Speeches & Writings File
"The Debt We owe As Women"

The Debt We Owe as Women.
Nothing indicates more clearly the progress
of a nation than the increasing intelligence 
of its women. It matters not how rapid
seem the strides to a perfect civilization,
the foundation upon which it is built is 
sand and not rock, if the educating influences
fail to reach and affect any of the
component parts. The importance, the urgent
need of educating women to the full extent of
their ability is so keenly felt and frankly
acknowledged by the thoughtful and sincere
that it would seem almost like a reflection
upon the intelligence of an audience to cite
arguments to prove the point. A learned
man once declared that if a nation had to
choose between educating its boys and neglecting
its girls, it would be wise to confer the
blessings of knowledge upon the girls as
the future mothers of its sons.
The effort is everywhere making to atone
for the wrong of dwarfing the intellect of
women for so many centuries. Opportunities
for development along lines varied and numerous
are everywhere opened. It behooves
us then as women to inquire conscientiously
what is our duty under this comparatively
new regime. Enlarged opportunities
mean increased responsibility, which can
be fulfilled with credit to ourselves for the
good of all concerned only by the intelligent
well directed efforts of individuals keenly
alive to the importance of the role they play.
It therefore gives me great pleasure to
discuss the Debt We Owe as Women with
the young ladies of the graduating class
now before me. The completion of your
High School course is sufficient evidence
that a solid foundation of knowledge has
been laid by your teachers and yourselves
so that the nature and the amount of the
debt you owe both to yourselves as individuals
and to society in general must
be a subject of concern and interest to you.
The debt we owe ourselves is of
prime important since so much, I had
almost said everything, depends upon the


manner in which we discharge this first
obligation resting upon us. Therefore keep yourselves
well informed, abreast of the times, nourish
the brain constantly. The duty of availing
yourselves of the opportunities for improvement
offered has been impressed upon
you so often that it seems like a work
of supererogation for me to emphasize it again
to night. And yet no one of you can become
the power for good you desire, and your
friends hope for you, or achieve the success
so dear to your heart, unless you are possessed
ever forward with the determination to grow
more and more in knowledge, to cultivate
yourself more assiduously than ever, to
seek and seize opportunities for self culture
more conscientiously than you have done
in the past.
Cultivation of self should be synonymous
with the elevation of those who
come under one's influence. The world
was never in greater need of women
wise of head and pure of heart than it is to
day. In order to work effectively, it is
necessary to devise ways and means best
adapted to secure the end in view. The
degree of success and the amount of good,
therefore, depend largely upon the mental
growth of the individual who has the
work in hand. The spiritual development 
must not, of course, be neglected.
There are so many ways of educating one's self
and the effort required is so small compared
with the magnitude and extent of the
good [?] be accomplished that failing
to do one's duty in this respect seems to
stamp one as hopelessly blind to his own
best interests and heartlessly indifferent to the
welfare of others. The world is full of women
who mean well, whose power for good would
be unlimited, if they only bestirred themselves
mentally; if they were only able to get above and out of themselves
and the petty cares that consume all of their
time long enough to feed the brain a little.
Dying of mental starvation in the midst of
an abundance that might be theirs for
the asking, they creep feebly through existence
[a burden to] dissatisfied with themselves, leaving no impress

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upon lives which need their help, and
to which they might have carried so much
light and joy. The number of means open
to all for mental improvement is legion.
To him who keeps his eyes and ears
open, the life of to day is a great university
whose treasures of knowledge can be had
without money and without price.
The only condition of success is that one
should apply himself diligently to the lessons
which are thus freely offered and masterfully
taught. If it is not your good
fortune to pursue further your studies
in college, you need not therefore feel
the acquisition of knowledge ceases with
the possession of the diploma handed you to
night. You have already been blessed with
advantages far exceeding those enjoyed by
many whose words and works have wrought
wonders for the progress of mankind.
Many a man has made himself immortal
in the realm of literature, science and the
arts who has been obliged to work out his own
mental salvation in the midst of a desperate

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struggle for existence, with only the few books
and pamphlets for instructors which chance
and poverty enabled him to secure.
The great reformers who have succeeded in lifting
the world from the depths of ignorance and
vice to a higher plane than that on which
they found it, have, for the most part been
obliged to contend against fearful odds to
equip themselves mentally for the task before
them. How manifold are your opportunities
compared with theirs. You have
in many instances free libraries begging you
to accept the treasures they possess. There are
the magazines upon which you can lay
hands for a pittance. Then, too, the best
books, those that have stood the test of time
are the cheapest, so that a well selected library
may become the possession of the poorest, if he
have the taste and inclination to avail himself
of the culture and information they afford.
No one can plead lack of time
for failing to lay up daily stores of knowledge
which will be his for eternity. The little
minutes thoughtlessly frittered away in

