Fame

"The smallest village, the plainest home, give ample space for the resources of the college trained woman." It was Alice Freeman Palmer, star leader in the advancement of highest education for women, who put in these words the philosophy that guided her life from its humble beginning to its triumphant conclusion.

Born in Colesville, N.Y., in 1855, of sturdy Pioneer stock, she displayed early those qualities that later made her justly famed. At the age of five she cared for her younger brothers, in order to ease her mother's heavy household burdens.

It was not until she was ten that Alice got the chance of going to school. From her earlier days she showed great promise, especially in the realm of literature. A marriage engagement almost wrecked the scholastic future upon which she had unconsciously embarked. She broke the engagement, went to Michigan State University (co-educational), scored one long and brilliant success, graduated at 21.

After having become the principal of East Saginaw High School, she migrated to Wellesley, became President at the age of 26. Her interest in the cause of higher education for women overflowed the precincts of Wellesley and she founded no less than 15 preparatory schools for girls.

In 1887 Alice Freeman became engaged to Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard. Her friends were amazed, felt that her marriage would be an unsupportable loss to Wellesley, suggested many means of enabling her to continue her great work, pointed out that Professor Palmer might resign from Harvard, take up residence at Wellesley--all to no avail. The couple were married and disappeared into an obscure honeymoon bicycling in England and France.

On her return, she continued her work in education, became adviser to many institutions, a fluent writer. This she continued until her death in Paris in 1902.

Last week the memory of Alice Freeman Palmer was honored at New York University when her venerable husband, gowned in his academic robes, unveiled a bust by Evelyn Longman in the Hall of Fame. The likeness was given by Wellesley College, the presentation made by Dr. Ellen Fitz Pendleton, President of Wellesley, the speech in praise of Mrs. Palmer and her great importance to the nation delivered in a simple and appreciative manner by Dr. James R. Angell of Yale University.

The unveiling of Mrs. Palmer's bust was one of ten at this ceremony. The only national figures to be given places were:

JOHN ADAMS.

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (Mark Twain), whose bust was unveiled by his daughter, Mrs. Ossip Gabrilowitch and who was praised in an address by Agnes Repplier.

PETER COOPER, founder of Cooper Union.

JAMES BUCHANAN EADS, famed Missouri engineer.

JOSEPH HENRY, inventor of the electromagnet, whose likeness was unveiled by Thomas A. Edison.

ANDREW JACKSON.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

DR. WILLIAM THOMAS GREEN MORTON, discoverer of anesthesia.

The impressive ceremony was attended by thousands of patriots and the participants represented the most prominent educators, philosophers, statesmen of today. The colorful procession with gowns and hoods, with the Gloria Trumpeters furnishing inspiring music was headed by Dr. Robert Underwood Johnson, Director of the Hall of Fame, who presided at the exercises.

It is Dr. Johnson who is chiefly responsible for the maintenance of the Hall of Fame at New York University and his is much of the credit for perpetuating the memories of our dead great as inspiration and guidance for generations to come. In the words of Dr. Johnson, who some day may be immortalized in the Hall of Fame himself: "The Hall of Fame is not a calendar of saints, but of human beings, each of whom presents some fine equation of greatness. It is not too much to say that the names here recorded and those to be added will be for all time the pride and inspiration of the American people!"

Robert Underwood Johnson is one of those many-sided men of ' whom the 19th Century was so prodigal. Poet, editor, author, executive, patriot, diplomat: the record of his achievements consumes more space in Who's Who in America than that of any other man, and suggests a varied career that has never brought him entirely into the limelight, or into the twilight of mediocrity.

Over 70 years old, he belongs to that Civil War generation that stamped its political and aesthetic ideas upon the nation. An Associate Editor of The Century Magazine, he became Editor. It was he who edited the famous Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. It was he who first urged Grant to write his Memoirs. He originated the Keats-Shelley Memorial at Rome. He wrote seven books of poems, finally collected in 1919. If to modernists his style appears sentimental or stilted, it is because the moderns have found different, and possibly no better, ways of expressing the same emotions.

His influence in national politics has been pervasive and honorable. A pioneer in the Conservation movement, he is responsible for the existence of the Yosemite National Park. Two years before Roosevelt's Conservation Conference of the Governors in 1908, he urged Roosevelt to take this course. In one particular instance, he redeemed the national honor, as Secretary of the American Copyright League in 1888, waging the long fight that eventually led to the adoption of an American copyright law that protected foreign authors from the pirating of their books in these United States.

For this he received in the '90's, the decorations of Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur and Cavaliere della Corona d'ltalia. Following his War-work as Chairman of the "American Poets' Ambulance in Italy" and President of the New York Committee of the Italian War Relief Fund of America, he received the following honors: Commendatore della Corona d'ltalia, Officier de I'Ordre de Leopold II (Belgian), Commander of the Order of St. Sava (Serbian), culminating in the high Italian award of Gran Cordone dell' Ordine SS. Maurisio e Lazaro, given in 1921, when President Harding accepted his resignation as Ambassador at Rome.

Indeed, the Italian people have had no more enthusiastic or sympathetic friend than Mr. Johnson. Ambassador Johnson came to Italy after the Fiume incident. Everything American was anathema. Subversion was rife. The Italians thought him a bit gaga, but distinctly simpatico. He seemed such a nice old gentleman, with so venerable a beard. Young attaches of the diplomatic corps thought him a bit pitiful or ridiculous. Yet Mr. Johnson, as he has shown in his delightful reminiscences, was carrying out a policy prearranged with Mr. Wilson, of treating the Italians as children, lovable or naughty. The measure of his success is the extraordinary reversal of Italian sentiment towards the U. S. Fiume was forgotten. The bitterness subsided, Americans were respected, for Ambassador Johnson showed that he could be firm.

Once, communists invaded the U. S. Consulate-General at Genoa and ordered the flag half-masted in deference to the funeral of a Red rioter. The Consul wired for instructions. The Ambassador replied in four words: "Keep the Flag flying." To a sophisticated generation this might seem melodramatic, affected. For Mr. Johnson it was the simple expression of a most passionate and unashamed patriotism. In the end it was the sneering young attaches and the hypercerebrated Latins who were stultified.

Mr. Johnson has been a utility man in many fields, in all of which he has earned distinction. His published memoirs, Remembered Yesterdays,* is a book that tells a little of a man whose talents symbolized his century and whose beliefs typify the faiths on which this nation was builded. More, it tells the story of the most momentous cycle the world has yet passed through in its troublous course down the years. Many honors have come to him, but he has first honored himself in ways too numerous to mention. In short, he is a citizen of whom the Romans might have said: "He has deserved well of the Republic."

* Little, Brown ($5.00).