Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1901-06-26
ADDRESS OF DR.. MONTAGUE
Before the Graduating Glass OF Greenyllle
Female College.

Flowers and music, smiles and
cheers make happy and bright this
last night of the academic year 1900
1901.
The session work is over; the col
legc bell will not ring tomorrow ;
within few hours smiles and tears
will bring April weather to your
faces, smiles for the home going and
parents kisses, tears for partings
here.
But if it be any comfort to you,
might suggest that you will not, all
alone, bear the sorrow Of parting.
While a Southern Railway engine,
with relentless power, is drawing a
train towards Columbia morrow,
some stalwart Furman boy, gloomy
of brow and with trembling lips, will
whistle, low and sadly, "The Girl
Left Behind Me-"
Far be it from me to intimate that
while the Coast Line train llies away
from the Mountain City, tender
maiden, call for love-" will softly
whisper, "Good-byc, My Lover,
Good.byc."
In the closing moments of this
evening, permit me to offer a few
words of counsel: First, let me urge
you to love, to cherish, and to sup
port the Greenvillc Female College.
Amid the toll and the lcsson-learn-
ing of the session now at its end, you
may not have realized Che advant-
ages of college life and Of the studies
that may have tried your patience.
The course may have seemed hard
and fruitlcss. But fifteen years
from tonight you will rejoice that
you were students Of q. Il. G..
Then you will have seen that the
stern discipline of the class room
prepared you for the duties and
responsibilities of life. Then you
will have felt that every hour of
thought and of study was equipment
for service in the home, in the school
room, in society, in the church.
Then you will have known that,
in the old college days, you were
planting seed, whose harvest is the
rpencd grain of kindlicr courtesy,
of higher thought, Of broader sympa-
thy, of noblcr aspirations, of far
grandcr results.
Then you will have seen that math-
ematical problems evolved power of
thought and promoted readiness Of
action that hours spent on Latin
not only admitted you to the com
panionship Of the master spirits OF
the oldcn time, but developed reason
ing faculties that music not only
gives you power to sing with melt
ing sweetness worcna," and "rhe
Old Folks at Home" and "Annic
Laurie" and thus to summon forth
from the shadows of the past half
forgotten memories and "rccollec-
tions Of scenes that have as happy
been" in the days OF "Auld Lang
Syne," but that it also sets the
pulses into rythmic beat with
thoughts rs high and dreams as pure
az ever stirred the human heart
that art not only finds beauty in the
little waysidc flower, granducr in
the rolling waves Of the ocean and
subllmity in the snow. clad peaks OF
ifockics and iiimaayas, but that it
also calls forth from the soul of the
true artist faith in Him that made
flower and sea and the everlasting
hills; that history not in vain taught
you her solemn lessons, showing now
the evils OF unbridlcd passion, then
the glory of sacrifice and honor and
right.
Then love and support this col.
logc; tell its worth; send others to
drink Of this fountain of knowledge
OF which, drinking, you have become
wiser and better, to the end that
with You they may stand forth as
cxponcnts Of developed Christian
womanhood.
Speak kindly and proudly Of your
teachers. DO not wait until they
have passed away to utter worj OF
praise and commentator
dcspisc the cold and ,tupid
policy that speaks no word Of praise
of the living, but which, v irmod
into q scmblance Of life when thew
are dead, cmits gushing pancgyric
over their graves.