The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1891-09-03
TN WOMAN'S BEHALF.
THE MODERN GRADUATE.

The time was when the young grad
uate received her blue-ribbOned diplo-
ma with the blissful consciousness that
her education was finished Her name
in the catalogue. in the list alumna,
was an indication that she had gone
through the prescribed four years
course and had triumnhantly passed
successive examinations in history,
sciences. languages, mathematics
and belle lettres. If she be-
longed to well-to-do family
there was little interval of travel. and
she returned, having received the fin.
ishing touches, ready to take her place
i'm society.
After year or two of society she
married and settled down. her home.
husband and children comprising all
the career she hoped for, or for which
she had time or inclination. If this
was not the legitimate result of her so
cial experience it was considered more
or less failure and there remained for
her nothing but to remain. dependent
upon her parents, or, in the event of
their death, to find a place where she
was made more or less welcome under
the roof of friend or relative. II was
not cheerful existence. and it is not
much wonder that this joyless and pro-
tected spinsterhood seemed very sornber
and dismal after the hopes and aspira-
tions of girlhood. OF course. among
her classmates there were those who
knew that they must be self-snpport-
ing. that the knowledge acquired as
pupils they must in turn impart as
teachers and that they had no reason
to expect in purely work-a-day life
much recreation. ease or admiration
If to them came the blessings of home
and the love of husband and children it
was fortunate accident, unforeseen
and regarded as something in the nature
of miracle. Between the girl who
had to make her way and the girl
whose way was made for her there was
an almost impossible chasm. 1t was
widened by proud sensitiveness to
patronage on one hand. and an indiffer-
ence and passive selfshness on the
other
But times have changed with the
girl graduate as with all other classes
and conditions, and the change has
been vastly for the better. The rich
girl nowadays is not content with lux
ury. She wants to know life as it actu-
ally is as it can be learned only in the
midst Of affairs; by thinking and doing
and by coming in contact with the
| world. She has an affectionate admira-
| tion for the classmate whose circum-
stances will give her this privilege, and
| between them there exists strong
feeling of comradeship which is one of
the innovations of these better days.
It is hardly probable that romance is
dead or dying or that the young grad
uate does not dream her dream and evoke
from her fancy or experience hero that,
| to her, is the one man of all the world.
But before she capitulates she wants to
test her individual powers; to see what
she can accomplish unaided; to apply
her knowledge and use her gifts in
making some separate place for her
self, which she shall owe to no one.
This is the distinctive spirit of the
century-whose greatest power. VIM.
Baker has avowed is to be the infiu-
ence of educated women. 1t is much
more than probable that two-thirds Of
the young women who graduated from
the schools and universities of the coun-
try last June will marry, but few of
them will marry Immediately.
Ii they were interviewed it would be
ascertained that most of them have un-
der consideration some interesting post
graduate course. Others look to the
professions to medicine. journalism, to
art or music, or even the law, for which
they will prepare themselves first, and
let destiny manage the rest, and they
are in no hurry.
Instead of uniting them for domes-
tic life, professional training. ex-
perience with the world, ought to
broaden the mind and the sympathies
and make the woman all the better and
the stronger for her place at the head
of a family. Furthermore, it should add
to her value as wife that she has been
able to earn her own livelihood, and in
renouncing her financial independence
she makes sacrifice-no matter how
freely and generously-that demands
an equivelant in devotion and affec-
ton.
There is no danger that taste of in
dependence, the testing of moral and
mental strength, of practic al and valu-
able requirements will make her less
womanly, less wifely. or less motherly.
Nature has taken care of all that and
has planted these instincts in her soul
beyond the power of custom or environ
ment to efface them.
Of course this applies only to one and
the larger class. There is another OF
which preachers, writer's and teachers
of ethics make no record-a class
which, however. includes such women
as Harriet Hosmer. Rosa Bonheur and
Harriet Martineau, those who desire to
devote all their mind and strength to
the work they have chosen, who find it
sufficient and are too content and happy
in that work to ask anything beyond it.
1t must be confessed that they are the
minority and, since the home must be
the unit of.society. the fountain source
of civilization, the origin of pure, ration.
al life. there is wisdom in the decree
which has ordained that they shall be q
minority.
But it is vast gain. an incalculable
improvement over old conditions that
the girl graduate of to-day need not be
coerced, but may choose which life She
will have, and if she is true to her high
est nature may attain equal honor in
either.-Inter Ocean.
|