I am very glad to have opened this class, although I have had nothing to do with the instruction of it, for in that event the graduating class would not be so large, but I do feel very great pride in being here.
Were I so disposed, and you very anxious to be tired with a long address, I could say a great many things touching the real purpose and idea of these young ladies and their instructors. There was a time in the history of the world when it was a very grave and serious question as to just what the position of woman was in society; what God meant by her creation, what was her place. There are some men who think the highest ambition of woman is the wash-tub; that when she finds her vocation there she has fulfilled her mission, and when God has prepared a place for her in the Kingdom of Heaven, He takes her home, and gives her a diploma. There are others who have an idea that the place for woman is a little higher up; that she is to bask in the sunshine of life—that she is a kind of butterfly. That is an erroneous idea. I think personally, and I am sure there are not men enough here to out-number the ladies, that the position of woman in this life, socially, politically, religiously, or in a mercantile sense, is right alongside of the best man the world can produce.
I remember, while pastor of a church in an Eastern city, the smartest man and preacher of that city was a woman. She was a man in every sense of the word, she had the power of a man and the charms of a beautiful woman; I was a little jealous of her, because her church was a little too close to mine and she drew a great many more. She was a beautiful, godly woman, and took out of me some of the false ideas and thoughts that I had, relative to the work of woman in the world. So I have lost all sense of jealousy, and I am perfectly willing to be deposed by the women, and there is no true man but will give the women just as good as he wants in his life.
I was thinking, when I took up this programme, there is a certain society of a secret order that has a motto like this: “By these signs we conquer.” That is a very wide and universal order, but, if I mistake not, there are forty-four members of a society not as universally known, its extent is not as large as that order and society, who are to go out into the world and, “by these signs, conquer.” The latter is just as potent as the former. I told you, young ladies, some months ago, about a system of shorthand and the first experience I had in that line. Some of you will remember it. You will remember I told you about a system of shorthand that I had to read before it got cold or I could not read it at all.
I want to congratulate you for this delightful evening; I want to congratulate you in view of the pleasant exercises you are to behold. I want to congratulate these instructors for the very good and efficient work they have done during these months. I congratulate you upon the marvelous work that has been done. You may not all be called upon to report my sermons; some can report 120 words, some more, some less. You are going out into the world, some of you immediately, to begin your life work. Do not feel, because you are a woman, that some aristocratic specimen of creation—man—looks down upon you. Just hold your neck as straight and your head as high as he, and I do not know but you would be par excellence above the man himself; you have an opportunity.
There is one thing I regret, however, in regard to your special calling, and it is this: I read advertisements in the papers where employers advertise for young lady typewriters and stenographers and it has pained me to see the low rate of wages, oftentimes. Let me put a bee in your ear. You are in possession of one of the greatest sciences I know; there is nothing above it in the realm of learning. Do not for one minute submit yourself, any one of you, to a service below your worth, for God has implanted in His Word this truth, “Every laborer is worthy of his hire.”
I thank the gentleman who has invited me here. When I become older than I am now and fail in preaching, I assure you I shall come to this home of hospitality and kindness, and shall try to take up the art myself, thereby becoming as efficient as some of you are.
God be with you and in His own time take you home to His abode where you will not be troubled with taking down the ideas of men.
