Daily Republican., 1881-06-16
A CLASS OF EIGHT.
TINE CLOSING EXERCISES OF
DELAWARE COLLEGE.
A Proud Day FOR Newark-The
Most Creditable Commence.
ment the College Ever
Had.

III their Sunday clothes and turned out
to the commencement exercise OF Della
ware College with right good will
and interest. The day could not have
been fairer and Newark people took
more than pride in the closing scenes
of the favorite place of learning in the
State Added to this were other favor
able circumstances. which happily COM
bined and made the doings OF the fore
noon satisfactory even beyond thc'fur-
ther wish of the president ofthe college.
The exercises were held in the oratory
of the college. They opened at II o'clock,
AT nat time the room was crowded with
people, large preponderanCe Of whom
We're relatives and friends of the grad
yates.
The graduating class, composed, sin
gularly enough, entirely Of young men,
is as follows:
Robert ii. Wright, Jr., Wilmington,
Del.
John 5. NJ. Neil, Minneapolis, MINI.
John f. pearce, Wilmington Del.
Thomas Il. Mcdowell, Fair Hill, Md.
William IL. Puncli, Jr. Newark
Del
Peter f. Meredith, Petersburg Del.
S. Harrington Messick Bridgcviilc,
Del
Rodney II. Richardson, Lewis, Del.
Among the prominent persons seated
upon the platform We're Rev. T.G. Littell
Rev. DR.. Frost, DIR. 5. A, Murphy, Rev
Mr.. Ware, j. Alexander Fulton, Esq
and others, notably the trustees Of the
81 al 4 .
of the Board OF Trustees was not pres
cnt, and a telegram Of regret waS read
at later stage Of the proceedings.
The exercises opened with music by
tie college orchestra, assisted by II. f.
Albert OF Wilmington, after which the
Rev. Mr.. Ware OF the Methodist Pro-
testaut church made an earnest prayer
asking Gods blessings upon the eXer-
cise, and upon the institution. Then
the exercises Of the graduating class
commenced and
S. HARRINGTON MESSICK,
was intrOduced,I the salutatOrian. Tine
honorary Grafton was in latin. 1t was
delivered with much carnestneSs and
sell possession and with very fair cor
reCtueSS.
The next graduate was
rErER +. MEREDITH,
who delivered an Oratiou upon life
and its Lessons He said the external
world was fruitful in lessons 10 the hui
man mind. Life in all its points is in
tercsting, but it is more SO with human
life. He held that there was u lesson in
life tending to lift man up, and to teach
him To labor hard for what is good.
Homer, unsel fish effort is of vastly more
Importance than the accumulation Of
wealth or the winning OF fame, and life
teaches that such effort is better by far
than that.
JOHN +. rEARCE
chose as his subject, THE Evils Of the
Day" He disputed the assertion made
by people that We had greatly advanced
III morality and were far superior to
the ancient in moral point of view.
In taCt we have advanced but little.
The evils of the present day are legion.
They are in the church and State and
society. Churches are often used to
protect wrong-doers and religion is
taken as cloak for designing men,
while some people use the pulpit as y
shield for their hypocrisy. In the State
we have bribery, fraudulent voting, in
tilnidation at,the polls and official pecu-
lation, all Of which defeats the will of
the people and enables designing men to
rob the public. Society, he declared,
after speaking Of what was wrong there,
was a she'll n sham, a prctenSe. In
stead If CriticiSimg our ancestors let us
look to ourselves. Mr.. Pearce deliver
ed his Grafton with much force and
spirit and careful eioCutiOnary effect.
THOMAS X. MCDOWELL
was the next orator. His subject was
'To seem and to be. " Mr.. Mcdowell
spoke well. He spoke ota tendency eX-
listing to conceal the real and show the
false. The mind is deceptive Often
times the face will smile while i'll the
the heart is the deepest woe. He held
further, therefore, that in view Of the
fact that the face and outward appear
ancc 10 not form true index that we
should not judge by them. A poor
coat may cover II great man, and a
great mind may be hidden behind a
homely face. A true test to this, how
ever, in nearly every instance, was a
close observance. Then the pretense
could be detected and the true character
observed.
JOHN S. NJ. NELL
spoke upon the practical subject of
Chinese immigration, and his ora
ton was an eloquent plea for the mild
eyed celestial. He delivered his address
with force and grace that won loud ap-
plauSe. He altered the old adage, that
it takes all sorts OF people to make Il
world, and said that it took all kind Of
people now to make such a nation as
ours. In denouncing the fallacy OF the
to Chinese immigration he
that they were cleaner, more
and more industrious than
the so-cailed inhabitants OF the I'M
derpround Of New York. 1t was
not right to turn the Chinese away from
our shores. Our constitution could not
permit such thing. They are either
our interiors, our equals or our superb
ors. If our interiors, they will never be-
come our masters; If our equals, we
should show them equal rights; Ii our
superiors, we can't afford to treat them
as we do. He denounced the anti-Chl-
nese planks in political platforms and
said the day would come when this OBJ
lection to theinhabitants of the Flowery
Kingdom would cease.
RODNEY H. RICHARDSON
handled his subject-"Classical Learn
ing"-t1om q defensive standpoint, re-
butting in the course of his Grafton the
objections raised to the study of classi-
cal literature in our public schools. 1t
could not be dangerous to good morals,
because the students were tanght to
sift the good from the bad, and for that
matter modern writer's, Che cited Moore,
Bulwer, Shakespeare and others are
lust as bad. The objection that it is
not American will not hold good. AS
we'll say literature in general, and mu-
sic and painting are not American: Not
American Neither is the air and sun
shine American. In closing the young
oro4or smoke of the necessity of the