Newark post. (Newark, Del.) 1910-1969, 1918-06-12
FIRST COMMENCEMENT
AT WOMEN'S COLLEGE
Continued from Page y

out with anxiety and expectation,
I'd like to make my appeal to these
young people. | want to talk to
them on the subject, If | were
young again. If | were twenty and
had life to begin over, at such a
time as this, what might | not do
with my life!
IF we want opportunities, girls,
we must seek them, we must dig
for our gold, and dig hand. | start
ed to college with eighteen dollars.
| know how to make clothes last.
l have turned them toward the top,
and turned them toward the bot
tom; turned them right side up and
wrong side out. | have hung them
in the closet for awhile, and then
started in again. have been cold
lots of times. The Bible says that
God tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb, but it never says anything
about university girls. And the
university girl had hard time of
it anyway fifty years ago. The
world was divided into two class
es: those who thought women so
perfect they could not be improved
and those who thought them so i'm
perfect that it was impossible to
improve them. But if | had my
choice between the old time hard
ship and suffering. and the PAM
pered, easy life of no purpose, with
no goal at the end OF it, | should
choose the hard ones.
Your days are better than our
days. yet I'm not bit older than
you are. It's good time now in
which to live; it's almost as good
to be woman today as it is to be
man. As | have looked at your
new buildings, received welcome
from your president, and witnessed
the loyalty of your dean, and seen
you with all these magnificent
magnates around you, | am glad
that this world is beginning to I'M
derstand the spirit of the demo-
cratic ideal; that it is better to be
human than either man or woman.
and that every human has right
to all that God has prepared for
his child. | have learned with
pleasure that nearly one half of
this class has been welcomed into
the service of the country. to do a
share in the winning of the war.
"To fight" DR.. Shaw declared.
ais no more noble than to inspire.
We feel that always when We feel
the sources of inspiration all
around us. When those not equip
ped to fight render every service
they can, they are doing their
share of the country'S work. The
first American killed in this war
was a young woman working in a
chemical laboratory on serum to
prevent typhoid fever. to protect
our soldiers. The one hundred and
twenty girls who died at Eddystone
where they were making munitions
gave their lives in this war. The
two nurses who died on our ship
as result of an exploded shell,
were victims of war. But woman
serves as healer rather than as
a destroyer. Indeed the service
which woman can render at this
time is as much in demand as
mems service. That could not
have been said fifty years ago,
when every avenue was shut eX-
cept teaching. No profession. no
scientific service was open to wo-
men.
II were young again two
things would put before my mind.
When l stood four years ago with
a single heart throb looking two
worlds in the face, | summed up
life. Two things, | believe, make
life infinitely precious, make life
infinitely worth while. Any who
possess these things can never die
while they live. There are many
people living, You know, who are
dead, and the world would be bet
ter if the last rites had been said.
% Be so possessed by a great
principle Of right, be so absorbed
by an ideal, that it takes posses
sion of you. When your ideal
takes possession, then your life be-
comes Of infinite value. ~ De-
velop great and unfaltering love
for humanity; such love that no
betrayal, nothing that takes place
in life, can make you lose faith
over the human and ultimate faith
in man. Then YOU can meet all
+ obstacles, all differences. and
triumph, no matter where your
path leads, or what you may do
That which makes rivili-or;Dr