CHAPTER XIII.
EDMONIA LEWIS.
To develop along all the diverging and converging lines that take their beginning in the comprehensive word "education" it becomes necessary for us to sometimes turn aside, as others have done, from the ordinary school-room to the workshop, where we may train the eye and the hand to a skillful use of the implements of industry and thrift; and at the same time broaden and sharpen the intellect in original thought and description by the use of the chisel and the brush.
The Afro-American sculptress is an infallible proof of the possibilities of the race along this line. Think of her as of humble birth, and left a helpless girl without the guiding: counsel and tender care of a mother.
Although without an education, she was determined to make her mark and stamp her impress upon the world. She chanced to get to Boston, and, possibly while looking upon the statue of the great Benjamin Franklin, she became inspired with the thought that some hand had wrought that upon which she was gazing with emotion that stirred her very soul.
She exclaimed, "I too can make a stone man." The liberty-loving William Eloyd Garrison, whose advice she sought, gave her introduction to a Mr. Brockett, a professional sculptor, whose kind and sympathetic heart could appreciate holy ambition even in a poor girl to become a great woman.
