Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1899-06-09
BRATTLEB0R0 ACADEMY.
commencement Exercises Tues
day Evening.
Abstracts of the Excellent Essays De
Iivered by the several students who
Received Diplomas.


Received Diplomas.
The commencement exercises of Brat |
tleboro academy were held last Tuesday
evening at the Congregational church in
West Brattleboro.
The baccalaureate sermon to the grad
uatng class was given by Rev. j. II. Bah
bitt on the preceding Sunday evening.
Florence Lillian johnson was the first
speaker and Education as a Social Fac
tor was the theme which she treated en-
tertainingly, and extensively, consider
ing her time limitations. Apart from its
significance to particular individuals an
important aspect of education is It's bear
ing upon society as a whole. The burden
of cine upon society, which in this
country alone exceeds fifty millions an
nually, can in no way be so etfectualy re-
lieved as by education. More than so per
cent of criminals are practically illterate
on admission TO prison. In New England
in 1870 seven per cent of the people we're
illiterate and this seven per cent furnished
so per cent of the criminals. There were
50 times as many criminals among the un-
educated as among the same number of
educated.
The evils of paupersm are large and in
creasing and few facts will prove that
education is the most effective remedy. In
Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, one in 10
of the illiterates is pauper while the rest
of the population only one in 800 is a
pauper. The nations of the world if ar
ranged according to the state of education
among them, will be found to be arranged
according to wealth and general happiness
Massachusetts pays her teachers 60 per
cent higher salaries per capita, the amount
expended per pupil is so per cent more,
the value of school property is 1870 per
cent greater than for the average of the
country; it is Massachusetts that gives her
population the steadiest employment, best
social conditions of any equal population
on the face of the globe 1t is impossible
not to correlate the facts and to consider
that her educational advantages had much
to do with her industrial prosperity
These considerations apply to all coun-
tries. but in our country education is of
peculiar importance from a political point
of view.
The audience was much pleased with
the vivacious manner and musical inflec-
ton of the second speaker, lsaphine So
phia Stockwell imperialism was the
timely topic discussed. Before the late
| Spanish Amercan war it was the boast of
our country, not that we maintained great
armies and costly navies, but that we did
not need any. This exceptional blessing
was our pride, as it was the envy of the
world.
1t seemed according to the proclama-
ton of our government that the war I'M
dertaken was to be a war for humanity,
for the liberation of Cuba, that in our view
conquest was "criminal aggression" But
| ha, Gov viz haI Lot
BILE enemy PROSTATE at our feet, conquest
was in our reach and the people began to
inquire, why not? 1t was then discovered
that the career of our republic had been
from the very first one of territorial extern
sion. That annexation was merely a con-
tinuance of our past policy. But extern
sion in the past had been for the most part
near our own borders, in temperate zones,
in thinly populated districts which could
be settled by our own people and presently
admitted as self-governing states. In all
these respects the proposed extension diff
fers from past accessions Of territory.
If the conquered islands are annexed,
we must govern them as provinces or or
ganize them as territories with a view to
their eventual admission as states. The
latter proposition no one seriously con
siders. If we adopt the former, the Decla-
laration of Independence will be nulified
by our own acts, we shall have two grades
of citizens and We shall be paving the way
for enormous war expenditures from which
we have been so happily exempt.
The essay on George Eliot by Glare
Arms White showed fine critical discrimi-
nation and just literary taste.
The life of George Eliot, written by her
husband, is worthy of its subject and por-
trays with curious fidelity the mind and
spirit. 1t is essentially an autobiography
and yet is free from the defects natural to
all auto-biographes. We can almost fancy
that it is posthumous work of her own
and that George Eliot is not only the SUBJ
ject, but sole author of the life.
This life admits us within the penetralia
and reveals to us the literary method and
marvellous versatility of scholarship of
this famous novelist. With a scientific
knowledge of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, the
four continental languages, and a com
plete familiarity with all that is best in
our own literature, she combined not a
little science and mathematics. For II
years at the opening of her intellectual
life she was keen and appreciative stu
dent of theology and philosophy. In the
completeness of range and solid harmony
of culture George Eliot represented to our
age something of that gospel of which
Goethe was the older prophet While
Fielding, Scott, Goldsmith and Thackeray
readily surpass her in fertility of imag-
ination, outside the field of romance not
one of our novelists can be named beside
her.
With all her scholastic equipment and
with a temperament essentially philosophic
George Eliot was an artist. In this she
was unique. The artistic and phiosophic
are supposed to he exclusive of each other,
but in her mind they did co-exist. We
cannot claim, however, that they worked
in perfect harmony. At times we feel that
her art is not equal to TIE strain put upon
it, is labOred and unnatural.
Carrie Inez Crosier had duly consulted
the lots and played the part of Sibyl for
her classmates. The graceful introduction
in which the prophecies was translated to
the River StyX and shipped aboard the
John Kendrick Bangs house boat, was
highly finished in literary form.
The witticisms contained in her divina-
tions were heartily relished, particularly by
those who knew the parties whose futures
were revealed.
"Some Aspects of Distribution" was the
subject of Robert Edward Dunklees ora
ton and his effort in substance and deliv-
cry was fully up to the high standard
which he had set for himself in previous
| addresses. The abstract ecOnOmic nrinci-