The south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1879-1883, 1883-06-12
GRADUATING ESSAYS"
Essay Read by Miss Cora Anderson
Of Hopkinsville, Ky, at the
Commencement Of Bethel
Esmala;collago. May.
81, 1883.

Observed from a practical point Of
view, those annual literary contribu-
tions known as Graduating Essays"
are of little or no real value. They
impart no information, instruct no.
body, and perhaps their greatest val
ue consists in making season of
festivity. The ideas they contain have,
as q rule, been far more ably dis
cussed by persons of greater ability,
and they can lay no greater claim to
public attention, than the fact that
they are the efforts of school girls.
We know that the mass of the peO-
pie who hear us tonight, will go
forth from these walls with feelings
of the yeriest Indifference. Our sue
cess or failure will not effect the
public in the least. If one essay be
brilliant and another commonplace,
of course the contrast may and will
tickle the vanity of the immediate
friends of the one and depress the
spirits of those of the other.
But the point want to make is, that
the general public care butts very little
about graduating essays andgradu-
atcs. OF course every one who
knows of il, takes an interest in those
just starting in life, but the fact of
their being college graduates adds no
new attractions to the event.
These graduating essays cannot
justly claim any intrinsic worth.
For how could you expect one just
on the threshold of life, who has
spent the years of her development
in gaining little theoretical infor-
nation, TO have in her experience
anything of practical Importance to
the world?
She has been absent from the COM
mon affairs of life, and the only
view she has ever had of the world
has been us 1t were from "Over the
garden WALL 1t is surprising how
. little o girl may know when she has
! taken her college degree, especially If
she has been industrious and stuck
to her studies. In society the grad
uate is expected to be literary, while
i her literature is confined to the old
crystallized formula of the college
I curriculum, and, as matter OF
/. course, she is not up in current af-
fairs.
}, Yes, this graduate is wonderful
!. thing. She is looked upon by the
y world at large as sort of tutored
numb-skull, altogether devoid OF
d adaptability to the practical affairs OF
life, while her immediate friends
I and connections may estimate her as
!. of little present worth, but with
wonderful amount of possible out
come. The literary value then, as
st have remarked, of these graduating
V essays is nothing, but their real val
ue consists in something else. The!
b. mark period in our lives. Event
show mems progress. The stages o
o. our lives are not indicated by day
Y Y and weeks, but by actions. As W
come before you tonight with ou
:, schoolgirl productions, it is to indi
e. cate that we are about to leave on
stage of action.for another. Our las
few years have been spent in the pas
the storied past. We have bee
is talking and thinking with men lon
sa 0i dead, while the world has bee
sweeping on in its grand march
progress. We have been dealing
distractions and our pleasures hay
Or been way back in the old time of 4
"' BILE, while men around us have BET
= working the real problem of life al
whirling in the fash Of actual d
light. Yes, the world knows mu'
AN. M of which we never had an intim
ton, but what we have been doing
not altogether profitless. The boy
girl who has been in the actu
fight has an experience to which
cannot now pretend, but which
may soon gain, while we have SON
thing we can never know. We ha
been, as 1t were, fitting our armor
and sharpening our weapons so Il
we may go to the thickest of the b
tie, well prepared for noble work.
Tonight we are before you pl
Tossing to have left the green squ'
and are going to enter the ran
:. Our marching orders are ITO
'front.'" and we bid adieu to the gre
MIA, valley of our childhood and start
the frowning works beyond. 7
question comes up "What is there
mr.. present a woman can dop' Is tn
~ an opening in the world for her
fur ents, or is she to lapse back into
! 'a'e' life of ignominious easea RENE
bering the glories of her ante bell
IN life, some are raising the cry, "dc
cU soil woman's refinement with a
8. thing outside of domestic dui
! y This word refinement is so mi
misunderstood. say let won