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JOHN JUDSON BAGLEY
BY GEORGE H. HOPKINS
June 7, 1882
She followed him out and said, "Come back, " and in the walk beside the house talked to him gently, but severely, on holding such a sentiment, as if "doing wrong once in a while was not a sin. " "Would I trust a servant who stole only once in a while?" She left him; he stood leaning against the side of the house, thinking for a time; then turning to a young friend who had witnessed the interview, said: "If I could be such a man as mother wants me to be, what a splendid man I would be. She is a Roman Cornelia; it is not an easy thing to be the son of such a woman. " So he went whistling out of the yard.
"This superior woman was a thoroughly educated girl, " writes a friend. "She not only owned the volumes of the English Classics, but had them when a girl, and was familiar with them in early life. She was born and bred in an educated family. In the wilds of Michigan, it seemed useless culture. She did not live to see it shape her children's lives. " But the seeds had been sown, and the life of Gov. Bagley shows how deeply they took root. The same writer continues: "She liked centralization and order. In oft-repeated visits to their house, and their visits to my father's, I heard discussions which taught me much of history and the relations of Church and State, the ideas a people held gradually shaping its institutions. She laid great stress upon the importance of individual opinion and belief, however humble the person. She almost invariably silenced her opponent. She carried heavy guns, loaded with learning and authority.
Michigan
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