In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

[26] d [Fuller as a Teacher in 1838–1839] Anna Gale and Others Anna Davis Gale (1818–1851), like her best friend Mary Ware Allen, was born in Northborough, Massachusetts. She attended the Green Street School from 19 December 1837 through 7 March 1838, when she was forced to leave because of her father’s financial problems. She married George Barnes (1815–1900), a farmer, in 1842. They had no children. In June, 1837, Margaret Fuller became an assistant teacher in the Green Street School in Providence, Rhode Island. Her connection with Bronson Alcott’s controversial school in Boston had been terminated in the preceding April, and, in spite of her desire to work on a projected life of Goethe, she felt the necessity of the independence which the $1,000 salary as a teacher would provide. Although she taught with reluctance, it is evident from a journal and letters written at the time that she taught well; and the fact that she was revered by many of her pupils is also made clear. The Green Street School, which had opened in June with a dedication by Ralph Waldo Emerson, was under the direction of Mr. Hiram Fuller, who was not related to her. The building was in the architectural form of a Greek Temple, and was elegantly furnished with velvet-covered desks, a library, piano, and busts. Mr. Fuller, while not notably energetic, was an excellent disciplinarian, and he laid great stress upon the good manners of his scholars. In addition to Margaret Fuller, his assistants were Mrs. Nias and Miss Aborn. Both seem to have been competent teachers, but Miss Fuller was primarily interested in developing the originality and independence of thought of her scholars. These glimpses, insofar as they concern her thoughts, show that she practiced what she taught. Her own originality and independence of mind were here at work. Whether the problem under discussion in class was the existence of evil, the occurrence of the millennium, the doctrine of the atonement, or the origins of piety, she wrestled with it on her own and her answer was her own. Her words on it had the aspect of self-communion. Anna Gale and Others [27] There is thus more here than the mere content of her thought—itself of some interest—and it was doubtless this extra ingredient which, in spite of difficulties, won her the extraordinary devotion of some of her students. She was at this time under thirty. A course in Wayland’s Moral Science was the vehicle which she used, in large part, to disturb the preconceived ideas of her eighteen- and nineteenyear -old students, and some of the twists which she gave to Dr. Wayland’s text must have seemed iconoclastic. On January 5, 1838, Anna D. Gale made the following entry in her journal: But the ancients formed no pure, just and sublime conceptions of a Deity, excepting Socrates and his followers. Miss Fuller thought that no one ever had, or ever could exceed the views which he formed, and that if he had lived when Christ was upon the earth, he would have been glad to have owned him as one of his disciples. But those philosophers took no pains to disseminate their views amongst others—they thought the common people were incapable of understanding them. Miss Fuller said that Dr. Wayland’s thoughts would lay upon our minds, like a dry husk, unless they take root sufficiently deep to produce one little thought of our own, something entirely original; then we shall derive advantage from this study. On another occasion, Anna’s journal shows Margaret Fuller struggling with the conceptions of evil and reincarnation: The lesson today is upon the obligation we owe to God. But Miss Fuller said in the recitation room that she did not agree with Dr. Wayland. She thought that since God has created us, he is under obligation to create us capable of being happy; and that we have a claim upon the justice of God, for we cannot conceive of a God without a conscience, and therefore he could not justify himself in creating a being only to be miserable. It is not necessary to bear about us this load of gratitude; there is enough left without this. Miss Fuller said that a question which had troubled many was, why God had not created us, at once, pure and holy like the angels in Heaven?—why there was evil in the world? I ventured...

Share