Hospital for the Insane, in Norristown, Pa. The trustees of that hospital, then just completed and about to be opened, did a thing without precedent in placing a woman physician in absolute and independent
ALICE BENNETT.
charge of their women insane, and dire predictions were made of the results of that revolutionary experiment. At the end of twelve years that hospital is the acknowledged head of the institutions of its kind in the State, if not in the country, and from its successful work the movement, now everywhere felt, to place all insane women under the care of physicians of their own sex, is constantly gaining impetus. Since Dr. Bennett entered upon her work, with one patient and one nurse, 12th July, 1880, more than 2.825 insane women have been received and cared for. new buildings have been added, and the scope of her work has been enlarged in all directions. In 1892 there were 950 patients and a force of 95 nurses under her direction, subject only to the trustees of the hospital. Dr. Bennett is a member of the American Medical Association, of the Pennsylvania State Medical Society, of the Montgomery County Medical Society, of which she was made president in 1890, of the Philadelphia Neurological Society, of the Philadelphia Medical Jurisprudence Society, and of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She has twice received the appointment to deliver the annual address on mental diseases before the State Medical Society, and she was one of the original corporators of the Spring Garden Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, established by Charles G. Ames. She has recently been appointed by Governor Pattison. of Pennsylvania, one of the board of five commissioners to erect a new hospital for the chronic insane of the State.
BENNETT, Mrs. Ella May, Universalist minister, born in Stony Brook, N. Y., 21st April. 1855 She was the twelfth child of a family of fourteen, of whom all save two grew to manhood and womanhood. Her father's name was Daniel Shaloe Hawkins, and her mother's maiden name was Harriet Atwood Terry. Two of her brothers have been very prominent in political life. When a very small child, Mrs. Bennett thought deeply upon religious matters. She would often ask her mother to go and pray, especially when her mother seemed troubled in any way. From the very first God seemed to her a friend and comforter. When the doctrines of the church which she had always attended were explained to her, she rejected them. When about thirteen years of age, she visited a cousin in northern Pennsylvania, and for the first time listened to a sermon by a Universalist minister. She recognized her early ideas of God and heaven. On her return home she was told the Bible gave no authority for such a doctrine. She accepted that statement, gave up all interest in religious matters, and would not open a Bible, and tried to become an atheist For years she groped in a mental darkness that at times threatened her reason. When about thirty years of age, Mrs. Bennett's mother, a devout woman, who had long been deeply concerned about her daughter's state of mind, presented her a Bible, begging her for her sake to read it. She gave the book with an earnest prayer that the true light from its pages might shine upon her mind. Mrs. Bennett reluctantly promised. She had only read a few pages when, to her surprise, she found authority for the Universalist faith. The Bible became her constant companion, and for months she read nothing else. Mrs. Bennett became anxious for others to know the faith which had so brightened her own life and readily consented, at the request of Edward Oaks.
ELLA MAY BENNETT.
to read sermons afternoons in Union Hall in Stony Brook. The sermon reading gradually changed to original essays, and finally Mrs Bennett found herself conducting regular and popular sermons.
