Then it was my turn. I hadn't said anything to Miss Spot about changing my oration. I thought if I could do it once to please them, I could do it again. I worked hard on mine, because the prize was a hundred dollars; and if Mrs. Carney wouldn't take it, I wanted it for Rose and the girls. I thought Miss Spot would be pleased to think I did it without any rehearsing. I imagined how she would tell visitors about it, during ice-cream. I didn't keep a copy of it, but some of it was like this: I decided to write about "Growing," because I think that growing is the most important thing in the world. I believe that this is what we are for. But some ways to grow aren't so important as others. For example, I was born on a farm near a little town. At first my body grew, but not my mind. Only through district school. Then it stopped and waited for something to happen--going away, getting married, et cetera. Soon I met somebody who showed me that my mind must keep on growing. It seems queer, but nobody had ever said anything to me about growing. All that they said to me was about "behaving." And especially about doing as I was told. Then I came to the city and I worked in a factory. Right away I found out that there the last thing they thought about was anybody growing. They thought chiefly about hurrying. Not a word was ever said about growing. And yet, I suppose, all the time that was our chief business. One day I went to the Museum, and I saw a large white statue of Apollo Belvedere. The other people there seemed to know about him. I didn't know about him, or any of the rest of the things; and I went outside and cried. How was I to get to know, when nobody ever said anything to me about him? Or about any of the things I didn't know. I wasn't with people who knew things I didn't know. Or who knew anything about growing. Then I came to this school. I've been here and I've learned a great deal. Countries and capitals and what is shipped and how high the mountains are, and how to act and speak and eat. I know that you have to have all these. But I am writing about some education that shows you how to be on account of what life is. And about how to arrange education so that every one can have it, and not some of us girls have it, and some of us not have anything but the machines....