The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1914-06-12

/ appreciate very deeply the COM
pliment that you have paid me by
inviting me to deliver the Alumni
address at this commencement of our
Alma Ma,er.
To you, a body Of men, who re-
present much that is wise, patriotic
and progressive in South Carolina, I
come from the far west. The golden
State on the shores Of Uhe Great Pa
cifc brings to you of the Atlantic
coast its hearty greetings.
1, is. 20 years since the class of
which l was member was graduated
from old Newberry. We then still HAD
vi h us, and it was my great Drivi-
lege TO sit under the tutelage Of one
whose presence a4d bearing. whose
dignity, whose scholarship, whose
standing among the distinguished
children CT this south land, ii ted him
alike to prominence as an educator
and as exponent Of all that is worth
While in life The name of Holland
had been so long associated with the
south and with this college, that to
sit under his mild empire was like
resting beneath your branching pines,
the breadth whose shade is only a
measure Of the hold its roots have
taken in the soil.
After this lapse OF years, today I
have come back to take, for the first
time, an active part of any prominence
in the exercises of my Alma Matters
commencement week.
Twenty years after graduation a
man has either won or lost the game.
Let US consider for moment what
life has been. When the men of my
time graduated, Grover Cleveland had
just been inaugurated president. Four
years were yet to pass before the war
with Spain would be fought. No for
eign possession Of the United States
existed. The poles of the earth had
not yet been reached. The telephone
and the phonograph were in their in
fancy. Neither moto. driven vehicles,
wireless lelegraphy or practical avia-
ton had yet been attained and the X
Ray, ultra violet ray and radium had
not been discovered. The years since
then have been fairly crowded with
events. A new world has come into
existence, and a world wholly un-
ike that OF our fathers-unlike it in
peace and unlike it in war. 1t is a
world o. grea, intellectual Quickening,
which has extended until it now touch
es vastly larger number of men, in
many countries, than it ever touched
before. No, only have nations been
rudely shaken up, but they have been
drawn together.
Independent thought has been car
ried on, interacting agencies have
been a, work in widely separate coun-
tries and different tongues. The SOL
idarity Of the peoples has been devel-
Oped. Old professions nave arisen.
Science has extended its domains and
superseded authority with bewilder-
ing rapidity
The artificial barriers, natural, pol
itical, social, enconomica1, religious,
iatellectual,-have given way in every
direction and the civilized races of
the world are becoming one people.
Wars have practically ceased. Ar
bitration is the order OF the day.
Next year the world will celebra, e
the anniversary of the treaty of Client
One hundred years of uninterrupted
peace between the great English
speaking nations of the world
We all Of US live more in the pres
ent and less in the past than we did
20 years ago,-mucA less in the past
and more in the present than those
who preceded US did century ago.
The world in which our lot is cast
and in which We haze had to live is d
bustling, active, nervous world and
one very hard to keep up with. This
much all will admit; while l ihink
may further add that its most marked
characteristic has been an intense
men al and physical acticity, which
working simultaneously in many ton
cues, has attempted much and ques-
tened all things.
The theme upon which I propose
to offer some observations this morn
ing is in common parlance destignat-