Lyman Hall High school - Singer Chronicle Yearbook (Wallingford, CT)

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THE CHRONICLE MARY LYON, A PIONEER. Youth is the pioneer time, a period of growth, of pushing up and out, of exploration, of dreams and visions, youth is the all-conquering time, exuberant, full of the joy of living and with the vigor and freshness of Spring pulsing in its veins. There is nothing youth does not expect to do, nothing youth cannot do. The whole wide world lies open before it, its mountain peaks of achievement to be climbed, its depth of experience to be sounded, its storms and calms, showers and sunshine, its purple hills of visiqn, and fair green valleys of dreams, a true promised land. Youth sees the obstacles in its way, the places where the path is dim and the way dark. Youth sees them, yes, but it looks beyond them too, where the fair land of life lies open before it, a land of golden opportunity, and of achievement. Youth has ever been the Pioneer time. The youth of a country always produces pioneers, explorers, frontiers men, men and women who brave the wilderness and bring back gold. Not always the gleaming meta' which has ever lured the world, but something infinitely better, the gold of brave deeds and achievements. There must always be some one to blaze the trails. Some there are with the love of adventure and the free spa who glory in that life, who love to leave the beaten highways of men and search out new lands, new paths, new inventions and discoveries. There must be pioneers and a pioneer must be one with youth and the joy of living and doing eternally in his heart; one who knows not defeat and therefore cannot fear it. Such a one was Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke college, a woman who looked beyond the narrow limits of her day and saw the horizon broadening out and widening in every direction. No sleepy life of ease in the valleys was hers, but work, glorious work among the mountain tops. Mary Lyon was a pioneer by inheritance and environment as well as by disposition. She came of a pioneer race, people who loved the struggle with the wilderness and taught her to love it, too. Englanders they were, a race which has always been pioneers, blazing the pathway for others. She drew her strength of character, her indomitable will power, her perseverance and pluck from them, and from the rugged hills of New England which surrounded her birth place. Mary Lyon’s life was one long record of accomplishment, a true pioneer’s life. Just how much she has done for us of today, we even yet do not fully realize. Only when time has had a chance to catch up with a life, and to turn its dreams and visions into reality, can men see how far-reaching, how great the work of that life was. But this much we do know. She gave to women their chance to live a better, richer, fuller life than had been theirs before. She opened the gates not only of higher education but ol a world of higher service. The first woman doctor, the first woman lawyer, the first woman college president, even the woman in business. —-these could not have been opened for them unless someone had pioneered leading the way to new lands rich with unharvested opportunity.

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4 THE CHRONICLE yet no opportunity to stop it. In this struggle, with one accord a great wave of preparation and patriotism has swept over the United States. We have heard it asked nation-wide, “What can woman do at a time of war?” “Is not her place in the home?” No, woman’s place in not solely in the home: her usefulness at a time of war is paramount. In this struggle a natural result has been unemployment, that of woman greatly exceeding that of man. Does this not prove that woman must play her part in the war? Practically all of her means of earning a living are destroyed. Boarding houses are deserted, factories closed and millinery and dressmaking establishments badly affected. These conditions have shown women that something must be done, and they have patriotically, unselfishly risen to their duty. In many other ways woman is showing her worth. How many Red Cross associations are there in this country? There is scarcely a town however small that is not represented. Day after day our women are learning the art of caring for the sick, sanitation, and a hundred other things along this line, to say nothing of the good they are doing by making materials for use in the hospitals. A short time ago we heard it asked, “What good is all this? It is merely a fad.” To use the words of that great commander, Major-General Leonard Wood, a man whom experience has taught, “As no chain is stronger than its weakest link, so no army is stronger than its Red Cross.” But let it be understood that the Red Cross will not be the only calling for women from now on. Through a National League for Woman’s Service established with its headquarters in Washington, any patriotic woman desirous to help her country can find her small part to do. Very valuable service has been and will be rendered the United States by women who decrease the high cost of living by planting gardens, being economical in buying, and by cooking wholesome but inexpensive foods. Undoubtedly we will hear more about and greatly admire women who show their skill as aviatrices or crack pistol shots, but in reality these women will not help their country half as much as the domestic woman who plants her garden. The former will not be needed at the front until our men are unable to protect us and we hope that then we will need higher kinds of protection. As conditions become more serious many of our women will take their sons’ or husbands’ places at the work bench as has happened in France and England. We will soon have skilled woman wireless operators, conductorettes, woman chauffeurs, postwomen and women who will hold responsible government positions. Our women will feel that they must share the responsibility. The strain which our nation is under will be divided equally between man and woman. We. the class of 1917, will be called upon to do our bit in the terrible war drama. For some of us definite futures are in view, for others, uncertainty. In fact, at this crucial time there is a degree of uncertainty allotted to all. However, some of our boy classmates have already shown a spark of patriotism, by joining in the national movement, “Gardening.” We feel the boys are not the only ones ready to help: our girls will be anxious to do their part in protecting the stars and stripes, that emblem of liberty, equality, and fraternity. NATALIE BAUMAN

