Address to the First Graduating Class of Rutgers Female College — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Address to the First Graduating Class of Rutgers Female College
John Stuart Mill · en
In the description of the woman of old, it is said: "In her tongue, is
the law of kindness;" and this I would most earnestly entreat you to
emulate, believing that few things would conduce more to your usefulness
and happiness. Saint James tells us that "if any man seemeth to be
religious, and bridleth not his tongue, this man's religion is vain."
Elsewhere in his Epistle, you may learn how difficult a thing he
conceives this to be. It requires a perfect control of one's self, and
a large charity. Of the former, we hope that you have gained something
here; the other, you can gain somewhat from experience, but in
perfection only from the grace of God.
I would have your conversation governed by the charity of which the
Apostle Paul saith, that it "suffereth long and is kind; envieth not;
vaunteth not itself; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil." This
kindness of spirit, this charity, is a high Christian grace; but it
might almost be taught by experience, seeing how little we really know
the motives that sway the human soul, and how often the severe judgments
which we pronounce on our fellow-mortals, have to be reconsidered with
much pain and self humiliation, when perhaps it is forever too late to
right the wrong, and to recompense the suffering that we have
occasioned.
Friendships broken, causeless enmities, opportunities for doing good and
getting good thrown away, too often teach us--too late to prevent, to
ourselves and to others, much lasting injury--the value of the law of
kindness as the law of our words. Especially is this law of kindness
needed in the speech of woman, whose hasty, thoughtless words can
influence to fury the pride and wrath of man, and set on fire his
heart with the fires of hell. Dissensions in families, hatred between
neighbors, enmity between states and nations, follow when woman's tongue
embitters man's jealousy and passion.
If the sphere of woman is hereafter to be enlarged, we all should more
earnestly hope, and more fervently pray, that she may everywhere carry
with her "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight
of God of great price."
What is the characteristic in woman that should most fasten the
affections, and secure the esteem, of man? Is it the varying charm of
manner, or beauty of person? The Scripture before us, answers these
questions in a few decisive words: "Favor is deceitful,"--that is, an
unsatisfying thing--"and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the
Lord, she shall be praised."
I know few things, even in the Scripture, so thoroughly justified by
observation, and at the same time so little known and regarded, as this.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, the fear of God answers to the love of God in
the Christian Scriptures, and so may be taken as equivalent to true
piety: and true piety in woman is that alone which really can draw from
out the heart of man, the sentiment of lasting veneration.