HARRIETTE J. COOKE, superintendent of Medical Mission, 36 Hull Street, Boston, Mass., is a native of New Hampshire. She was born in the town of Sandwich, Carroll County, in the central part of the State, December 1, 1829, daughter of Josiah and Jane (Cox) Cooke. Her father was of the third generation of his family to reside in Sandwich, being a son of Joel Cooke and grandson of Cornelius Cooke, an early settler in that locality, men characterized by sincerity, uprightness, and simplicity of life.
Harriette Cooke early imbibed the belief that a thorough education was the greatest of helps to a life of usefulness. As there were no colleges open to women in those days, she was obliged to gather what learning she could from the various schools and seminaries accessible to her and from private instruction. In 1853 she was graduated at the New Hampshire Conference Seminary, now Tilton Seminary. After a few years of successful teaching in Massachusetts she accepted a position as teacher in Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, which she entered in November, 1857, its opening year. She was then a young woman, possessing an ambition to excel in whatever she undertook to do. Her character was well adapted to pioneer educational work, having in it the decidedly marked combination of strength and tender womanly sympathy. She was fully up to the times as regarded methods of instruction and mental discipline.
She had especially had stamped on her soul—as if by divine impress — a desire to assist in the higher education of woman. A profound conviction that only by intellectual and moral culture can the world be raised from the degrading influences of ignorance, and that this end can be best attained through the home by the elevation of woman, rendered her conscious of the importance of her high calling. She thus brought to her new field of labor an enthusiasm which was immediately recognized. Being unusually rigid in her requirements of work from her pupils, she gained a reputation for over-exactness that for a time was not altogether conducive to mere popularity. But with all their unfavorable criticisms, among thinking students she soon commanded the highest respect. In 1886 Miss Cooke was made preceptress of the college and in 1872 professor of German and history, the latter appointment being, it is said, the first honor of the kind conferred upon a woman in the United States. These departments of the college she built up and established on a firm foundation. In 1886 she was relieved of the German and made professor of history and the science of government. Granted leave of absence in 1872, she spent the year in Great Britain and on the Continent, availing herself of the advantages given by the London University for the study of history and literature, also increasing her knowledge of the German language by the assistance of native teachers. She continued her work at Cornell College until 1890.
This brief account of the educational career of Professor Harriette J. Cooke, together with the following appreciation of her work and character, is gathered from a sketch written for the College Year Book' for 1890 by a former pupil and lifelong friend, namely, Mrs. Collin, wife of Alonzo Collin, the senior professor of Cornell College.
Miss Cooke has given special attention to the moral and religious training of the hundreds of young ladies who have been placed under her immediate charge. Many of them testify that her strong appeals to the noblest powers of their being were among their chief incentives in trying to develop themselves into the highest types of true womanhood. She had a realizing sense of the great responsibility 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 a physical organization that seems never to have known weariness, she has endured unceasing toil for years, having in all her college life lost but one term, and this because of a serious injury occasioned by a fall. With a spirit of unselfishness and a great capacity to endure, she has generally done the work of two.
Miss Cooke is a very pleasing public speaker,
