The Irish standard., 1904-06-11
ENJOY A REUNION
Alumni Day at St. Thomas Col
lege a Marked Success.
Rev. n. 0'Brien, Of Graceville,
Delivers Principal Address.

of the Northwest at st. Thomas COL
lege, Tuesday, and alumni day at that
most popular institution was magnifi-
cent success from every point of view.
Archbishop Ireland presided at the
banquet. After revisiting the familiar
scenes of the classic shades Of st.
Thomas, the guests met in the assembly
room at the college for the usual bust
ness session. On the part of the stu
dents of the college, W. ]. McHale read
an address of welcome to the alumni.
The president of the association, J.
A. Hartigan, summed up briefly what
has been accomplished since the first
reunion Of the past students of St.
Thomas. He pointed with satisfaction
to the rapid growth of the association
which at the close of its first year of
existence numbers 200 members. He
also adverted to the remarkable de-
velopment Of the college, which has
registered 400 students during the year
now coming to a close. From the
progress of the institution he drew an
augury for the expansion of the alumni
association.
Rev. M. O'Brien then addressed the
assemblage. In discourse remarkable
for its literary charm and reminiscent
incidents that evoked hearty laughter
and applause, Father O'Brien said:
l have the honor today to represent
the dearest expression in the vocabu-
larry of college life. The word "Alum-
nus" in the ancient classics, signified
a nursing of the flock which some
shepherd tended with loving care, to
the sound Of pipe or flute, among the
hills of Already. In the Gospel the
figure is reproduced to illustrate the
tenderest relation between the Master
and His disciples. 1t is today, notwith-
standing the loss Of both of it's pagan
and Christian import, the epitomized
expression for the tie that binds the
student to the seat of learning which
fed him from the full breasts of what
ever knowledge it was hers to impart.
The bond is closer still when body
of students receive not only the same
education. but eat at the same table,
and sleep under the same roof, play
upon the same campus and kneel before
the same altar: when every stamp upon
the waNen mind of youth comes from
the same mint, and every development
of mind and character from Il common
mould. al these impressions reap
pear in us who come back to form n
guard of honor around our alma mater,
and to proclaim to all whom it nav
concern that the scattered units, the
old pupils of the College of st. Thorn
as, can rally as loyalty as any other
body Of eX-studcnts to the summons,
and. if need be. the cause of the mental
mother who reared them.
10 all of us here today this reunion
is not alone an occasion Of gratitude,
but of felictatiOn. Many wanderer
from the tiresde hearth returns to find
the flame quenched or Pickering low;
or else, even when the logs blaze as of
yOre, to miss those smiles that well
come without which the heart within
shivers and grows cold. Ours is no
such experience. We look into one an
others faces and read in them the re-
tInV 1iuht Of >thn,. H.,
the cOuntemnces of those who now
are what we were, and interpret the
same recognition, informal and un-
made, but none the less sympathetic
and genuine. All Of lis. young and
old, past and present are here today
right in the heart not alone of welcome
but of progress. Three stately build
ings stand where, in our time doomed
up one in single blessedness, and the
babel of youthful voices, together with
the handsome uniforms Of their proud
proprietors-a luxury denied to our
less symmetrical Observation-Disclosures
to the ear and eye that st. Thomas has
no quenched or shrunken hearth-stone,
but that it holds within it's bosom Il
flame of vitality which, like the vestal
fire of old, the ebb and flow of things
around leave radiant and unimpaired.
On how many scenes, instructive,
tender or droll, could this demure YES
tai light have cast it's searching rays!
With regard to college scenes and
episodes of the past-and this remark
is applicable to every alma mater-per-
haps it is best that an old Alumnus
should keep the slide on the lantern
for the sake Of his younger and, pos
sibly, Trailer brethren.
Nobody did anything as we did it;
nobody played more jokes than we did;
nobody expanded in vision the college
bounds more imperially than we did;
nobody knelt at the shrine Of the god
Janus, under the eye of authority,
more cfficaciously than we did-such
is the jeremiad Of old Alumni the wide
world over.
Do not believe them, my young
friends of the current generation; be
comforted with the saying of one of
your classical authors that '"Troy suf.
fered more than one SIEGE" and that
"many hero tiourished after as well
as before Agamemnon." Be assured
IF this hnyvovor aud cpool, n, an,