The Topeka state journal., 1906-06-02
NEAR A HUNDRED.
High School Graduating Class
Is the Largest.
Sixty-twO Girls and Thirty
Boys Get Diplomas.
AN ELOQUENT ADDRESS
Prof. Frank j. MiIler's Discus
sion of Present Day Nobility.
sSThe Level of 1.-THE Hills" Was
His Subject.

The largest class ever graduated from
the Topeka high school received adiplo-
mas at the Auditorium last night The
occasion was an exceptional one. Fully
5000 people were in the hall to wit
ness the ceremonies.
Promptly at a quarter past 8 o'clock
to the strains of Guonod's Professional
march, played on the pipe organ by
Prof. George Barlow Penny, the class
filed into the hall from the north and
south entrances from the west side or
front of the building. Girls from the
subsenior class, carrying a dafsy-chain
walked down the middle aisle of the
big hall and in this manner separated
the marching files.
There were sixty-two girls and thir-
ty boys. ninety-two in all Last June
eighty-two graduated. but the record
for 1906 has all of them outstripped.
Rev. John P. White delivered the
invocation, after which Prof. Penny
played the Nocturne from Mendels-
sohn's Midsummer Nights Dream and
the Dance from music 10 Henry VIII
from Sullivan. Harry Prfbble sang w.
g. Smiths ''Thou'rt Like Unto a Love-
" Flower and Victor Herbert's II
Envy the Bird"
Mr.. MilIer's Address.
Frank J. Miller, Phi D., dean of the
AFFILIATED schools of the University of
Chicago. gave the address to the grad
yates. His subject was The Level of
the Hills, - taken from Whittier's Lift
our manhood up to the level of the
hills"
Prof. Miller Is a remarkable thinker,
and well known writer on philosoph-
icai work. His address last night fol-
lows in part:
Does the age. the time, in which
we live confer nobility? Is there
some happy combination of circum-
stances towering at rare intervals into
the noble soul? And must we, whose
lives may not have been cast within the
charmed area OF these times and cir
cumstancess draw back disheartened
and feel that because of this, nobility,
the highest manhood, is not for US?
This cannot be, for all times have had
their heroes, and all lands. The So
called old heroic age forever stands
as inspiration for these later times.
Across that stage, Ike misty, half
seen giants, stalk Ulysses and Achilles,
Ajax and Diomede and Agamemnon,
king of all the Greeks, Hector and
Aen cas- And further back within the
mist is Hercules, who suffered untold
labor that so the world might be re-
lieved of dreadful monsters; and
Jason, who to gain the golden fleece,
left no hard task undared. Heroes all,
who nightly strove and suffered, If
only they might bring to pass that
which they had set their hands to do.
The long bead-roli of Roman worthless
witnesses that heroic souls did not
perish from the earth with Troy's
fall or Marathon's great victory. So
long as any Roman boy could form
the name of Horatius or Regulus of
Paulus or Scipio, he knew that Rome
meant opportunity and Roman was,
potentially at least, synonymous with
hero, And so in every age are heroes
possible and heroes are, Paul glori-
fed an age that seemed most un-
heroic, and preached and lived a man
hood whose type yet stands as an
ideal for the finest modern life.
King Arthur and the medieval
chivalry; Luther. who could stand
alone If need were against the world
IN defense of his clear seen truth;
the silent william and his uncon-
querable Hollanders; Livingstone,
Wflberforee, Lincoln=behold what
clouds Of witnesses there are to testify
that IN any age, in any land, hui
manity may rise to heroic heights