“I am thinking seriously about my future. Perhaps this is premature, for I am only in my freshman year, but I have just about decided that I’ll study medicine.”
From mine, at a similar age (you see precocity was not among my failings):
“Sister was sick, and I brought out all my little bottles of sugar, salt and flour. Besides these medicines, I dosed her with pimentoes and poulticed her with cabbage leaves, but she grew no better, quite fast, so mother called another doctor. Dear me, if I were my brother, instead of being only a girl, we’d soon see whether I’ve a talent for medicine or not.”
From my young friend I quote again:
“I am greatly interested in the question for debate in our literary society this week, especially as I am chief disputant on the affirmative. It reads as follows: Resolved, That the votes of women are needed to help put down the liquor traffic.”
From mine:
“It is election day and my brother is twenty-one years old. How proud he seemed as he dressed up in his best clothes and drove off with father to vote for John C. Fremont, like the sensible ‘Free Soiler’ that he is! My sister and I stood at the front window and looked out after them. Somehow I felt a lump in my throat, and then I couldn’t see their wagon any more, things looked so blurred. I turned to Mary, and she, dear little innocent, seemed wonderfully sober, too. I said: ‘Wouldn’t you like to vote as well as Oliver? Don’t you and I love the country just as well as he, and doesn’t the country need our ballots?’ Whereupon she looked scared, but answered, ‘Of course we do, but don’t you go ahead and say so, for then we should be called strong minded.’”
From my pupil at seventeen I quote once more:
“The recent articles by members of the ‘Women’s Congress,’ some people would call radical, but they express precisely my opinions on the dress question. It is time for me to assume the garb of a young lady, but upon two things I am determined: First, I will never trail my garments on a filthy pavement while I live. If I am the only young lady in this university, who, when she walks, wears walking costume, I will still be true to my individual sense of cleanliness and taste. I will also carry the jewel of an unpunctured ear through life, though, by so doing, I oblige Mr. Darwin to confess ‘a missing link’ between me and my evolutionary ancestors.”
Finally, from mine: