Read Ebook: Silver Links A collection of salutatory valedictory and other addresses delivered at the first five commencements of the female stenographic and typewriting class of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York by Mason W L William Lesley Compiler

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It is pleasant to know we are through, though, Yet saddening to know we must part; And 'mid the light jest and the laughter, Comes a sharp touch of pain in each heart. There's a hush in the happy assemblage, While a prayer is upraised to the Throne, And "We thank Thee, our Father," is uttered,-- And the minister speaks not alone.

For the tokens of love and remembrance, And kind wishes expressed for our weal, We would thank our dear friends and our teachers, And voice the affection we feel. And we thank Thee for these many blessings; Yet most for the blessing that we Can, by striving, attain to perfection And Thy mercy and tenderness see.

Address of Rev. N. B. Thompson

I assure you that it is with a great deal of personal pride, satisfaction and comfort, that I come before you to-night. These are my girls,--that is, I am the father of this class. Several months ago when this class was organized, a gentleman, not myself, was invited to come here and offer prayer, and give the young ladies a few common sense ideas, such as would benefit them in after life. My friend failing to come, I was called upon to fill his place, which I did to the best of my ability, and when I look over this programme and find that there are more than forty in this class who are to graduate to-night, I take it upon myself to say that they received some very sound advice, for they are about to graduate; that is, I have made forty-four converts, at least, in seven months.

I am very glad to have opened this class, although I have had nothing to do with the instruction of it, for in that event the graduating class would not be so large, but I do feel very great pride in being here.

Were I so disposed, and you very anxious to be tired with a long address, I could say a great many things touching the real purpose and idea of these young ladies and their instructors. There was a time in the history of the world when it was a very grave and serious question as to just what the position of woman was in society; what God meant by her creation, what was her place. There are some men who think the highest ambition of woman is the wash-tub; that when she finds her vocation there she has fulfilled her mission, and when God has prepared a place for her in the Kingdom of Heaven, He takes her home, and gives her a diploma. There are others who have an idea that the place for woman is a little higher up; that she is to bask in the sunshine of life--that she is a kind of butterfly. That is an erroneous idea. I think personally, and I am sure there are not men enough here to out-number the ladies, that the position of woman in this life, socially, politically, religiously, or in a mercantile sense, is right alongside of the best man the world can produce.

I remember, while pastor of a church in an Eastern city, the smartest man and preacher of that city was a woman. She was a man in every sense of the word, she had the power of a man and the charms of a beautiful woman; I was a little jealous of her, because her church was a little too close to mine and she drew a great many more. She was a beautiful, godly woman, and took out of me some of the false ideas and thoughts that I had, relative to the work of woman in the world. So I have lost all sense of jealousy, and I am perfectly willing to be deposed by the women, and there is no true man but will give the women just as good as he wants in his life.

I want to congratulate you for this delightful evening; I want to congratulate you in view of the pleasant exercises you are to behold. I want to congratulate these instructors for the very good and efficient work they have done during these months. I congratulate you upon the marvelous work that has been done. You may not all be called upon to report my sermons; some can report 120 words, some more, some less. You are going out into the world, some of you immediately, to begin your life work. Do not feel, because you are a woman, that some aristocratic specimen of creation--man--looks down upon you. Just hold your neck as straight and your head as high as he, and I do not know but you would be par excellence above the man himself; you have an opportunity.

There is one thing I regret, however, in regard to your special calling, and it is this: I read advertisements in the papers where employers advertise for young lady typewriters and stenographers and it has pained me to see the low rate of wages, oftentimes. Let me put a bee in your ear. You are in possession of one of the greatest sciences I know; there is nothing above it in the realm of learning. Do not for one minute submit yourself, any one of you, to a service below your worth, for God has implanted in His Word this truth, "Every laborer is worthy of his hire."

I thank the gentleman who has invited me here. When I become older than I am now and fail in preaching, I assure you I shall come to this home of hospitality and kindness, and shall try to take up the art myself, thereby becoming as efficient as some of you are.

God be with you and in His own time take you home to His abode where you will not be troubled with taking down the ideas of men.

Salutatory Address

BY MISS L. E. TAYLOR.

