The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-29
INSTITUTION
COMMENCEMENT ONE OF THE WORST FEATURES OF
 SYSTEM.
Some of Its Absurdities- Exercises Do Not Show the Work of the Schaal-some Ex-
 captions.
Milo in Brooklyn Eagle:

Milo in Brooklyn Eagle:
 | All over the country the youngsters | are commencing" There are glim. mers of white dresses ti looping through the streets at evening, the smell of | evergreen and flowers scents the air, | sn6 the sound of the rehearsal is heard | in the land. It is a picturesque ado. | There is youthful pleasure in it, buI | there are envies, jealousies and neart. | burnings, and the observing person l sees evidences of gradual dying out | of the old style of commencement and l the growth of a new.
 It is ten years since Prof. Lucy Sal l mon of Va3sar set the colleges laugh | ing by her keen satire on the typical commencement. heard her then. She said some of the things that I set | forth here and a great deal more.
 She brought out the fact that the college commencement is the latest feature of systematic education to yield | to modern improvements. Like certain l ornamental features of dress 1t has 1 persisted without out knowing why al- | though 1t commits us to absurdities at | variance with out best ideas of use or fitness. It is an ancient heirloom that | we bring out once year. It belongs In the category with spinning wheels. sedan chairs and the flint and steel. /! There is nothing in the management of a school smacking more strongly of medievalism or more emphatic of ideas that we have outgrown than the typical | commencement.
 In the programmes of the European universities of 800 years ago the gradu- ating exercises reached their full | bloom. They included sylligisitc dis ! in, al deCla- nations in Hebrew, Chaldaic and Ara bic, with refined display of classical | learning of various kinds. At the close of the Eighteenth century comes | the gradual introduction of English themes, but the maintenance of tre- mendous dignity in the selection of the subjects is to be noted. The Harvard commencement in 1911 consisted of dis courses on abstract philosophical sub jects by each member of the class. We have "On the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms as furnishing subjects of interesting inquiry" On | reflection, reading and observation as affording knowledge of human nature.
 aA dissertation on the diversity or | talents in manf:3S." ~le C~-Imola University programmes show the re- petition of subjects of this nature ss late as 1871, when somewhat less form | I00m&B alongside of the stately old ones, but the same line of psdantry, absurdity and remoteness from the life of the graduates cling to the exercises.
 The desire for personal display has been a prominent feature in the Hast day' proceedings. Some Yale com- mencements to provide opportunity for every graduate to take part have be- gun early in the morning and contin- ued all day.
 A curious feature of these events still discoverable in the programmes of the present year, is the ranking oi the graduates according to their stand ing, He who, by the mysterious arith- metic of school masters Is rated aa number one," becomes valedictortani number two" salutatorian. and others are grouped aa first honorss" "secono honors," etc.
 The most absurd of all the com mencement features is the emphasis oi a false completeness In Work, as IT n had been laid aside. With elaoorate though mock solemnity, the books ar' burned and the funeral orations pro nounced over the presiding genius oi geometry or physics or calculus. II would seem as though the very things that scholarship and schools stand tol are emphasized at the last and most important ceremony of the school year From the colleges. these absurditiei have descended to the High schools and academies; in Brooklyn even to the Grammar s:h4cls. Tks long list oi commencement programs published in The Eagle in the middle of the week just closed gives evidence that these things still tnhere to considerable ex' tent in the schools of Shis community
 It seems unnecessary to say that sucf exercises do not represent the progress in educational affairs. Other primeVa conditions have been overswept by the advance of modern thought and by the application of common sense to schoo management The old fashioned com mencement is now one of the worst features of our educational system Some of the programs now prepar- ing in this borough present an appear ance of intellectual crazy quilts. They contain essays by the pupils 'concerl- ing all things and several others The audiences will give its attention TOT fen minutes to the classics. for another ten minutes to some phase of Biology
 then to history. literature and current noiitics and to some weak dilution oi nIatitudinal philosophy. The theme al lowed to each speaker is always short the essayIst Is always young and mol ekjlled in getting the meat out of pro nosItton sufficiently to present nutritlVt or stimulating matter in ten minutes The task is one requiring skill and long practice. Few persons of experl- ence would be willing to attempt to make an address of ten minutes on the plays of Shakespeare or the care of the Philippines or on any of the usual com mencement subjects, yet intellectual babes and stockings undertake thal which a wiser head would decline There are few spectacles more ludi- crouse than the painfully well-dressed succession of boys and girls advancing to the front ot a platform and inhict- ing upon well informed hearers, literary productions that from every circum- stance of their construction must vio- late all the principles of good compo- sition. Often the only attractive fea- ture of these essays is the work of teacher. Every composition has been rnolded. corrected revised and rehears- ed by an instructor. Its presentation ia A not altogether harmless falsehood.
 The idea that these exercises show the work of the school is thoroughly erroneous. Four or eight years of study can no more be displayed in ten min utes than could the simpleton's house be conceived from his sample brick. Though the ability to stand gracefully hefore a crowd and to deliver with ef- feet A short Oration is no mean accom- nIisnment. It cannot exhibit with any l 4n nf a school