Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1909-06-09
PROF. PYRE'S ADDRESS
TO GRADUATING CLASS
Delivered at Commencement Ex-
ercises Friday Forenoon.
Remarks Furnish Subject for Thought
but Bore Air of Cynicism Unusual
on Such Occasions.

The address by Prof. J. F. A.
Pyre, of the University of Wisconsin,
who is commonly there known as
Sunny JIM was in a measure one
savoring of pessimism and cynicism,
but particularly interesting withal,
and distinct departure from the
fulsome praise and aduIation which
we are accustomed to see ladled out to
graduating classes upon so many &C.
casions.
Mr.. Pyre sought to show that if
the speakers themselves and the peo-
pie in general could seriously and
earnestly under take to live up to the
ideals of life set forth in the orations,
or to emulate the lives and virtues Of
the noted heroes and philosophers
who were offered by the speakers as
typifylng that which is best in life,
then there would be little need of his
saying many of the things which he
had prepared to say in his address.
But the cold and ugly fact remained
that we would depart from the hall
filed with admiration for the ex-
cellence of the orations and the beauty
of thoughts presented, but in short
time the lessons they sought to teach
would fade from our minds and be
forgotten in the affairs of common
every day life.
In the opening of his address Mr..
PIye used the following quotations
pertaining to the scene enacted in
Christ before Plate:
What is Truth 2 said testing
PLATE, and would not stay for an
answer. . Thus Bacon begins his first
essay, the one "Of Truth. To
be sure Plate was TESTING; his ques-
tion was purely rhetorical one,
somewhat scornful, the natural scott
of one who had seen much of authority
ana of great places in this world.
FWhat has truth to do with king
hood p he meant.
But Jesus had just said my
kingdom is not of this world
: : To this end was I born and for
this course came l into the world that
| should bear witness to the truth.
Everyone that is of the truth heareth
nv voice. . PLATE said unto him
What is Truth
"Doth any man doubt 2" discourses
Bacon that if there were taken out
of men minds vain opinions, fatter-
ing hopes, false valuations magma
tions as one would, and the like. but
it would leave the minds of a number
of men poor and shrunken things,
full of melancholy and indisposition,
and unpleasing TO themselves %
What shall we do with truth
Shall we cry with the soothing Plate
what is TRUTH" or shall we say
with reverent hearts ''Show US the
truth, o Lord, that we may follow
-" What will you say, now that
you face the world with fresh expecta-
ton having finished the first course in
the racer
We brand that merchant a dis
honorable rascal, who SO juggles his
scales as to cheat his customers, but
what would we call that merchant
who should SO juggle his scales as to
cheat himself into vain, f1attering
imaginations as to his own profits; or
to one who should overvalue his goods
in the invoice, to increase his notion
of his own wealth; or who should
falsify his private accounts, to be
blind to his own losses? 1 think we
should call him fool. A fool he
would be, and coward as we'll, the
kind Of a weak foolish coward who
cheats himself at a game of solitaire.
I sometimes think that all the
people in the world can be divided
into just two classes-those who seek
the truth and always face the facts
Of life, and those who shrink their
eyes from the truth and turn their
backs on the facts of life in order
that they may concoct some more
pleasing system of their own. Tn
fortunately for such system, they
always come to grief and give only
greater discomfort in the end, where
they were intended to give pleasure
or ease.
] suppose no generation of youth
and maidens ever faced the world
when there was greater confusion and
in the values of life
when it was more difficult to fix upon
the standard of unit; when there
was a greater variety of pursuits and