Wesleyan College - Veterropt Yearbook (Macon, GA)

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hand, crowns lying at her feet, men the tools of her power, and the world the theatre of her greatness. Give woman an opportunity and science will be her handmaid, philosophy her companion, and litera- ture her plaything. Give the female the advantages of the same instruction with the male, offer her the same opportunity of improvement and she will struggle with the boldest mind for mastery in science and letters, and will outstep in the proud race for distinction the favored objects of parental solicitude and legislative bounty.” This from a man in behalf of woman. Then he added : “ In our country there are sixty-one colleges, and the disgrace of the nation be it known, not one of them dedicated to the education of woman. No apparatus explains the principles of her studies, no library throws its collected light on her neglected mind. She has no sanctuary where she can place her shrines, no altar before which with saint-like devotion she can make her prayers one sweet sacrifice. Child of promise, thy day of liberation is nigh. Knowledge has raised her eyes to heaven and sent to its glittering throne, a prayer of faith in thy behalf. On its power, I rely; in its efficacy I trust!” And he did not trust in vain. This was in 1835, and the next year a charter was obtained for the Georgia Female College, which school in about five years became Wesleyan College, the first institu- tion to recognize the rights of women to a liberal education. Many colleges of higher grade and richer endowment have thrown open their doors since that day, many male universities have followed in the wake and admitted women within their portals; but to the Wesleyan belongs the distinguished honor of being the first chartered institution in the United States, if not the world, established upon the plan of a regular college for women. As Georgians, as Southerners, we take pride in this fact, and now appeal to the women of the state without respect to religious creed or faith to unite with us in saying, 4 All hail to the South, the leader in the grand enterprise ; all hail Georgia, upon whose brow the fair jewel of Wesleyan rests like a diadem ! all hail Wesleyan, the pioneer college for women ! Let us echo the sentiment uttered at the first commencement exercises, “Beacon star in the night of years, we greet thy beams with rapture and hail the sign of promise as did the Roman mother the lambent fire that played round

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young Tarquin’s cradle. The first to rise on woman’s destiny, shine on undimmed and bright, not set till earth is childless, and time’s no more !” In this mother of colleges for women, we have a possession which others covet — if it belonged to our friends of the North or of the West, it w’ould be a Mecca towards which their hearts would turn, a shrine on which they would heap their gold. And shall we be less loyal than they ? Some are striving to have the State University open its doors to women. Let us strive also to make Wesleyan the peer of any male university. Some are talking of a Washington Memorial University for the training of statesmen and diplomats. Our ambassadors to foreign countries with- out any special training in that line have coped with all nations, winning the plaudits of the world. Let us talk of a great Southern university for women where our girls will be fitted for the grave responsibilities that await the women of the twentieth century. Nearly fifty years ago a society, literary and social in its character, was started among the students of the college, then in its maidenhood. The next year a sister organization was established, and together these two societies, Adelphean and Philomathean, hand in hand, have come through the years, proving a blessing to the girls, binding them to each other and to the college. Is it not a significant fact that this society, the oldest woman’s club in the United States, has for its motto, “We live for each other,” a sentiment which forms the basic element of the true club work of today, a work calling for the best there is in a woman to be used for the benefit of others, and demanding the highest altruism of which she is capable?