Gentlemen of the Committee, and friends, teachers and classmates: With what unbounded pleasure we greet you this evening; our task is accomplished, the goal is won. After the labors of the past seven months, assisted by the kindly interest of the Committee, and encouraged by the earnest and untiring efforts of our teachers, we have at last mastered that wonderful art, stenography, which will enable us to go forth from here, possessing an accomplishment the benefits of which are many. This art, the outgrowth of one great mind, that of Mr. Isaac Pitman, is of the utmost importance to the members of the press, of the legal profession, and the business man, as well as in all branches of literary work. Ordinarily, we hear words, but this science enables us to use them; thus they actually assume another form, as it were, and are deeply impressed on our minds and thus ineradicably memorized. My classmates, we meet to-night to prove that patient effort on the part of teacher and pupil has not been in vain; that our busy Winter has left us rich in knowledge of this noble art, and that, though oftentimes discouraged in our progress through the alphabet forward through the intricacies of dots and dashes, hooks and circles, and outlines dark and light, over these apparently insurmountable barriers we have reached the height on which our hopes and our ambitions had been centered during our daily pilgrimage toward it. So has it been with typewriting. At first we made many mistakes, such as making an interrogation mark where the period was necessary, thus questioning Mr. Jones' or Mr. Smith's right to his name instead of asserting the fact; or striking a letter instead of the space-board, and vice versa. The result left the astonished beholder in doubt whether the word produced were a representative of the Chinese or the Choctaw language. But now we have overcome these difficulties. Sustained by the kind encouragement of our teacher we have struggled bravely until we are enabled to write on the machine readily, and with rapidity, from dictation, and our vernacular can now be recognized as English, without any difficulty. We sincerely hope that the exercises of the evening may interest you and may show our appreciation of the instruction and innumerable benefits which have been conferred upon us by this Society. We are now prepared to take our place in the rank and file of the world's army of workers. The elevating and benevolent influence of stenography and typewriting in the life of women is becoming more and more recognized. What the sewing machine is to the needle, shorthand is to the pen, and, in the great future, the world shall see and acknowledge the vast importance of this economizer of time and labor.

Yes, another forty of us are ready to use these servants of hand and pen which the generosity of this Society has placed at our disposal, and we hope to do so worthily. May we, by our subsequent efforts and future progress, show that none of us will bring reproach on the noble art which we have adopted, or on the Institution to which we shall owe our future success and our chosen profession. Rather let us help to prove its value in the different branches to which we may be called.

Class Poem

Next in their turn the vowel sounds,--the symbols, dash and dot, With rules and regulations charging us "Forget-me-not." Wish you could have heard us sound them. It was amusing, too; Seemed like talking Chinese language,--ah, , ee; aw, o, oo. Then came the hooks with many crooks to puzzle and perplex; They were so very obstinate, and would be sure to vex; For while we thought we had them right, they were just turned about, And when we came to read them, we could scarcely make them out. The circles didn't seem so hard; for we could then detect There were still new things coming that we did the least expect; So prepared our minds to meet them and take them as they came; At last we'd conquered everyone and knew them all by name. But I suppose it is not right to tell tales out of school, Our teacher will be saying that it is against the rule; I have told you just a few of our trials by the way, But it was not all so dreadful, I am very glad to say. For we really loved our study; were fascinated, too, And of the pleasant memories there linger not a few. Well, examination over, then came the "tug of war" To apply the various principles that we had learned before. And oh! the work we made of it; we tried to run a race To see who could write the fastest, and then to keep our place.

But study and toil are over; at last the race is run, And we have gathered here to-night to say, "Our work is done." Members of this Society, our friends so kind and true, God bless you! 'Tis a grand and noble work you aim to do; Accept our heartfelt thanks, for it is all that we can give; The knowledge we have gathered here will ever, while we live Go with us, as with brighter skies our way in life to cope Than in our dreams and fancies we had ever dared to hope. And you, our teachers faithful, tried, we will not soon forget The many pleasant hours that together we have spent; How often by a kindly word you've helped to lead us on, When we were nigh discouraged, and totally cast down; And by your earnest zeal and aid we have, from day to day, Gone onward, and we thank you; it is all that we can say. And we classmates, while we truly, yes, earnestly, regret To leave the little room up yonder "where the angels met," Can now rejoice together, for it has not been in vain, That we've worked hard; yet we have won the prize we sought to gain.

Valedictory Address

BY MISS A. A. LEWIS.

