The Teacher: Essays and Addresses on EducationPalmer, Alice Freeman
Philosophy
The Teacher: Essays and Addresses on Education
Palmer, Alice Freeman
Education; Education, Higher; Women -- Education
But if that life includes a love of books, of nature, of people, it will
naturally turn to enlarged conceptions of religion--my sixth and last
gift of college life. In his first sermon as Master of Balliol College,
Dr. Jowett spoke of the college, "First as a place of education,
secondly as a place of society, thirdly as a place of religion." He
observed that "men of very great ability often fail in life because they
are unable to play their part with effect. They are shy, awkward,
self-conscious, deficient in manners, faults which are as ruinous as
vices." The supreme end of college training, he said, "is usefulness in
after life." Similarly, when the city of Cambridge celebrated in
Harvard's Memorial Hall the life and death of the gallant young
ex-Governor of Massachusetts, William E. Russell, men did well to hang
above his portrait some wise words he had lately said, "Never forget the
everlasting difference between making a living and making a life." That
he himself never forgot; and it was well to remind citizens and students
of it, as they stood there facing too the ancient words all Harvard men
face when they take their college degrees and go out into the world,
"They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and
they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."
Good words these to go out from college with. The girls of Wellesley
gather every morning at chapel to bow their heads together for a moment
before they scatter among the libraries and lecture rooms and begin the
experiments of the new day. And always their college motto meets the
eyes that are raised to its penetrating message, "Not to be ministered
unto, but to minister." How many a young heart has loyally responded,
"And to give life a ransom for many." That is the "Wellesley spirit";
and the same sweet spirit of devout service has gone forth from all our
college halls. In any of them one may catch the echo of Whittier's noble
psalm,--
Our Lord and Master of us all!
Whate'er our name or sign,
We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call,
We test our lives by Thine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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