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[569] certain incidental disadvantages from the free, wild, and even rude manner of its development. Books did not suit her active temperament and her taste for concrete things. Of education and culture in the sense of the schools, during the years of, childhood, she had little. In this respect she resembles Rosa Bonheur, who found her early education chiefly in the lessons of nature learned out of doors. Her sports and the prophetic labors of the clay-pit beguiled many of the hours of study; and, very naturally, through her unrestrained liberty and occupations usually regarded as suitable only for boys, she acquired much of the character and manners of a brave, roguish boy. She was an intractable pupil, and if the report is correct was “expelled from one school, and given over as incorrigible at another.” Nevertheless it is said, “Those who knew her well loved her dearly,” and defended her from criticism with the testimony, “There is never any immodesty in her fearlessness, nor any malice in her fun.” Yet at this period she was a mystery to her friends. There is good testimony at hand that “her own father confessed again and again his ignorance” of her.

It is little matter, so long as there is no moral damage, when outrage is done to mere conventionalities; and great gain to health, enjoyment, enterprise, and genius may well raise inquiry whether a public sentiment in regard to the education of girls has not prevailed quite too much to the effect that they should be

Ground down enough
To flatten and bake into a wholesome crust
For household uses and proprieties.

Anecdotes abound in illustration of Miss Hosmer's untamed frolicsomeness and disposition to practical jokes. In one of those moods of unlicensed humor she caused to be published in the Boston papers a notice of the death of an

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Harriet G. Hosmer (1)
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