was easy for Barton to picture a system of public schools, which would mirror those she had known in Hubbell s. But in New Jersey there were few models that would activate the imaginations of school boards or public officials. Laws providing for the creation of free schools had been passed in the state as early as 1817, though there was no comprehensive legislation until 1846. Public opinion, however, which was concerned with inequities in the distribution of public school funds and the social stigma attached to those attending “pauper” schools, did not keep pace with the legislation. A free school had been established in Nottingham in 1844, and by 1850 there were public classrooms in Trenton and several smaller towns, but these were isolated and often temporary, and the movement failed to catch the public fancy. Not until 1866 did a statewide effort at providing public education find real support in New Jersey.54
It was thus necessary for Barton to marshal every conceivable argument to persuade officials in Bordentown to accept the idea of public education. She talked first to Peter Suydam, the editor of the Bordentown Register and a member of the school board. A genial man and something of a jack-of-all-trades, Suydam was to become one of Clara's favorite companions. At this meeting, however, he seemed to her only a tense and official obstacle to overcome. She told him she had observed that the local subscription schools were taught by persons who were well-meaning and often “elegant,” but whose educational qualifications were strictly limited. When the children's knowledge grew beyond that of the matrons, they became an embarrassment and were barred from the classroom. Worse yet, Barton believed that the brightest children were the first to be “graduated into the street,” for they most blatantly challenged the teacher and pointed up her weaknesses. As a final, if not tactful, argument, she maintained that New England had proved the worth of universal education with its superior productivity and ingenuity. It was time the citizens of Bordentown recognized the “force of ignorance, blind prejudice, and the tyranny of an obsolete public opinion,” and joined the ranks of the more civilized states.55
Suydam listened with interest to the articulate young woman, but he came back with arguments of his own. There had actually been a free school a few years earlier, he explained, but an unsuitable teacher and inadequate class space had caused the experiment to fail. Housing for a school was indeed a problem in the town, as one official school report explained: “Bordentown district…does not possess a single school building which it can claim as its own.” Consequently, should the town wish to revoke a teacher's license or establish a school, it was hampered by being solely dependent on using the private teachers’ quarters for holding classes. These private teachers, Suydam explained, were greatly opposed to free schools, and their dissatisfaction would carry considerable influence among the townspeople. He believed Barton would be ostracized socially, if not subjected to outright ridicule. Finally, Suydam told her, the children themselves would not come because of their fear of the disgrace of being a public charge. Used to roaming the streets aimlessly, the boys would threaten and bully her and keep smaller children from coming to learn.56
Suydam's arguments failed to discourage Barton. She cared little for the approbation of the town and thought the previous failures had been due to the teacher's personality, not the inappropriateness of the free school idea. As for the boys—well, she had already talked with them. Walking through Bordentown's narrow streets, she had encountered “little knots of them” on every corner. When she asked them why they were not in school they dispensed with the expected bravado and replied plaintively, “Lady, there is no school for us.” Barton found nothing derelict in the boys’ behavior; she believed they were mischievous simply because they were idle and bored. “I had studied the character of these boys,” she told Suydam, “and had interest and pity for, but no fear of them.”57
Her poise and determined manner clearly impressed Peter Suydam, and Barton now underscored her persuasiveness with a trump card. She was, she told him, not an inexperienced and naive young woman but a veteran teacher of nearly fifteen years who had handled rougher boys than these, in rougher towns. Neither an adventuress nor a crusading idealist, she simply saw a chronic situation that needed remedying, and the idea of fulfilling that need challenged her.
Suydam was inspired by her words. He agreed to call a meeting of the school board to discuss the issue and invited Barton to attend. At the meeting she reiterated her arguments and effectively convinced the board that they should value her estimation of the situation, for as an experienced educator she had insight into the nature of the children. By the end of the evening she had won the confidence of the officials, who agreed to endorse a free school in the town. Moreover, she had won the school on her own terms, terms which would do much to establish the credibility of the experiment. Barton informed the board that she was willing to teach without salary, that they need provide only classroom space, but that the school must be supported and publicized by the school board. Without their approval she knew it would be considered merely another private school. “In fact,” she wrote adamantly, “it must stand by their order, leaving the work and results to me.”58
With some difficulty the board found an old brick schoolhouse—reportedly first erected in 1798—on Crosswicks Street, several blocks from the center of town. Its dilapidated condition delayed the school's opening, and Barton waited impatiently for the repairs to be completed. “You see I am making a stir among them don’t you?” she boasted to the ever-faithful Bernard; “Well it will never hurt them, it is time they stired [sic] themselves to fit up school houses in Jersey—of all old sheds you never saw the like.”59 Not content with merely airing the house (whose smell she claimed rivaled that of Cologne, Germany, said to be the worst-smelling city in Europe) and building new seats and benches, she instructed Peter Suydam to provide her with maps and blackboards. Blackboards were apparently something of an innovation in the town, but when Barton insisted that she would install them if he did not, Suydam laughingly acquiesced. “Yes, yes,” he replied, “you shall have them although no such mention is made in the contract.”60
The contract, in fact, stated little beyond licensing “Clara H. Barton to teach or keep school in said district for the space of one year.” Under the auspices of the school board, the opening of the school was announced in the local paper and on signs posted throughout the community. Finally in early July, after more delays and with much anticipation, Barton set out for her first day of class.61
She was greeted by a schoolhouse and yard devoid of children, save a few curious boys perched on the rail fence that surrounded the grounds. Bidding them a cheerful good morning, she strolled around the yard, pointing out birds’ nests and butterflies and speaking all the while of pleasantries, not of books or studies. The six boys followed her into the schoolhouse, where she still refrained from playing the rigid schoolmarm. Instead she asked them about themselves and slowly eased into the role of teacher. Using the most striking objects in the room—the large, colorful maps of the United States, world, and Europe—as focal points, she began to answer their questions about the great oceans and foreign lands. She wooed them into the fascination of learning, with the mysteries of continents and customs, with every dramatic tale she could remember. With a certain smugness she noted that they “seemed to find my stories and my conversation generally quite entertaining.” She feared they would not return after the noon recess. To her relief, however, their numbers grew. The afternoon wore on in the same vein, as she used friendship and adventure to convert her audience. “In that three hours until four o’clock we had travelled the world over,” she recalled. Clara left at the end of the day, still without speaking of books or slates, commenting only that she would be back the next day.62
Twenty boys stood outside the schoolhouse the next morning; by week's end she had nearly forty young faces to greet her. Barton had been confident of the school's success, but this ready response far surpassed her expectations or even her hopes. She believed the school would hold only fifty students, but in another week, teacher and pupils alike shoved and rearranged to squeeze in fifty-five. Barton gave up her own chair to an eager youngster, and when the news of this reached the school board, Peter Suydam sent a chair to her from his own parlor.
