also the days when a woman was not expected to give, or even to have,
an opinion on subjects of public interest.

Occasionally a young girl was attracted to the Lowell mills through her
own idealization of the life there, as it had been reported to her.
Margaret Foley, who afterwards became distinguished as a sculptor, was
one of these. She did not remain many months at her occupation,--which
I think was weaving,--soon changing it for that of teaching and
studying art. Those who came as she did were usually disappointed.
Instead of an Arcadia, they found a place of matter-of-fact toil,
filled with a company of industrious, wide-awake girls, who were
faithfully improving their opportunities, while looking through them
into avenues Toward profit and usefulness, more desirable yet. It has
always been the way of the steady-minded New Englander to accept the
present situation--but to accept it without boundaries, taking in also
the larger prospects--all the heavens above and the earth
beneath--towards which it opens.

The movement of New England girls toward Lowell was only an impulse of
a larger movement which about that time sent so many people from the
Eastern States into the West. The needs of the West were constantly
kept before us in the churches. We were asked for contributions for
Home Missions, which were willingly given; and some of us were
appointed collectors of funds for the education of indigent young men
to become Western Home Missionary preachers. There was something almost
pathetic in the readiness with which this was done by young girls who
were longing to fit themselves for teachers, but had not the means.
Many a girl at Lowell was working to send her brother to college, who
had far more talent and character than he; but a man could preach, and
it was not "orthodox" to think that a woman could. And in her devotion
to him, and her zeal for the spread of Christian truth, she was hardly
conscious of her own sacrifice. Yet our ministers appreciated the
intelligence and piety of their feminine parishioners. An agent who
came from the West for school-teachers was told by our own pastor that
five hundred could easily be furnished from among Lowell mill-girls.
Many did go, and they made another New England in some of our Western
States.

The missionary spirit was strong among my companions. I never thought
that I had the right qualifications for that work; but I had a desire
to see the prairies and the great