The wealth that comes to the student should not be an exclusive possession.  It may be bought at a large price but it can never be sold.  It must be given away, or shared, for it is wealth which carries with it a sense of social responsibility.  It is enjoyed for a double purpose, not only for the sake of the happiness it brings to us but also for the sake of the joy or help it may bring to others.  Millions of girls covet the opportunities that come to a few in school and college, many of them who far more greatly deserve this privilege than we.  Indeed, what have most of us done to merit the right to all that we have?  The only way in which we can show our sense of justice is by taking our privileges as something to share with others.  The girl who has health, pleasant surroundings and work worth doing, has all a human being has a right to expect.  She ought always to be happy, always rejoicing in her work and always eager to divide her wealth with others.

The redeeming feature of royalties has been their sense of responsibility for their subjects!  In great disasters, or calamities, their first thought has been to go to the relief of the people.  The King and Queen of Italy are noble examples of this courage and unselfishness.  In America the only “privileged” class is the highly educated.  It is they from whom noblesse oblige must be expected, who will show in all emergencies their sense of responsibility, who will share all that they have with others.  A girl will be happy, she will grow, she will be a leverage power for good with those among whom she lives, only in so far as she uses her tools of knowledge in the service of others, and shapes all that she does towards some humanly useful end.

VI

THE JOY OF WORK

If one is in good condition, the exercise of any physical power is a pleasure.  It is a pleasure to run, to sing, to dance, to climb mountains, to row, to swim; it is a pleasure to shout for nothing else than for the pure joy of letting off surplus energy.  In the world of animals, the horse and dog, to take only two illustrations, abound in this enjoyment of physical energy.  The horse paws the ground and snorts and whinnies and loves the fastest road pace you will let him take.  The dog leaps in the air, jumps fences, barks, and races around madly, sometimes after nothing at all.

But the highest power of which human beings are possessed is not the power of the body.  It is the power of the mind.  Yet many of us throughout our school and college life not only do not wish to use this power but even rebel against it.  “What,” some girls are saying to themselves, “enjoy the work of a classroom?  Who ever heard of such a thing!” Yes, just that.  And if we don’t enjoy the work of a classroom, even an indifferently good one, there is something the matter with us, or the subject should not have a place on any curriculum.  Every mental exercise should be full of the keenest pleasure, of intellectual pleasure.