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idleness would, if properly utilized, supply
you with the fund of facts and the kind of
thoughts which would make you the cultured
broad minded women it is in the power of
all, blessed as you have been, to become.
Did time permit it would be interesting to
cite instances of the vast amount of work
accomplished by devoting just a few minutes
a day to some special task. The Iliad and
Odyssey were read in an comparitively short
time from beginning to end by a man
who could spare just ten minutes a day
for his Greek. The whole was accomplished
by employing those fragments of time for
which he might otherwise have had nothing
to show. And so, each one of the class of
95, now just on the threshold of life
may, by utilizing a trifle of time each day in
ministering to the needs of the brain, become
the cultured, cultivated women of whom
the world is in such need.
The debt women owe to children
is one which their own sense of right
and duty urges them to settle. As mothers

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teachers and guardians we are called
upon to liquidate a debt which we alone
can discharge. It is a debt of honor we 
owe, a debt due the weaker and younger
by the stronger and older, so that the moment
the obligation is presented to us,
that instant each and every individual becomes
responsible for his share of the indebtedness.
The truth of the old adage that the child is 
father of the man has been verified so often 
and so long that a nations progress and intelligence
may be judged by the manner in
which it cares for its children upon the
future weal or woe of a country depends.
Free Kindergartens are being established in
many of our large cities because thoughtful
men and women know how much early
training affects the future career of the individual. 
The importance of starting little 
ones on the right track as early as possible
is too self evident and universally acknowledged
to be discussed here. The more unfavorable
the environments of children,
the more necessary is it that steps be

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taken to counteract the baleful influence
upon innocent victims. How imperative
is it then, that we inculcate correct
principles and set good examples for
our own youth whose little feet will
have so many thorny paths of prejudice, temptation 
and injustice to tread.
This, then, is the work to 
which every true woman must apply herself,
no matter in what capacity the desired influence
is wielded. It is not that good
men are incapable of rendering valuable 
assistance, or are uninterested in carrying
forward this great work with the little
ones, that I emphasize the necessity of woman's 
taking an active part in it [the training of
the young] but it is because [she is so
admirably fitted by] natural tact, intuition
and insight she is so admirably fitted to
mould the mind of the young.
Let our women agitate vigorously those reforms
in laws and schools which are for
the improvement of the condition of the children. The 
establishment of free kindergartens throughout



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the length and breadth of the land is an
assured fact when the women of the country
become keenly alive to the importance of inaugurating 
this movement from which such
unspeakable blessings will flow.
Statistics showing the large proportion 
of crime committed by our boys and
girls appall and dishearten us, but
when one considers the homes from
which many of these children come, the wonder 
is not that so many fall by the wayside,
but that so few fill the cells of the 
penitentiary, crowded into alleys, many of
them the haunts of vice, few is any of
them in a proper sanitary condition,
most of them fatal to mental and moral
growth, as well to healthful physical
development, thousands of our children
have a wretched inheritance indeed.
Make a tour of the settlements of the poorer
classes, who in most of our cities are 
relegated to the most noisome sections permitted 
by the municipal government,
and your heart sinks within you

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at the spectacle presented. Here are our little
ones fairly drinking in the pernicious example
of their elders from whom alone
they learn the lessons of life. Remember,
too, that in purity and goodness, the
majority of these future citizens are instructed
neither by the precept nor the 
practice of those they naturally
imitate. How much it would mean if 
everyday these children came in contact
with intelligence and respectability. There would
be a marked decreased of crime in that 
section at least.
Before a child is six years
of age, many habits of body and mind are 
formed which require the greatest effort
on the part of both teacher and pupil in
after years to correct. Young women
listen to the cry of the children, who need
your intelligence, your example, your
love. A great poet once said let who
will make the Nation's laws, let me make
its songs, and so I say tonight, let who 
will educate the Nation's men, let me