DEAR FRIENDS AND CLASSMATES:

It is a somewhat sad yet pleasant duty which devolves upon me this evening, that of saying farewell. For, to a class whose members have studied together for so long as we have and which is found to be so homogeneous as this class has been, a farewell is always sad. When, in October last, we entered upon our course of study, we could not look forward to this hour with any degree of composure, but, day by day, as time passed on we found ourselves longing for the end, yet dreading the parting. But, to-night, we derive considerable pleasure from the fact that we have prepared ourselves for something which will have a strong influence upon our future lives. This night may be called a real commencement for many of us who have just left school where we have learned the ordinary English branches, and are now learning to apply our former knowledge to earn our living in a way that will prove both pleasant and profitable.

This recital can but feebly show you why the feeling of pleasure is predominant in our hearts to-night. We cannot feel sad at parting with our classmates, for, though we shall not meet in this class-room again, as a class, we do expect to meet together as the alumnae of this Institution at our regular weekly gatherings for practice. It is rather with a feeling of exhilaration that we realize that we have at length conquered giants that loomed up before us when we began our study, and that these giants, like those called forth by the magician of old, have been made to do our bidding.

But now we come to the most painful part of our task, that of bidding this kind Committee farewell. And, in behalf of the class of '88, we thank you again for your watchful care over us during the past Winter. The only way in which we can attempt to repay you for what you have done for us is by trying to rise in our profession and do something which, when we say we are graduates of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, will cause you to feel proud of us, and in this way we can slightly show our gratitude to our benefactors. And to our teachers, who have been the means of our learning this wonderful art, we say farewell, hoping that they will remember us kindly as having tried our best to let the studies which they have lodged in our minds bring forth good fruit. Although you have, no doubt, at times felt discouraged with the apparent failure of your work, yet we trust that the results have proved satisfactory, and shown you that we have tried to do what you have desired us to do, and, in a measure, have succeeded. We trust also that these results will reflect credit upon you as our Instructors even more than upon us as the recipients of your teaching. We do realize that many members of our class will never meet with us again, and to you we say farewell, with the wish that in your diverse paths through life you may attain great success in your chosen profession and always remember that you are still members of the Class of '88.

Address of President Wm. C. Smith

I came here this evening in a particularly happy frame of mind, for me, because I had been asked to award the diplomas to this class, and I am always happy when I think I am able to do something to make some one else happy; but my equanimity was quite disturbed, on arriving, to be shown a programme in which I was set down as having to make the closing address, and a little later I broke out into a perspiration on seeing written in shorthand on the blackboard, that "you should never speak unless you have something to say." Those words have been burning before my eyes ever since, and though I have not taken any lessons in shorthand, I am almost sure I could set that sentence down.

The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen is made up of men who owe what they possess, not to chance, not to gifts of their forefathers, but to the fruit of honest toil. The Society which they have fostered for a hundred years owes its standing to the steady accumulations of these years, not to any sudden speculation or easily acquired prosperity, and it is with pleasure, therefore, that the Society devotes its time and means in helping others to help themselves. We believe in the aristocracy of labor, and we are glad that we are able to do anything whereby we can help any one to help himself.

I shall not make a lengthy address because it is late; it is warm; there are diplomas to be given out, and I believe that the young ladies are anxious to get down stairs where the attraction is greater than anything I can offer them. Yet there is one thought I would like to give out, if you will excuse me.

Yesterday I met a gentleman whom I have known for many years, and whom I never really knew until yesterday. He said to me, "Billy" , "have you half an hour to spare?" First I said, "No;" but I thought better of it and said, "Yes." "I would like you to come round and look at my house." As he opened the door of that house it was to me a revelation; if there is anything else like it in this country or city, I do not know where it is. It seemed to me I was in fairyland. Here was a large house and yet so filled that it seemed small, from the top of the very attic down to the first story, with articles of vertu and bric-a-brac, with tapestry that had come from all parts of the globe, with ivories, carved in Japan as nowhere else, with mosaics from all sections of the world, with beautiful chairs, with embroidery that had graced the homes of monarchs in the old country, and on his back porch, and in his yard, were beautiful flowers hardly seen outside of the tropics.

I need not say to you how surprised I was; I had only known him as a mechanic, a member of this Society. I spent an hour and a half there I shall never forget; I asked the privilege of bringing my better half.

