Representative women of New England/Mary E. Allen
MARY E. ALLEN.— At the time of the French Revolution it is related that two young brothers were sent away from France, and sailed from their native town of Brest, in two different vessels, for America. One of them was never heard from more. The other, as he told the story, was shipwrecked off the coast of Massachusetts, reached the shore with some difficulty, in scanty clothing, and sought refuge at the nearest farmhouse, where he was taken in and given work. He could speak no English, and, as the people he came among were equally ignorant of his language, the farmer sought the nearest equivalent in sound to the name given by the stranger, and called him Cornelius Allen. This name he afterward bore, remaining a resilient of Massachusetts, where he married and had a large family. His son Joseph married Mary Nowell, of York, Me. She was of Scotch and English descent. The youngest of their six children was Mary E. Allen, the subject of this sketch, who was born in 1844 in Barre, Mass. She remembers once seeing this old grandfather, who made a strange impression upon her childish imagination, with his broken English and his velvet coat, an ele- gance not affected by the fanning population among whom he lived. He ilied when she was quite a child, and all subseciuent attempts to trace her true name and French ancestry have proved imavailing. Her early years were spent in a country village until the death of her par- ents, when, at the age of eight, she was adopted by her uncle, Mr. James Nowell, of Ports- mouth, N,.H.
In 1859 the family that had now become hers moved to Cambridge, Mass. She entered the Cambridge High School, from which she was graduated in 1862. The profession of teacher seemed best adapted to her, and events have proved that she chose wisely. Her work began in Montpelier, Vt., and, be- fore her first year was over, she received a cell to the Williams School, a large school for boys in Chelsea, Mass. At the end of her first year she was given the position of master's assistant, which she occupied for two years, resigning in the spring of 1868, to accept the position of assistant gymnastic teacher in Vassar College. Through some misunderstand- ing among the faculty this plan was not car- ried out, and in the fall of the same year she accepted the position of master's assistant in the Chapman School in East Boston, a mixed school of girls and boys.
Miss Allen was always a popular teacher, nmch beloved by her pupils and appreciated by their parents, and she thoroughly enjoyed the work; but she rebelled at the mass of use- less cramming imposed upon the public school teacher, and found herself opposed in principle to spending so much time in fitting for exami- nations, when she would gladly have devoted herself to teaching in its broader sense. Full of energy and ambition, she chafed at the re- straints of her position, realizing also that, however great the eminence to which she might attain as a teacher, .she could not, being a woman, aspire to the only two positions above her in the grammar school, those of submaster and master.
All this, added to the excessive strain of the daily routine upon an organization not over robust, forced her to look about for some other field of work in which to e.xercise her unusual powers, before they s"hould begin to wane. For a long time she had been interested in physical training, and during the last tlozen years she had aroused much enthusiasm for gymnastics in her classes at school. Miss Allen's interest in this subject led her into a field which she found was almost un- explored. Nowhere in Boston could a woman or child secure any regular ])hysical training. Further investigation revealed the same lack of opportunity in this direction throughout the country. Classes in gynmastics had been opened in Boston and elsewhere, both before and after Dr. Dio Lewis's day; but nothing had proved permanent, and Dr. Lewis's phe- nomenal work had been practically dead for a dozen years or more.
Allured by this untried path, she soon se- cured the hearty support and co-operation of many of the most prominent Boston physi- cians of the day. Not only did they semi their patients to her, but their wives and children also joined her classes. The enterprise, begun quietly in 1878 in a meagrely equipped room in E.ssex Street, under the name of "The Ladies' Gymnasium," was popular from the start.
At the end of the first year Miss Allen real- ized that her pupils who returned to her must have more advanced work. Then began her scheme for progressive physical development, which she has been greatly interested in per- fecting, as the years have gone on.
She was the first to introduce the sensible gynmastic costume (consisting of blouse and Turkish trousers, with no skirt), allowing perfect freedom of motion, which is now adopted, in similar form, in all gynmasiums. A prominent Boston physician, on visiting her classes, remarked that it would be worth while for the women simply to put on this healthful dress and play about in the gymnasium a while, even if they did not ]ierform any of the exercises. It is probable that the physical training for women, of which Miss Allen was the pioneer, has been one of the potent factors in diminishing the evils of tight lacing, which in those days was much more the rule than at present.
Growing interest and enthusiasm for the work of the gymnasium necessitated a change at the end of the second year to more com- modious quarters in Amory Hall, on the corner of Washington and West Streets. The prospective need of teachers in this field led to the intioduction of a normal course for their education, which has remained a permanent department of the gymnasium. Constantly increasing numbers, and an interest that continued to grow, finally culminated in a demand for a larger hall and better eriuipment. A stock company was formed, which within two months raised the sum of fifty thousand dollars, and during the summer of 1SS6 a build- ing was constructed on St. Botolph and Garrison Streets, known thereafter as the Allen Gymnasium. This contained one of the larg- est and best equipped gymnasiums in the country, with a large nuMiber of private dressing-rooms, lavatories, and lockers, and in the basement six fine bowling alleys.
During the next few years the numbers greatly increased, and hundreds of pupils attended yearly, so that in 1891 still larger accommodations seemed necessary, especially a properly constructed room for the deep-breathing exercises, which have always formed an essential part of the plan of work. An annex was accordingly built, with a room arranged for respiratory M'ork, with special mechanical means for insuring pure air, over another gymnasium hall, while below were exquisitely finished Turkish and Russian baths, and a beautiful swimming-pool. The two buildings occupied a lot one hundred and fifty feet by ninety feet, and the city of Boston may well have been proud of possessing an institution which, devoted as it was to the interests of women and children exclusively, was unique in the annals of the country.
