The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-06-27
BACCALAUREATE SERMON
PRESIDENT DWIGHT PREA CHES TO
THE SENIOR CLASS IN B4TTELL.

Relatives of the Graduates Seniors i'm
Cap and Gown. Attend In n Body-Im-
pressive ValedictiOn - Ninety-oight
Bows to the President for the Last
Time.
Yesterday morning President limo
thy Dwight delivered the Baccalaure-
ate sermon to the senior academic
class of the Yale university. The SER
vice was very simple but impressive.
Battell chapel was filled with the
friends and relatives of the senior
class. Very few of the undergraduates
were in attendance.
President Dwight's text was four
fold one taken from 1 Corinthians iv,
Is, Philippians ii, and iii, Is, and I
Cor. iii, %. His general theme was the
thought that the university life had
been but preparation for the larger
life and that greater sphere than for
mally lay before each young man who
graduates from Yale provided the
principles of Christian love are lived
up to.
The president said that the day was
in itself a reminder of the passing of
an epoch in life and was full of sugges-
ton of the maturer activity that lay
before each educated man as he went
forth into the world. The day must
therefore be one of retrospect as well
as prospect. The call to the univers-
ity student is the same as that which
comes to other men. 1t has it's source
in the experience through which he
has passed and that is alone peculiar
and has become part of his own in
dividual possession and personality.
The life of the coming years has thus
a larger significance.
The true life takes account of the
things that are unseen and takes
thought of others and their needs. 1t
draws it's inspiration from this very
consideration.
All men by the very necessities of
this life are surrounded by two classes
of influences, viz: the things that are
seen and those that are unseen. The
peculiar characteristic of every life is
that to which it looks of these two
classes. Education Is what all students
came to college for and that has de-
termined their citizenship in the place.
Education is related to the mind and
to character and these pertain to the
realm of the unseen. We rejoice not
in the power of doing things outside
- I,,+ t,,t Ha% til 1.
come to maturer and fuller power with
the progress of years of study. And it
is in himself that the educated man
has his greatest possession. There is
no law OF rule of duty which shuts out
the educated man or that confines him
within the limits of his own personal
growth. The real needs in the largest
sense are the measure of such a mans
power.
President Dwight said there was an
| other thought in the text in this: that
| the students came to college wholly
Strangers and with their personalities
only. They came to develop. In lit
tie time, however, they began, to grow
| into the life of the college community
and they found 1t to be more and more
| a brotherhood under whose obligations
! they placed themselves. The relations
| of this life taught the very lessons of
| love and thoughtfulness for others and
| their rights that must characterize
| these men in after life.
College bred men are to be self-cen-
tered but not selfish. The great ques-
| lions of the day must be solved by
| them. They are not to father wild
| 1,;ne Ix,,k otot,f ,,1,
! exercise of their mental energies are
the service required of them. More
over the future to which the young
men are coming is the future for which
| they were made and in which they are
to make their lives tell.
life was only preparatory. The out
look must be forward If life is to be
lived up to it's fulness and worthily of
the past training.
President Dwfght's concluding
! thought was that things present and
things to come are all the property of
the young men before him. The con-
seriousness of things attained and OF
fields lying before them to be conquer
! ed and to be held for right and for a
higher and nobler life in the realiza-
| ton Of the ideal of Jesus Christ is the
spirit that should animate and inspire
every young man who goes forth from
Yale.
In conclusion the venerable presi-
dent asked the senior class to rise and
receive from him final valediction
Wearing their academic gowns the
three hundred young men arose in the
center of the chapel and stood rever-
emily listening while President Dwight
said with broken accents:
IT have spoken thus to you, my
young friends of the university, all of
| you younger than myself yet of the
same brotherhood These things I be-
lieve to be the Christian message OF
love. The college years with all thei1
| joys and happy experiences have come
to their end for you and memory alone
can deal with them or keep them ]
trust that the remembrance of them
may be as delightful as the experiences
themselves were in their season, ant
that your recollections may have fol
you as much inspiring power as those
which came to the best among the mer
who have moved onward before you
here. The manly years are opening
! before you and you are looking upor
them reverently yet hopefully. My
| wish is that when hope changes into
reality your realization may answer
fully to the hope, and that the bless
ings of the yet distant day may be but
The hour which divides the college
/