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[11] d [Fuller as a Teacher in 1837–1838] Mary Ware Allen Mary Ware Allen (1819–1897) of Northborough, Massachusetts, received her education at home (her father was a Unitarian minister) and in private schools in Brookline and Northampton, Massachusetts. She began attending the Green Street School in Providence, Rhode Island, in December 1837, remaining there for less than a year. Allen married Dr. Joshua Jewett Johnson (1809–1884) in 1840, settling in Northborough. The couple had six children, the eldest of whom, Harriet Hall Johnson (1842–1929?), is the author of this essay and the only child to survive to adulthood. Mary Allen was strongly influenced by Fuller’s empowering comments, such as Fuller’s statement to the class that “we must think as well as study, and talk as well as recite.” To Margaret Fuller and her biographers the eighteen months of her employment as “Lady Superior” in the Green Street School, Providence, R.I., were little more than an incident in her remarkable and varied career, but to a small group of the old scholars in that school it was a most important epoch in their lives. The high principles and lofty ideals of the talented woman whom they began by fearing and ended by loving with intense devotion, inspired them with a conscientious regard for duty and courage to meet the trials and discipline of life, which had a large share in the development of their characters ; and through their mutual affection for each other and reverence for their teacher was formed and cemented a friendship which lasted through life, for most of the number a period of nearly sixty years. This remarkable “school-girl friendship” appears to have crystallized around one of their number with whom a close and intimate correspondence was maintained for all that long period, varied by occasional visits to Providence, and receiving her friends in her own home. Among a trunkful of old letters has recently been discovered some of the early letters in this correspondence and also letters written by herself to her parents while a member of the school, which give such vivid pictures of the fuller in her own time [12] daily work in Miss Fuller’s classes, and of her influence upon and personal relations to her pupils, that it has seemed well to reproduce them, in this centennial year of her birth, as a tribute to the woman as well as the genius and scholar. It should be remembered that these are genuine letters, written in the freshness of youth and the exuberance of new and novel experiences, and as such give the pupil’s unbiased opinion of the school and the teacher. Mary [Allen], by and to whom these letters were written, was the eldest daughter of a country minister, himself an educator of some note and influence , with a large family and small salary, who, together with his talented and self-sacrificing wife, was always ready to make every exertion in order to give their children all educational advantages in their power. A much beloved aunt living in Providence was most happy to give Mary a home while there, and thus make it possible for her to become for a few months a member of the school with the special object of availing herself of Miss Fuller’s instructions to the utmost of her ability. In her letters to her parents is told the story of its accomplishment. The first is dated Dec. 20, 1837: I am delighted with the school so far. . . . Do you know, I am more deficient in history than almost anything? If you could only hear one of Miss F.’s recitations in that branch, you would say, “by all means, study history.” I heard the recitation in that and in Smellie, on Tuesday, and cannot find words to express my delight and wonder. It is worth a journey to P[rovidence]. to hear Miss Fuller talk. I was very much pleased with the latter recitation, and, if I have time, I think I shall study it, for I want to be with Miss F. as much as possible. . . . I love Miss Fuller already, but I fear her. I would not for a great deal offend her in any way. She is very satirical, and I should think might be very severe. She formed a class in rhetoric to-day, which I have joined, and which, with her, I think will be made very useful and interesting. We are...

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