Chapter 15

The day on which a young man ends his College course is called, by an apparent misnomer, "Commencement" day; that is, the day of commencing, or beginning. I understand very well that the name has a definite historical origin,--that in the old English Colleges, from which our American Colleges were modelled, the young man, on this day, begins his career as a Bachelor of Arts. His academical rank "commences" and dates from this point. But there would be a beautiful appropriateness in the term, even if it had no such special historical origin. The exit from the curriculum of the College or School, is, in truth, only the entrance into a more extended course. When your studies are nominally ended, they have really only begun. The longer you live, the more will you understand that the period of school-going is not the only, or even the main time of learning. The more thoroughly you have been taught here, the more certainly will you be a learner hereafter. I want no better test of the character of a school than the extent to which the idea prevails among its pupils and alumni, that it is a place for "finishing" one's studies. The idea is on a par with that of the young Miss who reported that she had read through Latin!

There is, it is true, in this School, a definite curriculum of studies, and that curriculum you have honorably completed. You have just been received by public acknowledgment into the community of educated women. But you will be false to the honorable sisterhood, false, I am sure, to all the teachings you have received here, if you entertain for a moment the thought that no further intellectual acquisitions are before you. The branches which you have learned thus far are chiefly valuable to you for the power they have given you to make still further improvement. The studies pursued at school, and during the period of youth, are mainly intended for promoting intellectual growth, for giving us power, for perfecting our mental machinery. Our real acquisitions come afterward. I speak, of course, of those who occupy the higher stations in society. To one who has to earn his bread by mere bodily toil, the few studies for which he has leisure in youth, must, of course, be such as are directly serviceable in his calling. But to those who claim to belong to the educated portion of the community, school studies are of right directed more to the development of the mental and moral powers, than to positive acquisition. Your instructors return you to your friends and your home with a mind enlarged, with a taste refined, with a judgment corrected, ready to take your place and act well your part, as an educated woman. But remember, she is not an educated woman, who knows no more this year than she did last. True education is growth, and it never stands still. The tree which has ceased to grow, has begun to decay.

This, then, is the one thought that I would have you take away with you from school. Give no place to the idea that henceforth books and study and elegant culture are to be laid aside. It would be a dishonor to your School, and a mistake of the first magnitude for yourself.

Perhaps you will appreciate this point more adequately, if you will turn your thoughts inward for a moment, and reflect upon the change which has been quietly going on in your own self and during your residence here. One whose occupation calls him almost daily to communicate his ideas to young persons, either by formal address, or by more familiar ways, feels to a greater degree, perhaps, than any other person can, the change to which I refer. I mean that increased quickness of intellectual apprehension produced by a judicious and symmetrical course of study. Let me give you an instance. It fell to my lot, not long since, to address a School containing three hundred young ladies, all boarders, all over seventeen years of age. They were the best audience I ever had. Among them was not one, who did not appear to be intelligent and thoughtful, and with a mind more or less disciplined. But there were perceptible differences among them, and it is to this point that I would direct your attention. They were divided into four distinct classes, having attended the School severally one, two, three, and four years, and they were arranged before me in the order of their seniority as classes. The discourse was long and didactic, and portions of it were not easy to follow, containing a discussion of a rather abstruse point in mental philosophy. Now it seemed to me, on concluding the address, that I could have gone through that assembly, and marked with tolerable accuracy, class by class, just where each class ended and another class began, simply by what I had read in the faces of my young auditors. It was written as plainly upon those upturned faces, as was the discourse itself upon the manuscript before me. Those who had been four years in the School, undoubtedly learned manifold more from the exercise than the junior classes did. I could see it in the delivery of every paragraph. Such is the uniform result of a proper course of study. It enables the student to grasp new truths with increased ease and readiness. We, who are teachers, feel this the moment we undertake to communicate our thoughts to an audience. The consequence is, we involuntarily measure what has been done educationally for a class of young persons, by the development which has been given to their powers,--by the manifest facility which they have gained for making further gains. That young woman is best educated who is best prepared to learn.

