The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-03
Commencement Grafton Is
Delivered At Bryn MaWr
WOMAN's SPHERE IN WORLD
President Speaks of the Advancement
of Woman in the Past Century
In Education and in the
Professions

Philadelphia, June 2-President Taft de-
liyered the annual commencement day
oration today at Bryn Mawr college,
where his daughter, Helen, is a student
Taking for his subject Higher Educa.
ton for Women the President declared
that College education certainly does not
detract from the power of woman to
make a good companion or to train and
teach children, while at the same time
it makes her Independent and, If she
never meets the man who can make her
happy as husband, she can become an
independent and useful member of So
ciety."
President Taft reached here shortly
before II o'clock from Washington. After
his arrival his suitcase containing his
cap and gown were mislaid and. he was
obliged to deliver his address clothed in
his travelling suit.
Mr. Taft left here at 8 o'clock this
afternoon for Ada, O.. where tomorrow
afternoon he will address the graduating
class of the Ohio Northern university.
The missing suitcase was discovered
shortly before the President departed,
but after boarding the train he found
that he had forgotten his overcoat.
Secret service men were unable to re-
cover the coat before the departure Of
the train westward.
At the commencement exercises Miss
M. C. Thomas, president of the college,
announced that the fund of $3.50, 900 re-
quired to be raised by today in order to
secure the $25O.0OO promised by the gem
eral education board had been secured.
President Taft spoke in part as fol-
lows:
Young Ladies of the Graduating Glass
q Youi able and distinguished president
has asked me at this commencement to
say something in respect to the higher
education. of women. 1t is on the other
hand the most relevant and germane to
the occasion. but it is of one ! hesitate
to speak of in the presence of those who
have made it their life study and whose
opinions in regard to the matters are of
so much more real work than my own. 4
f'rhe marvellous progrfss In material
and other ways Made by the world In
the nineteenth century is only less won
derful than the ease and rapidity with
whicl, we forget the steps in the progress,
the difficulties in its attainment and the
ing"
The President reviewed the advances
made In educational advantages for both
sexes since 1900 and said:
Il dissent from the view that an aca-
deinic education unflts a man or wom-
an for business. 1t may be that the
tastes that lead one to an academic edu-
cation are not those which insure busi-
ness success, but that the mental disci-
nj he of
vation and comparison of ideas. are not
of assistance in business transactions in
which the highest quality of the mind
are accurately in action can hardly be
true.
"Rut it is said that women are not all
going into the professions, and so that
the education necessary as a basis for
profe ssional career is not needed by those
women who have a competency or who
look forward to marriage and mother
hood as the chief end of women.
''It Is even suggested that the higher
education of women rather units them to
discharge the duties of wife and moth
er; that in some way or other 1t robs
them of charm and gives them an in
tellectual independence that is ncon-
sistent with their being the best wives
and mothers. ! utterly dissent from this
view. The companionship of married life
Is ethe chief charm and reason for Its
being, so far as 1t relates to the two per-
sons concerned. The enjoyment of the
home, with children, and the training of
them, of course, are among the most i'm
portant duties and pleasures of married
life and it certainly does not detract
from the power of a woman to make a
good companion, or to teach and train
her children up to high ideals that she
should have the advantage of higher
education. 1t is not essential that wom-
an who knows much must conform to
the unattractive manner and ways of the
conventional blue stocking; that she
should make the extent of her knowledge
a source OF discomfort to those with
whom she associates, or that she should
lose her interest in the sentiment and
emotions of life, or fail to have an ap-
probation of beauty and romance
II am quite ready to concede that mar
riage and motherhood are normal
status for women, and other things being
equal, she Is happier In that condition
than in any other But this is far from
saying that a woman's life is failure
because she has not married and that her
life may not be a failure because she had
married
Zone of the great advantages of the
higher education for women, in my judg-
ment, is in the independence it gives her
In the choice of life which she is to lead'
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