, was a well known naturalist and engraver. He published several volumes, among them Bewick's Illustrated Book of Birds, and Bewick's Book of Beasts. Other members of the family had won distinction in various lines. Notwithstanding the want of opportunity for education, Clara learned to read while still very young. She read everything to which she had access, committing to memory both poems and hymns which came in her way. In one of her lectures she was in the habit of giving a humorous account of making butter with the old-fashioned dash churn, keeping time with the strokes of the dash by reciting those fearful hymns which threatened in glowing language the "fires of hell."
At the age of nineteen she went to Madison to live with her grandmother, Mrs. Chilton, whose care and instruction had a great influence on her life and were remembered by her with the utmost gratitude. Here she entered the Wisconsin University, then in its infancy, and, like several of our state universities in their beginning, struggling with the question of co-education. Her brilliancy and determination as a student in the Normal School, then a department of the University, enabled her to exert a marked influence in securing the admission of women to the University and the adoption of the principles of co-education in Wisconsin. She was graduated in 1869 as the valedictorian in the first class of women graduated from the University. It was the same year that Wyoming adopted Woman's Suffrage, and that the first suffrage convention was held in Washington, D. C.
Miss Ellen C. Sabin, President of Milwaukee-Downer College, was contemporaneous with Clara at the University of Wisconsin. The following extract from a letter from President Sabin to the editor gives us a picture of Clara's college days:
"It is a privilege to offer to you a few words of remembrance of Clara Bewick as a student in the University of Wisconsin. The contrast between college entrance preparation of the present time and the entrance requirements of just fifty years ago is striking. The student who had reached a suitable age, fifteen years or more, applied by personal presentation of himself at the University, selected such studies as he thought profitable, entered classes, and sank or swam as he was able to do. While there were instances of failure, certainly almost every one succeeded in his or her work and "conned out" was a term and an experience reserved for a later day. Probably only those of some promise entered the ranks of university students, and certainly no one expected any achievement except through his own effort. The student was not restricted as to hours of study, the only limitation being his powers of endurance.
Hence, Clara went from the district school with its very meagre opportunities, her chief attainments being the power to read and wrest the meaning from the printed page, and her knowledge of the Bible acquired in her home, together with the merest rudiments of mathematics, geography and history, into the University. She possessed vigorous health, the habit of work, and an immeasurable zest for knowledge. She filled every hour with recitations and prepared for class by unstinted hours of study. She simply devoured her studies, and her mastery of each subject presented to her mind, languages, mathematics, philosophy, was the admiration and wonder of her fellow students. Her question as to work was not "Do I have to do this?" but "May I add this subject?"
Yet Clara was never a somber grind. No one else originated so many college enterprises. The literary society, Castalia, took on new life when she entered it. Debate was her delight, and she always organized every effort of a forensic character, leading one side generally to victory. The drama was especially dear to her, and scenes from the great dramatists were constantly a feature of the programs. I recall an acceptable presentation of a dramatization of "Our Mutual Friend," which Clara inspired. In all the valiant struggles of those days to secure for girls in the University opportunities and privileges equal to those that the men enjoyed, Clara was a dauntless leader. The suggestion of an injustice or lack of fairness was to her a bugle call to action.
She was beloved by most of her companions. And she deserved affection, for her intellectual enthusiasm was surpassed only by her generous passion to share with others whatever she had of good. This quality made her a remarkable teacher, and I believe that had she chosen to devote herself to teaching she would have become notable as a professor of literature, history, economics or philosophy.
At the end of four years Clara had traversed the distance from the district school to the close of the classical course in the State University. She left a record of superior scholarship, of noble-minded enthusiasms, and of loyal friendships both with classmates and faculty members."