Miss Helen C. Christ

Miss Helen C. Christ was born of German parents in the little town of Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada. Here she spent the first years of her life. In 1863 she came, with her parents, to reside in Michigan. From this time until 1882 she lived part of the time in Michigan, part of the time in Canada. In this State her home was successively in the cities of Lansing, Saginaw and Grand Rapids. Her only education was received at the High Schools of the different cities in which she lived. As her schooling was much interrupted by the numerous changes, she obtained the larger part of her knowledge by individual study, after she left school.

Miss Christ began her career as a teacher in 1872, when she first started to teach German, the language of her parents, to the High School pupils of Saginaw, Michigan. After having taught here successfully for ten years, she removed, in 1882, to Indianapolis, where she received positions in both the German Annex and High School.

Leaving Indianapolis in 1888, Miss Christ came to Grand Rapids, where she has ever since resided. In this city, she first taught for some time at the Center Street School. Afterwards she received the position she now occupies, a teacher of German at our High School.

In the summer of 1889, Miss Christ made a long visit abroad. She spent a week at the Exposition in Paris, and the remainder of the time was passed in her Fatherland, visiting the many spots celebrated in the stories and fables which so abound in Germany.

Although she was born and has lived so much in Canada, Miss Christ says she is a thorough American, and has the strongest affection for the country of her adoption and its institutions. She hopes, however, that no trouble will ever arise between the United States and Germany, for if there should, it would be hard for her to tell which side to favor, as both countries are so dear to her heart.

Miss Christ is now finishing her eighth year in the High School, and during all this time she has taught so faithfully and conscientiously that she has won the respect of all who know her.

Miss Agnes R. Ginn

Miss Agnes R. Ginn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, where her father held the life principalship of the High School; but resigned his position to go into business.

On his return the family moved to Stanford, Connecticut, where Miss Ginn commenced her education under her parents’ tuition and spent the next five years.

In 1879, Miss Ginn graduated from the Classical School of Syracuse, also there taking the Freshman year of Vassar, intending to complete her education at that college.

She gave particular attention to the study of the languages, French, Latin and German.

In the study of French she was particularly fortunate in having as instructor the celebrated diplomat and linguist, Mr. Charles A. Perkins, who had been United States Minister to Sweden and Portugal; but was best known because he was the only American citizen who ever married a person of royal blood. His wife was Isabella Francoise Guromski, Princess of the House of Bourbon and niece of Queen Isabella of Spain.

Before graduating, Miss Ginn began teaching in the Classical School and taught several years, but resigned her position to go as governess with Mrs. Josiah Caldwell, to her summer home in Bristol, Rhode Island, also spending two years on her plantation in Cuba.

They then returned to America and spent one year in the Adirondacks, when Miss Ginn’s health gave out and she joined her parents, who were then in Hillsdale, Michigan.

Thence she came to Grand Rapids, and here she taught French and rhetoricals for the past nine years.

Miss Ginn usually spends her vacations with her parents in Delaware, Ohio, but several years ago she spent the summer at the home of the Parisian family at Montreal, and four years ago spent her vacation abroad.

Besides the usual pleasures of foreign travel, through the kindness of friends she saw something of English and French home life, and visited many of the places mentioned in Dickens’ works unknown to the ordinary tourist.

Miss Ginn is the possessor of that charm of manner and graciousness which makes all those with whom she comes in contact love and respect her, and would be dull scholars indeed if we did not learn something from her.

Miss Alice M. James

Miss Alice M. James was born in Manchester, New Hampshire. When she was quite small, her parents moved to Wisconsin, and after living in that State for some time, they settled in Minnesota. In April, 1874, Miss James came to Grand Rapids on a visit to her aunt. While here, she entered for High School for the purpose of taking some special studies, but Mr. Strong advised her to stay and graduate. Finding she could do this in one year, she decided to remain, and graduated in 1875.

Miss James continued her studies in the classical course in the Carlton College, at Northfield, Minnesota. She passed through this successfully and received the degree of A. B. She remained some time in Minnesota with her parents, returning to Grand Rapids in 1880, when she commenced teaching.

During the first year after her return, Miss James taught the fourth primary grade in the Wealthy Avenue School. The next year she advanced to the position of teacher of the sixth grade in the Union School, of which Dr. Milner was then the principal.

