The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-08-04
M E N, w o MEN
 A ND T HIN G s


 When 1t comes to hearing com mencement sermons and baccalau- reate addresses, I have served a long apprenticeship in the pew, and in my time have been guilty of occupying the pulpit and the rostrum on many occasions.
 may be a bit severe on the average commencement sermon, but think taken as a whole they are never delivered with much idea of direct action" on the part of the hearers, though pr. L. G. Broughton told me once that he made it a rule after preaching on such occasions to give any one present chance to make a confession of faith If they so wished
 But as a matter of fact, I am sure that had any one had the temerity to come forward to confess their sins at the conclusion of his discourse, that even he with all of his apIomb would for the moment at least been surprised. I am confident, however. that he would have gotten a grip on himself and behaved with proper pull pit propriety.
 The thing that I am trying to say is that in most cases they may be chased as show sermons" and de- livered more for edification than con- version, and 1t may be perfectly right and proper that such should be the case; but if any one happens to know of case where commence ment sermon resulted in any one making profession of faith and join ing the church I would like to have the date and place.
 I'll not attempt to try and charac- terize here the conventional bacca- laureate address, for any one who has ever had the chance to hear many of them will be apt to recall that as a rule they were pitched on very high plane. I might with truth make the assertion that most of them are a string of platitudes. Please bear in mind that in indicting the usual out put of the commencement orators that I am including myself and mak- ing this confession to acquit my con science as much as to pillory the other offenders who each season go from college to college to keep alive an annual custom which comes nigh taking the joy out of the commence ment season.
 l got on this line because I heard commencement address which was out of the conventional rut, delivered by Dr. George Petrie of the Alabama Polytechnic institute, at the Birming- ham-Southern college, and made a mental note that I was going to give him credit for 1t in this column, but one thing and the other showed it aside until now I am going to take time to write about 1t.
 
 The title, Culture for Teachers" was conventional enough and would have given my mind full sway to roam as the subject unfolded itself that is, if the treatment had been a. hackneyed as the subject. Knowing Dr. Petrie, I kept my ears open, for had faith enough in him to know that when he made his appearance in public that he would have something to say which would be we'll worth listening to by any audience.
 
 I am sorry that space will not per init me to even give his heads, but I must ask you to take my word for it that the address was full of sound sense and strongly put. He covered the ground thoroughly and well and in his summing up, among the six things which he definitely advised teachers to do to preserve their elas- ticity of mind and keep fresh for their work it was No. which appealed particularly to me as being worth while tip from a distinguished his torian and educator
 Here is what he said: Subscribe to good daily newspaper, and study it with atlas and dictionary if need be. The press is the greatest of all modern encyclopedias, and will give a man or a woman more general knowledge than anything else in the world" This is one of the finest tributes, in my /opinion, which has ever been paid to the daily newspa- per. Let no man or woman be ashamed if they have "the newspaper habit" I believe one thing which distinguishes the American and makes for his superiority comes from the fact America Is a nation of news paper readers.
 P. S.: Subscribe for The Age Herald aid and take daily course in scul- ture.