"Girls," she began, "I asked you to come here because I want to have a
talk with you about our school life. You'll all agree with me that we
love the Villa Camellia. It's a unique school. I don't suppose there's
another exactly like it in the whole world. Why it's so peculiar is that
we're a set of Anglo-Saxon girls in the midst of a foreign-speaking
country. We ourselves are collected from different continents--some are
Americans, some English, some from Australia, or New Zealand, or South
Africa--but we all talk the same Anglo-Saxon tongue, and we're bound
together by the same race traditions. Large schools in England or
America take a great pride in their foundation, and they play other
schools at games and record their victories. We can't do that here,
because there are no foreign teams worth challenging, so we've always
had to be our own rivals and have form matches. In a way, it hasn't been
altogether good for us. We've got into the bad habit of thinking of the
school in sections, instead of as one united whole. I've even heard
squabbles among you as to whether California or Cape Colony or New South
Wales are the most go-ahead places to live in. Now, instead of
scrapping, we ought to be glad to join hands. If you think of it, it's a
tremendous advantage to grow up among Anglo-Saxon girls from other
countries and hear their views about things. It ought to keep you from
being narrow, at any rate. You get fresh ideas and rub your corners off.
What I want you particularly to think about, is this: it's the duty of
all English-speaking people to cling together. If they've ever had any
differences it's time they forgot them. The world seems to be in the
melting-pot at present, and there are many strange prophecies about the
future. Black and yellow races are increasing and growing so rapidly
that they may be ready to brim over their boundaries some day and swamp
the white civilizations. Anglo-Saxons ought to be prepared, and to stand
hand in hand to help one another. I've been reading some queer things
lately. One is that a new continent is slowly rising out of the Pacific
Ocean--Lemuria they call it--and some day, hundreds of years hence,
there may be land there instead of water, and people living on it. They
say too that the center of gravity of both the British Empire and the
United States is moving towards the Pacific. Sydney may grow more
important than London, and San Francisco than New York when the trade
routes make them fresh pivots of energy. Another funny thing I read is
that as the world is changing a new race seems to be emerging. Travelers
say that the modern children in Australia don't look in the least like
English children or French children, or any European nation--they are a
fresh type. America has been populated by people from practically all
the older countries, but I read that children who are being born there
now differ in their head measurements from babies of the older races.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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