The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-05-25
ny MYRTLE MILES


This is verify a season of butterflies
golden haired and brunette butterflies
with lace froeks and ribbon sashes. the
butterfly who is a sweet girl graduate
every journal is filled with her, picturing
her with her scant little white gown. her
flowers and her smiles. The world lis
just as interested. too, in the boy who is
facing the future strong and fearless be-
cause of the certainty Of his equipment,
hopeful and expectant Of success And
all the while information as TO commence
ment exercises and commencement joys
HI sheets of every publication that carries
news. Alabama has had scores of COM
mencements, and will have more before
the month is over; and the graduate has
been the center Of interest in the mall-ail
except one, for ] think that down at Ma
rion. where they are holding the last ex-
ercises today celebrating the seventy-hfth
birthday Of their fine old institution of
learning, not the graduate nor the fac
ulty, not even the distinguished men who
have come many miles to speak to the
assemblages there have been the chief
thought, but TO Mother Judson,9 the
grand old college itself has been paid al
most every tribute.
1t was a wonderful occasion, this cele-
bration of the seventy-ffth anniversary
of Judson college: remarkable history was
brought out in the stories related by sta
tisticians familiar with its past: history
OF a heroic fight against poverty. and
war and death, and every loss that an
institution may be called upon TO bear.
Maybe it is because of the nobility with
which the Judson as an institution has
surmounted these obstacles that its stu
dents love it so well; one of the reasons,
anyway, for certain it is that no college
has ever had more ardent or loyal daugh-
ters. To be 'Judson girl is to be truly
the salt of the earth This is evident at
all times, but in this one big reunion it
was palmer than ever before for with
the daughter of 1913 meeting the daughter
'sof So with the enthusiasm and interest
that she showed her classmates, the bond
of mutual understanding and love showed
plainly indeed.
DR.. John Manly of the University of
Chicago aptly described the bearing that
the age of Judson college has upon its
history, in a message from his university
to the student body assembled in alumnae
hall. he compared the history of the two
saying, II bear the greetings of the young
TO the old; Judson college has completed
its seventy y-fifth year; the University OF
Chicago has barely completed its
fifteenth. The advantages of age to a
man woman are questionable; to an
educational institution they are of the
highest value. Age gives it what no
money can purchase-sacred traditions
beautiful and inspiring memories, lofty
ideals and noble examples, tears and love
and loyalty. We of the University of Chi
cago are accused not only of coveting
age with its traditions and ideals, but
even of taking antiquity. We plant ivy
and make 1t cover our walls as if from a
planting not OF yesterday, but of some
dim and dateless past. We coax our build
ings, our dormitores and lecture halls and
laboratories to take on a dark and time
worn aspect. We improvise traditions:
we talk with respectful awe of the primi-
tive days of 1893, when the university was
first organized. And although we cannot
had almost as many commencements or
convocations, as we call them, for we
regularly have four, and in the early
years when the university was not aging
rapidly enough to suit our great and be-
loved founder, President Harper, we used
TO slip In an extra convocation in mid
summer and occasionally another in the
fall.
"Judson college was founded, UNDER
stand, at q time when higher education
was generally regarded as not only unnec-
essary but a little dangerous for such
frail and purely ornamental creatures as
women. 1t was founded in the belief that
no community is really an intelligent COM
lnunity unless the mothers and wives and
sisters and daughters are admitted to the
accumulated treasures of culture and
knowledge by means of which man mas