Educators From The United States

"I had always resented the pains that militant suffragists took to belittle the work that woman had done in the past in the world, picturing her as a meek and prostrate "doormat." They refused, I felt, to pay proper credit to the fine social and economic work that women had done in the building of America. And in 1909, after we took over the American Magazine, I burst out with a series of studies of leading American women from the Revolution to the Civil War, including such stalwarts as Mercy Warren, Abigail Adams, Esther Reed, Mary Lyon, Catharine Beecher, the fighting antislavery leaders-not omitting two for whom I had warm admiration, if I was not in entire agreement with them, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony."

"One single vulgar, or deceitful, or licentious domestic may, in a single month, mar the careful an anxious training of years."

"It is to be lamented that the principle of national patriotism has had very little nourishment in our country, and, instead, has given place to sectional or state partialities. The South and the North, the East and the West, instead of uniting to cherish common interests and a common amor patriae, have rather been thrown apart by clashing interests and jealousies, while this sacred principle has been drawn around only some small portion of our common country."

"The daughters of wealth have there intellectual faculties and their sensibilities developed, while all the household labor, which would equally develop their physical powers, and save from ill-health, is turned off to hired domestics, or a slaving mother. The only remedy for this evil is, securing a proper education for all classes, and making productive labor honorable, by having all classes engage in it."

"Our two millions of little children, who are growing up in heathenish darkness, enchained in ignorance, and in many cases, where the cold law provides for them, enduring distress of body and mind greater than is inflicted on criminals, whee is the benevolent association for their relief? Where is there a periodical sported by the charitable, to tell the tale of their wrongs! Where is there a single man sustained by Christian benevolent to operate in their behalf? Instead of spending time and money and employing agents to save the children of our country from ignorance and sin, the whole benevolent energies of the Christian world are engaged to remedy the evils that spring from this neglect. Children are left to the full influence of ignorance and neglect till moral health and strength are ruined, and then the cure is sought in temperance lectures, Bibles, tracts, colporteurs, and home missions. If all the labor and money spent for these objects at the West, for the last twenty years, had bene employed in securing, for the generation now on the stage, six hours a day of good moral and intellectual training by well qualified teachers, who will firm that the result would not have been better?"

"Work of all kinds is got from poor women, at prices that will not keep soul and body together; and then the articles thus made are sold for prices that give monstrous profits to the capitalist, who thus grows rich on the hard labors of our sex"

"Permit me first to present some facts in regard to the situation of an immense number of young children in this land, for whom your sympathies at this time are sought. Few are aware of the deplorable destitution of our country in regard to the education of the rising generation, or of the long train of wrongs and sufferings endured by multitudes of young children from this neglect."

"Two millions of American children are left without any teachers at all, while, of those who go to school, a large portion of the youngest and tenders are turned over to coast, hard, unfeeling men, too lazy or too stupid to follow the appropriate duties of their sex."

"There is almost nothing which a man cannot believe, if only he wishes to believe it"

"While every intelligent man in the Union is reading and saying every day of his life that unless our children are trained to intelligence and virtue, the nation is ruined; yet there is nothing else for which so little interest is felt, or so little done"

"The educating of children, that is the true and noble profession of a woman — that is what is worthy the noblest peers and affections of the noblest minds."

"Another cause which deeply affects the best interests of our sex is the contempt, or utter neglect ad indifference, which has befallen this only noble profession open to woman. There is no employment, however disagreeable or however wicked, which custom and fashion cannot render elegant, interesting, and enthusiastically sought. A striking proof of this is seen in the military profession. This is the profession of killing our fellow-creatures, and is attended with everything low, brutal, unchristian, and disgusting; and yet what halos of glory have been hung around it, and how the young, and generous, and enthusiastic have been drawn into it! If one-half the poetry, fiction, oratory, and taste thus misemployed had been used to embellish and elevate the employment of training the mind of childhood, in what an altered position should we find this noblest of professions!"

"It is the high character of my countrywomen, and the great power and influence they thus command, which has been my chief encouragement in laboring in this cause."

"Their blood, 'like Jesus Christ the spirit of sacrifice'. In real life, such admiration was often tempered by prejudice and hostility."

"If we continue to let children go to their deaths and thousands of women to their degradation, a clash is bound to come sooner or later. Why not avert it with your ballots?"

"Hundreds of thousands, nay millions of American children, are sacrificed yearly on its altar."

"There were a number of outstanding Jewish women among American socialists, chief among them Theresa Malkiel, who began her career as a union organiser in the 1890s, and Rose Pastor Stokes, who later became a leading figure in the Communist Party, but their involvement in union affairs was less important than their role as propagandists."

