The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-04-25

! The following essay was delivere
by Miss Lurlene Pillans at the com
mencement exercises of the Lakelan
High school:
From the very beginning itself
through alternating years of pros
perity and strife, the manhood O
America has been steadily perfect
ing itself. And in Abraham Lin
coin, Southerner, this state of per
lection in regard to the qualitie
that compose the highest type o
manhood was reached.
From the time when a few DARN.
and adventurous noblemen, who hat
been accustomed to all the luxurie
of life and who were wholly inexper
fenced in the art Of earning livins
by the sweat of the brow, bravet
the dangers of an unknown wilder
ness and made for themselves a home
in desolate spot which they called
Virginia; from the time when a banG
of homeless, prosecuted common folk
| fled from their foster home, Holland
and endured hardships on the bar
| rem shores of Massachusetts, and suf-
fered in the cold. bleak hills OF
| western New England; from those
times and from the blending of the
traits of those two people only the
best could be produced
The combination of chivalry, in
genuity, and refinement inherited
from the Cavalier and of persever-
ance, thriftiness and moral stability
from the Puritan, reached it's Gull
mination in the person of Abraham
Lincoln.
The South, at all times, has been
honest in her convictions, and at the
outbreak of the Civil War was as
fearless in the expression of her
opinions and firm in her standard
for the right as the true-hearted
president who then was at the head
of the nation
Before submitting to what she
considered injustice to herself she
would withdraw from the union and
thereby sever relations that were
even then becoming strained.
Through the four long years of
strife, fighting in the very face of
defeat, the spirit of the South was
not daunted And this unquench-
able fire showed not only the faces of
the desperately fighting soldiers but
also in the countenances of their IN
protected, suffering women, who ever
cheered their men to more courage
and more hope.
And in the end, when the sight
was done and battlefields resounded
no more with the cannon shot, and a
gray pail had settled like a blanket
over the South, when Robert E. Lee
surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at
AppomatoX we again catch a
glimpse of the true soul of man.
For the nobleness of Lee, even in
defeat and the generosity of Grant,
when victorious, has been admired
by all the world
But the real test was yet to come,
For the ragged, defeated, starving
soldier in grey with heart of pure
gold was returning to the desolated
spot once fondly called Home" Oft
times to find his family lying be-
meath the sod, his hopes of the flu
ture apparently shattered.
But did this staunch heart fail
them or did this destitute condition
humiliate and cover the proud race
of people and permit them to sink
into oblivion? No, friends, no.
With courage that was beauti-
full to behold he set himself firmly
to the task of regaining his former
standing in the world for himself and
his beloved Southland.
Here we see the day of the new
South dawning.
Without implements with which
to work and often without bare
necessities, the new life began. Han
dicapped on every side this noble
man who had sacrificed so much in
the war must toll the whole day
long and struggle, sometimes very
feebly. against the great odds that
were against him.
But labor ever has its own reward
and after a while slowly oh, so very
slowly. the South began to come in
to her own again.
She literally rose from her own