THE THING TO DO (CLASSIC REPRINT)

Excerpt from The Thing to DoDoing It. Responding to the call with which the young ladies of the Phi Beta Kappa have honored me, I shall try to merit your attention by speaking to you for a little Of The Thing to Do. In proportion, then, to any success in saying the right word to you on this subject, that word must come, however unworthy the voice through which it speaks, as the counsel of Wisdom and the command of Virtue.The universal inquiry in the graduating class on Commence ment Day is, What next? The mere man has no monopoly of it. The girl graduate too is absorbed in questions about what she shall do. Misty visions float before her eyes. Now, as always, the vague outlines are apt to shape themselves, to the first gaze alike of the Simplest and of the wisest, into happy homes and home responsibilities. But in these days of broader horizons, many another purpose in life comes in to enlarge or to confuse the pic ture. Whether with the home or without a home, comes the thought of a career worthy of the capacities here discovered, the training here given, perhaps a literary, or artistic or scientific career, perhaps educational or professional, perhaps reformatory, perhaps social