(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
Haygood Laura Askew was an American missionary and educator. She was the first woman missionary sent to a foreign post by the Women’s Missionary Society of the Methodist Church.
Background
Laura Haygood was born on October 14, 1845, in Watkinsville, Georgia, United States, but spent the most of her youth in Atlanta, to which place her family moved when she was six years old. The influences under which she grew up were such as to incline her both to religious activity and to study and teaching. Laura's Haygood Askew father, Green B. Haygood, a Georgian of English and Welsh ancestry, and a lawyer by profession, was a stanch Methodist, prominent in church work; her mother, Martha Ann Askew, born in Burke County, North Carolina, was the daughter of a Methodist preacher, Josiah Askew. She was a teacher in the high school at Salem, Ga. , when she met Green Haygood, and after her marriage to him she continued to teach for some years.
Education
Entering Wesleyan Female College, Macon, Georgia, when she was about seventeen, Laura was able by hard work to finish the required course in two years.
Career
When her father had died, the Haygoods, driven from their Atlanta home by the coming of Sherman’s army, were living in Oxford. Here at the Palmer Institute she began a teaching career which had its completion in China many years later. She soon returned to Atlanta and opened a private school for girls, which she conducted until 1872. She then became an instructor in the newly established Girls’ High School, and in 1877 its principal.
Along with her teaching, which was carried on with a deep sense of responsibility for the moral and spiritual concerns of her pupils, HAygood took a prominent part in church, Sunday school, and home-missionary activities. So dominant in her life was the religious motive that when in 1884 there was a call for a person of experience and administrative ability to help direct the work for women being carried on in Shanghai by the Woman’s Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, she offered her services. They were at once accepted, and on November 17, she was at her station in China. The Clopton School, which was a boarding school for girls, and one or two day schools were at once put under her charge. The former she developed into a normal school to train Chinese girls for teaching. From a small nucleus she also built up a thorough and comprehensive organization of day schools.
In May 1889, upon the resignation of Dr. Allen as superintendent of the work of the Woman's Board in China, she was appointed agent for the Shanghai District, “to communicate the purposes and orders of the Board, and to provide for the execution of its plans. ” The condition of her health caused her to spend two years in the United States (1894 - 1896), during which time, however, she did much traveling and speaking. Upon her return she became agent for the entire work of the Woman’s Board in China. Illness brought her activities practically to a close in the summer of 1899. Refusing to go home until it was too late, she died and was buried in Shanghai. The Laura Haygood Home and School in Soochow was established as a memorial to her.
Achievements
Laura Haygood's most memorable achievement was the establishment of the McTyeire Home and School. The home afforded a place where new missionaries could spend a year or two, acquire the language, and receive training for their work; the school was designed to give Chinese girls a broad education, first in the classics of their own land, and then in Western learning.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Religion
Haygood was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
Views
Quotations:
“The Chinese pay great deference to my age and size and spectacles. ”
Personality
Laura was of massive frame, abounding energy, and optimistic spirit, able to meet difficult situations with serenity and confidence, accustomed to direct others, and zealously devoted to furthering human welfare.
Connections
Laura Haygood's dedication to her work was so strong that she chose not to marry.
