We are very apt to get the idea that there are high positions and that there are low positions, that there is important service and unimportant service; but I believe that God expects the same amount of conscientious work from a person in a low position as from one in a high position, that He expects the same conscientious service whether the work be a big task or a little one. We are dependent as an institution--every institution is dependent--for success, upon the individual consciences of those connected with it as teachers and students; and there is nothing that gives me more satisfaction and pleasure, and more faith in the future of the school, than to see examples of conscientious work here.
I remember a special instance of this kind that occurred at one of our Commencements. I believe that Commencement, more than any other time in the school year, is an occasion when there is excitement and a desire to witness the exercises. After the exercises of that year were over, I had occasion to go to the dining room, and I found there one of the teachers who from her appearance I thought had not attended the exercises. When I asked her about this, she said: "No. I intended to go, but at the last minute I saw that there were some dishes here that needed to be washed, and I stayed here to see that they were washed."
Now that was one of the finest exhibitions of conscientious regard for duty that I ever saw, and there are very few persons who would have done a thing like that. That we have teachers here whose hearts are so much in their work that they are willing to do such things as this gives me great faith in the future of this school as the years go on.
It takes a person with a conscience, when there are public men of note here, a great many strangers and many things to attract attention, to be so mindful of her duty that she will stay behind and wash dishes when every one else is in attendance upon the exercises and seeking enjoyment. When the people connected with this institution can bring themselves up to that point, I have no fear for the success of the institution; and it can succeed only as they do bring their consciences up to that point.
If I were to ask you individually as students to deliver an address upon this platform, or to read an essay, I should not be at all afraid that you would fail. I believe that you would carefully prepare that address or essay. You would look up all the references necessary in order to give you what information you needed, and then you would get up here and speak or read successfully. I feel sure that I would hear something that I should not be ashamed of. The average man and woman does succeed when before the public. But where I fear for your success is when you come to the performance of the small duties--the duties which you think no one else will know about, the things which no one will see you do. It is when you think that no one is going to see you washing dishes, or getting dirt out of crevices, that I am afraid you are going to fail.