Representative women of New England/Pauline J. Walden
PAULINE J. WALDEN, LUCY JAMESON SCOTT, AND LOUISE MANNING HODGKINS are officially connected with the monthly publications of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Miss Walden may be considered the dean of the journalistic corps, she having occupied the responsible position of publisher for more than twenty years. Mrs. Scott accepted the editorship of the Children's Friend in 1890; and Miss Hodgkins, on the occasion of the annual executive meeting of the society at St. Paul, Minn., in 1893, was elected editor of its official organ, now known as the Woman's Missionary Friend, originally the Heathen Woman's Friend. These publications and two others, Frauen Missions Freund and The Study, are issued monthly at 36 Bromfield Street, the Boston office of the above named society.
The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America was organized in the Treniont Street Methotlist Episcopal Church, Boston, on a stormy March day in 1869 by eight women who responded to a call sent to thirty churches. A window in the Tremont Street Church commemorates the event and preserves their names. The first public meeting of the society was held in the Bromfield Street Methodist Episcopal Church, May 26, 1869. The speaking was quickly followed by decisive action. At a business meeting held by the women at the close of the public occasion it was voted to raise money to send as a missionary to India Miss Isabella Thoburn, sister of Bishop Thoburn. An appeal for a medical woman soon followed. As a result of prompt and efficient measures to procure funds, the services of Miss Thoburn and of Clara A. Swain, M.D., were secured. These two women sailed from New York for India, via England, on November 3, 1869, reaching their destination early in January, 1870. These first laborers of the new society in a foreign field were cordially received, and soon entered upon a good work, Miss Thoburn organizing schools and superintending the work of Bible readers, and Dr. Swain's medical ability gaining for her admission to many places that were closed to others. This society sent to India, China, Korea, and Japan the first woman medical missionary ever received in those countries. Now, in its thirty-fourth year (1903) it has two hundred and sixty-five missionaries carrying on its work in far India, China, Japan, Korea, Africa, Bulgaria, Italy, South America, Mexico, and the Philippines, by means of women's colleges, high schools, seminaries, hospitals, dispensaries, day schools, and "settlement work," as it is called in America.
The society was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York in 1884. Its receipts during the first year were four thousand five hundred forty-six dollars and eighty-six cents, and in the year 1903 four hundred ninety-one thousand ninety-one dollars and seventy-five cents, with a total from the beginning of six million eight hundred and fifty thousand eight hundred fifty-three dollars. Six Branches were organized the first year. There are now eleven, the first the New England, and the eleventh the Columbia River Branch.
The first number of the society's first periodical, the Heathen Woman's Friend, appeared in June, 1869. Mrs. Warren, wife of William F. Warren, D.D., President of Boston University, was its editor for twenty-four years, beginning at the time when women editors were so rare as to make the position one of isolation. Financially it was a plunge into the unexplored wilderness, there being no money behind the paper and no influence, except that of a handful of women whose hearts and brains were devoted to sending to foreign fields their first missionaries. But the result proved to be a financial success, for in thirty years it not only paid its own expenses, but contributed over thirty thousand dollars for the publication and scattering of leaflets and other missionary literature which has proved to be the " leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations." Mrs. Warren penned her last editorial, "The Bugle-call," on Thursday, January 5, 1893, two days before the close of her earthly life.
Harriet Cornelia Merrick Warren, daughter of John M. and Mary J. Merrick, was born in Wilbraham, Mass., September 15, 1843, and was educated at Wilbraham Academy, of which her father was a trustee. Married April 14, 1861, to the Rev. William F. Warren, she went with him to Bremen, Germany, where he served for some time as a professor in the Missions-Anstalt. Possessed of scholarly tastes and capabilities, Mrs. Warren while abroad continued to cultivate her mind, successfully pursuing advanced studies in history, languages, literature, music, and art, also spending some time profitably with her husband in travelling. " She returned after five years a large-minded and thoroughly equipped woman, full of resources, and with good practical judgment and tact that admirably fitted her for the position .she was to occupy as the wife of a man at the head of one of the most important educational enterprises in the church and in the country." She was an untiring worker in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, its first recording secretary, and for years president of the New England Branch, and an accomplished editor.
