Influence of a Sunday School Teacher

One of the most lovable and saintly characters of New England was Alice Freeman Palmer, at one time president of Wellesley College, wife of Dr. George H. Palmer, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard. When she was a young woman, she taught a Sunday school class made up of girls from the slums of Cambridge and Boston.

She was a big sister to these girls who loved her dearly, but she was often frustrated in finding ways to help these children from tragically dirty and unpromising homes. One Sunday she hit upon the idea of challenging her girls to find in their homes something beautiful that impressed them. They were to come the next Sunday and tell the other children what beautiful things they had found at home. The next Sunday she was deeply moved by one bedraggled little girl who lived in a dingy tenement who said slowly, “I couldn’t find nothing beautiful around where I live except . . . except when the sunshine came on my baby sister’s curls.”

She was so much touched by this girl’s discovery of something beautiful that she interested herself in her, so that on future Sundays the girl appeared in class with a clean face, a fresh hairdo, and a pretty dress. Years later, some time after Mrs.

Palmer’s sudden death, Dr. Palmer was lecturing at a university in the West. He found himself entertained in a distinguished home, for the hostess had eagerly insisted that she be permitted to entertain Dr. Palmer when he visited the university.

His hostess said to Dr. Palmer, “I was once a member of Mrs. Palmer’s Sunday school class in Cambridge. I shall never forget the day when I was only a bedraggled little girl and your lovely wife asked us to find something beautiful in our home.

I remember that I came back saying that the only beautiful thing I could find was the sunshine on my baby sister’s curls, but that suggestion your wife made was the real turning point in my life. After that I began to look for something beautiful wherever I was and then I began to dream of leading a beautiful life and I have been trying to do this ever since.”

Alice Freeman Palmer here gives proof of how far a Sunday school teacher’s influence may go, by one sincere original suggestion.