Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1861-08-10

Address of Rev. N. p. Bailey,
To The Graduating Glass of the Lake Erie
Female Seminary July Is, 1861.
Young Ladies of He Graduating Glass :
You have now reached that point to which
your school days have been so long converg.
Ing a point, too, around which have clus.
tered many bright thoughts, all radiant aud
sparkling with joyous anticipations
Yet now that this first goal of your
womanly ambition is actually reached, we
can easily believe, that the former anticipa-
ted brightness is somewhat yelled with
shadows and that the former joy is mingled
with sadness amounting almost TO regret.
For here and now are to be sundered for
ever those innumerabe ties which have
bound you, as pupils, to this Institution
aud its surroundings ties that have attract.
ed yon to this pleasant grove, with its cool.
Ing shades with its hangugs of varied
green; with its changing carpet Of beauli-
tul wild.aOwerS and with its songs of birds
and zephyrs and those ties which have
drawn you to ycnder spacious halls, so Of
ten consecrated by intellectual tasks, efforts
aud conflicts, resulting in victory, triumph,
and increase Of mental power aud all those
particular ties which have linked you to
each other as fellow pupils in study, in re.
citation, in domestic hall, in sections, in
walks and in condolences which have awak-
en loves and cemented friendships felt and
understood by 10 age SO well as by school.
girlhood and also those other ties, which
have bound you SO teachably, submsSively,
obediently and lovingly, TO these honored
teachers who have instructed you, counsel.
ed you and prayed for you with all faithful.
ness and hopefulness. The ties which have
hitherto bound you as pupils to all these
are now to be sundered. For having COM
plcted the prescribed course of study with
honor to yourselves, aud to the satisfaction
of your Instructors and Trustees of the In.
stitution, they now cheerfully and publicly
testify the same by placing in your hands
Diplomas of graduation.
Here the Secretary of the Seminary, Judge
Wilcox, presented TO the graduates their Di.
plomas.
And now, Young Ladies, while you thus
cease longer to be counted as pupils of the
Lake Erie Female Seminary, do not think you
have ceased, or even can cease, to belong
to it in another, a fuller, higher, and hoier
sense than that Of pupils. For from hence.
forth these grounds, these halls, these teach
ers, these trustees, aud all these friends will
count y0u, US they do your sisters who left
year ago, as advocates, helpers, friends
and sisters in the noble work OF female edu-
cation. Such is the noble work of female
education. Such is The new relation TO this
Instuton by which you are henceforth to
be kown and as such, be assured, you will
ever end a warm aud hearty welcome to
your Alma Mater.
And may not, Young Ladies', ask that
you will evermore cherish with the affection
and devotion of elder daughters, and glad
den her increasing years by your lives de-
voted to highest, uoblest purposes
Indeed this is what she most reasonably
and Justly expects of you. For though you
graduate to day, you do not graduate from
years of study to lives Of no study, but
merely from these primary and theoretical
forms of study to those which are higher
and more practical. Heretofore you have
only been learning how, most advantageous
ly, TO use your GOd-given powers ; while
hereafter their use is to he continued, not
always, nor chiefly, it may be, in the study
of books, as hitherto, but in connection
with the all-imporIaut social relations, and
domestic duties with which kind provi'
dence may intrust you. For whatever may
be our wishes and theories upon the subject
it is nevertheless in accordance with Gods
plan, that these things are to be your future
textbooks these your laboratory aud philoso
phical apparatus.
In these everyday, difficult, perplexing
aud if you please, unpleasant, unpoetical
but always practical duties, you will fiud
full scope for the employment of all youl
mental power Wherefore be studious here
after as you have been hitherto, by giving
to these all that thought and mental efforl
TO which their Importance entities them
aud you will never suffer from want of tn
most powerful aud polishing intellectual dis
ciplino. BE thus studious, aud You, a
least will never be mortified by iuvidiou
comparisons between your educated brott
ers, whether they be lawyers, physician G
thelogians. For in these practical sphere
you will find the highest uses for all you
stores of mental wealth, Here you wi
need, in ever varying forms and combin'
tions, your mathematics, chemistry, botan.
geology, political economy, history, poetr.
criticism, taste, mental aud moral pallos'
ply. moral government, theology, mnsl'
prayer all these viii. be laid under con'rl0'
tiUn.
This then, Young Ladies, is the wori'
wide University into which you now grad'
ate, and not into life of mental inactvlI
aud starnation. In this broad field OF pra
tical study YOU are henceforth to be n'
only pupils, but teachers and professors
4 highest rank.
Wherefore here and now accept II as yo'
a heaven-appointed mission through life,
( labor for the largest measure Of social, /