But Miss James’ ability as a successful teach met with prompt recognition, and the third year she was promoted to the Central Grammar School, to teach there Grammar, Arithmetic, Algebra and Civil Government. Here she succeeded Mr. Thompson, as principal of the grammar department. After this she received the position she now occupies as the teacher in charge of the Junior Session Room in the Central High School.

Miss James has now taught for thirteen years in the High School, and she has probably never had a pupil who was not fond of her. Her quiet and gentle, though firm manner, and her sweet character, endears her to everyone whom she meets.

Florence Milner

In the hills of Northern Vermont is a tiny village called Greensboro. There I was born, October 6, 1855. If there is anything in the unconscious influence of environments, the beauty of my birthplace should have counted for something, and I have always had a feeling, perhaps a sentimental one, that whatever of integrity and sturdiness of nature is mine is due to my Puritan ancestry and to the subtle effect of the Vermont hills.

When I was three years old, my parents moved Concord, New Hampshire, where early began the definite influences that made me a teacher. When my little playmate was sent to school at six years of age, I, too, must go, although only four and a half.

The impression of that first day is still strong upon me. At the dinner table, I announced that when I grew up I was going to be a teacher. That purpose never wavered, and the whole direction of my school days thereafter was toward that end.

Looking back upon it now through long years of experience, my early training seems most fortunate. Up to the eight grade, I had but two teachers. These were both of the best type of New England women, and they both demanded, from their pupils, thorough conscientious work.

Behind these teachers was my mother, who never allowed me to go from her in the morning until she knew that I was the master of my lessons for the day. I cannot remember that this insistence upon duty was the least irksome; it seemed rather a matter of course.

When I was eleven years old, my parents moved to Dowagiac in this State, and in that little High School, my school days were practically ended. The course of study was very simple there, and graduation did not mean any such education as falls to the lot of High School students today. For instance, I do not remember that we had different courses, although some took Latin and some did not. The Latin was poor, and there was little of it, one book of Caesar and three orations of Cicero. I graduated from this School at sixteen, and in September went back as a teacher in the lowest grade. Nothing but the courage of youth and the audacity of inexperience could have made me venture into that room with eighty-four little children, half of whom had never been in school before. But some guardian angel must have stood over me through the year, for at its close, the board instead of turning me out promoted me with my highest class into the next room.

By the following spring I had saved enough money to go to school for a few months. I went, in April, to Smithson College, a small Universalist school at Logansport, Indiana. No words can express the happiness of those days! Nothing to do but study and wander through the beautiful woods that surrounded the college building. But one shadow rested upon me – the knowledge that my money would soon be gone and that my days there were numbered.

Early in November of 1874, after five months in the school, and just as my finances were running very low, a position to teach algebra in the Niles High School was offered me. I was summoned by telegram, and was given one day to visit the school. I tremble when I think of that day. I sat hours out in consternation, for had my live depended on it I could not have done the work that those young people were doing. Can you imagine my feelings? Alone in a strange place, with neither friend nor acquaintance to consult, confronted with work that I was totally unprepared to perform, with no money, and the knowledge that failure would be fatal. When school closed that night I bought an algebra, and shut myself into my room. That night I learned what it meant to study. This was a crisis in my life. I toiled far into the night, with no sense of weariness, and with no thought other than that of conquering the situation. In fact, there was no alternative. I must succeed, and I must with that success alone.

In the morning I walked into that school room master of myself, and master of the algebra, for that day, at least. The way was clear thereafter, but it was a toilsome one. That first night of study was followed by others all through the year, for the school was a strong one, and they drove me hard to keep even with them. But I succeeded well enough to be allowed to stay there five years. During that period I taught almost every subject in the High School curriculum, working as I did in the algebra, to keep ahead of my classes. Those were years of hard and faithful study and during those years I gained power of concentration, which, added to a natural love for study, has kept me always more or less a student.

After teaching one year at Marshall, in the fall of 1880 I came here as first assistant in the Union High School. Five years there was followed by three years’ teaching of mathematics in the Ann Arbor High School. In the fall of 1888, I returned to Grand Rapids, entering the Central High School. When in February 1893, we moved into the new building, the charge of the Senior Session room fell to my lot, and from that time you who read can doubtless tell more about me as a teacher than I even know.

The coming June closes my twenty-fourth year of teaching. They have been happy years, and there has never been a moment’s regret of the decision formed on that first day at school.

Florence Milner
Central High School
Grand Rapids, Mich.
May 14, 1896