The collection contains two commencement addresses delivered at southern women's colleges on two different dates. Based on references made in the texts, the first (27-page) address was probably written between 1856 and 1860, the second (15 pages) between 1865 and 1879. It is possible that the works were composed by the same author and delivered at the same institution. Both speeches point out that the graduates' formal education was intended to train their minds to be more "masculine." However, the writer notes that as women, especially as Southern women, the graduates must assert their future mental endeavors in support of their work within the private sphere of the home (as caregivers and as the guardians of moral order), rather than use their accomplishments as the basis for public work--since the public sphere is rightfully dominated by men. The writer affirms these sex-roles differences as natural, divinely inspired, and culturally supported, although he outlines the work that nineteenth-century feminists are doing to challenge this acceptance. The writer discusses the following topics in support of his argument: Madame de Stael̈; Florence Nightingale; Joan of Arc; Lady Jane Grey; the 1855 epidemic of yellow fever in Norfolk, Virginia; and scientific advances in astronomy and geology.
