Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-07-01
Commencement.

People are often found who wonder why
the close of college course is called COM
mencement If we mistake not, in former
times the exercises attendant upon gradna-
ton took place when the new college year
began, and so what was the close Of col
lege life for the graduates was the COM
mencement of the college year for the
students. But whether that had any thing
to do with the naming of the time or not
il is indeed the commencement Of the work
of lf. for the class that leaves the halls Of
college. There is too a commencement in
every place that sees young men or women
close their :, hool days. and many a noble
one is held where the beginners themselves
would never think of using so high sound
ing term.
There is of course in graduating classes
a good deal of over-estimate of the rela-
tive quantity of wisdom that they contain,
rs COM pared with that possessed by the
outside world, but not much more differing
from the truth than is the underestimate
that same world is very ready to put on
the stock in trade of the young men and
women who are leaving school and begin
ming life. The item going the rounds
that no American college has, within TWEEN
" years, graduated Il man who has become
famous, is rolled rs a sweet morsel under
tongues that are ready to chant praises Of
men of affairs whether they be Fisks or
Joneses. The truth Of the item is bad for
the pride of the college boys. but its lesson
stops there. Each year of the last twenty
has put into the field of active life, from
academies. colleges and the like, young
men and women, trained to greater or
less amount of correct thought and to n
greater OF less power of correct thinking
who have, such as have kept up anywhere
near the ideals with which they left school,
helped mankind in the mass a good way
onward. If statistics are wanted. instan-
ces to prove this, 90 out and hunt them
up; you will find them fast enough.
The individual aspirations of commence
ment day. many if not most of them vague,
will not amount to much in II crop of re-
alization, but the collective force of good
will toward the human race in general as
well ms to themselves in particular, that the
classes of succeeding years bring into the
work Of life really amounts to something.
1t brings up recruits, not hardy or well
drilled ut first. perhaps, to many n good
enterprise, in which the older soldiers are
getting little weary or discouraged or
disguised The new corners may get that
way themselves after awhile but not at
once, and not Ill of them ever. They will
learn wisdom and ways of doing things,
but to do the young fellows justice, their
notions of what is desirable to be done are
apt to be fill as good us those of their ell
ders. Strange as it may appear, their
wisdom teeth are rather more fully cut
than their eye teeth.
So we are glad to see the new corners
enter upon their work, and they may be
sure that, whether they come with diploma
or without it, they will in all earnest
struggles have the good wishes Of many
who haven't much time for expressions of
sympathy, and whose apparent attitude is
one rather of criticism Of too gau,lily col
Ored hopes, than of enthusiastic filth
that they will accomplish the larger half
of what they expect 10 do. These young
people will do the world a great deal
of good, though they will not make
the noise about it they now expect
to. and their enthusiasm is an excellent
thing to stlrt with. Frequently, when it
is little worn away, grit appears under
meath.