"Here is another one in the same profession:--

"'Mrs. Tel Sone is a leading lawyer in j.a.pan, and has a large and profitable practice.'

"'Miss Jean Gordon of Cincinnati, upon whom will be conferred the degree of Ph.G. at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, has earned the highest average ever attained by any woman graduate of that inst.i.tution. Out of one hundred and eighty-four graduates of this year, only six obtained the highest rating of "distinguished." Miss Gordon was one of the six. She was the only woman in her cla.s.s, and had to contend with bright young men.'

"Miss Gordon, I think," remarked Miss Ashton, "has a distinguished future before her.

"'Female professors and lecturers are to be introduced into the Michigan University at Ann Arbor.'

"'Two female medical graduates have been appointed house surgeons at two English hospitals.'

"'An Ohio girl discovered a way of transforming a barrel of petroleum into ten thousand cubic feet of gas.'

"'Another woman has constructed a machine which will make as many paper bags in a day as thirty men can put together.'

"'An invention which you hardly would have expected from a woman, is a war vessel that is susceptible of being converted off-hand into a fort by simply taking it apart.'

"'Chicago, March 25. Miss Sophia G. Hayden of Boston wins the one thousand-dollar prize offered for the best design for the woman's buildings of the World's Fair.'" (A sensation among the scholars, which pleased Miss Ashton). "'Miss Lois L. Howe, also of Boston, was second, five hundred dollars, and Miss Laura Hayes of Chicago gets the two hundred and fifty dollars offered for the third best design.

"'Miss Hayden is a first-honor graduate of the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology, and Miss Howe is from the same inst.i.tution. Miss Hayes is Mrs. Potter Palmer's private secretary.

"'As soon as the awards were made, Miss Hayden was wired to come to Chicago immediately and elaborate her plans. The design is one of marked simplicity. It is in the Italian renaissance style, with colonnades, broken by centre and end pavilions. The structure is to be 200 400 feet, and 50 feet to the cornice. There is no dome. The chief feature of ornamentation is the entrance.'

"I am glad to tell those of you young ladies who feel symptoms of architectural genius only waiting for development, that year by year this inst.i.tute is opening its door wider and wider to admit women.

This last year the ten who are new members of it were for the first time invited to a cla.s.s supper, going to it matronized by Mrs.

Walker, the wife of the president.

"One other thing I want you to remark. These three young ladies, by their ability, and the success which is the fruit only of faithful study, have done more for women's advancement than has been accomplished for years.

"A man who is a successful architect occupies an important and proud position; that a woman can do the same is no small help in the struggle she is now making.

"I recommend them to you as examples, particularly as I know there are a number among you who will not be content to let graduation from this school end your educational life.

"The next I shall read you is a notice of women as journalists:--

"'Let me give you a fact about women as journalists in my own office,'

said the editor of one of the largest dailies to me a few days ago.

"'Five years ago I employed one woman on my staff, to-day I have over twenty, and the best work which appears in our papers is from the pen of women writers. Of course you cannot give women all sorts of commissions; but if I want a really conscientious piece of work done nowadays, I give it to one of our women. I find absolutely they do their work more thoroughly than do the men.'

"Young ladies, it has always been complained of women that, though they are quicker, guided by instincts that act promptly and for the greater part correctly, they are not patient or thorough. Now, as I have told you so often that it must sound trite to you to have me repeat it, it is only patient thoroughness that wins. I am glad to have this editor of one of our largest dailies give this indubitable testimony that we _can_ be thorough if we will. For those of you who neither wish nor expect to continue study any further, I will read the opportunity offered for a bucolic life:--

"'Miss Antoinette Knaggs, a young woman with a good collegiate education, owns and manages a farm of two hundred acres in Ohio. She says she made money last year, and expects to make more this year. "I have tried various ways of farming," she says, "but I find I can get along best when I manage my farm myself. I tried employing a manager, but I found he managed chiefly for himself. Then I sub-let to tenants, and they used up my stock and implements, and the returns were unsatisfactory. So I have taken the management into my own hands, planting such crops as I think best, and I find I am a very good farmer, if I do say it myself.'"

"Said the daughter of a New Hampshire farmer to me a few days ago,"

continued Miss Ashton, "'When my father died my mother took the control of our whole large farm into her own hands. She managed so well that we have sold our farm and moved down to suburban Boston, where we can command the literary advantages she has taught us not only to prize but to love.' The collegiate education fitted Miss Knaggs to be a better, wiser farmer. I hope if it shall be the choice of any of you, you will find yourself abler for your life here."

"I am sure we shall," thought a Dakota young lady, whose father's broad ranch covered many a goodly acre, and whose secret wish had always been to own a ranch of her own.