Let me, then, renew the appeal to your own consciousness. Think for a moment upon the change which has been wrought in your own self during your career here. Compare your present self with that other self that you may remember some three or four years back. How much more you can accomplish now than you could then! How much more clearly you can follow out a train of reasoning! How much more easily you can compass an argument! How much more you can enjoy what is beautiful! How much more quickly and accurately you can remember! How much more you can command your attention! Whence this change, and what does it purport? It means that you are educated. You have now a degree of mental power that you had not then. Your own consciousness tells you that you are now just in the condition to enter upon your harvest. The field is before you. You are girded for the work. And will you now indolently lay aside the sickle, and let the golden grain fall to the ground ungathered? Could there be a more egregious mistake? Last week, I saw from my window two parent birds tempting their young fledglings from the nest. Day by day, week by week, I had seen the child-birds growing and gaining strength. Their muscles were now well developed, their bodies were clothed with feathers, they had learned to use their wings,--they could fly. Would it not have been passing strange, had they continued as they were, contented to cower and to crawl, when they had acquired the power to soar? And will _you_ be content to remain forever only a fledgling, satisfied with having acquired the power of rising, but never actually using the wings which these years of honorable industry have given you?

Some of your sex are willing to admit the force of this argument when applied to men. A man, after graduating, is expected of course to continue his studies. His whole profession is one continued study. But somehow, it is thought, this truth does not hold good for women. Let me hope that _you_ at least will not harbor such a notion. Whatever may be said of "women's rights," one right certainly, and one duty, is to keep yourself abreast of the other sex in continued mental growth and culture, and in general intelligence. If you would awaken true respect in my sex, and I hold it a not unworthy ambition, you must in this matter do as we do, at least as those of us do who are worth your consideration at all. You must perseveringly, every year, add to your intellectual acquisitions. You must continue steadily to grow in knowledge and mental power. Do not cease your studies, because you have ceased going to school. Manage to have some elegant accomplishment or acquisition always in hand. A woman who is wise in this matter, never passes her prime. I speak not, of course, of the decrepitude of old age and of the decay of the faculties. But so long as the faculties remain unimpaired, a woman may become, and should aim to become, increasingly attractive, as she advances in years. Poets sing of sweet sixteen. Let me assure you, a woman may be charming at sixty. Mrs. Madison even at seventy was the most attractive woman in Washington.

In society, how soon one feels the difference between a person who reads, and one who does not read. Two ladies may be of the same age. They may dress alike. They may have the same advantages of person. They may move in the same social circle. Yet you will not have been ten minutes in their society, though the conversation has been on only the most common topics of the day, before you will feel that the one woman, though at thirty or forty, is still only a superannuated school-girl, with even less resources than when she left the seminary, while the other is a delightful companion for persons of any age, with ready knowledge for whatever turn the conversation may take, and so abounding in resources as not even to be open to the temptation of making a display of them. The one can talk only so long as the conversation turns on dress, gossip, or the discussion of private character. In listening to the talk of such a woman, you hardly hear a sentence which is not based upon personalities. Her mind has not been fed and nurtured from day to day with beautiful and noble thoughts, with history and science and general knowledge. She may be amiable. She may have personal beauty. But you find her empty and vapid, and you weary of her, in spite of the very best intentions of being interested. How different the woman who, in spite of social exactions, and even of accumulating domestic duties, and of the time-consuming tax of dress, still keeps her mind fresh and growing, by means of reading and culture,--who is ever adding to her stores of knowledge some new science, to her varied skill some new attainment,--who has ever in hand some new book. It is true, indeed, that some ladies are blessed with more leisure for this purpose than others. But I fear it is not a question of more and less. It is too much a question of some and _none_. I hold that every woman is entitled to have, and by proper determination she may have, _some_ time for personal improvement. Remember, we have duties to ourselves, as well as to others, and we have no duty to ourselves more sacred than this,--to rescue from our time some portion for the purpose of making ourselves more worthy of regard.

To undertake to suggest what particular studies you should pursue, in this larger school to which you are now admitted, would lead me into a train of remark entirely too extended. One single practical suggestion may perhaps be pardoned. Do not willingly relinquish the acquisitions already made. They are to you the true foundations for future improvement. You have fairly entered upon several important fields in the domain of science. You are familiar with the elements of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Botany, Physiology, Mental Philosophy, Rhetoric, and with the foundations of Mathematical Science. My advice is that in coming years you give to each of these branches, and of whatever else you have studied here, a stated systematic review. You have some skill in drawing and painting. Let not so graceful an accomplishment die out from your fingers. You excel in music. I need not say, if you would retain this excellence, you must give time to practice and study. So, whatever talent or attainment you now have, let it be your fixed purpose not to let it pass from your possession. Keep what you have, whatever else you may fail to do. To this end, as I said before, give to each of your school studies an occasional well-considered review. You will then always have in your mind certain fixed points, to which the miscellaneous knowledge picked up in your general reading will adhere, and around which it will accumulate in organized form. New studies, too, will naturally affiliate with the old, and will be easy and pleasant just in proportion as you keep the knowledge that you now have, fresh and bright.

