Page:Oread August-July 1895.djvu/9

 Our Shakespeare left us this counsel in regard to prudence in speech: "Give thy thoughts no tongue; Nor any unproportioned thought his act. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's counsel, but reserve thy judgment."

Another teaches that

"Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled."

And still another says: "'Tis nobleness to serve; Help them who cannot help again: Beware from right to swerve."

And so all pure and true poetry contains some thought presented in a winning. pleasing way that leaves a deep and lasting impression and influences to action.

Thus we see the uplifting power and purifying influence of poetry, but how can we really know and feel it unless we avail ourselves of the grand opportunity to become acquainted with the thoughts of the bard by reading them and reflecting upon them? Of wealth and power there is a sufficiency in our land, but among our people there is a lack of sentiment, idealism. Now more than ever we need the poet's power to make, us see more of the higher. and less of the practical side of life. We hope and trust the day is coming when the spirit of poetry shall enter into every human relation. But the choice lies with us individually--shall we encourage or reject it?

FLORENCE BASTIAN, '95.

 

What Becomes of the Girl Graduates.
[Address by Mrs. A. J. Sawyer before the Graduating Class, June 4, 1895.]

The girl graduate is a product of this century. Only fifty-four years ago the first diploma was placed in a woman's hand. Last year 29,501 girls and women graduated from the high schools, colleges and schools for women in the United States. Quite an army! How much those diplomas represent. Years of work, years of hope. From the time the maiden of five trudges away to the kindergarten or primary school, on through the twelve years which terminate the high school course, and perhaps a supplementary four years of collegiate work, she has toiled and hoped for that crowning glory of which her diploma is the exponent. Then what becomes of her?

Notwithstanding the current impression that for the girl graduate commencements and weddings are consecutive events, statistics fail to corroborate the fact. In our own Alma Mater, one of the most venerable among schools for women, fifty two per cent. of the graduates have married, seventy-seven per cent. have been or are teachers. Apply these averages to the thousands and tens of thousands of girl and women graduates which are annually sent forth as teachers and home makers, and we can in a measure understand the secret of the stupendous strides in moral and intellectual development, throughout the length and breadth of this land, during the last two or three decades; why our schools are models for the world; and why the proportion of students who become graduates increases; why colleges and universities require million and billion dollar endowments to accommodate the seekers for advanced education; why conservative art salons of Paris have opened their doors to American artists; why American musicians are heard in European halls; why home making has become a regular profession; why women are prominent in literature, science and art; why they succeed as organizers and administrators; why waves of reform disturb the old-time calm of social and municipal affairs; why the whole standard of life and living is changed. For the higher the attainments the few reach the higher the many desire to rise. Progress is not determined by the amount of intelligence or intellectuality on deposit at any one time or place, but by its diffusion, and with the education of woman has come a diffusion and an intangible influence as permeating, as unobtrusive, and almost as universal as light through space.

These social changes, especially those which affect woman's work, have followed so closely upon the advent of the girl graduate, and the rate of progress has been so proportional with the increase of educated women, it is reasonable to conclude that they have been factors in producing these changes. Furthermore, it is not strange that factors so numerous and so potent should prove a disturbing element.

The girl who from five years of age till seventeen or twenty has been forming habits of observation, of tracing events to causes, of analyzing and investigating, takes these habits and possessions with her into the life she enters when she leaves school. She analyzes character and actions as she tested chemical elements. She applies to ethics and economics the same principles which underlie physical causes and results. She treats necessities as mathematical conclusions. Her knowledge of evolution convinces her that citizenship, the soul and pride of a free government, exists in the nursery and the schoolroom and can not be a gift at maturity. She has been prepared by years of logical reasoning to draw her own conclusions. Her scientific researches invade the laboratories of home and society. Her observation has been trained to see all relations of life in their true perspective. Whether married or single, the influence of the girl graduate, the educated woman, is not lost any more than the drops of rain which fall in the bosom of the great lakes are lost in the tremendous power of Niagara.

A fear has been expressed lest this higher education may unfit woman for home life. For the old-time home life of our foremothers, a life of spinning and weaving, of sewing and knitting, of brewing and baking, a limited servile round of duties, it does unfit her. Myriads of inventions and millions of never wearied machines have relegated much of this manual labor beyond her reach.

Increasing, broadening, quickening faculties does not annul the old-fashioned virtues and graces. It does not take from woman her garment of modesty nor despoil her of the pearls of truth. It does not les-