Mount Holyoke, possibly because the school was close to her home. She was determined to go far enough away that a run of bad luck at an Oxford school would not lure her back. She gave Oberlin, a coeducational school in Ohio, serious consideration, but after talking with a trusted neighbor on the subject, she dropped her plan of going there for reasons which are not altogether clear.58
Barton deliberated her future quietly, telling few people of her plans and continuing to trudge through the day-to-day activities in her school. While she worried over inadequate fuel for heating the classroom and the necessity of expelling two unruly students, her mind wandered to her own educational needs.59 She watched with interest as her brothers enlarged their mill complex until it was “quite a village” of two factories, five dwelling houses, barns, shops, and offices, but she could not really feel a part of it as she had in the past. Her health was good but her mind was dissatisfied, and her spirit tired of “working oneself to death to get a living.”60 Finally, late in 1850, she determined to go to the Clinton Liberal Institute, a well-respected coeducational academy run by the Universalist church in Clinton, New York. For Barton this would be much more than an academic opportunity. Almost two hundred miles from home, the school would broaden her experience beyond the familiar hills of central Hubbell s and entwine her life with friendships that would have a major impact on her growth and aspirations.61
three
On a blustery day at the end of December 1850, Clara Barton tucked herself under the lap robes in her brother Stephen's sleigh and set off for the Worcester train depot. Her heart felt as cold as the frozen ground, for she at last realized that if she was leaving scenes that worried and oppressed her, she was also leaving her family and all that had been familiar and comforting.1 It was, moreover, a bad time to leave Oxford. Her mother had been sick, indeed “quite feeble,” for much of the year and did not sustain much hope of recovering.2 That autumn tragedy had struck her brothers, too. The mill complex had burned again, this time leaving only one wall standing, and the loss was much heavier than the insurance would cover. The distress Clara felt over this incident was heightened by the belief that the fire had been intentionally set, possibly as a result of the Barton brothers’ slightly shady dealings. It was thus with sadness at leaving her distraught family, mingled with relief, that she boarded the train for New York.3
The trip was long and frustrating, delayed by closely missed connections and frozen rivers. Barton met no one along the way, and even late in life she could remember the slow, unsettling journey, which was “passed in silence.”4 The trip to New York City took twenty-five hours, and as she was too late for a morning boat up the Hudson River, she stayed at the Irving House until evening, when she boarded the Isaac Newton. The game little boat tried dutifully to help pull another vessel out of the ice; it finally succeeded, only to find itself stuck more firmly than the other boat had been. “She was thumped and heaved since,” Barton noted in her journal, “and Heaven only knows which way she will stray if she ever starts.”5 After much ado, and to the passengers’ great relief, the boat loosed itself and kept on its way toward Albany. From there Barton took the train for Utica and thence on to Clinton.
In Clinton she made her way to the Clinton House, “a typical old time tavern,” where Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Bertram rented rooms to students. She was disappointed to find school would not start on the first Monday in January as advertised.6 Although the institute had been established twenty years previously, in the year that Barton arrived it was undergoing vast structural and academic changes. A new building called the “White Seminary,” an imposing structure with a broad portico supported by Ionic columns, was being built to house the female portion of the school, and classes could not be resumed until it was finished.7 Meanwhile, the faculty was working to institute a program of studies that they believed would give the students an academic foundation “as good as can be obtained in most colleges of the country.”8 While these changes were taking place, the opening of school was delayed several weeks.
Clara spent the time exploring the town. The home of Hamilton College as well as the Clinton Liberal Institute, Clinton wore the traditional college air of youthful frivolousness and scholarly gravity. Over half of the population in 1850 were students, hailing chiefly from New England but occasionally coming from as far away as Canada or Alabama. They slept in plainly furnished rooms in the several lodging houses around town, living on a shoestring and socializing in the debating and Philomien societies, which were then popular.9 Yet Clara could not rejoice in the abundance of young people; she felt only the frigid atmosphere of the dark January days. Even the appealing buildings looked cold and hostile to her, and the “two plank walk with a two feet space between, leading up from the town was not suggestive of the warmest degree of sociability to say the least of it.”10 Wondering whether her decision to leave Oxford had been wise, she wandered alone through the town every day. At night she wrote cheerful letters home, crafted to reveal little of her anxiety.
Clara was much relieved when school began and life once more had a purpose. The newly finished schoolrooms still seemed cold and forbidding to her, but she found to her delight that the girls’ principal, Louise Barker, was a rare leader, with qualities that could truly inspire her pupils. “I found an unlooked-for activity, a cordiality, and an irresistible charm of manner that none could have foreseen—a winning indescribable grace which I have met in only a few persons in a whole lifetime,” recalled Barton. Louise Barker not only made the timid young woman feel at ease, she encouraged her to lead a balanced life at the institute. Barton, eager to gain the widest education possible in her year in Clinton, often tried to forego the pleasures and sociability of student life. It was Barker who unfailingly steered her toward a more active existence and instilled in her the importance of developing her confidence as well as her intellect.11
Clara was probably in the third class at the institute, although the scanty documents related to her year at Clinton never state this precisely. The studies of this course were well beyond those of secondary school and included analytic geometry, French and German, ancient history, philosophy, calculus, astronomy, and religious studies. The male and female students were physically separated, but girls were encouraged to “pursue the Languages, the Mathematics, and the Natural Sciences, to any extent they may wish.”12 This policy, rare for the time, had enormous appeal for Barton. Unfortunately, however, the institute limited the number of studies allowed each term. Barton, convinced of the necessity of utilizing every moment, begged and cajoled the faculty until they had stretched the limit to the utmost. “I recall with some amusement, the last evening I entered with my request,” wrote Barton. “The teachers were assembled in the parlor and, divining my errand, as I never had any other, Miss Barker broke into a merry laugh—with ‘Miss Barton, we have a few studies left; you had better take what there are, and we will say nothing about it.’” Thereafter Clara took what courses she liked, studying with “a burning anxiety to make the most of lost time.”13
For this privilege she paid, as did the other female students, a flat rate of thirty-five dollars per term, which included tuition, room and board, and laundry. She had moved from the old Clinton House into the dormitory rooms of the White Seminary. The accommodations were bare but adequate, and the building included, besides the sleeping compartments and classrooms, a parlor, sitting room, and library. But while Clara was comfortable in her living situation, socially she decidedly was not.14
Barton had purposely refrained from revealing her past teaching experiences, which she believed might cause discomfort to either the teachers or other students. She hoped instead to blend in without noticeable difference among the other pupils, and to glean what she could from the instructors without prejudice. “There was no reason why I should volunteer my history or step in among that crowd of eager pupils as a ‘school marm’, expected to know everything.”15 But the maturity of her experiences, as well as her years, kept her distinct from her fellow students. Most of Barton's classmates were ten or more years her junior, and she had trouble assimilating herself with the ‘frolicsome girls.”16 While they
