Florence Holbrook

Florence Holbrook (May 30, 1860 – September 28, 1932) was an American educator, writer, and peace activist. She worked in the Chicago public schools for over fifty years, as a teacher and principal. She was an American delegate to the International Congress of Women in The Hague in 1915, and in Zürich in 1919. She wrote several books for classroom use, mainly on mythology and folklore topics.

Florence Holbrook in 1921

Quotes

• The pupils should retell the stories, thus enriching their vocabulary and learning to express thought clearly, easily, consecutively, and confidently,– a power so much needed and so valuable to citizens of a republic.
  • Florence Holbrook, "Preface", 'Round the Year in Myth and Song (American Book Company 1897).

• Museums, theatres, and concert halls are all around us, but what use are they unless you can get the child into the way of having sympathy for the art and the artist, of seeing and hearing the thing itself and talking about it?
  • quoted in Grace R. Clark, "Florence Holbrook", the Journal of Education 101(22)(May 28, 1925): 616.

Quotes about Florence Holbrook

• Florence Holbrook is a woman who is not interested in educational work alone; she is strong enough to be interested in all that affects humanity.
  • "Over a Thousand Pupils; Rapid Growth of the Forestville School in Recent Years" Chicago Tribune (December 1, 1895): 15; via Newspapers.com.

• Holbrook has a theory that if children hear the best of literature from the beginning of their education they will never wish for any other.
  • "Over a Thousand Pupils; Rapid Growth of the Forestville School in Recent Years" Chicago Tribune (December 1, 1895): 15; via Newspapers.com.

• There is a multitude of men and women doing delightful work in literature and language from Brookline to San Jose, from Kansas City to Toronto, from Birmingham to Seattle, but Florence Holbrook is as distinct in her leadership as are Luther Burbank, Julia Richman, and Jane Addams in their distinctive fields.
  • "Editorial: In Literature and Language" The Journal of Education 68(June 25, 1908): 16, 24.

• She never struck anyone that I can recall; she just made you feel very small. That was enough for discipline. We feared but loved her.
  • Holbrook's former student Alan D. Whitney, quoted in James J. Kilpatrick, "Florence Holbrook, Prin.; Feared and Loved", The Baltimore Sun (July 5, 1983): 9; via Newspapers.com.