The life of Naomi Norsworthy

Contents

Foreword by Dean James E. Russell vii

I. Introductory . i

II. The Mother i8

Foreword

How shall one tell the life-story of another? The attempt is foredoomed to failure. Even if it were possible to trace mechanically every action to its source, it would take a lifetime to tell the story. The author of this book is fortunate, it seems to me, in that she has not sought to write a detailed biography or make a sketch or give a portrait of Naomi Norsworthy. It is rather a tribute of a friend to a friend, with just enough detail to show why that friendship was close and reciprocal.

The most striking characteristic of Miss Norsworthy was her genius for friendship. No student of hers, no casual acquaintance even, but felt drawn to her as if by a magnet. Her attraction was enhanced by rare intellectual powers and by her gift of logical exposition. But it was not her intellect that brought her friends; it was a boundless sympathy welling up from a heart genuinely interested in others' welfare. She met every advance more than halfway, and she gave unstintingly of herself to all who sought her aid.

This ability to reach out to the other person, viii FOREWORD

to Interpret another's need, and to give sympathetic assistance from a rich store of scholarly attainments was what made her a great teacher. She never taught to entertain; she made no pretense of calling hard things easy or crooked things straight. Master of herself through systematic discipline, she knew how to Inspire others to meet difficulties courageously. Her standards of success were found In the performance of duty, and to these standards she held both herself and her students.

There was withal In her something of the Puritan. Her lovable nature, cheerful disposition, and largeness of heart were tempered with a natural reserve and controlled by a searching conscience that often led her Into conflict with herself. In time of stress she needed a confessor. The revelation of herself at such times disclosed the weakness of the Woman and the strength of the devotee. Had she been born In another faith or In an earlier age, she might have been the Mother Superior of a religious order. As It was, she became a teacher, and, faithfully following in the footsteps of the Master, she spent herself that others might have life and have it more abundantly.

James E. Russell.

THE LIFE OF NAOMI NORSWORTHY

THE LIFE OF NAOMI NORSWORTHY

No one knowing the radiant personality that was Naomi Norsworthy will question the reason for her life-history; none but will question the possibility that words or portraiture can be found to carry over that radiance and that personality in any satisfying way to others so unfortunate as never to have known her. Many times since her death, hundreds have remarked their desire for some written memorial that might crystallize about her name an interpretation, however faint, of her life and its ideals, wonderfully made manifest in her daily coming and going. All of us have known the human need of some tangible thing about which associa* tions may gather; we desire to treasure keepsakes of those who have left us, to talk of them, to hear others talk of them, to find in such utterances confirmation and approval of our own sense of values. To ignore the dead is un^ forgivable; we would remember, and in remembering, find faint solace. She was too rare a being for her life to pass unchronicled, — a belief so universally felt and expressed that it is both justification and plea for this biography.

Let none think the undertaking has been lightly entered upon. On the contrary, it has been essayed with full knowledge of the impossibility of ever depicting her as the vibrant, life-giving thing she was. To attempt to recreate any image of her would be but a mockery, foredoomed, was not that attempt hallowed by the hope of becoming an expression that somehow may serve the high purpose of thrilling into lasting being memories already enshrined in hearts throughout this country. Many lives she touched but faintly, hampered by mutual limits of time and chance, and these have not forgotten her; other lives she wrought deeply upon, even to the changing of currents and shores, and these have not forgotten her. All have wished for an avenue of expression for their vast regret for her too-soon end; they will welcome pages that will help bring back memories and thoughts of her. The words of one lamenting message, that came during the last days of her fated suffering, said: "Hearts, North, South, East, West, are praying for you, remembering all you have been to them and to that broader world where you have helped them better to aspire.'* These hearts that, knowing, loved her, and the things for which she stood, who have desired some memorial in words, however impotent, to bind together the simple facts of her life in a lasting form, are the inspiration of this record.