Besides this general advice, there is one accomplishment in particular, which I would earnestly recommend to you, as I am in the habit of doing to all of your sex. Cultivate assiduously the ability to read well. I stop to particularize this, because it is a thing so very much neglected, and because it is so very elegant, charming, and lady-like an accomplishment. Where one person is really interested by music, twenty are pleased with good reading. Where one person is capable of becoming a skilful musician, twenty may become good readers. Where there is one occasion suitable for the exercise of musical talent, there are twenty for that of reading. The culture of the voice necessary for reading well, gives a delightful charm to the same voice in conversation. Good reading is the natural exponent and vehicle of all good things. It is the most effective of all commentaries upon the works of genius. It seems to bring dead authors to life again, and makes us sit down familiarly with the great and good of all ages.

Did you ever notice what life and power the Holy Scriptures have, when well read? Have you ever heard of the wonderful effects produced by Elizabeth Fry among the hardened criminals of Newgate, by simply reading to them the parable of the Prodigal Son? Princes and peers of the realm, it is said, counted it a privilege to stand in those dismal corridors, among felons and murderers, merely to share with them the privilege of witnessing the marvellous pathos which genius, taste, and culture could infuse into that simple story.

What a fascination there is in really good reading! What a power it gives one! In the hospital, in the chamber of the invalid, in the nursery, in the domestic and the social circle, among chosen friends and companions, how it enables you to minister to the amusement, the comfort, the pleasure of dear ones, as no other art or accomplishment can. No instrument of man's devising can reach the heart, as does that most wonderful instrument, the human voice. It is God's special gift and endowment to his chosen creatures. Fold it not away in a napkin. If you would double the value of all your other acquisitions; if you would add immeasurably to your own enjoyment, and to your power of promoting the enjoyment of others, cultivate with incessant care this Divine gift. No music below the skies is equal to that of pure, silvery speech from the lips of a man or woman of high culture.

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4. _To a Pupil on Entering a Normal School._

You have entered upon a new and untried path. As one having been often over this way, and well acquainted with the features of the country before you, its lights and shadows, its roses and its thorns, its safe walks and its hidden pitfalls, I desire to talk with you a while before you enter upon the untried scene.

1. First of all let me say to you, we give you a most hearty welcome. We are glad to see you here, and we tender to you in advance a warm and ready sympathy in the many little worries, annoyances, and discouragements that surely await you. For myself I may truly say, that, outside of my own home, I have no greater happiness than to be among my pupils, and few things could pain me more than to believe that any one who had been for any considerable time my pupil would not almost unconsciously claim me as a friend; and it is an unceasing well-spring of joy for me to know that among your companions are many who, in time of trouble or difficulty or anxiety of any kind, would come to the Principal of the School, as sure of sympathy as if going to their own mother.

This freedom of intercourse between teachers and their pupils, this mutual exchange of confidence on one side and of sympathy on the other, is a source of good and a source of pleasure, which neither you nor we, my young friend, can afford to forego; and if in the expression of this thought I have indulged in a rather unseemly use of the first person singular, it is not because I would claim for myself anything peculiar in this matter, but because, from my years and my position, I can perhaps, better than my associates, afford to speak out thus the inward promptings of the heart. We _all_ give you the right hand of fellowship, and trust it will not be many weeks, or days even, before you shall feel that you have here a home as well as a school, friends as well as teachers.

2. A very common feeling at the beginning of a course of study, is a feeling of discouragement. Nearly all the studies are new, and you enter upon each with fresh eagerness. Now, it is in the nature of every study while it is new, to seem boundless. Under the guiding hand of a skilful teacher, its limits and capabilities are stretched out in one direction and another, interminable vistas spread out in the distance, and portentous difficulties rise up before the imagination, until the mind is bewildered.

There is not one, of the formidable lists of studies before you, that might not of itself, so great are its capabilities, occupy your whole time. When you find yourself called to grapple at once with four or five such studies, to measure yourself with competitors, many of whom have had opportunities of preparation greatly superior to your own, and in the presence of teachers to whom the whole subject is as familiar and as plain as the alphabet, and when, in addition, the methods of recitation are for the most part new and strange, you are very apt to become discouraged, to feel that you shall never learn to recite in the manner required, that you can never master the difficulties before you. This feeling arises most frequently in the best class of minds, those most conscientious in regard to duty and most capable of comprehending the full length and breadth and depth of a subject. The shallow and the trifling are never troubled with the kind of difficulties now under consideration.

