● ● ●  and “mother” were debased to a level of sentimentality so extravagant that the twentieth century still winces away from them. Few women escaped entirely the insipidity of language and the pretentious falsity of sentiment that were part of the phenomenon; but common sense and spiritual honesty broke through again and again, as they will in any age, to let in the fresh air.

So far as can be judged from the available evidence, and so far as her health allowed, Mrs. Glover exercised the normal responsibilities of motherhood and experienced its normal joys and worries.

Both her sisters had had children about the same time as she. Martha Pilsbury had given birth to a daughter, Ellen, several months before, and Abigail Tilton to a son, Albert, several months after. When George was three, Mrs. Glover wrote Martha: “Oh! Mat, to see the three beautiful children meet and gather in wonder. . . . Little Geo. is very good and very naughty, not subject to any judicious discipline. He loves you and Nell most dearly . . . he identifies Nell with every little girl he sees; kiss her a thousand times for us both.”²⁷

It was her love of children which suggested to Mrs. Glover a possible way of supporting herself and George. About the time of his birth the old Sanbornton Academy was succeeded by another institution, the New Hampshire Conference Seminary, under the auspices of the New Hampshire Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The new principal was a young Methodist minister, the Reverend Richard S. Rust, who soon became very friendly with the Baker family. At his suggestion, Mrs. Glover in 1846 opened an “infant school” which has been described by a later principal of the seminary as one of the first kindergartens in New England, although Mrs. Glover clearly knew nothing of the theories of Pestalozzi and Froebel.²⁸

The most vivid memory which the children in the school appear to have retained of it in later years was of marching around the room and singing,  ● ● ●