It is but fair to make clear in the beginning the difficulties that beset the delineation. Two obstacles especially to be considered are: first, the lack of data concerning Dr. Nors worthy; and second, the discouragement engendered by a thousand assurances as to the insuperability of the task of ever putting into form any just idea of her personality. To these two diflSculties may be added a third. Miss Norsworthy's instinctive distaste for publicity of any kind, a fact which makes "the little of that little'' on record scarcely available for use. That there is slight material to draw on for a biography is not surprising to any one who knew her. She believed that nothing pertaining to herself could matter; she minimized all she achieved, so that there is less material concerning her than may be found about the ordinary person. Even those exponents of the usual life commonly used as biographic material, letters, are scarcely to be had. It is not that they do not exist in scores, for they do, but that they are so intimate and peculiar to those persons to whom they were written that a natural and proper reticence forbids their printing as wholes. She did much public speaking, at religious gatherings, teachers' conventions, and mothers' meetings, but always from the fewest possible notes. Who that has heard her speak can forget the rapid utterance, the quick mentality, and ready enthusiasm that characterized these talks .^^ Her method was personal, the free exchange of intimate intercourse; formal presentation in written speech appealed to her not at all. The expressions of her professional self that she felt constrained to undertake on pressure from those friends and advisers who thought her too gQod a leader not to produce, the two books, the "Psychology of Childhood" and "How to Teach," on which she spent part of the last two or three years of her life were destined to be thrown into final shape by hands other than her own. In her busy existence she wanted to leave behind no ungathered scraps for others to clear away, and in consequence there is slight testimony which might serve to help set forth her life.

And what of the second obstacle, the discouragement fostered by the attitude of those who well knew her as to the hopelessness erf making alive any word-image? It is oppressive. This atmosphere of the impossible task is intensified by the knowledge of her own shrinking from analysis or observation. Granted that achievement for adequate portraiture is not to be, yet there may be wrought out an obscure likeness that somehow, somewhere, may bring back a fresher understanding of her contribution to the world -— a life wrought in harmony with the higher spiritual laws of being. Her days were more than a mere series of incidents; they were records of deep spiritual experiences. By virtue of such living, her worth was recognized and her power made manifest. Not to see this strength is to miss the essential fact; it is to know naught of

"The Hills where her life rose, And the Sea where it gQt%'\

Miss Norsworthy was a person about whom it was easy to be curious. Succeeding generations of students at Teachers College puzzled over the secret of her personality, and found great pleasure in comparing conclusions. Several legends grew up around her name, none of which, it is scarcely needful to say, is true. *'The mystery of a person," says Carlyle, "is ever divine to him that hath a sense of the god-like.'' It was the strong spiritual quality in her that appealed provokingly to the universal "sense of the god-like" in others. "What makes her like that?" "Did you ever see any one just like her?" "What is the secret of her?" were some of the ever-recurring questions asked in the attempt to penetrate this mystery of the divine in the human. Those nearest her might smile patiently^ — for had they not heard these same questionings for years ? — and yet neither time nor chance nor change could bring them any nearer the reading of the riddle. Close friends were as far from its solution as the most remote. One can but wonder if there was not mixed much of this spirit of curiosity, however unconscious, in the desire to crowd about her, to draw from her. Who that knew her daily life but knew the insatiate desire of friends and acquaintances to be with her?

The mystery of a person is divine, as Carlyle says, but mystery it remains. In a temperament like Miss Norsworthy's, it is not only elusive; it is also alluring. Wherein could have lain the secret of her power over human hearts? There is nothing subtle in the outward facts of her biography. The child of parents who had adopted this country after their first youth had passed, and who scarcely ever felt other than alien here; thrust into the life of a great city, she had no influential friends save of her own making, no financial means save from her own striving. Frail in reality no less than appearance, professing no genius nor prowess of any kind, scorning means of advancement that would have been of mere seeming value, Naomi Norsworthy, by sheer weight of will and the purity and power of her spiritual ideals, made for herself a distinguished place peculiarly her own in the greatest professional school in America.

It may be said that at no time did Miss Norsworthy hold a conspicuous position in her profession. Her rank in Teachers College was that of Associate Professor in Educational Psylo NAOMI NORSWORTHY

chology, surely one unassuming enough. When opportunities came for seeming advancement, offers of posts of influence in other institutions, she somehow could not put away the idea that she belonged to Teachers College. She was much in demand all over this country for talks on child-study, demands she was indifferent about meeting, largely because she felt her work suffered from them. Her niche she felt to be there in the daily round of duties and people in Teachers College.

What made her the power that she was.^ The iteration of the question is its only answer. All knew her as a woman of great simplicity. She had tastes notably feminine; she lacked one kind of aggressiveness, a cause for reproach among those of her friends who felt she should be stirred to action on the score of Suffrage. She was straightforward to a degree, frankly unpretentious, fun-loving, full of the teasing spirit of the child, and yet these attributes have in them nothing of distinction, possessed as they are by thousands of women who never wake others by the inspiration of personal charm. In such characteristics as these can be found no reason why ^'Hearts, North, South,

INTRODUCTORY ii

East, West," should turn to her for inspiration. It is trite to say there is no answer to the mystery of such people. The secret must remain an inescapable spur to the thoughts of all of us who know them, children of the lavish gifts that they are. With nothing of the zeal of the reformer, or the mania of the enthusiast, Miss Norsworthy professed complete assurance in but one thing, the worth of the Pattern to which her life was consecrated. She never in any remote way knew her power over others ; she only knew the fullness of her desire to meet others* needs, to respond to them, to serve them, in all humility. This attribute, her great desire for consecrated service, helped to mould her into the nobly great leader that she was.

