Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/79

74 was a member of the first class in pedagogy that entered the now thoroughly established pedagogical course in the University of the City of New York. Through contributions to the daily papers and interviews with leading educational people she was an active factor in bringing about the general educational awakening in New York City, in 1888, which resulted in the formation of a new society for the advancement of education. Just at that time she was sent for by Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, national and international superintendent of the department of scientific temperance instruction of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, to go to Washington and assist in the revision of temperance physiologies, which had then been submitted to Mrs. Hunt for that purpose by several of the leading publishers of temperance text-books. In Washington Miss Benedict spent a number of months in the United States Medical Library, occupied in investigating and compiling the testimony of leading medical writers concerning the nature and effects of alcohol upon the human body. The researches there begun have since been carried on in Boston and New York libraries and by correspondence with leading medical and chemical authorities. There is probably no other person more familiar than she with the whole subject of the nature and effects of alcohol upon the human system. At present Miss Benedict is with Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, in the home of the latter in Hyde Park, Mass., assisting in laying out courses of study for institute instructors and preparing manuals for the use of teachers on the subject of physiology and hygiene and the effects of narcotics. Miss Benedict is a pleasant, logical and forcible speaker and writer in her special line of educational and scientific topics, and is in frequent demand as an instructor at teachers' institutes.

BENHAM, Mrs. Ida Whipple, peace advocate, born in a farmhouse in Ledyard, Conn. 8th January, 1849. She is a daughter of Timothy and Lucy Ann Geer Whipple, and comes from a Quaker family. At an early age she began to write verses. At the age of thirteen years she taught a country school. She was married 14th April, 1869, to Elijah B. Benham, of Groton Conn. She was early made familiar with the reforms advocated by the Quakers, such as temperance, anti-slavery, and the abolition of war. She has lectured on peace and temperance. She is a director of the American Peace Society, and a member of the executive committee of the Universal Peace Union. She takes a conspicuous part in the large peace conventions held annually in Mystic, Conn., and she holds a monthly peace meeting in her own home in Mystic. She has contributed poems to the New York "Independent," the Chicago "Advance," the "Youth's Companion," "St. Nicholas" and other prominent periodicals.

BENJAMIN, Mrs. Anna Smeed, temperance worker, born near Lockport, Niagara county, N. Y.. 28th November, 1834. Her father and mother were the oldest children of their respective families, both bereft of their fathers at an early age, and both from circumstances, as well as by inheritance, industrious, energetic and self-reliant in a remarkable degree. A clear sense of right with an almost morbid conscientiousness characterized both. All those traits are markedly developed in their daughter, who, too, was the oldest child. She was educated in the Lockport union school, in Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, and in Genesee College, now Syracuse University. In each of those institutions she ranked among the first in her classes. In 1855 she was married to G. W. Benjamin, a thorough-going business man, who

has constantly aided her work for God and home and native land. One child, a son, was born to them. In due time Mrs. Benjamin was drawn into the work of the Woman's Foreign Missionary