Nevada County picayune., 1890-05-14
SALUTATORY.
Delivered at the Commencement exercises of the Tom Allen Higa School of Prescott on Fri'la. evening, May 2, iS!0
BY EDITH VAUGHN.

sentative of the class, to be the bear CT of royal welcome to all.
 We are here tonight to show you how we have used our tune and op- rortunities-we trust yon will be pleased with us: we desire to win golden opinions from all and we ask that you will not prove too censori- ous critics; that you will remember our youth and inexperience and will 1 bestow upon us many an approving glance and indulgent smile.
 We stand tonight on the thrcsh- hold of a new existence. Our school days are almost "days of yore." Rapidly are the last few grains of sand in their hour-glass running out. But pardon me, it is not my province bat that of our fair Vaedictorian to invade the dominion of the past.
 The mighty, irrevoeable past!
 Far in her realms withdrawn,
 Old empires sit in sullenncss and gloom,
 And glorious ages gone
 Lie in the shadow of her tomb.
 Full many mighty name
 Lies in her depths unlettered unrevered;
 With her are silent fame;
 Forgotten arts and wisdom disappeared.
 hail thee, oh, glories future as my theme In thy hands are rare gifts with which thou shalt reward each earnest endeavor. No effort is lost. If we miss that for which we strive We gain strength and courage which shall at length attain success
 Dear classmates, looking adDwn the long vista of the future, behold her full of promise. Not far distant is the day when the vexed questions and the perpexing problems Of the present will find an easy solution in the inevitable triumph of common sense and good feeling. \ day when there will be no glaring contrasts of wealth and poverty, education anl ignorance, coarseness and refine ment day when trAc worth shall be unfettered by artificial barriers, created by differences of station or possessions a day when there will be no clamorous outbreaks of labor CTS to startle Us from our dreams of peace and safety, no processions of hungry men, women and children crying for bread like those seen in London and Chicago in the past few days: day when want and there | fore greed and avarice shall be no more; day when the wrongs of power and all the fearful shams and pitiless cruelty of the social system of the nineteenth century shall have utterly passed away.
 Think not these are Utopian dreams; other nations have passed through fires as fierce as those which | threaten us with destruction and have emerged into the regions of light and prosperity beyond unhurt; nay, with dross consumed and gold refined by the terrible blast furnace. At differ ent periods of Roman history when society ;'lj become so corrupt that i,arii,- uhtaimcl Their ends by bribery aud b;oli9acl, VftOtts were made by wise legislators for the relief of the masses. The tendency of iil legisla- ton was to make more equal dis trihution of property. Laws were made ordaining that part of the pub lie land should be divided among the poorer class. It was proposed to as- | sign it in small farms so as to give every man homestead; various | laws, such as the famous Licinion Rogatlons, the agrarian law, etc., were made to aid the poor. The rich recognizing in these reforms the rem edy for the social evils then existing opposed them with the utmost bitter ness, even sacrificing the reformers to the fury of the turbulent mobs, but the people finally won and civil concord brought with it a period of civic virtues and heroic greatness.
 The Israelites are another case in point. Moses, says q recent writer, was a great social reformer, and for success he has no peer in the lists. In Palestine the undue accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few in the face of the utter poverty of the mass es could not occur, for every man called piece of land his own. Moses abolished slavery and out of de- graded populace dragged from the slums of Egypt and saturated with the vices and superstitions of that land, and by education and training he made new nation and gave to posterity the pattern of the most successful social system the world has ever known. He did not accom- plish thls by mad, radical revolution but by taking the materials as he found them, the circumstances as they existed, and shaping them to the ends of the perfect justice of God. do not say that we should adopt the Mosaic institutions bodily this would be an impossibility, and in some respects retrogression, but I mean that only by these eternal principles of justice which guided Moses in the solution of the problems of his time can those of our time be solved. By proper respect for la- Dor then, and by assuming our share of the worlds work we can begin at once to help in this grand, complete, l but peaceful revolution. Consider