The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-05-11
HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES
A Large Audience Attends the
Opening Exercises.
WELL WRITTEN ORATIONS
Grace Milford Wilson Discusses the
Character of Antonio and Emma
Margaret Savage Speaks of
"The New Woman"

the opening of the graduating exer-
cises. There were two orations, the
speakers being Grace Milford Wilson
and Emma Margaret Savage, gradu-
ates The young ladies surprised their
friends by the very able manner in
which they handled their subjects and
proved that they had studied diligent
iy and applied themselves seriously to
their respective assignments.
The exercises were very pretty, many
flowers being presented to the gradu-
ates by their admiring friends. Miss
Wilson's Grafton was on Antonio"
She said in part:
IF the unwritten lives of some of the
worlds bravest heroes were known,
how great would be the number, who,
struggling and striving in their hum
BILE way, have helped to make the
world what it is. Who, unknown and
aforementioned, have been hidden be-
hind the great deeds of their more pom
pous brethren. 1t is an oft-noted fact
that those most deserving often re-
ceive least mention. Much has been
written about shylock. many have
been the eulogies on Portia very lit
tie has been said about Antonio, very
little either In praise or by way. of
criticism. With the character of Shy
lock in mind, Antonio drops almost en-
tirely out of sight, and yet it should
not be thus; if there were no Anto-
MO there would be no Shylock. In
Antonio, the Merchant of Venice, we
lind man, sweet hammered, kind
hearted, cheerful in time of prosper
ity or adversely. His gentleness and
sweetness of character leave the i'm
preston that he was a man to be
trusted, man in whom to confide
man whose influence was elevating and
inspiring.
There is one spot in Antonio's char
acter we cannot overlook, we cannot
entirely blot 1t out, though We may ex-
cuse it somewhat as the fault of the
time rather than of the man. This is
his treatment of the Jew. AS the Jews
had suffered patiently under persecu-
ton, from generation to generation, so
had the Christians for generations
scorned and spurned them as so many
dogs. Antonio asks no favor of Shy
lock, takes no advantage of him in any
way, but goes to him and frankly
says: I am as like to call thee SO
( again, to spit on thee again, to spurn
thee, too. If thou wilt lend me money.
lend it not as to thy friends; but lend
1t rather to thine enemy, who, If he
exact the penalty e,
How strong must have been the
bond of friendship between Antonio
and Bassanio, how great must have
been Antonio's love for his friend that
tBassanio in his, trouble, should. turn to
Es1Iim and feel sure of help, to knoWstlfat
l Antonio would say: My purse, my
person, my EXTREMIST means, lie all
unlocked to your OCCASION
Antonio goes as far as to say
"tAlbeit, / neither lend nor borrow,
by taking nor by giving of excess. yet
to supply the ripe wants of my friend
I'll break custom
'Ruskin has said: Shakespeare has
no heroes, he has only heroines' What
constitutes true heroism? To be he
roic must not one be generous; must
not one be magnanimous, good and
kind? are not sincerity, patience and
resignation attributes of heroism?
Then is not Antonio a hero?
Does he not possess all of these
qualities?
And what can be more heroic than
this, that man sacrifice himself for
another, for Greater love hath no man
than this, that man lay down his
life for a friend?'"
Miss Savage spoke on "The New Wo-
man of Yesterday" She said in part:
THE phrase, the new woman has
we but seldom think of its origin. 1t
is pleasantly easy to detect the evo-
luton of the the new woman Of to-
day from the new woman of yester-
day. Within the space of a hundred
years we have seen her bidding good
bye to the schoolma'am when any ed
ucation was good enough for a girl
not only because neither the kitchen
nor the drawing room exacted more
but because heavier pabulum would
utterly ruin her digestion; and now we
see her when no education is good
enough for her bidding goodbye to
an army of instructors at commence
ment time, radiant in her gown, the
class song ringing pleasantly in her
ears. the health of June in her life, with
a crisp diploma to symbolic her tri-
umphs and stimulate her after exer-
tions.
John Alden, passing through the
spring woods of Massachusetts,, came
to the cottage of his love and saw her
seated beside her spinning wheel sing
ing. psalm as she worked. The mod
ern youth often finds the girl of his
heart spinning a wheel with fully as
much grace as her predecessors and
with results fully as conducive to
health and beauty as were the efforts
of her grandmother.
1.-THE illustrator of life is not only
rejecting forms and manners of the
present but he is creating history, and
from such sources shall we draw the
distinction between the new woman of
to-day and she new woman of yes
terday,'
1.-The progress of women may be lik-
ened to the slow unfolding of the
steady century plant. Under the false
education of the times the floral gem
was slowly maturing, though black
clouds of ignorance overspread the fir
mament, pierced occasionally. it is true,
by such brilliant meteors as Mary VOL
lestroncraft, whose book The Educa-
ton of Daughters, lighted the intel
leetual armament. and made more
shadowy the darkness which followed
1t; until again electrically shocked by
her second venture, The Vindication
of the Rights of Women
One bud of promise upon the slowly
unfolding, majestic shrub of destiny
which in the next revolution of the
cycle would be found to have multi
piled into hundreds of fragrant bios
SONS nourished from that parent
stem, witness orr brilliant esSau;stS