New Orleans Woman Honored for Work in Education

1904

A Noble Woman

An unusual ceremony took place in New Orleans on the afternoon and evening of April 30th, when many thousand persons from every walk of life gathered to do honor to a woman. A loving-cup was presented to Miss Sophie Wright, whom her fellow townsmen love to call "The First Citizen of New Orleans," and the presentation was made the occasion for a public demonstration of affection.

Miss Wright is a little, crippled woman, white-haired and sweet-faced. All her life she has been struggling against poverty and against the never-ceasing pain of a spinal trouble. Able to go about only with the aid of a steel harness and a cane, she still has the strength of a multitude in doing good works.

Twenty years ago she was but a girl of eighteen, yet she had already established a prosperous and growing boarding school, and was beginning to see ahead an end to poverty. One day a young mechanic asked her to teach him to read and write. Suddenly brought face to face with the fact that thousands of boys were growing up in New Orleans untaught and without hope of advancement, she threw her school open to them in the evening, and called for volunteer teachers from among her girl pupils. This was established a free night- school to which thousands of men to-day owe all their education. This year it enrolled fifteen hundred pupils, and three hundred were turned away for lack of room.

Fighting weakness and pain which would render another a helpless burden, she spends her days earning money to support herself and her charity, and her evenings teaching her "boys." Yet with it all she finds time for the countless other demands on her. There is scarcely a charity in the city but feels the inspiration of her aid. Last winter she engineered the raising of seventeen thousand dollars to build a home for crippled children. Her reward is in a love from the people of New Orleans such as few have earned. Her life is an example of what a noble woman can accomplish. — Youth's Companion.