COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES. 457 



Some rather ultra-conservative persons have feared that with the 

 acquisition of these sterling, though jierhaps more stern qualities of 

 character, women would become mannish, would lose those charms and 

 graces which have always been theirs. IJut nearly half a century of 

 experience has proven that no amount of education can render the 

 woman who is made of the right material in the first place, unwomanly 

 or unlovely. True, she may, indeed, have lost that superficial, fluffy, 

 insipidity and those bric-a-bracish propensities which we have in some 

 way come to consider a part of "the eternal feminine," but she will have 

 gained in their place vivifying, life-transforming power of noble aim 

 and purpose. She will have found instead that whatever fate may put 

 therein, her own life is worth living out bravely to the end; that while 

 she may not be free to go and come at will, there is yet time in her life 

 for all good things — time for work and time for play; time for the 

 every-day divine sweetness of life, time for the ''mountain visions." 

 Above all else, she will have begun to become a little acquainted with 

 herself, to see what it is in her nature that distinguishes her from every 

 other being in the world, and to decide in what sphere of activity this 

 distinctive self will find its best expression and use. 



So, in considering what it is that a woman is to give to her age, we 

 may say that, first of all, she must become a part of her age. She must 

 hold her soul open to both give and receive that inspiration and sym- 

 pathy which is to help harmonize and unify mankind. Then, while a 

 woman gives, consciously or not, of all that she is, she will be able to 

 give it most effectively through what she does — through her work. 



Let this work be whatever her own capabilities and highest happiness 

 may determine, but let her do it with the conscious hand and will of 

 the master workman. It is a duty she owes both to herself and to 

 society. In doing this work of hers, whatever it may be, she need not 

 become in any way eccentric, unlovely or unmindful of the common ties 

 of human affection and duty. On the contrary, all that she can put into 

 her work of the magnetism of her own vivid womanhood will but add 

 to her helpfulness and her power over the minds and hearts of those 

 whom her life will touch. We do not want hard, cold, merely intellec- 

 tual brilliant women, but we do want women who understand them- 

 selves and whose lives are warmed and brightened by purpose, and who 

 realize that, merely because they are women, they are not exempt from 

 the duty of putting their individual talents into active use for the 

 world. 



If they feel that it comes to them in the right way, the great majority 

 of women will find, as they always have found, their highest and cer- 

 tainly most ideal happiness in the activities of the home. Here, indeed,, 

 is a field of work and influence so vast in scope, so eternal in meaning, 

 that the best a woman can put into it is all too meager. And the women 

 of the future will be prepared to give their best to it. Understanding 

 the needs of their own inherent natures, they will enter the home of 

 their own free will, because here was the satisfaction for which their 

 souls were seeking, and not because it is the fashion to marry, or be- 

 cause most women do. 



But if this factor never comes into a woman's life, or if she feels 

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