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train its children. If it were in my power
to impress upon the young women of the class
of '95 the importance of bringing under proper
influence the myriads of little unfortunates
whom it is the duty of somebody to reach, the
mission of these remarks would be more
than gloriously fulfilled.
In considering the debt women owe to the home
the duration of the time required to pay it, and
the extent of space covered in the operation
would appall anybody but a woman.
The variety of duties to which [the average] woman in the
home is obliged to give her attention would
send the average man within a month's
time either to a lunatic asylum or to a
home for incurables. There is a constant
draft on all her powers of body & mind.
She must dispense philosophy and make
pie; she must wield an influence and 
manipulate a broom; she must banish
care from the brow of her husband and
cobwebs from the ceiling of her home; she
must be everywhere at once and nowhere in
particular; she must be all things to all her

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family; she must be doctor, apothecary and
nurse all in one; she must be lawyer, judge,
jury and court, all combined; she must be
seamstress, tailor and general repairer of
second hand clothing; she must be cook,
scullion, butler, steward and bell boy; she
must be milliner and maid of all work; she
must be always busy but never weary, always
pestered, but never cross; in short always
an angel, but yet a woman.
These and manifold other accomplishments
and beatitudes she is expected to possess so
that they irradiate her brow, and scintillate
in dazzling brilliancy, as she moves in all
her majestic humility through the house.
But in discussing the debt woman owes to the
home as well as to society, an important item
would be omitted, should the subject of dress
be entirely ignored. It is the duty of every
woman, be she young or old, to dress as becomingly 
and as artistically as her means
will permit the teacher who is attractively
attired can wield a better and greater influence
in the school room than she who is careless


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about her attire. The mother of a family who
is always neat can by her example do
more to inculcate principles of cleanliness
and self respect than by delivering homolies
on the subject from morning till night,
if her practice fail to accord with her
preaching. Let no one accuse me of advocating
extravagance in dress. Every woman knows
that it does not require a heavy purse to
attire herself neatly, and all have seen costly
costumes which made their possessors
look like caricatures of themselves. The best
dressed woman is she who is attired becomingly
whether the dress material cost five cents
or five dollars a yard. Mother Nature [the]
has shown us the effect and importance
of attiring one's self becomingly by making
herself as attractive as possible to the eye of her
creatures. I take it, she meant to teach a principle
by giving us this beautiful object lesson
in which we all take such delight. And so,
while I would not advise young women to be
awake nights planning gorgeous or striking
costumes in which to dazzle the eyes of their

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friends, or create a sensation wherever they
appeared, I should like to impress upon all the
necessity of attiring themselves as neatly and as
becomingly as possible, not only for the sake of [their]
improving their appearance, but for the sake of
increasing their power for good.
The debt woman owes to society
as well as to the home is an obligation which
requires the expenditure of as much mental, physical
and spiritual force as she can possibly command.
The standard set for the ideal woman
was never higher than it is to day, and our
young women must exert themselves to elevate
it more and more. Upon whom more than 
women rests the responsibility of correcting those
evils which make society the common camping
ground of so much vice in the mask of virtue?
Her duty it is to work with an unflagging zeal,
and an indomitable will for the purification
of the social atmosphere so frequently overcharged
with the germs fatal to the development of what is
purest and best in man or woman.
The need of good men is as
great as that of pure women, I am well aware,

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but the responsibility of creating the proper sentiment
in the home and in society seems to
devolve in a special manner upon woman.
Justice and Purity call loudly upon the wives,
mothers, daughters and sisters of the land to
deal a death blow to the old dispensation teaching
them to turn the cold shoulder upon a fallen
sister, while they receive her destroyer with a
cordial welcome, and a gracious smile.
They also urge our women prosecute vigorously
the crusade against that law of evil origin
which sets one standard of morality for the man,
and another for the woman.
Each and every one young or
old who fails to assume such an attitude in
the home, or among her friends as will make
make for the elevation of the moral and intellectual
tone of these circles is either ignorant of the
debt she owes or recreant to her trust.
Let our young women remember
above everything else that woman's sphere is
wherever she can do the greatest amount good whether
[with] among the pots and pans of the kitchen, or among the
philosophers and politicians of congress.