Again and again has been remarked by hundreds of those who studied under her how she could put confidence into her students, imbuing them with a new belief in their knowledge and ability, filling them, seemingly, with something of her own quick perceptions and powers of expression. There was necromancy in it! Others aspired to her aspirations for them, rose to levels hitherto unknown to themselves. Her subtle understanding and encouragement fused themselves through all reserve, or uncertainty, or other hindering thing, and one spoke a new and pleasant language. He had found himself!

There can be no question that the secret of this revivifying power had its answer hidden as effectively from Miss Norsworthy as from those who were so curiously interested in it. All who knew her acknowledged and gloried in this inspirational gift; to her it remained unknown. Whenever any one was so bold as to refer to it, the reference was met with a scornful denial of the existence of this power in her. ^' It is n't so'* was the terse refutation with which she silenced such comments about herself. Yet all who knew her, however slightly, all who bitterly deplore her loss to the world, have felt it and been grateful for it.

A thought inexpressibly sad is that the tingling charm of such a person is forever untranslatable. For those who did not know her there can be little meaning in saying, "This she was.'' For, after all, one can but despair of giving a vital conception of what she really was. To no other woman known to most of us can so justly be applied Wordsworth's well-known characterization :

**A Spirit still, and bright, With something of an angel light.*'

Stress must be put on the fact of Miss Norsworthy's distaste for any form of publicity. Reserve is not the correct name for what is here referred to, strong though her reserve was; it is a. more fundamental, a less conscious thing. To her eyes, the facts of her life, inward or outward, were of no concern to herself or to others. She never spoke of herself or her past. It is an odd fact that incidents of her childhood and upgrowing, such as remain with most people as pleasant reminiscences to be smiled over and recounted in the mellow light of the years, were with her as blank as though they had never been. This fact is, of course, the outcome of the habitual minimizing of herself and all appertaining to that self. She was in and of to-day; the past was secure, the future to be met, but to-day was hers, to be lived to its fullest. Her own past or its ideas did not matter to her, and never were they allowed to obtrude themselves between her and those who cared to draw upon what that past had made her. Neither objectively nor subjectively was she interested in herself. Every question from any source about her or her past, what she liked or had done, never failed to elicit the one answer: "Don't ask me; I do not remember." Being pressed, she would laugh off the questioner till he was forced to believe she not only did not remember, but did not care to. Her life did not know, seemed never to have known, one moment of selfcenteredness or introspection. From her viewpoint she had been brought to the passing moment happily, consciously filled with the deep desire to make each second yield its fullest, be it freighted with keen joy or crowning sorrow; and so occupied was she lest she should miss the fullest of the present that the perspective seems to have left slight impress. The attribute that might casually be taken for personal reserve was rather the lack of any serious taking-ofherself; it was a perfect absence of all self-consciousness, so rare a human quality that its presence as a marked trait might of itself have given to her character distinction.

Notably different from others, also, was the way in which Miss Norsworthy accepted the loving appreciation of the many who, realizing her value, tried to find expression for that recognition. It never seemed to occur to her that she had such tributes of appreciation more often than most people, certainly never that it was so because she deserved them more. These countless evidences of the good-will and friendship of others she considered but parts of a chorus by which all knowing hearts swell the volume of life's music, means employed by comrades to cheer one another on the Open Road. Always they made her very happy, because they whispered of that spirit of comradeship. \ A detailed study of Dr. Norsworthy's character belongs rightly to a chapter other than an introductory one, yet it seems but proper that here in the beginning should be the stressing of what, after all, was the keynote of that wonderful life, — the vast prodigality with which she gave of time, of strength, of self, of all she had and was. Many times has been commented the possibility that in this lavish spending might be found a remote reason for her death at thirtynine. How royally she did give! With the fullness of morning, never reckoning on what wide horizon might fall the richness, she poured out her numbered days. When those who would have had her spare herself, particularly during the last years of her life, grew brave enough to remonstrate over her serious lack of self-consideration, her answer to all had the one burden, *' What does it matter? I shall not live to be old anyway, and why not let me live while I can? Each of us must find the way best for one's self, and this is mine." How truly based was her prophetic feeling as to the shortness of her life was little dreamed by those nearest her who could but grieve over her excessive prodigality. There was something primitive in the wastefulness of this generosity. She was a sower who scattered seeds lavishly, remembering, it may be, how few of them are humanly destined for fruitful soil. Never too tired, never too busy, never too ill was she for a patient listening to all the plans and troubles and aspirations brought to her by a world of perplexed and weary people who through her learned again their simple faith in the possibility of perfect human sympathy. This note of universality in her, so intense and unfailing, endeared her to thousands whom helping, she inspired.

