Cornell College - Royal Purple Yearbook (Mount Vernon, IA)

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6 ,CD . QXQJ .19 x ,QQ 2 f o f Q, SN - afrrzette QQXGXSQIQ, 65 Quik? Jw' X PROFESSOR HARRIETTE J. COOKE was born in Sandwich, New Hampshire. She is a descendant of the Puritans. In her ancestry four nationalities are represented, the English, Irish, Scotch, and French. Through her father she is related to the Adams family, whose characteristics, in some respects, she has inherited. When very young she imbibed the good old New England belief that a thorough education was the best of fortunes, and the greatest of helps to a life of usefulness. In 1853 she graduated at the New Hampshire Conference Seminary-now 'l'ilden College. As there were no colleges open to women in those days-:mf our-in all this land, she was obliged to gather what learning she could from the various schools and seminaries accessible to her, supplemented by aid from private instructors. She entered Cornell College as a teacher, in 1857,-its opening year. She was then a young woman possessing an innate ambition to excel in whatever she undertook to do? Her character was well adapted to aggressive and reformatory work, having in it the decidedly marked combination of strength and tender womanly sympathy. These qualities were much need- ed at that time in the genesis of this rapidly developing west. Prior to her coming to Cornell College she had been a successful teacher in the state of Massachussetts, in some of the thorough training schools for Harvard, Amherst, Dartmouth and other great colleges of the east. She was fully up with the times in the best methods of instruction and mental discipline required in those centers of learning. Having been born to her chosen life work, she has never failed to bear an en- viable reputation as a more than ordinarily successful educator. She has especially had stamped on her soul-as if by divine impress-a desire to assist in the higher education of woman. She has always been irresistibly impelled to earnest efforts in this direction from a profound conviction that it is only by intellectual and moral culture the world can be raised from the degrading influences of

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written in the hearts of those other thousands who did not attain to the formal honors of graduation, but who attained in college halls the greater boon of inspiration and courage for 'the battle of life? Beyond the public life, to its inspiring support and inspiration in the home life, the curious eye of the stranger may not see. But to one who knew Margaret lVIcKell in Chillicothe, Ohio, in the olden days, this sketch would be incomplete without at least her name, just as the life of President King would have been incomplete without the sunny cheerfulness and child-like faith, and beautiful flavor of hospitality, that she brought to his home. To her President King was married in August, 1865. One child, the beautiful Lucy Hayes King, gladdened their home with infant prattle and childish innocence for a dozen years, and then one little year ago exchanged the uncertain possibilities of a sinstained earth for the many mansions in Ouif Heavenly Father's house, where the Lord God shall wipe away the tears from all faces. To these stricken hearts, the one bowed beneath the crushing weight of sorrow, the other carry- ing in concealment the pain of private grief in order to be faithful to the path of public duty, go up ten thousand prayers that they may have strength to endure, as seeing Him who is invisible, until the Angel of the Resurrection shall roll away the stoiie from the door of earth's myriad sepulchers, and until the Voice that once flashed across the darkness of earthly sorrow may again gladden the hearts of all earth's sorrowing millions with all the quickening power and glory of the old acclaim, He is not here. He is risen. HUGH Bovo.

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ignorance, and that this end can be best attained through the home by the true elevation of woman. This feeling has ever rendered her conscious of the importance of her high calling. She brought to her new held of labor an enthusiasm which was immediately recognized. Being unusually rigid in her requirements of work done by her pupils, she gained a reputation for over exactness that for a time, perhaps, was not altogether conducive to mere popularity. But with all their unfavorable criticisms, among thinking students, she soon commanded the highest respect. Those same students, now thinking men and women of middle life, entertain for her a sense of gratitude for the intellect- ual impetus she gave them. When they send their children to their Alma Mater to be educated, they almost invariably send in advance, a letter to Miss Cooke, requesting her to take an interest in the welfare of their sons and daughters. There are in her nature, strong moral elements of the most courageous kind. She is a fearless and faithful friend and helper to those whom she believes genuine and true, while ever ready and willing to go to those whose steps are tending downward and by words unmistakable as to their meaning, show them their danger, and offer them a helping hand when they make honest efforts to reform. When we are made to realize that it is thousands with whom she has been intimately asso- ciated, in the relation of teacher to scholar, it is safe to say that her ability to read character has seldom lcd her astray. In 1866 she was made Preceptress and still holds that position--hence her special work in moral and religious training has been given to the hundreds of young ladies who have been placed under her immediate charge. Could the united testimony of all these be gathered -with possibly a few exceptions-it would be that the strong appeals of Miss Cooke, to the noblest powers of their being were among the chief incentives of their lives, in trying to develop them- selves into the highest types of true womanhood. These influences neither time nor eternity can efface. Early in life her face grew serious and careworn from a realizing sense of the fearful responsi- bility resting upon her, a feeling that none can know but those who have consecrated themselves to lives of self-sacrifice for the good of others. Possessed of an active mind, and physical organization that seems to have never known weariness, she has endured unceasing toil for years, having in all her college life lost but one term and this because of disability resulting from a serious injury occasioned by a fall. So far from her nature is the spirit of selfishness, and a disposition to shirk life's responsibilities, and so great is her capacity to endure, she has generally done the work of two.