Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge, Social Pioneer

Abstract

IN 1930 Miss Breckinridge was one of the official delegates of the government of the Unite State to the Sixth Pan American Child Congress, held in Lima, By reason of the clarity of her thought and the grace of her personality, she was held in affectionate regard and admiration by all the delegates. The morning after the close of the Congress, the secretary-general, head of the Children's Institute of Peru, asked me to come to his office to meet the members of his staff. One of them he singled out with great pride, saying, is going to be the of Peru. All of us here can recall many incidents in the life of our friend, many expressions of her selflessness, her integrity, her unflagging devotion to principle, her dry wit, and her gentle humor. I cherish a letter written in her own handwriting, in 1933, on the eve of her departure to Montevideo, where she served as the first woman delegate of her country to a conference of American states. She wrote: Dear Miss Lenroot, I really could not go if I did not feel that perhaps you would like it. But such memories will endure throughout our lives?and spur us on to greater effort in behalf of the ideas and principles she held so high. Today, as she would have wished, we must think not of the past but of the future and of the message of Miss Breckinridge's life in relation to our own present responsibilities, objectives, and commitments and to those of our younger colleagues. Her life was devoted primarily to the preparation of young people for social work. It seems appropriate to consider, in the words of the Peruvian official, what qualities we would look for in a young woman today just entering her professional work that might entitle her to be called the Sophonisba of her epoch. The first characteristic that comes to