JANUARY 6: TODAY'S INSPIRING WOMEN
Maria Montessori opened her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome in 1907. There are now more than 22,000 Montessori schools in at least 110 countries worldwide.
MARIA MONTESSORI
Notable African-American poet Effie Waller Smith was born today in 1879 to former slaves. She began writing poetry at the age of 16 fashioning her style to Lord Alfred Tennyson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's works.
EFFIE WALLER SMITH
In 1936, Barbara Hanley became Canada’s first woman mayor of Webbwood, Ontario.
BARBARA HANLEY
On this day in 1961, Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes became the first Black students admitted to the University of Georgia following a discrimination lawsuit.
Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes
DEEPER DIVE
Read one of Effie Waller Smith's poems:
Preparation
“I have no time for those things now," we say;
“But in the future just a little way,
No longer by this ceaseless toil oppressed,
I shall have leisure then for thought and rest.
When I the debts upon my land have paid,
Or on foundations firm my business laid,
I shall take time for discourse long and sweet
With those beloved who round my hearthstone meet;
I shall take time on mornings still and cool
To seek the freshness dim of wood and pool,
Where, calmed and hallowed by great Nature’s peace,
My life from its hot cares shall find release;
I shall take time to think on destiny,
Of what I was and am and yet shall be,
Till in the hush my soul may nearer prove
To that great Soul in whom we live and move.
All this I shall do sometime but not now—
The press of business cares will not allow.”
And thus our life glides on year after year;
The promised leisure never comes more near.
Perhaps the aim on which we placed our mind
Is high, and its attainment slow to find;
Or if we reach the mark that we have set,
We still would seek another, farther yet.
Thus all our youth, our strength, our time go past
Till death upon the threshold stands at last,
And back unto our Maker we must give
The life we spent preparing well to live.