I address myself to you, my young friend, because I know you have come here with an earnest purpose, with a mind acute enough to see something of the vast work before you, and I say to you, as one who has had large experience in conducting other pilgrims over the same track, never lose heart. Difficulties which now seem insurmountable, will gradually disappear; subjects which now seem impenetrable, will soon lighten up. Did you never enter a room in the dark? At first the apartment is a universal blank. After a while, as your eyes become adjusted to the place, one article after another of the furniture becomes outlined to the vision, until at length, especially if approaching day lends some additional rays of light, the whole scene stands out perfectly defined. So it is in entering upon a new study. Many a passage in it will seem to you at first a worse than Serbonian bog--a cave of impenetrable and undistinguishable darkness. But draw not back. Look steadily on. Light will come in time. Your power of seeing will, with every new trial, receive adjustment and growth, and you will in the end see with full and open vision where now you have only dim glimpses and guesses. Do not be discouraged, therefore, if at first you fail, or seem to yourself to fail, in almost every recitation you undertake. What seems impossible to-day, will be only next to impossible to-morrow, and only very difficult the day after. Your failures are often only the proofs that you have a glimpse at least of something below the surface of things. A discouraged pupil is never a source of anxiety to me. It is only the self-confident and over-wearing that are hopeless.

3. I have spoken of recitations. Let me urge you to form some definite idea of what a recitation is, and what kind of a recitation you, as a pupil of a Normal School, should aim to make. And first of all, on this point, let me say, the mere answering of questions, and especially, the mere response of yes and no to questions, is not reciting,--assuredly not such reciting as is to fit you for the office of a teacher. And, in the next place, let me say, that repeating verbatim the words of the book, is not the method of recitation at which you should aim. I do not agree with those who would dissuade you entirely from cultivating the faculty and enriching the stores of memory. Not only memory, in its general exercise, but a purely verbal memory, is important. In your lessons, are many things, rules, definitions, and so forth, that should be learned with the most literal exactness, and should be so fixed in the memory that they will come at your bidding, in any place, at any moment. There are, too, in some of your books, passages from noble authors, which furnish food and nourishment to the soul, and which the mind craves in the very form and lineaments of their birth--passages which are like nuggets of virgin gold, or coins from the mint of some great sovereign in the realms of thought. They form a part of your wealth, and you want them, neither clipped, nor defaced, nor alloyed, but with every word and point exactly as it came from the hand of the master. These precious gems of thought, the garnered wealth of the ages, will not be neglected by any one who is wise. Treasure up in your intellectual storehouse as many of them as you can possibly compass, only with this proviso, be careful to select for this purpose the very best out of the great abundance that is before you, and make thorough work in what you do attempt to commit to memory. The act of memorizing will at once strengthen the faculty of memory itself, and will enrich you otherwise. By all means, therefore, learn by heart the leading definitions and rules of your text-books, and choice passages from all famous authors. But do not attempt in this way to commit to memory, or to recite verbatim, the pages of your history, geography, rhetoric, and so forth. Such a practice would be a most unwise waste of your time, and would cause a weakening, rather than a strengthening, of your faculties.

Let me tell you exactly what I mean by reciting. Your teacher goes to the board and, chalk in hand, explains to the class some point which they seem not to have apprehended. That is my idea of reciting. First get thorough possession of the thoughts or facts of the lesson, and then, imagining the class and the teacher to be ignorant of the subject, explain it to them, just as you will expect to do when the time comes that you will have a class of your own to instruct. It will aid you in preparing thus to recite a lesson, if in your rooms you will go over it aloud to each other, you and your room-mate, taking alternate portions. Such a method of preparation will doubtless require some time. But one lesson so prepared will be worth more to you than a whole week of study conducted in the ordinary manner. Remember, that in a Normal School your object is, not merely to get knowledge, but to learn how to communicate what you have learned. First then go over a topic till you are sure you understand it. Then go over it again and again until you can recite readily and perfectly every part of it, in its order. Then practise yourself in telling it in your own words, aloud, if possible, to somebody else, until you can make the narration or explanation continuously, from beginning to end, and without the possibility of being thrown out or confused by any amount of interruptions. Then at length are you prepared to recite.