St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1891-07-02
HARVARD'S CLASS DAY.
Grafton by Charles ". willard.

One of the principal features OF
Harvard's class day is the grafton
and this year it was given by Charles
w Willard of Montpelier, son of the
late Charles W. Willard of Mont
PETER and valedictorian of the class
of 'S7 at St. Johnsbury Academy.
1t was delivered on Friday, June 10.
The Boston Herald said, "Mr. Will
lard has fine delivery, and he gave
his GRAFTON very impressively. 1t
was an original effort, and showed
decided thought and force" 1t was
as follows:
If we look for little at the more
serious reason for the observance Of
this day we shall find it, think, at
least in part, in the effort which men
make to rouse themselves from the
old familiar dream in which the most
of their lives is passed. The days
slip by US, one after the other, leav-
ing us but half aware of their fight.
The meaning that they have we can
not stop to puzzle out. But it is
worth while to draw aside now and
then to reflect. So this week as we
leave our college life we would try to
get, if we can, deeper glimpse into
the significance of that life which the
busy rush of the life itself has left us
too little opportunity to think
about
Our dull senses fail to perceive the
half of what lies before them The
beauty which the very surroundings
of our college life had for US when we
first saw them has become less and
less, until we have found ourselves
walking mechanically among the
trees and buildings of the college yard
with eyes hardly less sightless than
the staring eyes of a sleep-walker.
1t IS not so much that we are tired of
it all as that it has lost the power to
move us. The things which we have
seen we now can see no more, and
this blindness is typical Of all our
density. 1t is with no little satisfac-
ton, then, that we welcome any new
light which may irradiate the familiar
objects of our daily vision and show
to us in their old, true glory the
things which we look at but have
lost the power to see. This week
may give us at least a ray of that
light.
There is a greater service that we
may expect of it. May we not hope
that it will give some order to the
perplexing confusion of the past four
years? Hardly sun has set for US
on the same purpose, the same ideals
on which it rose We have not done
what at the beginning we meant to
do-almost anything but that. The
thoughts which we were going to
follow up; the studies to which we
were going to devote ourselves; the
books which we were going to read
the sports which we were going to
master; where are they all We are
fortunate if we have so much as
worked off the conditions of our en-
trance examinations. The tomor-
row has never come in the form in
which we looked for it. May we not
hope to find some suggestion of the
thought which can give all this SEEM
1ngly purpOselesS mass some unity?
Ii we could grasp the full signih-
canoe of it all we should cease to be
mere men. But there is, l think,
something in this shifting of our
ideals which we can understand and
be glad for. The change is the in
evitable accompaniment of our
growth and culture We had fan
cied, perhaps, in our simple Freshman
confidence that though we might
hope to grow in knowledge, such
growth would bring no loss to the
fond ideals which we cherished then.
But we should not be wiser today if
we had not at least learned the fall
s1tv of that. We have not done the
things we meant to do because we
have learned to find other things
more worth the doing. Sometimes
we have been wOoed from the old loves
so crafty that we hardly knew we
loved them less before we ceased to
love them at all. Sometimes the
sense of downfall has come painfully
before we have vet learned to look
with Indifference on the old idols.
But If we have used our life rightly it
has been the mistake which we have
escaped, the right purpose toward
which we have made the nearer ap-
proach. This, then, is the thought
which may console us for the whole
sale desertiOn of our old plans
There are, unfortunately, some things
we meant to do which we wish now
had been left undone. But it will
not be unreasonably optimistic to
say that in many other things we
are glad for the new thought which
drove the old from our minds.
Yet we cannot forget the pessimist
even today In the midst of this
brightness it is not so hard to think
of the value of our college life and the
preciOusness of our memorials. But
weshould not do justice to its darker
moments if we did not remember
them, too. Some of US, even today,
may be posing as disillusioned beings,
men who have tested all the romance
which is supposed to surround college
life and found If f1ctiOu-a SDectacle