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REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND


you to the platform." She did not take up platform work, however, professionally, but has directed her powers to train and develop the art instinct in others.

In July, 1879, she opened at Martha's Vine- yard the first summer school of oratory held in the United States. Professor Monroe was to have conducted this school, with Miss Baright as an assistant. He was taken ill about the date set for the opening. He telegraphed to Miss Baright to go on and attend to the work. His death occurred on the first day of the school, and, although several other teachers were in attendance, indecision and lack of leader- ship seemed to threaten the disbanding of the students. Miss Baright saw the situation, anfl, with her characteristic readiness to meet emer- gencies, organized the school, divided it into classes, placed them under teachers, and start(>d the work, inspiring the confidence that held all the students assembled at Martha's Y'lnf}- yard for the five weeks' term.

Boston University disorganized the School of Oratory, August 22, 1879. President War- ren advised Miss Baright to take the name of the old school and conduct a school herself. As she demurred on account of her age anil lack of experience, Dr. Warren said : " If you do not, some one else will who is not as well entitled to do it as you." Miss Baright, how- ever, did not take the name of the school of oratory, but opened classes in elocution and expression. The name was taken by other parties, and Miss Baright's career as a teacher in Boston reached its second stage.

In 1880, through Mr. W. E. Sheldon, editor of the Journal of Education, Miss Baright received an offer of a position in Philadelphia as superintendent of teachers of the public schools, at a salary of two thousand dollars a year, which she did not accept.

On May 31, 1882, she was married to S. S. Curry, Ph.D., afterward Snow Professor of Oratory in Boston University anil founder of the School of Expression, Boston, and on Juno 1 sailed with her husband for Europe, where they spent several months in travel, retui'n- ing to Boston the following autumn. Six children have been born of their union, and four of them are now living — I'^thcl (iertrudo Curry, Mabel Campbell Curry, Gladys Ban- ning Curry, and Haskel Brooks Curry.

In these later years ^Irs. Curry has been associated with her husband in the develop- ment and organization of the School of Ex- pression, Boston, of which he is the founder and jiresident. The aim of the School of Expression is to emphasize the educational value of artistic methods as applied to train- ing in the use of the spoken word. A delicate tribute by the late Professor J. W. Churchill to the associated work of Mr. and Mrs. Curry as princi{)als of the School of Expression is particularly interesting: "Fortunate indeed are those who come under the benign influ- ence of ideals so pure and noble, who work upon ])riiicii)les so clear, so sound, so truly ])hilos()]jhical, and therefore so wisely practical, and who share in achievements so rich, varied, and enduring. Happy indeed are those who are guitled in their art studies by the philo- sophic insight and scientific method of one of the principals of the school and the beautiful technique, inspirational interpretations, and stimulating example of the other. Long may this brilliant binary star, with its blended radi- ance of philosophy and art, guide earnest seekers after the true, the beautiful, and the good in expressive speech, as they tread the pathway of human perfection."

Belief in inspiration was Mrs. Curry's birth-right, and the inalienable right of self-activity was her heritage. Through her maternal grandfather, Jonathan Dean, who was something of a poet, she came naturally by her love of poetry and the drama. He died in early manhood, but, even in the days before public reading had gained popular recognition, was the favorite in social circles, where he recited Shakespeare and poetry for the entertainment of his friends. Jonathan Dean's brothers, Edwin and Seneca, were also patrons and lovers of art. One day they brought home a violin, after having learned to play upon it in secret; and their father, in the spirit of a martyr, rak(^d open the coals in the oven, and laid this instrument of sin upon the blazing embers. But the art instinct is not thus to be annihilated. Edwin Dean later became owner and patron of a theatre, and his daughter,