"Your forefathers achieved independence by fighting with muskets, but you live in an age when the guns are in the possession of your opponents. You don’t need guns, for you can accomplish more than your forefathers did, by the use of your ballots."

"In Malkiel's (fictitious) Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker, a work of propaganda, she puts into the mouth of her narrator, an American 'Mary', admiration for the Jewish girls who seemed to have in"

"Malkiel wrote of women as victims of 'the breeding beast', took a Jewish fellow socialist to task for praising women as 'instinctual, intuitive creatures' and looked forward to a socialist society in which 'women would cease to be idle candidates for marriage, children no longer a burden, and women would return to a primeval freedom'."

"Come, my sisters, let us shake off our fetters; let us rise and assert our rights. It is time! The bugle call sounds louder and louder; my toiling sisters of the world, arise!"

"Again and again we will hear a despondent voice exclaiming: “What is the use? Life is too dull and empty; it is hardly worth living.” And yet there is so much to live for, there is so much to be accomplished in this wide, wide world, and neither father, brother, husband or sweetheart can do our art for us. She who wants to be free must herself strike the blow; and strike we will, my sisters. Not with swords and hatchets, as man was wont to do, but through our intelligence and energy, through our efforts to rise above the spirit of greed and exploitation."

"Following the general deduction that the majority of children go to work because of the immediate need of bread, we must give them their daily bread if they are to live."

"It is entirely different however, if you become absorbed in something which turns your mind into a different channel of thought, which makes you blood run faster in your veins, and makes life worth living. Try it, girls. I am talking from experience."

"Some day we will work to live; there is a beautiful world ahead of us, a world with plenty for all. It is in your, in mine, in everybody’s power to bring it about, but we must all utilize our power, we must all put our shoulders to the wheel."

"There are millions of men and women who give up what is best in them for that very purpose. Girls, why not join hands with them? Every atom of their breath is devoted to the cause of the working class. They, too, work for a living and are tired when night comes; but within them burns a holy fire which gives them the strength and energy to go forth and proclaim the message of truth, to sound the trumpet announcing the coming of freedom, and, take it from me, sister workers, it is glorious to be one of them. The daily grind becomes only an incident in your life, there opens a far broader field to absorb your entire being; with millions of comrades, ready to welcome you in any part of the world you cannot help feeling that you are higher than the mere tool, or band that you are supposed to be, from the boss’s point of view; instead of looking up to him, and often forgiving him his liberties with you, you learn to look down at him, and pity him for his ignorance and shortsightedness."

"We, the Socialists, claim that since child labor is a blot upon our civilization and since the children are sent to work because they must have bread and clothing immediately the State should assume the responsibility of supplying them with food and clothing, as it supplies them with books and instructors at present. We go a step further and say that since the children of today are the men and women of tomorrow it is in the interest of society at large to give each new born child an equality of opportunity, whereby it would be enabled to receive bodily care and a thorough education in order to fit it to take its place on the battlefield of life."

"It is true there was the possibility of marriage, but how many of us look for the married life as a relief from hard burdens, as easier living. What with the housework and small babies, that come soon enough, a few boarders or some homework, or the job of a janitress, there is little time for recreation, or thought for better things."

"Toilers live the life of animals — that is work, and sleep, with short intervals for food. Now let us put our heads together and see if this is right; if things out to, and will, go on forever in this way."

"I have toiled from morn to night, from week to week, from year to year, without any bright memories of the past or dreams for the future. Like you, I have lived to work. Every day brought forth the same dull program; the only variation being the time when work was slack, and then the fear of the morrow made matters still worse. We girls of the same workroom often rebelled against our nerve and body tearing tasks, often wishes for a glimpse of the clear sky and the bright sunshine, the green fields and shady woods, which very few of us ever got a chance to enjoy. But what was the use of complaining? We saw no remedy for it, and what was more, didn’t care to look for one."

"We are too tired to think, or read what others have brought out for us; when bones ache and the head reels, the bed, even if it is a hard one, is more inviting that then most attractive lecture room."

"The aim of Socialism is to place the adult worker in the possession of the necessary tools of production, so that he would not be compelled to part with the lion’s share of t his wage for the mere privilege of their use. Socialism proposes to offer each adult worker a certainty of livelihood and thus enable him to take care of his own."

"Just as the philosopher or scientist must once in a while occupy himself with manual labor, so it is necessary for working girls to have some brain work to relieve their physical fatigue. If we come home with no other thought but the grind that awaits us again tomorrow, the best thing for us to do is to find forgetfulness in sleep."

"Her speeches were tightly woven masterpieces that she worked over for weeks and refined continuously. She then read and reread them, practicing each word so it sounded natural and fluid."

