ON LEAVING SCHOOL

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 69, 15 December 1931, Page 4

ON LEAVING SCHOOL

Women and Citizenship MRS. E. W. KANE’S ADDRESS Advice to girls about to leave school, ami some guidance regarding the service required from women citizens, was given by Mrs. E. W. Kane, J.P., in speaking at the annual prize-giving gathering of Wellington Girls’ College last week. Mrs. Kane is a member of the Wellington College Board of Governors. In the course of her address she said: — “When we attend an annual prizegiving ceremony such as this, we come for two purposes, Firstly, to congratulate and reward those girls who have ]ed their classes in school work and in sports during the past year. Their parents are in this audience, justly proud of their daughters’ success. To-night we are also here to say good-bye to those girls who have finished their school work, who are wearing their school uniforms for the last time,. who are leaving'to take part in life as women. Their parents, top, are in this audience. Mixed with their pride is just a trace of anxiety for the immediate future, for the next few years when their girls will try for the first time to stand on their own feet. “Most of us know from experience that after school lessons'are finished life itself has many lessons to teach .us—not all of them happy or pleasant ones. Of you parents I ask: Have the same faith, have the same trust, have the same confidence in the girlhood of New Zealand as I have. You need only look at the 500 girls here assembled to see a foundation of splendid youth upon which any nation would be proud to build its edifice of womanhood. I have a few words to say to those girls whose school life ends with the breaking-up ceremony tonight. I want to talk to them about the next five years of their life, because these years will largely determine the character of their whole future hfe. “Leaving school is not going to make any visible difference in your appearance, in externals, in dress and other trivial things, as it did years ago. When I was a girl, more years ago than I care to remember, the great event of leaving school was being allowed to wear a long dress, to put up one’s hair and to ‘come out.’ Most of the heads I see before me are shingled, and many of you have not enough hair to put up even if you wanted to. You will continue to wear the same clothes you have been wearing already to parties, to swim in, to play tennis in, to fiikh in. Clothes are not very important, after all, anti I have no patience with those people who are always criticising our New Zealand girls, complaining of the way they dress and the way they cut their hair. It is certainly not in outward appearance that leaving school will make a difference. “Then where is the. great change to be between being ,at school ami . le «'’ ,n B school? If it is not in outward things is if in conduct? Does it mean that you can do things and say things when you leave school that you would not or could not do when at school? You girls are sensible enough to answer that for yourselves. A thing is either right or it is not right. There is a -knowledge of right or wrong that is born in everyone of us. home ot us call it ‘instinct,’ some of us call it ‘conscience,’ some of us call it the \oice Of God,’ but, whatever we call it, it is there to guide us, and warn us, and tell us what is rtght and what is wrong. “If you determine that you will never do anything that you yourself know is wrong, if you determine that you will never do anything that you yourself know is vulgar, if you determine that you will never do anything that you yourself know is common, then I promise you you will never do anything common, or vulgar, or wrong. “If you listen to your own conscience von will satisfy your parents and society. That is what Shakespeare meant when he said, ‘To thine ownself be true’ Leaving school cannot make any difference to your conscience or to your conduct. The same high ideals that walked with you through the halls of your old college should walk with you along the new broad road.. “The great change that is. coming ■to you to-night is that vou are going fortli to take your place among the grown-up women of New Zealand. Some of yon will go to the university; some will enter the world of business; some will remain at home,' but all of you are going forth to face life. . , “Those of you who are going on to the university or into shops and offices will rejoice in the fact that to-day the whole world of business and the professions is open to women. A woman may become a lawyer, a doctor, a book-keep-er, a saleswoman,’ a member of I arluiment. Comparatively few years ago she could do none of these things. “Mary Woolstoncroft, Elizabeth Fry, Mrs. Norton Caroline Hershell, Florence Nightingale, are a few of the earliest names that come into my jniind in the long struggle for emancipation. Compare your s’tatus and opportunities with those of the early Victorian maiden. She was taught a few polite accomplishments, and then folded her hands and sat waiting for lien only possible career—to find a husband. For centuries women were jealously kept from taking any part in the world’s work. To-day girls have the same opportunities as men. Never forget that it took years of fighting to achieve this for women. 1 - . “Your parents this audience and your grandparents, those stalwart old pioneers, were the people who won sonic small part, nt least, of this freedom for you. If you should ever think your parents old fashioned, remember that it was these old-fasiuoned parents who were broad minded enough, who were courageous enough,- who were modern enough, to win this equality for you. It does not seem very old fashioned to me.” “And what of the next few years of Wellington Girls’ College? You, the parents of the younger girls who are returning to school when holidays are over, we, the governors of the college, know that the coining years will be years of high incentive and fulfilment, while that splendid woman, Miss Grieg, remains at the helm. Just ns ’Calais' was engraved .dir King Richard's heart so there is a word that would be found on Miss Grieg’s, and that word is ’Service.’ Service to the girls she is preparing for life, service to the parents who are entrusting to her'their most precious possessions, service to the community in which she lives, and service to the Dominion by inculcating into the future women of New Zealand the highest ideals of womanhood and of citizenship.”