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122 Simmons readied her stating that the American Baptist Woman's Home Mission Society of Boston would defray her expenses if she would matriculate within three weeks and give pledge to remain until she had completed the course. She hastened from the school-room to inform her mother of the good news, and immediately wrote complying with the conditions, and was registered in that school November 28, 1881. May 13, 1883, she graduated from the normal department as valedictorian. As the president presented to her the Albert Mack gold medal he testified that she had so conducted herself during the entire course that there had not been occasion to discipline her in a single instance or even impart to her a word of warning. In writing of the graduates of the school he made the following statement concerning her:

She served the University during her scholastic years as student-teacher and was at different times dining-room matron and record-keeper of daily attendance. She was honored by the students with the presidency of both their societies, which position caused her to lose much of her timidity and developed her faculties for thinking and speaking. During the last year of her normal course she won the Dr. E. S. Porter gold medal in a contest in written spelling, and soon afterwards Miss Cook carried off the Dr. D. A. Gaddie silver medal