A PIONEER IN METHODS 71 Wellesley and Wells and Vassar and Smith and Bryn Mawr are today working upon lines that this pioneer teacher projected and established. Mary Lyon followed this audacious and triumphant lead. It all seems right and natural now: but then it was held as chimerical. Now it keeps a young man well-tasked to prove that he is not the mental inferior of his sister. Then his vanity went all but unchallenged. Dr. Willard was one husband who took a woman of rare intuition and force at her true value and was his wife's ardent coadjutor. Mrs. Willard, in 1819, set forth her "Plan for Improving Female Education." To some it seemed revolutionary: but it obtained the warm approval and practical support of Governor DeWitt Clinton, and under his urging she came to Waterford, N. Y. Thenceon she belonged to our own state. By special act, state funds were granted in furtherance of her scheme. Under the proffer of a more suitable building, she removed to this city of Troy, in 1821, and, adapting the word, established in that year- seventy-four long years ago - the Troy Female Seminary. Her husband who had so trusted and seconded her sound and generous vigor, died in 1825. Her work went on until 1838, when she gave it over to her son and his wife. Thirteen thousand girls, of whom more than five hundred became teachers, received and again diffused the influence of Emma Willard's benign labors. Mrs. Nettie Fowler McCormick, whose wise generosity has written itself upon a great Theological school in Chicago, graduated here in 1854, and she was one of many. The true woman whose name we honor today rises up at this fit time, and by her husband's loyal help, this building prolongs what long ago was so bravely done. Emma Willard journeyed, wrote and wrought to the last. "Rocked in the cradle of the deep" was her fine lyric. So, and still in this city, she fell asleep, a well-won rest, in 1870. Only the Omniscient can measure the fruit and the ever-increasing harvest of so true a woman's work. ONLY THE GENEROUS ARE GREAT 73 spirit that fell from Heaven" usurps the rights of the heart. We are too selfish with our ideas. Living is sharing. Withholding is losing. Truth is a trust and true men its trustees. Our knowledges are not ours to secrete and to hoard, but only ours to impart. And our substance is lent for use's sake. Men of great means are only mean men, unless they are also men of great ends. Acquisition if it becomes a lust dries up the soul and violates the first commandment with that covetousness which is idolatry. EMMA WILLARD gave. She gave her heart, her hand, her brain, her gatherings, herself. She joined her name with the generous, who alone and therein are the great. Ability in any measure is responsibility. She did what she could. Oh, that today we all might be nourished and ennobled by entering more fully into her unresting and unwasting spirit! This is the fulfilment and the only fulfilment of the "law of Christ," who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister," and to give life as the ransom of many. I turn, with hearty thanks to God, who has put it into his heart, to acknowledge the exemplary service by which this noble structure is now dedicated to woman and to truth. May God lengthen his days to prosper many with this and like bestowals. May he receive into his own soul the gratitude of those he helps. May he be thrice rewarded in the blessings that add no sorrow. This RUSSELL SAGE HALL will stand to shelter a noble preparation for high and helpful womanhood, long after we all are gone. It will be more and more beloved, as the years glide on, and rich associations gather about it. But we are sure that no hearts will ever find a purer happiness within its walls than today is theirs who with such affectionate planning have wrought this completion, and who now with overflowing pleasure witness the crowning of the work. In your names, one and all, dear friends assembled, I congratulate these donors upon the finished and beautiful result of love and generosity. Ideals AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE GRADUATES OF THE BARTHOLOMEW SCHOOL OF CINCINNATI, OHIO MAY 30, 1895 THE genial urgency of the invitation under which I find myself in this present critical situation, was wholly inverse to the value of any service that utterance of mine is adequate to render. In this estimate I am only too sure presently to win your substantial agreement ! Not having eluded the request of the honored head of this school, my little wisdom and less wit is placed at your mercy. It is so easy to give one's note, and alas, often so difficult to meet its promise with full payment! To one who takes such chances there is always a temporary relief in that sagacious truism of Aristotle's, "Count it among the probabilities that many improbable things will happen," and for me there was left the possibility that a providential cyclone, or flood, or some other personal or public disaster, might intervene. But, alas! Congress has adjourned, and no other general calamity has befallen. Once again, having "treated my resolution," I have tasted the guile of a honeyed invitation, and I am reminded of that response to a toast to Eve's daughters, in which a rapturous devotee so confused his Scott and Pope Let me warn all maidens here not to listen to addresses which they intend to reject, and au contra, never to say No! SERMONIZING INCORRIGIBLE 75 with such ambiguous back-glancing that a later Yes! seems possible. For, out of sheer desperation, ere now, many a man has been "married to get rid of him." It is entirely true that "any man may marry any woman that he pleases- provided he can find any woman that he does please!" It is handy to be well supplied with a previous engagement. As many a cashier, so valuing his services as to anticipate his employers, by raising his own salary, has, to his pain, found that reckoning comes with sure and wool-shod feet, so now my temerity and insolvency are confronted by the relentless and accusing hour. In my plight, I throw myself upon your clemency. Like many another remorseful, if not penitent, convict, I would win the good will of my gaolers, and, by decorum, shorten my time! Being sentenced, let me, at least, be sententious. A shrewd applicant for a vacant Texas pulpit, when questioned as to the usual length of his sermons replied, "Thirty minutes, with a leaning toward mercy." If not quite so telegrammatic, I shall, at least, attempt no more than the relative liberty of "night rates." I speak of sermons, and I must frankly own that since my nature is well "subdued to what it works in" I find my azure always shading toward the pulpit ultramarine. My garb of cogitation has long ago been cut with what an honored teacher of mine used to call the "homiletic bias." "And that they knew full well (or should have known), who gave me public leave to speak to you." Coleridge once said to Lamb, "Did you ever hear me preach ?" and Lamb replied, "I never heard you do anything else." For theme, I had granted the "world all before me where to chose," and, choosing, I have not thought to compete with those faithful instructors who have put into the hands of the young women to whom this occasion chiefly belongs so many well-spun clues-instructions which have set the sturdy warp upon which each one now moving to her own life-loom must henceforth pack home the woof. It will be the fault of the scholars, not of their tutors, if the after-work ravels or is at all |