As the years went by, other schools of physical training were^ established, bicycle-riding and athletics became the fashion for women as well as men, and many other causes conspired to render the classes somewhat smaller than heretofore, although the enthusiasm of those who came was undiminished. Accordingly it was finally decided to transfer the gymnasium to the beautifully equipped smaller hall over the Turkish baths, where the work has been successfully carried on for the past four years, and still continues with unabated interest.
It is not simply as an admirable teacher of gymnastics that Miss Allen is entitled to the gratitude of the community. In her carefully worked- out system of physical training, where brain and nuiscles play an equal part, she has made a lasting contribution to educational science. A pioneer, and for a time almost the ordy woman engaged in this line of work, she entered the field just at the time when it was beginning to be felt that order might be brought out of the chaos which had hitherto prevailed in the gymnasium. Prior to this period the comparatively few gymnasiums that existed had been largely used by professionals and those who devoted themselves to the exaggerated development of certain sets of muscles, in order to accomplish feats of strength, agility, or endurance. No all-around develop- ment had yet been attempted. She now threw herself with ardor into the task of organizing some scheme of symmetrical training, and later, as the way opened before her, she ear- nestly strove to lift gymnastics into the domain of education.
At that time the only plea for gymnastics was in the interest of health. While fully con- vinced of the importance of this aim. Miss Allen felt that there was another side of the subject to be brought out, in which the field of investigation was as yet untrotlden. She developed a scheme of progressive gymnastics which would gradvially bring every part of the body under the control of the will. The discovery made a few years later, in the realm of physiological research, of the "motor tracts" in the brain — i.e., definite nerve centres initi- ating and controlling motion in every part of the body — gave the physical trainer a place in the educational field. This cleared the way not only for her, but for others whowere work- ing along similar lines of thought.
The educational value of her work lies in the progressive nature of her scheme of training, in which she has sought to develop the natural sequence of brain action in co-ordi- nated movements. Such education not only results in ph_ysical development, but in the acquisition of courage, alertness, self-possession, nervous control in many ways, general con- centration of thought, and other expansion of the higher nature. "If," to use her own words, "the aim of education is to stimulate thought, and its end to equip one for living, then harmonious brain development is essen- tial. It is now universally conceded that the cultivated brain is not the largest nor the heav- iest, but the one in which the most brain cells are vital, and where the connections between cells are must numerous and intimate: these are the conditions upon which mental vigor depends. No part of the physical brain, there- fore, should be deprived of its fair share in development, and our educators must sooner or later recognize the fatal mistake, found in all our school and college curriculums, of ex- cluding to so great a degree the education of those nerve centres whose ])rimary expression is in motion, but whose vitality reacts in many directions."
The attempt to bring about a wiser attitude toward this department of education, and to give her pupils a clear sense of the culpabil- ity of sickness, which is largely the result of ignorance and self-indulgence, has been the inspiration of her work.
This brief sketch would be quite incomplete without a few words regarding the personality of its subject. Miss Allen is small, slentler, and graceful, with great personal charm, and an unusual amount of that indefinable quality which we call magnetism. She is radical in matters of religion and politics, and takes an active interest in the principal reforms of the day, especially the Woman Suffrage movement. Although her sincerity is uncompromising, and might be called the keynote of her character, yet her sweetness and grace of manner always charm even those of widely differing views. She is an indefatigable worker, never sparing herself in her conscientious devotion to her life work in all its details.
As a teacher, she is most illuminating, always making her pupils think in connection with their work, so as to understand just what they are trying to do; and she detects with unerring wisdom the precise cause of their failures. The.se usually arise from a lack of co-ordina- tion on the part of the pupil: the physical task demanded has not been sufficiently im- pressed upon the brain at the outset, or the muscular forces are sluggish in obeying its behest. Often, in the case of adult pupils, it is .sufficient to call attention to this deficient co-ordination of brain and muscle, in oriler to remedy the trouble completely, whereas a teacher ignorant of this subtle truth might drill a class on the same exercise for hours, without removing the difficulty. This method of true scientific instruction is not only a great economy of time, but also awakens and re- tains the interest of her pupils, who are con- scious that they are always learning something new.
Another source of the unflagging interest aroused by this truly wonderful teacher is her constant introduction of new and vary- ing exercises, without destroying the progres- sive character of the work as a whole. She realizes that human nature loves variety, and that the repetition of one set of movements or one species of activity cannot fail to pall upon the pupil after a time. Accordingly, with inexhaustible fertility of resources, she is continually inventing fresh and interesting work, so that even pupils who have been in her classes for twelve or fifteen years can never sigh for novelty or change.
Miss Allen's strong and attractive pensonality has contributed in no small degree to the suc- cess of her work by winning friends for her on every side, and enlisting the hearty co-opera- tion of her pupils. Certainly no teacher in any field has gained a more . loyal following than hers.
The above gives but a very imperfect idea of the remarkable woman who for the last quarter of a century has contributed, perhaps more than any other one person, toward the vigor and well-being of our women. Her work will surely live after her, both in its con- tribution to educational science and in the increased efficiency of hundreds of human lives.
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