Year: 1873

Washington.


ECHOES FROM TIE COMMANDMENTS.


There was much more significance in the
great Commencement festivals which so filled
the columns of the newspapers and the thought
of the people last week than was apparent on
the surface. The formal cutting loose and
setting adrift into larger, freer life of seve-
ral hundred young men is itself no small
thing. Just how these young men have been
educated, into what channels of thought they
have been set, in what directions they have
been trained, what basis they have for broader
culture, and what capacity for practical use
fulness, arc questions of no mean import
ance. Important not merely to them as
individuals or to their families interested in
their success but to the country whose highest
seats are before them and whose honor is
shortly to- be committed to their care. Boys
now, they will be men shortly, with institu-
ti6ns, laws, and liberties instead of essays,
lectures, and recitatiOns on their minds and
hearts, and all the lives of all the future in
their hands 1t is no small thing to open
gates and let out into active life so large
portion of the vital chemistry of the age, of
the intellectual force that contains the germs
of such tremendous possibilities for the cOun-
try and for humanity. We may well watch
our college doors at the Commencement season,
for here are coming to the world not recruits
but commanders. What they have accom-
plished in their years of training, with what
standards of morality and what color and cast
of thought they come out, may well interest
us, for the plastic age is in their hands Tor
shaping.


But tn ese seasons have, if possible, wider
significance more easily translated, and that
impinges more directly upon to-day, in that
they give us through the utterances of The
cultured men who come together from all
quarters the drift and current OF the nations
intellectual and moral activities. " The men
who have garnered the largest experiencesand
contributed most largely to the wond.$adWance-
ment and the betterment of humanity, .are.the
ones most interested in these occasions. They
know the Importance of them andStheir
meaning, and they come together not so
much for the pleasure OF meeting with
old friends and the social festivities of the
week, as for the purpose of taking counsel
upon the situation and discussing in soberness
the demands Of the hour. Doubtless it has
been remarked by all whoahave read the, very
full reports of the Commencement proceedings
in the various universities and colleges, par
ticularly the addresses ito Alumni gatherings,
that, while abstract questions. and those re-
lating to educational progress and improve
ments in methods of instruction = have
been to a considerable extent Sthe theme
of discussion end the subject of CONVEX
sation, the undercurrent Of , all and the
sole topic Of many of the best speeches has
been the absolute necessity to the State and
nation of culture and sound learning. A pro-
found feeling upon ,this subject was every
where manifest. We have talked more or less
always in a petulant, impatient way about the
scholars, the educated men, and the educa-
tors of men keeping al9of from public affairs
aud Leaving the country TO be governed by
adeentnfers and rogues. But perhaps they
are doing better work in >instilling truth into
the minds of the youth of the country, and In
giving Jeserious ephilosophic thought to the
great social and political problems of the day,
than they would in wrestling with the brute
force of the caucus. At any rate, the gentlemen
who last week in various parts of the country
met at Alumni gatherings and exchanged
views, seemed very fully aware of the de-
mands the country had upon them as edu-
Gated men and not disposed to shirk them.
1t was not necessary TO describe the'situation
at length, OF call the men by name ,who.ba
dragged theHcountry down to the gross and
material standards of corrupt time; -but'it
was the underlying thought in all the talk
that we are in the midst of an era Of corrup-.
ton, in greater peril of rot than we ever were
of disunion, and that upon the educated men
of the country rests the only hope for its sal
yation. Z
sTwenty years ago, and for decade before
and after, the great question in our politics
was one which the speakers upon these ami
versary occasions felt some delicacy in touch
ing upon, and yet the thought of 1t colored
more or less nearly all their sspeeches; for
there was the same feeling then as now, that
upon such occasions when old friends of diff
fering parties and opposing sections met
again as friends, they might step together up
above partisanship to the higher ground OF
patriotism, and as lovers Of truth as well "a
of wisdom, talk somewhat plainly OF the
common danger and the common veal. Until
passion got the better of judgment and ruled
the hour, such discussion was possible and
profitable. Afterward. when we were in the
midst of the war, the Commencement timo