Democratic Ideals: A Memorial Sketch of Clara B. Colby. Olympia Brown

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."

      Nebraska

       Table of Contents

      ​

      CHAPTER II

      NEBRASKA

       Table of Contents

       After some years of teaching history and Latin in the University of Wisconsin, Clara Bewick, now Mrs. Colby, removed to Beatrice, Nebraska, where she became actively interested in the Woman's Suffrage movement, and was soon well known throughout the state. She took a prominent part in the great conventions arranged by Miss Anthony, and in all the efforts to secure the adoption of the measure by the legislature. In 1882 she managed the campaign for Woman's Suffrage of which Miss Anthony says in her history: "Mrs. Colby was indefatigable in her exertions, from the moment the amendment was submitted to the voters until the end of the canvass. She organized the whole campaign throughout the state and kept the speakers in motion." Elsewhere Miss Anthony said, "Oh, if we could all work as Mrs. Colby does our cause would move on." Miss Carrie Harrison, a co-worker with Mrs. Colby in the Press Association, says, "Mrs. Colby was always on the program when Miss Anthony was managing the meeting."

      She assisted in organizing a state suffrage association and was for sixteen years its ​president. A Nebraska woman says in the History of Woman Suffrage: "As long as Mrs. Colby was a resident of Nebraska she stood at the head of every phase of the movement to obtain equal rights for women." Not the least important work of her years in Nebraska was the founding of the Woman's Tribune in 1883 which she continued to publish there until her removal to Washington in 1888.

      Her efforts, however, were not confined to the suffrage movement for she organized the free public library of Beatrice, Nebraska, in 1873. A very complimentary account of this work is given in the fifth annual report of the directors of this library.

      During this period she visited her Alma Mater at Madison, Wisconsin, on the occasion of one of the annual meetings of the alumni. The poet appointed for the day failing to be present, Mrs. Colby was asked to supply the place and with only twenty-four hours' time for preparation she wrote the following poem describing the Indian legends of Nebraska.

      THE SONG OF THE PLAINS

       (Dedicated to the Pioneers of the Prairies).

      The purpose of this poem is to present in terms of Indian Mythology the development of that large section of the Middle West which was formerly included in the ​Territory of Nebraska, and styled by topographers half a century ago as part of the Great American Desert.

      The names and descriptions of the Great Spirit and the Guardian Spirits of Nebraska are taken from the Mythology of the Lakotah Indians, which is closely followed in the statement by their own special Guardian. The part played by the returning goldhunters is included in the story of the goddess who prepared the soil to welcome man. The devastations of war, fire, pestilence, and famine, are portrayed as the writer has lived them in that country, which is now under the sway of "the brighest of the gods."

      —Clara Bewick Colby.

      The hidden springs of Life from man the Gods conceal;

       But to the rev'rent seeker they at times unseal

       The mysteries of Fate; or these in dreams reveal.

       Thus o'er the story of Nebraska, musing long,

       Lifting the veils of sense with passion strong,

       As in a mystic fount I saw the Vision of my Song.

      THE GARDEN OF THE GODS.

      Hidden from all unopened eyes a glen appeared:—

       From its green base rough snow-clad mountains reared

       Their giant heads, as if some spirit hand

       Had hurled them there in strength, and bade them