Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1883-06-13
Tho Graduate OF the Period.


n Y. Tribune.
The commencement season Is upon US,
and during the next few weeks several
hundreds of college graduates will be
Knocking for admission into the various
nYofessious and walks of life. 1t is the
custom in many quarters to speak Of the
graduate as if he were an affliction instead
0f a boon, and there are time-honored jokes
at his expense which have been paraded
every year for quarter of a century and
which are being busted for fresh ap-
pearance now. In these annual jibes the
graduate is depicted as conceited young
Derson, whose four years in college have
resulted chiefly in causing him to imbibe
the notion that whatever calling
he copdescends to enter he is
certain to adorn and illuminate from
the start. That there are gradu-
ates of this variety is unhappily true, but
they are the exception rather than the
rule, and their disease is moreover HARM
less ono which few months of stern
experience is certain to cure. The great
body of graduates are sensible fellows who
are not 80 much convinced of their own
great abilities as they are perplexed by an
inability to decide as to what path in life
they are best fitted to enter. The college
life of to day is so little isolated from the
world that the undergraduate has no
trouble in perceiving that success in life
is won by hard work and not by di-
ploma.
1t is common belief, especially among
graduates of ten or dozen years standing,
that the younger generation is much in
ferior to former ones; that the colleges no
longer turn out men of such force as ten
or q dozen years ago. These forceful
graduates 90 back to their colleges and
are panied by the youthful aspect of the
students there, and are surprised that
their parents allow them to go to college
at so immature ago. This is an amiable
delusion, born of an inability to realize
the fact that tho disturbed graduates are
themselves growing old. The boys in
college nowadays are no younger than
their predecessors were, and they are about
the same sort of boys, too. In many respects
We are bound to say they arc the superiOrs
of their predeces sOrs. They conduct them.
selves more like gentlemen, except OIL
rare occasions. They do less "haZing
and they do not do nearly so much drink
ing. Within the past ten or fifteen years
the character of college students has viSi
bly, improved. There is less rOwdyism,
is an abundance of bOyish fun and a
saving amount of boyish fonlishuess, but
what of that? Nobody wants a boy tt
be as wise as Il man certainly no sensible
father wants to see his boy so prematurely
sedate that he can't make a good deal Of
noise on occasion and can't bear his part
in uproarious, wholesome, manly fun. II
some stern critics of our college boys
could have their way what an army OF
prigs we should have turned loose upon
us at every commencement:
II the boys have improved, the colleges
have improved also. There have been in
recent years some unwise experiments
made in the way of Introducing new fea
lures and relaxing the severity of the
courses of study, but we believe it is a fact
that in nearly all instances these mistake
have been rectiiied. In all the leading
colleges tho curriculum has been steadily
advanced to higher standards. The re-
quirements for admission have been
greatly increased, and the course of study
enlarged and brOadened. The tendency
to abandon the old classical course is Ou
of date, which betrayed itself in some
quarters few years ago, has been checked
and all our older institutions have wisel.
concluded that the true course is not tt
abandon the old, but adhere TO that ant
add to it whatever is best in the new. Th'
graduate of the period has bad the bene Fl
of this and comes out into life SO mucl
the better equipped for the work before
him.