The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

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THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

time out of school hours in giving him instruction. All the
young people in my charge belonged to good families, had
been well trained, and possessed that polish and refinement
of manner that comes from travel and association with intelligent and cultivated people. Most of them were the
children of shipmasters, whose wives frequently accompanied their husbands on voyages, and some of my pupils
had been born on the ocean, or in foreign ports. Their
homes abounded in collections of foreign curiosities, alabaster vases, bronzes, statuettes, curious glasses of exquisite
form and mould, in every shade of iridescence, baskets made
of bamboo, ivory carvings, painted wood-work, in short,
bric-a-brac of all kinds. The town was rich in foreign importations, brought home by the masters of vessels and
their crews.
I informed my pupils on the opening day that the school
was to be self-governed; there were to be no punishments
for offenses, no rewards for well doing. Each one must
conform to the rules of the school as a matter of honor, or
must leave it. Every young man was expected to be a gentleman, every one of the young girls a lady. They must
master their studies, not that they might avoid losing a
place in the class, or to gain a better position, but for the
sake of the knowledge that would result from their efforts.
I required courtesy from the young people in dealing with
each other, and desired them to enter the schoolroom from
the dressing-room, as they would a private parlor.
I soon discovered that they were largely endowed with
musical ability, when we organized a little orchestra of violins, 'cellos, and other instruments, and thereafter every session of the school was opened with music, vocal and instrumental. They sang well and easily, - mastered new tunes,
even when complicated. The musical selections for the