"She knew the Savior — I sensed that even as a child in her schoolroom. I will never forget the image of her in front of our class with a flower in her dark hair. For me as a 7-year-old boy, she was a powerful presence, far beyond her size or dimension. It was the power of goodness. She taught it and she lived it."

"I personally believe that the growing awareness of and resistance to sexual abuse in the fulfillment of the scripture which says, "There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken [and I would add, have done] in darkness shall be heard in the light, and proclaimed upon the housetops." Each survivor who tells her or his story, each individual who reports abuse, each police officer who arrests a perpetrator, each judge and jury who enforce the law, and each person who teaches children to protect themselves and to report abuse are part of fulfilling this prediction of Jesus Christ about the last days. This evil must be exposed before it can be repented of, and it must be repented of."

"The answer of faith is a powerful one, even in the most difficult of circumstances, because it does not depend on us—on our strength to endure, on our willpower, on the depth of our intellectual understanding, or on the resources we can accumulate. No, it depends on God, whose strength is omnipotence, whose understanding is that of eternity, and who has the will to walk beside us in love, sharing our burden. He could part the Red Sea before us or calm the angry storm that besets us, but these would be small miracles for the God of nature. Instead, he chooses to do something harder: He wants to transform human nature into divine nature. And thus, when our Red Sea blocks our way and when the storm threatens to overwhelm us, he enters the water with us, holding us in the hands of love, supporting us with the arms of mercy. When we emerge from the valley of the shadow, we will see that he was there with us all the time."

"I'm going to struggle. I have struggled. Christ struggled. When He died, He was struggling the most. Yet He is going to come in His perfection when He comes back the second time, and we can, too."

"She accomplished that by being fearlessly honest about herself and the problems that members of the church faced."

"Hooray for differences! Without them, there would be no harmony. In principles, great clarity. In practices, great charity."

"Be spiritually independent enough that your relationship with the Savior doesn't depend on your circumstances or on what other people say and do. Have the spiritual independence to be a Mormon—the best Mormon you can—in your own way. Not the bishop's way. Not the Relief Society president's way. Your way."

"The doctrines of the gospel are indispensable. They are essential, but the packaging is optional… The basket and the bottle are different containers, but the content is the same: fruit for a family. Is the bottle right and the basket wrong? No, they are both right. They are containers appropriate to the culture and the needs of the people. And they are both appropriate for the content they carry, which is the fruit."

"Remember, our real calling to be a compassionate Christian came when we stepped out of the waters of baptism. The gift of the Holy Ghost is ours by right of confirmation. We don't need to check it out of the meetinghouse library. We don't need a bishop's assignment to be kind. We don't need to sign up to be thoughtful. We don't need to be sustained by our wards to be sensitive. Rejoice in the power you have within you from Christ to be a nucleus of love, forgiveness, and compassion."

"If you're doing the best you can, that's good enough."

"I remember very clearly the point at which I made the choice to be a bridge builder. On December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese Imperial Air Force destroyed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, I was fifteen years old… we didn't know if a landing party was on its way, if the Americans would retaliate, or which side might pose the most danger to us as Japanese-Americans. My mother and I were terrified. We gathered everything in the house that had come from Japan and stuffed it into the incinerator… When we were through, I looked in the mirror, saw my face, and thought, I am Japanese. I have never set foot in Japan. I am not Japanese in my heart. If a Japanese submarine landed on our beach and Japanese soldiers came ashore, I would run away from them. But I cannot run away from myself. My eyes, my skin, and my hair are Japanese. I will always be Japanese. That realization cut through my confusion and fear. I realized then that there was no easy answer… But no matter what happened, I would have to deal with reality—and that involved being both Japanese and American. I would have to work out the answer to who I was a day at a time, doing the best that I could."

"You will be recognized as one who represents those beyond the borders of the United States and Canada, and as it were, an outreach across the world to members of the Church in many, many lands. They will see you as a representative of their oneness with the Church. We bless you that you may be free in speaking, that your tongue may be loosed as you speak to the people. We bless you that you may be wise in counsel, that you may be inspired in what you say."

"The women of the world were her friends. She will live on because of the profound effect she has had on people throughout the world through her words, her example and her service."

"The Governor Ivey who I represent as a member of her cabinet has never been anything but supportive of the Governor’s Office of Minority Affairs, especially for our efforts to strengthen the educational and economic impact of Alabama’s fourteen HBCUs. I am grateful for the honor and privilege to address the needs of diverse communities across the state of Alabama as a member of Governor Ivey’s Administration.I look forward to continuing this great work to create opportunities for women and minorities with Governor Ivey’s full support."

"Her extraordinary record of public service shows her ability to work with all people regardless of race, religion or party affiliation."

"Should never have to choose between getting this shot and putting food on the tables for their families and I vowed fighting these mandates every step of the way"