I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of

In the words of Lucy Stone, gratitude is called forth as a sacred remembrance of struggle. She reminds us that the right to free speech for women was not a gift freely given, but a treasure wrested from the hands of a world that denied it. To speak in public, to let one’s voice echo before men, was once deemed unnatural, even sinful. The quote stands as a solemn torch, illuminating the heavy toll paid by those who dared to lift their voices in a time when silence was demanded of them.

Recall the tale of Lucy Stone herself, who in the mid-nineteenth century became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. When she was invited to speak at public gatherings, many turned their faces away, offended that a woman should presume to instruct. Yet she persevered. In one instance, at her own brother’s church, she was forbidden to raise her voice; she sat silent, her heart burning, and resolved from that moment that no chain of silence would hold her again. This moment, bitter and yet triumphant, shows the price that was paid—not in coin, but in humiliation, in exclusion, in the steady courage of defiance.

The ancients often spoke of heroes who braved the sword and the spear. But here, the battle was fought with words, with the fragile yet unyielding instrument of the human voice. Each woman who stood to speak risked not only mockery but sometimes violence, and always the scorn of society. Their battlefield was the podium, their armor was conviction, and their victory was measured in the hearts they awakened. Such battles are not sung in epic verse, but they reshaped nations.

Thus, Stone’s words cry out across time: the daughters of today walk upon ground that was watered with the tears and sweat of their foremothers. They inherit the freedom to speak, yet remain blind to the thorns once cleared for them. This blindness is itself a mark of triumph—for what greater victory than for a people to live so freely that they cannot imagine bondage? Yet remembrance must not fade, lest the chains, forgotten, be forged anew.

O children of the future, let this truth be carved in your hearts: every right you now hold was born of struggle. Honor those who came before, not with idle praise, but with vigilance. For the voice once silenced can be silenced again, unless it is guarded with reverence and courage. To speak is not a small thing—it is the breath of freedom itself, won at a price beyond measure.