What shall we do with our girls? One of our well known daily papers
came to the conclusion some time ago that our girls must be disposed
of in some way, and feeling that it lacked the ability to solve the
problem alone and unaided, sent a request abroad for help in settling
this momentous question.
If we were in China, they would say "drown them." Horace Greeley might
have suggested sending them West to keep house for his "young men."
Many, in answer to the before-mentioned paper's appeal, advocated
making business women of them; while others said: "Teach them to be
good housekeepers."
Now, as all our girls cannot be housekeepers, neither can they be
business women, is it not the best plan where there are two girls in a
family, to teach one how to minister to the wants of the household,
and let the other help to provide the means, wherewith to supply the
necessities of life? We are not all Vanderbilts or Astors.
But whether it be "Yea" or "Nay," woman is making her way in the
world. She has been heard of as making rapid progress in law; and it
was only a short while ago we read of a young lady being admitted to
practice in Pennsylvania. We have doctors without number; one of our
Western towns boasts of a woman for Mayor, and they have aspired to
the Presidency. Much has been said of woman's sphere, but she knows
her own place in life, and if given a little help in the various
directions necessary to reach the place, she will win, and has won for
herself respect and admiration for her courage and independence.
But this is not a Woman's Rights Meeting, nor a sewing circle, in
which the minister has been invited to tea, and where we are making
the poor luckless man suffer for his sex in general, but the
Graduation Exercises of a band of girls who have worked hard for
success, and gained it.
A society of men organized many years ago, instead of sitting with
folded hands lamenting _their_ inability to dispose of "our girls,"
went to work and established a class; placed at its head one of the
best of teachers, and called it the Stenographic and Typewriting Class
of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen. "Now," they said,
"we have opened a way, let us see what the girls can do for and with
themselves."
In the Fall of 1886 the first class was formed, and since then more
than 100 girls owe their present advantages to this noble institution.
The Class of '90 graduating from here to-night met for the first
lesson on October 1st of last year.
Of our troubles and disappointments, it is not for me to tell, but we
have bravely toiled on, and have at last reached the end we have so
eagerly and anxiously looked forward to, and the feeling that we have
learned something which will help us in more ways than we at present
fully realize, repays us for our perseverance.
To-night we graduate from this school into one compared to which the
trials and disappointments of this course will seem trifles. We go
forth to battle with the world, and if we do not keep up with it,
it will mercilessly leave us far behind. But the Class of '90 is
not going to be laggard. Indeed we hope that when we graduate from
that higher and more exacting school, it will be with the same
satisfactory results with which we leave here, and, like Longfellow's
"Great Men," we may leave
"Footprints on the sands of time."
There are several benevolent institutions in this city where
Stenography and Typewriting are taught during the day, without expense
to the student. But the girls that need this instruction most are the
working girls, who have only the evenings to themselves, and cannot
afford to take the time to study that which they know would be
beneficial to them. But the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen
have recognized their wants, and every girl in this class has
acknowledged that when in the future she has reached that zenith to
which every one aspires, "Prosperity in her chosen calling," she
cannot forget that it was through this Society she was enabled to
reach that height.
And now, dear Friends and Patrons of this school, I, in the name of my
classmates, bid a cordial "welcome" to you all, confident that you who
have sympathized with us during the past eight months will rejoice
with us in our success.