It is evident that a character like Miss Norsworthy's has difficulties of delineation apart from the elusiveness of its personal charm; she was at once simple and complex, wholly simpie in her lack of all consciousness or assumption, and wholly complex in her vast responsiveness, in the ease with which she entered into countless natures seemingly different from her own. Her richness and depth and range vibrated constantly to the thousand lives about her; and in every such person is a profundity born not so much of reality as of circumstance. There is an ideal of the ancient Greeks thus expressed: "The man whose senses, imagination, and reason are unfolded in their highest reach; who has the keenest eye, the surest hand, the truest ear, the richest voice; whose life moves on in rhythmical accord with God, nature, man, with no discord to break its monotony and to be resolved in the harmony of its peaceful and painless close: this is the ideal being whose nature is unfolded without imperfection or sin to perpetual happiness and joy." Could a better description be found for her who so "held the pass-key of hearts"?

II

An adequate understanding of Miss Norsworthy's life is scarcely possible unless due prominence is given to the factor that her mother was therein; so this chapter shall be devoted to the mother, a woman no less unusual than the daughter. Between them was intimate friendship, a close kinship, but more of character than of temperament. How very proud they were of each other! Miss Norsworthy said ^* my mother" in a tone that breathed an exultant note of joy in a valued possession; she never failed to make her mother known to any one whom she wished especially to honor.

Mrs. Norsworthy was the peculiar genius as well as the undenied autocrat of her family throughout her life. Her children could but feel that they owed their all to her ambition and forcefulness. She possessed the reticence, the pride, the dogged persistence, and the indomitable pluck of your true Briton. That she was

English she never forgot, and she took pains to live up to the finer traditions of her race.

Eve Ann Norsworthy, nee Modridge, was born in Broadclyst, Devonshire, England, in 1844. Her father seems to have been fairly wellto-do. She must have been a vigorous child, for she was a woman of enduring physical powers. Miss Modridge was educated at a "young ladies' seminary,^' the principal of which was the maiden aunt of Mr. Norsworthy. Through this aunt, she met her future husband while visiting her former teacher at Torquay, the Norsworthy family home. There is a romance wrapped up in the court paid Miss Modridge by the two nepheiws of her hostess, themselves first cousins. Her choice fell on Samuel B. Norsworthy, a young man of twenty-one, just through serving his apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer. It was an unexpected bit of sentiment in one of Mrs. Norsworthy's type when, in the last year of her life, nearly seventy years old she was, she surprised her daughter Naomi by pulling from its hxding-place of fifty years a poem addressed to her by the rejected lover, which no one else had ever seen.

Samuel B. Norsworthy came of Devonshire stock that had produced in one of its branches the great sea-rover, Admiral Drake. In the good old English way he had been apprenticed to a mechanical engineer to ^^ learn by doing." This apprenticeship had just ended at the time he became engaged to Miss Modridge, and being anxious to establish himself independently, he asked his mother for funds for working capital. For some reason she did not accede promptly to his request, though she had done for an older brother as much as he asked. Mr. Norsworthy, in a fit of pique at what he considered unjust treatment, left home and struck forth into the world. Coming to America, he lived for a time in New York City, and then enlisted in the United States Navy, serving for five years. At the close of his enlistment, during which he had cruised to the four corners of the world, he left the navy and set up in business in China, where he stayed two years, and then returned to New York. Naturally, in his years of naval service, he had not progressed far towards accumulating a competence that would have enabled him to marry. At best, he seems on his own testimony to have had little of the genius of accumulation in him. All hi€ life he enjoyed spending money, a trait his daughter could very easily appreciate, because she, too, had it. After he had been away from England and his affianced eight years, he crossed over in 1875, and they were married.

