PARA PAR@ ` "TEXT ` Howland, Emily1827╨1929educator and reformerBorn on November 20, 1827, near Sherwood, New York, Emily Howland grew up much under the influence of Quaker grandparents. She attended local schools until sixteen, when she was obliged to take over care of the home from her ailing mother. Chafing at the narrow bounds of her life, she threw herself into abolitionist activity in the 1850s and in the fall of 1857 took over Myrtilla Miner╒s school for black children in Washington, D.C. She returned home two years later but in 1863 traveled again to Washington to teach in a series of freedmen╒s schools in and around the city. In 1867 she prevailed upon her father to buy a 400-acre tract of land at Heathsville, Virginia, where she settled a number of freedmen and established a school. In the summer of that year she returned to Sherwood, New York, to nurse her mother in her last illness, and she remained at home for the rest of her life. She nonetheless continued to support the Virginia school for over 50 years until the state of Virginia took it over. In 1871 Howland helped found the Sherwood Select School, a Quaker institution, and she was its chief supporter from 1882, when she built a new schoolhouse, until it was taken over by the state of New York in 1927, whereupon it was renamed the Emily Howland School. Her interest in the education of African-American students resulted in her support of over 30 institutions in the South, especially Booker T. Washington╒s Tuskegee Institute. She was also an active supporter of the women╒s suffrage movement. Her services to education were recognized in the award of an honorary doctorate by the University of the State of New York in 1927, when she was ninety-nine. She died at one hundred and one, on June 29, 1929, in Sherwood, New York. «styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ 0 !I ¿ !I ▐ ╢ !I , 5¬ - !I link ` HYPR ¿ ╢