But the thought that I wanted to impress was this; in a beautiful case, surrounded with plate glass, was a full dinner set of the finest Sevres china. He explained to me that the set was ordered and made expressly for the second Napoleon when he was in the height of his glory. I said to him, "Where did you get this? I did not know a full set of that kind ever got away from royalty." He said it did once in a while and this was the only one in this country. He had been explaining to me things I never knew about, and he came back to his own self and said, "Billy, you know when the great Napoleon and his court were sipping their soup out of these dishes, I was wielding a paint brush at .50 a day and glad to get it." As I lay trying to go to sleep last night that single sentence came to me and it seemed there was a volume in it. It is an American idea that there is no success which is not attainable by almost any person if we only take those opportunities afforded us. I want to say one word to the ladies, and I believe I said something of the same kind to the boys. I often see it in the papers, I hear it in speeches at trade societies and all that sort of thing, that there is a great change in America; there is no longer any chance to rise; and that we are divided into classes, and that the rich are going to get richer and the poor going to stay where they are.

I hope every American will disabuse his mind of anything like that; there never was a time when opportunities were greater than now. We have got to believe in ourselves and watch the opportunities when they come to us; success cannot be obtained in a day. We may not have to build a railroad but we will build something else, perhaps greater.

Young ladies, it is my privilege on behalf of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, as its President, to present you with these diplomas. I do so with pleasure; first, because I feel that it is our right to give them to you; secondly, because I feel that it is your right to receive them, for you have earned them. They represent to me six months of careful, earnest, intelligent study; six months of devoting yourself to the habit of close application; six months of forming the habit of industry; habits which, I take it, make the road to success to any one who expects to succeed in the future. I congratulate you upon receiving them; they are certificates that carry with them pleasant memories, and I hope will prove in after years profitable ones. In behalf of the General Society, it is my pleasure to thank your teacher; I have witnessed personally his enthusiasm in his calling, and I am proud to say that I have been here night after night and have watched the enthusiasm of the class. I have seen them here sometimes long after the regular school hours, in fact, I had a mind to say, "You are over-taxing these young ladies." Then I thought it was a life and death struggle for only six months, and the victory was worth the struggle.

I have nothing more to say. I will remember the motto given early in the evening and wish you every success in life which you have obtained in this school.

Salutatory

BY MISS JESSIE FERRIS.

I shall not attempt to portray our initial struggles with the dots and lines, but rather dwell on the time when, at the rate of a word in five minutes, we could, with the confidence of beginners, write the short but expressive sentences:

The cow eats grass! See the dog run!

From this time under the able guidance of our teachers, we steadily progressed, until our efforts have culminated in the success gratifying to ourselves, our teachers, and our many friends.

In typewriting our progress has been as encouraging as in Phonography. From slowly picking out the words: "William Jex quickly caught five dozen Republicans," a sentence which not only exhausted all the letters of the alphabet, but in our attempts to decipher which, after writing, exhausted our ingenuity as well, we passed to the time when legal documents and business letters could be run off with an ease which at the beginning seemed almost impossible.

Let us pause a moment to consider the advantages of these two arts: first and chiefly, they afford us the means of gaining a livelihood in a way more agreeable than many others; secondly, in the taking of notes of lectures upon various arts and sciences we become acquainted with these subjects to an extent which would otherwise require much special study.

How then can we be otherwise than grateful to those who have placed these advantages within our reach?

To you, Gentlemen of the School Committee and of the Special Committee, are our thanks especially due.

Through your kindness in fulfilling our many calls upon your generosity, you have contributed, in no mean degree, to that end toward which we have so earnestly striven.

You, my classmates, undoubtedly share in the pleasure felt by our teachers and the Committee in having passed so successfully through the work of the past eight months.

Let us reflect for how short a time we have pursued our studies. In what branch of study, pursued for the same length of time, could the results attained compare so favorably as in the study of shorthand?

After to-night, over thirty of us, in the different pursuits of a business life, will make practical use of the knowledge gained during the past Winter. Let us always strive to uphold the reputation already gained by the followers of Isaac Pitman.

It has often been said by superficial observers: "O, yes, any one can write shorthand, but how many stenographers can read what they have written?"

Perhaps there have been grounds for such allegations; but have these ever taken into consideration the multitudes of stenographers all over the world who do successfully read their notes?

Look at the voluminous reports of congressional, political and other speeches, appearing in the daily papers from time to time; to say nothing of the hundreds of folios of evidence daily reported in our courts and accurately transcribed.

Do not these sufficiently refute the assertion?

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