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While the interest of every true woman must of 
necessity center in her home, whether in the 
capacity of wife, mother, daughter, or sister, 
she must nevertheless be broad enough in 
sympathy and charity to engage in any 
good work outside of the home which it 
in her power to advance.  The bane of womanhood 
is narrowness, and she whose heart 
is only large enough to take in her own 
family and intimate friends will have little 
chance to develop either breadth or nobility of 
character.
Too much stress can not be laid 
upon the necessity of being womanly in whatever 
sphere of life our lot is cast, the cultivation 
of womanly qualities is of prime importance 
whether in public or private life.  
In this enlightened day and generation it is 
unnecessary to furnish proof that women may 
be a tower of strength and a power for good 
outside of the home, without becoming masculine 
or losing any of the charms peculiarly her 
own. The life and character of thousands of 
estimable women who have rendered valuable 



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assistance in raising humanity to a higher 
plane without being derelict in their duties at 
home attest the truth of this fact.  The old 
notion that an educated woman [it] takes and [active
part] interested in the discussions and and reforms of the 
times must necessarily be mannish [and] 
slovenly in appearance, a poor housekeeper, 
and a bad cook, has long ago been relegated 
to oblivion, together with other errors of the 
dark ages.  The more knowledge a woman 
possesses the higher becomes her ideal of perfect 
womanhood.  She not only strives to master 
the intricacies and mysteries of cooking, sewing and 
housekeeping, but she yearns to the mistress of 
the innumerable arts and sciences prescribed 
in the sphere of woman.
But women can not liquidate 
the debt they owe to society and the home, until a 
reform in the subjects of the average conversation 
is inaugurated.  A greater influence for 
good or evil is exerted upon one's self and 
those with whom we come in contact by the 
thoughts we express freely and carelessly to one 
another than is commonly supposed.

19.
More harm can be done unintentionally by a 
careless conversation at the tea table or in the 
drawing room than can be repaired in a 
life time.  Particularly are children most easily 
and irrevocably injured by the expression of 
thoughts which pander to the evil in us.  
It is not in the power of human possibility to 
estimate the extent of the injury inflicted by poisoning 
the minds of the young with those baleful 
rejections of vice and crookedness which open 
their little eyes to the shocking transgressions 
of law, both human and divine.
Perhaps it would be well to inaugurate 
a conversational reform club, whose members 
should be pledged first to inform themselves 
upon the questions of the day, and, second, to 
introduce them as subjects of conversation, 
whenever a suitable opportunity presents itself.  
At home, around the tea table, at social functions, 
topics, not heavy, but wholesome might be introduced, 
so that a process of education might be continually 
carried on broadening and deepening our views, 
and increasing our fund of facts, thereby better 
fitting us for our duty as instructors of the 



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young and members of society.
Thus, you see, young women 
of the class of 95 that the liquidation of the debt 
you owe will require the constant earnest 
output of energy both intellectual and physical.  
Equipped as you are now with a solid foundation 
laid by your instructors and yourselves, 
you need not fear to enter upon the discharge 
of an obligation which you are already 
well fitted to settle.  You can not falter by 
the wayside, when you consider how much 
depends upon the individual effort of each 
one of you upon whom a beneficent Providence 
has showered so many blessings, and 
upon whom so many lives are hanging for 
the instruction and guidance it is your 
duty to give.  You would not shirk responsibility 
if you could, for no greater happiness 
is experienced upon earth than the consciousness 
of having dispersed darkness with light, 
of having satisfied hunger by dispensing the bread 
of knowledge to those who would have received 
it, perhaps, from no other source.  Fail you 
can not, if you keep the goal steadily in view

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and are diverted neither by promises nor by
threats.  Remember that the prerequisite to happiness
and success is an all pervading, all consuming
desire to accomplish something in the
world.  He who has a[n] worthy object in view, towards
which he bends his best energies, from which
he allows nothing to swerve him, extracts
more real pleasure out of existence even tho' all
his hopes are not realized than his comrade
who floats listlessly thru life intent upon
nothing of special interest to himself or anybody
else.  [The happy woman, like the happy, is
always busy, feeling that idleness is not [only] verily
a curse. [but the] By seizing your opportunities for
doing good you will cause future generations
to arise and call you blessed.]

[In reiteration] Again let me congratulate you,
young women of the class of '95 for this the
first great success of your life.  Let me congratulate
your parents and your friends
who are justly proud of your record and your
achievements.  Let me assure you of the confidence
reposed in you by all of us who enjoy
this triumph with you tonight.  We believe 

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in you, we have great hopes of your future,
 the congregation of this vast audience proves
 the depth and sincerity of the interest felt in
 you by your townsmen.  Should discouragements
 or defeats for a time over
 cloud your horizon in the future, work
 bravely and conscientiously on, not relying
 upon your own strength alone, but upon
 the strength of Him who loves justice and
 right.  In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
 In spite of false lights on the shore,
 Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea.
 Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee,
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
 Are all with thee are all with thee.

Speeches & Writings File "Did Jeff Jackson Hear Caruso?"

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