"There seems to be no profession now from which a woman is shut out, though we hear of fewer among lawyers than in any other profession. I find only one more among all these notices. 'Fourteen women were graduated from the university of New York Law School last night, among the number being Mrs. George B. McClellan, daughter-in-law of the late General McClellan.' But I well know there have been women a.s.sociated with their husbands in the law. Women also with their own offices, doing a large and important business.

"In England, civil service is open to them; and though it does not correspond of course with our law, still the same strict education is needed for success.

"Here is a paper which states the terms on which ladies enter the civil service.

"'They enter as second-cla.s.s clerks, receiving $325 a year, rising by fifteen dollars a year to $400. Here the maximum, which is certainly small, is reached; but there is promotion by merit to clerkships, rising to $550 a year, and a few higher places, which go up to $850.

Three lady superintendents each receive up to $2,000, and four a.s.sistant superintendents each $1,000. The work is not difficult, and the hours are seven a day. An annual holiday of a month is allowed.'

"These wages are no larger than would be paid here for the same services. I know women have no difficulty, if once elected, in filling clerkships and secretaryships, and they even have important places in the treasury department at Washington. A very telling record might be, probably has been, made of their successes there.

"In the medical profession we all know how rapidly they have risen to the front. Stories that sound almost fabulous are told of the income some of the most talented receive; and to show the popularity this new movement has attained, it is only necessary to state that at the present day it would be hard to find a town, north, south, east, or west, which has not its woman doctor. The medical colleges have large cla.s.ses of them; and in Europe names of many American girls, if they do not lead in number, do at least in ability."

Here there was a resolute stamping and clapping, which pleased Miss Ashton too much for her to attempt to stop it.

"If I had more time I could tell you some wonderful but entirely true stories of difficult surgical operations being performed in foreign hospitals by young American women in so remarkable a way that they excited not only the applause of the fellow-students, but won prizes.

"As this is only one of the professions, I must hurry on to the ministry. We all know that in some of our denominations there are numbers of women who occupy the place of settled minister, and do well. On the whole, however, they may be considered more successful as lecturers, Bible-readers, and elocution teachers; and then there is a wide open field to them as actresses and singers; indeed, no public or private way of earning a livelihood or a reputation is denied them.

"Teaching always has been theirs, and year after year the profession becomes more and more crowded and the requirements for good teachers more strict. Many of you, young ladies, I find are looking forward to this in your immediate future. I need not here urge upon you the necessity of being well prepared when your day for examination comes.

I have held it up before you during all the past year.

"This is an incomplete list of the great things which I expect you young ladies of the graduating cla.s.s to perform. I would not, however, on any account, forget that broad and specially adapted woman's work,--the different philanthropic schemes with which this nineteenth century abounds.

"So many are in women's hands; like women's boards of missions, children's hospitals, homes for little wanderers, young women's Christian homes, young women's industrial union, North End missions, Bible-readers, evangelists, flower committees for supplying the sick in charity hospitals, providing excursions for poor children, providing homes in the country for the dest.i.tute and orphan children, society of little wanderers, newspaper boys' home, boot-black boys'

home.

"It is possible for me to name but a small part of them, but those of you who have the means of helping any one of these objects named, or any of the many others, will remember, I hope, that wonderful cup of cold water which, given, shall give to the giver the rich reward.

"This will probably be my last opportunity to speak to you alone as my school. Let me thank you heartily for all you have done this year, and some of you for four long years, to make our life together pleasant, and we hope acceptable to our great Taskmaster. I wish you now, for myself and all the other teachers, a pleasant vacation, and a safe return to those of you who are to come back to us."

There were many quiet tears shed among the girls, and Miss Ashton's eyes were not quite dry.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

COMMENCEMENT.

Commencement morning rose upon Montrose clear, bright, and hot. Almost with the first dawn of the early day the hum of busy preparation began. Every hour of the previous day and night had brought parents and friends, some from great distances, to attend the celebration.

The quiet town swarmed with strangers, all with faces turned toward the large brick building which, standing boldly prominent on its hill, had a welcoming look, as if the roses around it, that filled the air with their delicious fragrance, had blossomed that morning in new and charming beauty.

The lawn, plentifully besprinkled with small flower-beds, was elsewhere one broad sheet of velvet green; and the blossoms of every variety and every hue crowded the beds so cheerfully, so merrily, that many parents lingered as they pa.s.sed them, their hearts warming at the sight of the Eden in which their daughters had lived.

Commencement exercises were to be held in the large hall, to which ushers appointed for that purpose took all the visitors before the entrance of the school, so it really made quite an imposing show when Miss Ashton, arm in arm with the president of the Board of Trustees, came slowly in, the gentlemen composing the board following, then the teachers, and after them the pupils in their gay holiday dresses. The senior cla.s.s, of course the most prominent, coming onto the stage with the other dignitaries.