The Princeton union., 1910-06-09
led to see the best in life. We learn
not so much how to make living, as
what is vastly more, how to make q

"dho Oiu1Adiy GAluSS anu TASKS III.
teresting and ordinary occasions
pleasant. They furnish new lenses
through which to see nature. The
poet adds fresh beauty to brooks, and
woods, and flowers. How much more
can we enjoy June day when we can
say to ourselves:
And what is so rare as day in June?
Then, if ever come perfect days;
Then heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look or whether we listen
We hear life murmur and see it glisten;
Every clod feels stir Of might
An instinct within it that reaches and
towers,
And cropping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to soul IN grass and flowers
"Besides inspiring in US an appre-
citation for nature the men of letters
also draw US into deeper sympathy
with mankind. Literature mirrors the
hopes, the struggles, the failures of
humanity. Having seen the reflection
we turn with clearer vision to the
reality. We have learned to love
mankind. In the personal contact of
our school life alone we are drawn
into closer relation with one another
and because we ourselves have grown
we feel the bond of fellowship more
strongly.
"From without this limited field
comes the greater call of humanity.
We hear the smothered cry of the
laboring children whom the coal
mines and factories are robbing of
everything that makes life dear. The
striker stands before US with his
empty hands and seems to say, I'VE
want justice. If the law will not pro-
vide it We must 6ght.' We see the
helpless victims of disease and those
whom their own weakness and folly
have brought to ruin and with the
poet we say:
"'Let me live in my house by the side of the
road,
Where the race of man goes by.
They are good, they are bad, wise, foolish.
So am I.
Then why should sit in the scorners seat,
Or hurl the cynics ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the
road
And be friend to man.
"We have, then, learned to estimate
those about US more truly. Moreover
we have come to know and value you,
our friends, the more. for our four
years. work together, and tonight we
wait for you to extend to us the hand
of greeting and of fellowship. This
is our commencement. We welcome
you with the desire that it shall indeed
be for us the commencement of
stronger friendship and truer CON-
radeship with those whose ranks we
have entered.''
A vocal solo by Mrs. P L. Road
strom came next and at it's conclusion
Rev. John W. Powell delivered the
address of the evening. It was a
splendid discourse, one of the best
ever heard upon like occasion in
Princeton.
He did not give the graduates a su-
perfuity of advice which they would
never be capable of using, nor did he
talk in language which not more than
one in a hundred could understand,
but he gave talk which was clear to
all and which really did good to those
who heard it. He began by saying
that mans knowledge is limited within
certain bounds and gave, as an ex-
ample of this, the fact that the astro-
nomical calculations as to when and
how Halley's comet would appear
were not at all correct. He said that
man may make what progress he will
through the ages to come, but that the
deepest my steries of life will never be
solved. Then he told of few of the
wonderful things that have already
been done-how the world has ad-
vanced in comparatively few years
from savagery to "a high degree of
clvlllzation-and also of some of the
predictions of yet more glorious
future. In conclusion he said that if
the graduates, the product of our ex-
cellent school system, would always
keep before them a high ideal and
never swerve from the way toward
this ideal, each one would be potent
factor in bettering the community in
which he chose to take up his life
work.
I A vocal selection by quartet con-
sisting of Otto Radeke, Claude
Briggs, Mrs. Roadstrom and Miss
Switzer followed, and Lisle JesSmer
delivered the valedictory address,
masterful Grafton which showed care