Talks to Freshman Girls. Brown Helen Dawes
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pedantry, or the desire to make an impression. Education is an immense simplifier; it does away with so many unnecessary pretences.
Bacon sent a copy of the “Advancement of Learning” to a man whom he addressed thus: “Since you are one that was excellently bred in all learning, which I have ever noted to shine in all your speeches and behaviors.” Such is Bacon’s way of saying, “Abeunt studia in mores.” Educated perceptions and a quickened imagination should make for intelligence in conduct, and for beauty in all human relations. The reasonableness of goodness appeals to one’s intellect, while, on the other hand, one must have character to make his intellect tell.
When they praised Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the great lady of her time, they said of her, “Every one that knew her loved her, and everything that she said or did became her.” That is the woman of distinction, whether countess or college girl. “Every one that knew her loved her.” Distinction is of a poor, cold quality which has not sympathy for its final charm.
If Studies give us delight within ourselves, and add to us, we fondly hope, such ornament without, what more may we expect from them? They fit us to take our share in the day’s work. Studies serve us for ability. Says Kipling, “Knowledge gives us control of life, as the fish controls the water he swims in.” The utilitarian view of education is very well, if kept in its proper place; but education, we all know, is for the making of a life as well as of a living. Some mothers used to say, “But my daughter isn’t going to support herself; why should she go to college?” “For delight, for ornament, madam”; and I would add, “for ability and usefulness in any sphere whatever.”
Bacon’s exposition of his own text shows that he means by “ability” much what our New England aunts meant by “judgment.” He says education is of use in “the plotting and marshalling of affairs.” How does this planning and organizing go on? How does business move? By constant wise decisions. Good judgment, you say, is a matter of inborn common sense, and you don’t get common sense by going to college. I am not so sure of that, though I grant it is better to inherit it from a grandmother. But certainly you are learning all the time at college “sense of proportion,” “the fitness of things,” “sweet reasonableness,” which come near to being names for refined common sense.
Life is lived by innumerable decisions, great and small; and a person’s happiness and success will depend much on making these decisions quickly, firmly, and wisely. The helpfulness and comfort that a woman may give to others will consist more in her love and wisdom than in any material benefits she may be able to confer.
One field for the ability of the educated woman of our day is the making of a good home on a small income. She is the woman who will not, consciously or unconsciously, goad her husband to money-making. I should like a fresh sermon preached upon the text, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” This time it should be of those blessed peacemakers who create the harmony, calm, and love of a happy home. That is the great task, the first task of women.
She has no doubt her civic duties, and again her education puts the edge on her abilities: she is a more valuable helper in the world’s work. She may be a bread-winner, for herself and for others; and herein, perhaps, is the most simple and popular argument for a woman’s pursuit of Studies, one so self-evident that I need not dwell upon it.
I have been speaking of an ideal education and of an ideal woman, but where should we consider them both if not in this very place? A college like yours aims at nothing less!
II – REAL READERS
“Do we make real readers of our students?” was the anxious question of a college president. I remembered his phrase when I read his annual report. “Most of these young people,” he said, “are to go out into ordinary life, into general pursuits, where the one chance of their maintaining their intellectual growth will come through stimulating them in these years to interest in some particular line which they may continue, in the midst of the general pressure of social, domestic, or professional life. Unless a student learn to read and love books, she will, in a large majority of cases, be thrown out of all relation to resources that are in any fair sense of the word intellectual.” He pleaded that to make a girl a real reader is to safeguard her intellectual life.
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