Radcliffe College - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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Baccalaureate Address 3 a i S call it an honest workingwomang some a lady, some a good citizen, some simply a Christiang but at bottom it 1S very nearly the same thing. , . The school not only teaches its pupils to know enough of every- thing so as to rise above the barriers of preyudice and ignorance and understand each other and work in harmony and cooperate with other men and with all God's uniyerse,-it also teaches them to be something. lt is continuallyiprinting. on formless soul-stuff the great ideals of the race. lt is throwing upon the. sensitive plate of the mind image after image of our truest men in their noblest moments.-of Lincoln at Gettysburg, and Washington at.Valley Forge, of Grant and Franklin, of Hancock and Adams, -until there grows out, photographed upon their minds, a great composite of the ideal American, - of the man who would sacrifice pleasure and self- interest for the nation, of the man who would trust himself abso- lutely to the right and to God, who would venture all for the sake of justice and honor,-until that image is stamped into the very tiher of the mind, and every word and deed that emanates from that mind bears in some measure its impress. At present our education, in spite of progress, has certain defects. The chief defect is that it is an unbaptized education. It is fre- quently true that pupils have to be castigated into learning by threats and penalties, or coaxed into it with sugar plums. It is no-t the form of Truth that beckons them, but a vis a tergo that im- pels them. The motive of education is wrong. I cannot speak for women, but it is not always a passion for truth that impels the modern youth to college, as once in the days of the revival of learn- ing, when thousands gathered at such sacrifice at the feet of every learned man. To-day a man goes to college to gain social prestigeg he goes to make friends, the best education he gets in college comes not so much from the curriculum as through his relations with his classmates and through his sports. l-le learns to play fair, to sacri- Hee self to the public good, to master personal feeling, to despise snobbery, to share the common fare with men of all sorts, and every such great lesson of citizenship, not as is intended, from history and literature, but. on the athletic field, at the training table, in the club, in college politics.. The lack of interest in study is particularly due to the kind of things taught because they are tho-ught necessary to culture. Plupils are .taught dead languages, the history of dead men, dead issues, ancient institutions, decayed governments, sins of the. past! All the time the world is full of live men, modern sins which no one understands, new conditions present new types of 6

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Baccalaureate Address S G do. This enables us to develop all the latent power we have and to use the mind and ability of every individual for the progress of society and the state. If it does not yet, it will when these principles are fully carried out! The public schools and colleges are the institutions upon which the prosperity and power of America depend. Some will point to our factories and mills as the source of prosperity. but here is a greater factory,-one for the manufacture of American citizens. They are wonderful mills,-these that are erected in every ward. in every suburb! I-lere on the warp of the brain cells of a hundred thousand scholars and students the mind of America is being woven from the threads of human knowledge! A wonderful mesh it is! I-lere at the bottom is the tough fiber of mathematics, woven in that every judgment may be accurate: here is the rainbow thread of science, connecting each mind with all things in heaven and earth and sea, in such fashion that it can use them wisely: here is the silken thread of history, drawn from the mighty men and great insti- tutions of the past: here is the spun gold of literature,-the highest thought of the race in its most beautiful forms. gleaming here and there through the fabric. l-low silently the wheels turn and the wonderful work goes on, while loyal men and women stand at their posts and guide the thread and pluck out the knots and splice the broken flier with unwearying skill and a devotion that knows no limits, for pay often less than that of a factory hand. There is no work in all the world that is greater or nobler or that tells more in the destiny of the human race. Never was such a work done in the world's history. Some of them take minds filled with bitter prejudice, with the echo of strange tongues. shadowed by the ignorance of centuries, darkened with superstition and error. help- less in face of forces of nature that have never been understood.-- and they tui'n out young men and young women in sympathetic relation with the great universe in which they move, working har- moniously each with his fellow for the good til- all. This is the first thing that they do,- they train men to know something. lfdueation has three aims. liirstu to train men to know sotltelllltlg. Second. to train men to do something: and third, to train men to be sltlllr- thing. 'l'he ideal education nmst train us to know enough of every- thing in order to work in cooperation with others and to have some point of sympathetic contact with everv other man. ln the second place. it must tfltlll us to some one thing thoroughly. and. it possible. better than any one else. .Xnd in the third place it nmst tram tls to be something. XYe call that something by ditierent names. Some f 5

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Baccalaureate Address S B misery, new causes are operant on every side! It is absurd for women to study ancient Anglo-Saxon literature and Greek phi- losophy when they know nothing of the method by which a small ring of business men can succeed in controlling a city, in making the mayor and council its puppets, and all their husbands and brothers as putty in its hands. They are taught theories and forms rather than realities,-that it is more important to get the form beautiful than to have worth in the substance. It is not entirely due to the kind of things taught, however. Even in the professional school and technical school, where educa- tion is practical, there are few baptized men and women. They keep at work more than the pupils in college, but because of the motive of earning their daily bread. It is continually brought home to them, If you do not work you will starve? if you do you will get richlv But the work is drudgery. Men do not go tothe medical school always led by the impulse to cut out tumors or give quinine to fever patients. lt is not a passionate thirst for truth that takes the law student through a volume on torts or sets him looking up a thousand cases of ancient English law. nor is it a real devotion to that art that leads a girl to study housekeeping or dressmaking. 'l'hey work to get money or to win success, and because of this the work that they do is drudgery to them and halt their power of usefulness is lost. The old education took it for granted that men were not inter- ested in learning to know. lt knew that it is itnpossible to get any- thing into the mind without attention. lt felt that it was necessary that every tuan should have certain essentials tif information which he would not want to have. lt believed that tliese must lie pound- ed in through the thick skull and injected with a ncetllc lietteittll the mental cuticle. lt assumed that a boy-'s attention would lie on other things than his studies.-he would be looking out of the window at a dog or a bird's nest. lt believed. however. that with the aid ot a birchen rod his attention could be withdrawn from the bird and held down to the quality of a l.atiu syllable, or the rule in tireek grammar for a past condition contrary to fact. lts etitect was to compel tnen to accept' certain cations about art. certain opinions about literature. certain creeds in religion, certain Clhlitlll- in so- ciety. livery vapid imitation of classic form must lie admired. .Xu artist recently stated that all men to-day judge truly will art rave those who have been educated in it. Such education results in making every one artiticial. lt is pathetic to see people at the Symphouy or the .Yrt tiallery going into raptures -wer things that 7