Smyrna times., 1901-07-03
FROM SCHOOL LIFE TO LlFE'S SCHOOL.
Now is the Season of the Year When the
Graduates Figure Prominently.

Now is the Season of the Year When the
Graduates Figure Prominently.
They've gone out from their Alma
Mater-safe now in the wide, wide
world" So runs the the song which
just now they are singing in colleges
and universities and finishing acade-
mics, where fervent goodbyes are
being said and whence thousands
of young men and young women are
preparing to move, in an unorganized
mass upon the world of affairs. There
are among them valedictorians, class
presidents, editors of college publica-
tions, captains of football teams. base
ball captains, hundred yards dash
men, Toms who were leaders of the
banjo clubs and Jacks who sang bass
in the college glees, digs, grinds, boot
licks, head debaters, college and uni
versity leaders, Hasty Pudding men
under different titles, together with a
host of middle stand men and tail end
ers, who have not distin guished them
selves and were in general rather re-
lieved to find that they were included
when the diplomas we're passed
around.
With them, those who go to make up
this host are bringing into the wide,
wide world hopes and inspirations and
ambitions and resolutions and deter
limitations, philosophical orations (de-
livered), knowledge of Gre elk, Latin,
modern languages Gin moderation),
higher mathematics, formal logic,
rhetoric, philosophy, the problem of
the external world, psychology, theism
ethics, biology. Some can spell, add,
subtract, multiply divide; many can
not. All know that George Washing
ton was the father of his country and
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated,
after bringing about the preservation
of the Union and emancipating the
slaves, some have heard rumors of JEFF
fersoD, and Monroe, and Jackson and
Clay and Calhoun and Webster, but
few remember the exact substance
of what they heard about these men.
All these young men and women are
about to begin the search for the par
ticular inches which they feel fitted to
occupy, or for the first rungs of the
ladders which they believe themselves
able to climb. Almost sll who seek it
will find employment of one sort or
another. They will settle down to de-
eide, conciously or unconciously
whether they will cling to the inspira-
tions which they have received or be
like the man who, having intended to
build bridge to the meeh, finally
used the boards which he had accumu-
lated for the purpose in the construc-
ton of woodshed. 1t will not take
even the dull ones long to realize that
the ways in the wide, wide world are
different from those to which they have
been recently accustomed. They will
soon see that the philosophical ora
tions, which seemed so important, if
delivered now under the new circum-
stances would sound like forgotten
fire crackers going off after the fire.
works. The recent graduates who
seek and find employment will be gen
orally, placed under immediate super.
iors who, either did not go to college,
or, if they did, remember it more OIL
less dimly. Most of these will try tC
be patient, and in general they will
succeed, especially if they do not hear
the forgotten crackers going off toe
frequently. There will be much fol
the graduates to learn from these men
the teaching will be thorough, even
although it may lack the enthusiasm o
the professor outlining the principle
of his favorite study. The first plung,
of the recent graduate into the bus,
world of affairs will be somewhat start
ling-not to the world, but to tn,
recent graduate. There is no way o
avoiding this; the world is not t
blame, and it would be too hard t.
blame the graduate for 1t. Presently
however, the harness will begin to
and all will go well, if the graduate i
of the right sort.-N. Y Tribune.