● ● ● of Mrs. Glover’s effort.31 That she herself was not asked to conduct the department may have been due either to renewed ill health or to village opposition.
In any case, the young principal of the seminary, Dr. Rust, retained what in 1902 he described as his “high appreciation of [Mrs. Glover’s] character and ability.”32 He employed her as a substitute teacher in the seminary at one period but was unable to offer a regular position which would allow her to maintain herself and George independently.33 The care of the child, her own recurring poor health, and the fact that despite her intellectual liveliness her schooling had been far from regular or systematic, these were all obstacles to her making a career of teaching. In 1848 she wrote Martha:
I feel as if I must begin something this summer, if my health is sufficient. I am weary working my way through life from the middle to the end. I want to learn to play on a piano so that I can go south and teach. Tis all I shall ever be able to do, and this once accomplished and I am independent. . . . O, how I wish I had a father that had been ever willing to let me know something.34
The sense of frustration she felt was shared by a good many women of her time. It is not surprising that she read with delight the novels of Charlotte Brontë as they appeared;35 she may well have felt a kinship with those spirited young heroines, outwardly so decorous and inwardly so rebellious. Even while she wrote a sentimental poem “To a Wild ● ● ●
31 Fred A. Smart of Tilton School, recorded in Roland Hall Sharp to Clifford P. Smith, 20 August 1935, Subject File, Mary Baker Eddy - Biographical Sketches and Chronologies, MBEL. Another development was a change in the seminary’s title to New Hampshire Conference Seminary and Female College.
32 Richard S. Rust to Mrs. R. F. Marshall, 12 July 1902, recorded in Rachel F. Marshall, “Reminiscences and Copies of Letters from Mary Baker Eddy to Mrs. Rachel F. Marshall,” 11 April 1917, Reminiscence, p. 5, MBEL [bracketed text Peel’s].
33 Martha Rand Baker, n.d., Reminiscence, pp. 2–3, MBEL. This is confirmed by Charles H. Rust (Rust’s son) to Alfred Farlow, 24 January 1907, IC131.23.001, MBEL. Mrs. Baker added: “Dr. Rust always thought a great deal of [Mrs. Glover]” (p. 3 [bracketed text Peel’s]).
34 Mary Baker Glover to Martha Baker Pilsbury, 5 March 1848, L11150, MBEL.
35 Mary Baker Eddy, recorded in Adam Dickey, 11 April 1909, A11001A, MBEL.