I The eight years of his absence had been full of change for Miss Modridge. Her father had died, and the property had gone to the oldest child, a brother, leaving her and her sister dependent on their own efforts. The sister soon married, the mother went to live with her, and the future Mrs. Norsworthy accepted a position as governess, being recommended particularly for her ability to teach French and music. How long she was a governess is not clear, but the news that her fiance's mother was very ill brought to her one of those duties concerning which throughout her life she knew no hesitation. She gave up her means of support and went to live with her mother-in-law to be. For two years she devoted her life to caring for the elderly woman. The invalid blessed her with the best wish she knew: if the future Mrs. Norsworthy should ever have a daughter, that she might be to her mother the strength and comfort that Miss Modridge had been to her. Mrs. Norsworthy delighted to tell this reminiscence; she was sure that the wonderful daughter that came later to her was the fulfillment of this prayer of her mother-in-law's. It is in this association with her husband's people that the reason for the name "Naomi" is to be found: "Thy people shall be my people."

The older Mrs. Norsworthy must have been herself a woman of much force of character. Certainly she had the power of inspiring devoted love and admiration in the young woman who willingly ministered to her; more than this, her ideals left so deep an impress on Miss Modridge that they became part of her life. She had been reared a member of the Established Church of England, and before going to live with Mrs. Norsworthy, had subscribed to its tenets and supposedly had been satisfied with them. Mrs. Norsworthy was a Dissenter, one of the "Plymouth Brethren." This denomination came into existence about the same time as Methodism, and is far stronger in numbers and influence in England than in this country. It is plainly a tribute to the religious faith of the elder Mrs. Norsworthy that her life and religion should have impressed a person of Miss Modridge's decided nature to the point of giving up the creed of her fathers. Surely it cannot lightly be said that the Church of England has a slight hold on its members. There is that well-known something in human creatures which once habituated to a stately ritual is not satisfied without it, a trait particularly strong in the English, traditionally reverential as they are to the past and its customs. That Miss Modridge should put aside the form of worship her fathers had known for generations to ally herself with another bespeaks some experience commonly called "conversion."

It is not amiss to glance aside for a moment at the doctrine of the Plymouth Brethren, for undoubtedly it was an enormous power in Mrs. Norsworthy's life, and through her, in Miss Norsworthy's. Briefly then: the Plymouth Brethren believe in the literal Interpretation of the Bible and its application to daily life. Their organization and discipline are characterized by extreme simplicity, having evidently much in common with the Quaker faith. They await the "moving of the spirit" in meeting, believe in the leading of the "inner light," in a personal God, and therefore in the supreme efficacy of personal prayer. They are "pre-millennialists/* which term interpreted by an outsider appears to mean a belief in the Second Coming of Christ when all true Christians will be translated hither, and all non-Christians will be disavowed. The Second Coming is at all times imminent, and being so, the individual must be ever on guard lest he be found unworthily engaged. This doctrine, of course, is in broad terms closely akin to the old Puritan ideas that left such ineradicable marks on the history of our own New England. It is ^^other-worldliness." Necessarily it precludes at once and unheard the temporary pleasures of the passing moment.

Edmund Gosse, in his delightful biographical volume, "Father and Son,'' talks interestingly of this sect, of no little influence in "those days of the wide revival of Conscience.'* He says: "They met only with a few extreme Calvinists like themselves on terms of what may almost be called negation, with no priest, no ritual, no festivals, no ornament of any kind, nothing but the Lord's Supper and the exposition of Holy Scripture drawing these austere spirits into any sort of cohesion. They called themselves the * Brethren* simply, a title enlarged by the world outside into Plymouth Brethren. • . . Pleasure was found nowhere but in the word of God, and to the endless discussion of the Scriptures each hurried when the day was over. . • . The peculiarities of a family life founded upon such principles are in relation to a little child obvious. Here was perfect purity, perfect intrepidity, perfect negation; yet there was also narrowness, isolation, an absence of perspective, . . . My parents founded every action, every attitude, upon their interpretation of the Scriptures, and upon the guidance of Divine Will.^' Of his mother, he says: *'A Puritan in grain, never a word escaped from her, nor a phrase to suggest she had any privations.'' The characterization might have been made of Miss Norsworthy's mother. In this atmosphere of *^ perfect purity, perfect intrepidity, perfect negation," the sensitively endowed nature of Naomi Norsworthy grew to its fine fruition.

Mrs. Norsworthy subscribed to the tenets of the Brethren with the loyalty of an Intense if repressed nature. It was essentially in keeping with her simplicity and directness that their doctrine should meet with her belief and support. During the years she lived in New Jersey where those of this faith were few, she kept in close touch with the little group with which she had at once associated herself when she came to New York from England.