Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1886-06-24
Our Graduating Glasses.

AT this season OF every year the innu+
merable notices of college and school
commandments must give a pause to
even the most unthoughtful From
Harvard down to the high school of ev-
cry country town graduating classes,
during the current month, will bid
long farewell to the period of appren+
ticeship. and each individual. according
to temperament, will make modest,
careless, or an audacious bow to the fu-
ture which, for all of US, the just and the
unjust, is big with such enormous possi-
bilities.
A great Englishmsn, well up among
the first literary men of the century and
at present occupying the high political
position of Chief Secretary for Ireland,
distributed prizes rev years ago to the
pupils of an industrial school in the
North of England. In his opening adj
dress Mr.. Morley said: at may be
weakness upon my part, but cannot
help regarding every child, boy or girl,
young or old. who goes forward to re-
ceige prize on such occasions with pos
itively painful emotions l cannot help
thinking of the long, weary hours of
toilful study each child must have stolen
from healthful play; and l cannot but
regret that so much time-in the inter-
est of even so divine thing as knOwl>
edge should be passed in stopping pos
ture, and in an atmosphere tainted for
the most part with oil or gas. when re-
freshing slumber might naturally claim
such moments for her own. But more
sober thought makes me realize that it
is the law of life, which we cannot rer
woke or abrogate. 1t is now as it was of
old, In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou
earn thy bread"
Perhaps it is producing deaths head
at feast to refer to the painful aspects
of education jnst at the time when that
tyrannical dame has laid aside her work
ing clothes, and, decked with roses and
manuscript addresses, moves across the
continent in one long triumphal process
sion. But su3h thoughts will arise and
will not down. 1t is sad to think of the
preliminary strain and labor; it is grati-
flying to look upon the exultant Vietors
who gather the spoils of energy and ef-
fort; it is pathetic to dwell upon the baf-
fled hopes of those who carry off no tro-
phies; and, to those who think, there is
something profoundly tragic in looking
forward to the future of those who win
the laurels as well as of those who lose
them.
Will that strapping boy, who, to-day
in the first flush of maBhood rolls out
such fine sentiments, carry into life the
essence of his words, or is the valedicto-
ry speech merely an ingenious combina'
tion of all the fine things he has heard
and read and thought, without any more
perceptible influence upon his life than
the chaotic wanderings of a dream?
Will he be real man, erect in heart and
mind, in word, thought and deed, or will
"he, too. take the stamp of the golden
age, cheat and be cheated, and die?"
This ia even a more serious eonsidera-
tion than that to which Mr.. Morley re-
ferred with such deep feeling. The
dead past can bury itself, but what of
that unknown future which may be
made so quietly noble or so gloriously
infamous?
We can hear almost any day during
the present mouth a number of young
ladies reading essays of greeting or fare
well, composed in all styles of literature
and usually well-slashed with fine senti-
ments and heroic passages from Emer-
son or Carlysle. Have those fine thoughts
and passages entered at the eyes o'issue
at the lips, or have they cireumnsyigated
the system, passing in their journey
through the heart and brain, leaving q
permanent residuum in the blood?
Will that girl with the fair, pale fere>
head, the modest blush, and eager eyes,
maintain through life her interest in
those high themes which she discusses
to-day with such tripping tongue and
trembling lips? Or has she onlH UNI
packed from the wardrobe of her mind
and fancy that dress appropriate to
rare occasion, intending or expecting 10
stow it safely away forever when she has
fretted her brief hour upon the college
platform?
But whatever the consequences may
be. however doubtful the future for the
brilliant as for the ungifted, there is
one thing of which we may be perfectly
assured, and it is that all knowledge is
power; that the highest knowledge
which enables men and women ito feel
deep, think clear, bear fruit well" is of
paramount importance, because it makes
men and women of this work-a-day
-.