Louise Maxning Hodgkins, M.A., Mrs. Warren's successor in the editorial chair, has won for herself a name in both literary and educational fields. Born in Ipswich, Mass., August 5, 1846, daughter of Daniel Lummuis and Mary (Willett) Hodgkins, she is a descendant of early .settlers of that historic town. For two years in her girlhood she attended the Ipswich Seminary, then under the charge of Mrs. Eunice P. Cowles. At Wesieyan Academy, Wilbraham, where she was next enrolled as a pupil, she was grailuated in 1870. For six years (1870-76) she was connected with Lawrence University at Appleton, Wis., both as a teacher and student. She received from the institution her degree of Master of Arts in 1876. In 1877, as professor of English literature at Wellesley College, she entered upon her next notable educational work, beginning a term of efficient antl highly appreciated service, that lasted fourteen years. The enterprise was a new one, and upon her devolved the task of arranging a course of study in her department suited to the needs of the times. In 1891 she resigned her professorship, that she might give her time solely to literary work. She has been successful both as an author and lecturer. Among the books that she has written may be named "Nineteenth Century Authors of Great Britain and the United States," "Study of the English Language," and "Via Christi," the last a fascinating volume of missionary annals, published by Macmillan in October, 1902, which in less than two years had reached a sale of nearly fifty thousand copies. Miss Hodgkins has edited Milton's Lyrics and Matthew Arnold's "Sohrab ami Rustum."
To the Woman'a Missionary Friend Miss Hodgkins, it is said, "has given a fresh impetus on many lines, and it is not surprising that its subscription list lengthens each year."
Miss Hodgkins has visited Europe four times for special studies, attending lectures at the College Français in Paris, studying in the Girls' Normal School at Hanover and with private tutors in Leipzig and Berlin, also in the University of Oxford. Her present home is in Auburndale, Mass.
Lucy Amelia Jameson, now Mrs. Lucy Jameson Scott, was born in Irasburg, Vt., November 27, 1843, daughter of Alexander and Sarah (Locke) Jameson. She completed her school studies at the Vermont Conference Seminary, and was graduated as the valedictorian of her class. On July 17, 1867, she became the wife of the Rev. Orange W. Scott, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Soon after the organization of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society Mr. Scott was pastor of a church in Haverhill, Mass. Joining an auxiliary, Mrs. Scott served for some time as its corresponding secretary, later as the first secretary of the New Hampshire Conference. In 1874 she represented the New England Branch at the executive committee meeting. As the years went on, she became more and more widely known as a worker in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society and Woman's Christian Temperance Union and as a contributor to the Youth's Companion and other popular papers, as well as to religious periodicals, also as a writer of books for Sunday-school libraries. The latest of her productions is "Twelve Little Pilgrims," published by Revell, an interesting story and a valuable book to interest children in missionary work. Since this writer of children's books and stories became, in 1890, editor of the Children s Missionary Friend, this publication has reached a circulation of nearly thirty thousand. Time has shown that she is the right woman in the right place. Mrs. Scott is the mother of three sons and two daughters.
Pauline J. Walden, chosen at the meeting in Philadelphia in November, 1882, to succeed Mrs. Daggett as the publishing agent of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, entered at once upon the duties of this position. As publisher of the four periodicals above mentioned and general manager of affairs at the Bromfield Street office, she has shown herself thoroughly qualified to administer the trusts committed to her charge, and can perhaps be best described in the words of a Boston business man of forty years' experience, "Why, according to her opportunity, she's one of the best business men in the city." She, too, is a New England woman. Born in Lynn, Mass., she is of mingled Methodist and Quaker ancestry.
In the summer of 1897 she visited England and Europe for the purpose of studying missionary work, giving considerable time to the work of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society in Rome. In the spring and summer of 1903 she made a tour to the Pacific coast, visiting California, Oregon, and Washington, embracing the Columbia River and Pacific Branches of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, in the interests of the work. The total monthly output of the four periodicals is now (December, 1903) over ninety-five thousand. with eighty-eight thousand nine hundred seventy-six paid subscriptions. Miss Waldcn, with her genial manners and her cheering business budget, has been a welcome official visitor at annual executive committee meetings. With her clear head, her lofty aims, and earnest spirit, she is an appreciated force in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.