The age-herald., 1898-05-20
MRS. BALLS ADDRESS,
Delivered Before the Graduating Class of the
 High School.

The following address was delivered last night before the graduating class of the High School by Mrs. George c. Ball:
 Ladies and Gentlemen of the Graduating
 Class, and Board of Education:
 l accepted the invitation to address you tonight because I regarded it not only as a compliment to me individually but as an intended honor to the womanhood of Alabama.
 No woman who loves Birmingham and this grand old state of ours can fail to be gratified that the Birmingham High School is one of the first educational institutions of the south, indeed of the republic, which has acknowledged the equality of the sexes by such a kindly and generous act as the invitation to a woman to speak to young men and young girls who are just enter ing upon the serious and comp,ex duties of life.
 I have reason to know that the mayor Of Birmingham, Hon. Frank V. Evans, and the superintendent of the public schools of the city, Dr. J. H. Phillips, have been for years in earnest sympathy with what Is termed the woman movement" and each in his way, and according to the opportunities afforded him has assisted in binging to the present condition of frui- ton the laudable aspirations of the wo- men of the state. President Ullman, of the board of education, has also stood ready and willing to advance the ambi- tions of our sex, whenever those ambi- tions lay along lines which meant progress and elevation.
 It may be that every member of the board has the same generous impulses, for surely no set of men couuld have so nobly succeeded in laboring for the good of our city if their minds had been limited by narrow provincial prejudice. The best friend the progressive, intellectual woman of today can claim is the broad minded generous-hearted, advanced man of the present time. You have had the inestima- ble advantages that come from co-educa- ton. Your superintendent, etachers and board of education have succeeded in dem- =onstrating through the Birmingham public schools the great value of this educational plan
 The splendid practical results accom- plished in the various public schools of the city must have convinced the most conservative citizens that co-education tends to the best mental development of both sexes The same discipline and the same curri- culum necessarily place both boys and girls, young men and young women, upon the same plane of opportunity.
 Whateysr the future life of girl may be, educated under this plan. she will for ever be beneficiary of system which placed within her reach the identical facili- ties as those which came to the boys of her family.
 1this a waste of .tinle to descry co-odu- cation any longer; it is one ofthefactors which Is bringing the civilization of today up to it's present high standard of excel fence. This is a thoroughly practical age Sickly sentimentality belongs happily to 0 remote past.
 There are now no more "moated granges" where sequestere lovelorn maidens moan helplessly for him "who cometh not" If the right one does come to the bright red brave-hearted, busy-brained girl of the nineteenth century, all the better fol 3the sweetness of that girls life; but there are so many things for her to do, so much ro occupy her heart. mind and soul that she wastes no precious moments In hopelessly watching and waiting. This is time of fresh air, fresh ideas. fresh vital thughts, and there are great fresh green fields into which yu may each one ener and gather the glorious harvests whicsh awaits the indus trious gleaner. This Is a period when the only limit to achievement Is the limit to aspiration. Men and women seldom rise higher than their individual ambition
 Just here let me charge you, that you must not make the mistake of supposing that love is dead, or is a relic of prehis- toris age. In this latter part of this won- derful century there are exquisite romances going on all around and about us, romances that are integral parts of our every day lives, which would have furnished Scott, Bulwer or Dickens with themes sufficient for their genius. But the sentiment and TO- nance of this period of the worlds history have outgrown moated granges and dark corners; they will bear exposure to the glare of the monday sun, and are equal to the sad and sorrowful exigencies of this workaday time. There is always a place in the world for true, honest. tender senti- ment. and that of the present period is pure, natural and wholesome, and the p'ac- ing of men and women upon the same in- tellectual and educational plane has done more than any other one thing to bring about this healthful result. Co-educatfon is the destroyer of miserable sentmentality; it is also the incentive, the inspiration of lofty endeavor. You arc about to receive your deplomas after years of arduous, -on- scientious study. and you stand with ex- pectant. eager eyes looking over the thresh- old of tonight into n place of promise Each one of you, doubtless. has formed some