Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1910-10-14
McConkey & Son
PHONE No. zO9
No. 12O Sixth Street.

public and private, were girls. The
leisure which has come with the dcvel-
oprncnt of wealth has in the main fallen
to the heritage Of woman and the time
when girls went to college to prepare
for some brcadwinning occupation has
been superseded, in part at least, by the
purpose Of going to college for the de-
velopm,nt of intellectual resources or
the enrichment of lives. In the second
airy schools more women than men are
teaching, and in the primary schools the
great army OF instructors Is composed
Of women For the first time in the
history OF the world we witness ma
ton cniru>liny the scholastic training
Of its future population to women. The
day of treating them as peculiar peo-
pie has passed. and the measurement
of their usefulness and importance is
no longer determined by some artificial
standard. but by the same scale as that
by which, men arc measured. This is to
be seen in social and educational and
professional life, and even in the prob
lem of suffrage the tendency is more
and more toward the ground that the
privilege is not to be bestowed upon her
as an exceptional angel, but. if at all,
upon her as a human being, possessed
OF intelligence and a reasonable willing
ness to exercise the duties of citizen
ship 1t is a far cry. III consequence,
from the woman, Sakakawca. to the
women of the twentieth century, but
in both are to be found determination.
sympathy, intelligence and fortitude. all
of which become sweeter and dearer
with the training which the century has
been able to give.
My task. however. does not end with
the presentation of this change in the
attitude toward women that has taken
place in the nineteenth century. impor-
tant as it is. There still remains to be
considered the meaning of this statue in
the progress Of the commonwealth of
North Dakota. While it stands as a
recognition of the part that woman has
played in great historical event, as
a tribute to the work of Lewis and
Clark, and an acknowledgment that we
in this commonwealth had much at
stake in the outcome of that expedition,
it also marks, on the other hand, the
passing from the material, unadorned
and crude, to the artistic. the beautiful
and the worthwhile. In the early days
Of community, the struggle is to pro-
vide the means of livelihood, to estab-
lish homes, to supply food and clothing
and shelter, in fine, to meet the primal
wants of man. But as time goes on
and fortune brings success and wealth,
the pressure of hunger and the neces-
sites of life are no longer so marked.
There is place for the amenities of
life; the aesthetic and beautiful are
recognized as essential elements in
mans education; and before we are
aware of it there is common feeling
that we ought to provide for ourselves
beautiful things to look at, things that
will give us pleasure and inspiration.
The erection of this statue in North
Dakota is notice to the world that we
have passed beyond the stage of the
primal wants, that we have actually
reached point where we have the time
and the means to provide beautiful
things.
But the statue stands for still more
than that. Each person who sees it
will have called to his mind something
of the meaning of the great Northwest
and of how it came into our possession,
of the difficulties that were overcome to
secure it, The Federation of Women's
clubs of North Dakota have done we'll
in the choice of their subject and in
the determination to erect this statue.