corner-stone of onr social structure, and that here—where education should and does begin, let its tendencies-be true or false, elevating or pernicious—woman's influence is the strongest for good or for evil.
As wives and mothers, as elder daughter or sister, as friend or counselor, our women have made heroic sacrifices to educate children and establish refined Christian homes—sacrifices that the world at large will never be able to appreciate—and as the great body of mothers becomes more liberally educated their work will be yet more effective. Looking around at the result of the efforts of a past generation of mothers, and bearing in mind the fearful odds against which they had to contend, it would seem that even ordinary respect for the dead demands that in some suitable place a monument shall be erected to their memory, bearing the simple inscription, "To the Noble Mothers of the Negro Race," or words to that effect, which shall properly testify to the nobility of their lives and deeds.
Home, school and society—these three act and react one upon the other in such way that whatever affects one affects the other; together, they are the triple forces which shape a race and make for its eternal weal or woe. Give us, then, in every sense of the expression, truly educated mothers, earnest educators and wise leaders of society, and not only is our race development, in a general way, secured, but also that perfection of character or broad culture, which Matthew Arnold defines as "a harmomoius perfection, developing all sides of our nature, a general perfection, developing all parts of our society."
