St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1891-07-02

their own foreign interests and Occu-
pations, but all tinsel and WEAKNESS
to those of whose mornings, Moons
and nights it is the too oft-told
story And for all of us there have
been long, weary hours, when the
hollowness of things in general
seemed more apparent at college than
elsewhere. Culture has seemed as
barren an ideal as any other, and the
bachelors degree a $ empty an object
of am bition as any which have served
for ages as texts for the satires of the
disillusioned or the vanity of human
wishes.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint and heard great argu-
About it and about, but evermore
Came out by the same door wherein 1 went
Yet it would not be so bad if this
were all. If we had felt ourselves
only no better off, we could at least
have looked on these four years as
merely wasted time. 1t was not so
much that we were no wiser as that
we were sadder men-sadder for the
loss of the old ideals which criticism
had destroyed without giving us
others to take their place, sadder for
the loss of this beauty which all this
pitiless analysis seemed to have
taken out of the world of our younger
days.
We must be careful not to exagger-
a tie the entimental objection to
study and thought. The sigh for the
old days of what we fondly imagine
to have been blissful innocence and
ignorance verges perilously on the
maudlin. Yet there is real danger
that we may lose more than we
would wish of the poetry of life, and
become like Heine's Philistines, Ito
whom the sun is an object so and so
many miles in diameter, trees are
good for kindling wood, flowers are
classified according to their stamens
and water is wet" And there is
reason for the more disquieting ap-
prehension that our scientific ma
terialism may become something
worse than prosaic. But it need not,
if we read our books rightly and lis
ten to the personal teachings Of those
men whose names come to mind as
we think of the work of our college
course. They did not try to convince
us that they had solved the eternal
mysteries and given us the world in
the form of tabular view. They
give us back the world, not just as
they took it from us-nO one could
wish that-but more rather than less
charged with beauty and hope. The
stars have not been made common.
They bear as sacred a message and
are none the less the cleaning points
which touch our hilltops. From the
sun still comes the light which
throws the shadows of the elms
across the grass at the end of a sum-
mer's day. All the psychology of
Germany cannot take from me the
subtle JOY which the fragrance of the
lilac brings back with the memories
Of a sunny garden, where the lilacs
madeevery spring radiant with their
beauty.
Individualism in education has be-
come the watchword of the college
in its instruction; and the principle
extends farther than to the mere
choice of electives. Our college soci,
ETY. is perhaps not an ideal one; but
in spite of those who may disagree
with me, l believe that too can
hardly fail to impress on us the fact
that a man must stand on his own
worth. The four years bring us re-
peatedly in the face of this truth;
and if we have learned that one les
son, we have not been here in vain.
AS the college grows into universe
ty its service in this respect must be-
come ever greater. 1t does not aim
to model every mans fortune; it
does try to teach each one of us to
know what is best for himself and to
hold Loyalty to it. There is, think,
a disposition to make too much of
college life-not, of course, that we
that men whose real business lies else
where hesitate to abandon altogeth-
er the protecting shadow of the uni
versity. They linger after they are
really done, and come back without
any very good excuse. They seem
to regard this life not as prepare
ton, but as a contamination, the
bright part of their career over
which they wish to dwell as long as
possible. Feeling in that way my
self, 1 once asked a graduate of some
years standing if he would not like
to go over his college course again.
He told me that he did not think it
was worth while to read the book
a second time Would it not be well
for us to follow his example and
close the book fairly and finally this
week? We may have become SO adj
sorbed in the story that we forgot
to notice what it all meant; we may
have been so blind to its beauties
that we would give much to run
over them again. But if we stay
here let us be sure it is not the old
story that we want to read over
again for life is too short to spend in
pouring over twice-told tales. We
have this moment Of reverie as the
book falls from our hands; the mem
cries of it will go with US into the