The weekly sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1886-1887, 1886-06-24
STARTING OUT IN LIFE.

and the oft recalled sweet girl grad
yates with golden hair" Every
North Carolina paper, The SENTINEL
included, has given column after col
umn descriptive of the closing scenes
of many a graduates college life.
They are worthy the attention shown
them. The tenderest, brightest
months of the year are given up to
them, deal of nonsense is written
about the girls, and copious advice is
administered to both the boys and the
girls. But the Southern commence
ment days are really climacterics of
beatific visions, and hope long defer
red reaps its recompenss of waiting to
youth in whose veins the blood of the
Southron leaps and tingles in expecta-
ton. Like brides, the girls troop up
on platforms powered and redolent
with the seasons opulent offering OF
flowers, their hearts beating beneath
their snowy vestments, and their
cheeks glowing with the stimulant of
publicity All that is most beautiful
in the spectacular is present, and to
most of the candidates that scene is
the realization of ambitions fondest
dreams.
This is all very pretty, but the bus
mess of life comes little further
along. That idea comes like dark
forethought oftener to the boy than
to the girl graduate. Most boys feel
that they must make their own way
in the world and that continuous nib
bling at the lotus leaves is quite out
of the question The lotus-nibbling
period lasts longer with the "sweet
girl graduate" Yet not all of these
are "sweet," either in face, form, or
disposition. A gracious chivalry Pc
culiar to our Southern people and
especially so to North Carolinians, has
covered them all with the adjective,
however, the Sweet girl grad
uate, whether she has golden hair,
red hair, or carroty hair, goes forth
complacently to take her chances in
the world, very often with a leaning
to the chances of matrimony. To this
end kindly mothers have drawn them
from text book to kitchen
The chemistry of cold type is laid
aside for the chemistry of hot cooking
food. The fair hands which have been
painting on an impossible tempest on
PLAGUE, or have been indolently turn
ing the leaves of Tennyson or Swim
burne are plunged into -four and wat
er, or are manipulating sugar and
eggs. The fanciful stitches which
have given existance to crazy quilt
are laid aside for the needle and
thread, while with mandatory mien,
her mother or aunt sits over her, di-
recting in the more practical mys-
teries of dressmaking.
Happy is the girl who graduates
after this manifold domestic tutelope.
And the percentage of these are on
the increase from year to year, not
withstanding the opinion, which large
ly obtains that girls are becoming
more worthless in the principal affairs
of life each year.
The graduate without a purpose Is
a melancholy object. A girl who
graduates with the avowed purpose of
getting married well as soon as she
can, is entitled to more respect than
she who vacantly lisps, 81 don't
know" to the interrogation, "What
are you going to do?" The boy who
says to you, Il am going to be civil
engineer" or 81 am going to be law
YER or a Journalist, or a clergyman,
Or doctor, in response to your ques-
lion on Commencement day, will push
his way through this work a-day
world, you may be sure. He has a
purpose in lite, and he means to ac
'omplish it. The boy who has no
such provision or determination is
ike electrical force stored up in lead |
N reservoirs, from which no provis-
on is made to release and utilize it
The world loses much dynamic energy
n this way from the indifference
# youthful graduates.
1t will not do to adopt the Micaw-
"a like system, of waiting for some
hing to turn up. Fhis listless wait