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6 THE CHRONICLE Ihere was, of course, a host of those who criticized, who condemned Mary Lyon. The cry was then as it is today: “This will take womc«. away from the home.” But she knew better. She knew the joy that comes from lives which are lived widely, strongly, nobly and she kn w. loo. that anything that leads women upwards can not but be better, that life on the hill-top is better than life in the valley. It is difficult for us to think of a time when education was a thing denied to women, when a girl who had ambition to better herself, to rise above her environment was scorned, laughed at. There was not opportunity given to women for culture and self-improvement. The only -chools open to them confined their curriculum to a pattering of French, a smattering of music and a dab of painting. For a girl who seriouslv wished to improve herself there was no chance. We for whom education made so easy, so pleasant, do not realize our advantages, we do not thuik how much we owe to those pioneers of education. Mary Lyon was fortunate in her time of life. She had the good fortune to be born just at the right time to accomplish her ambitions. People were just awaking to an interest in the every day world, a second Renais-j'MW- They were beginning to question, to experiment, to advance and Mary Lyon was the one to lead the way in her particular line. She saw that women could not hope to take their rightful place in the world unless given equal opportunities with men. Before her time woman had been loied upon as something useful, certainly, in the home, and perhaps ornamental. but having no ability or desire to take part in the larger scheme of things. But even at that period, Marv Lyon was so much ahead of her time in ner ideas that she could find few who could fully appreciate what her aim «'a- and what it meant to women in general. But no obstacles were too great for her will power and perseverance. Her magnetic personality won many people who had come to criticize, to go away fully convened to the higher education of women and to contribute largely to the advancement of her plan. But even Man,- Lyon’s endid optimism sometimes came in contact with small-minded people who are often those who could accomplish the most. Once she had made a ong journey to lay her plans before a family of wealth and influence. On her return, empty handed, she said thoughtfully. “Yes, it is all true. J-: as 1 was told. They live in a costly house, it is full of costly things, they wear costly dothes.—but oh, they’re little bits of folks!” How much he spent of herself, her time, health and money, no one v, eve- know. But at last she saw Mt. Holyoke open its doors in 183,“, a pioneer institution. Mary Lyon was not the first to hear the call for higher education of women but she was the one who gave it its first rea birth. She saw that women were face to face with a new period in tnetr growth, a crisis, and it was her purpose to prepare them to meet it. anc to fit themselves for the lives of wider service which lay before them. And - Mary Lyon lived her life: a life glorious in the light of service and devotion, a pioneer leading the way toward the highest goals in the rid i The gr wth of human souls. Man- Lyon and her work will live e as -ne'e - one institution for women and one woman who carries her high ideals of service and self-sacrifice in her heart. KATHERINE RIGGS