TO THE CLASS OF 1884—GREETING.
The completing of a course of study affords one of the few unalloyed satisfactions of life. It is an end reached—and it has been reached by personal effort. The class is at the goal, and it is there because it chose to be there, and resolutely and persistently labored to be there. We get many good things without effort, but they give us less satisfaction than meaner things which we have earned. There is a charm in winning a race, which does not consist either in being at the end of it, or in getting a prize. The victory is “our very own,” as the children say. But in a course of study completed one feels that the prize is worth his pains. He may feel discontented with the imperfections of his knowledge, but he would not for the world be put back where he began. We hold many things only with our hands; the fruits of a course of study are more secure—they are in our minds and hearts, and therefore can not fall out of our possession, or be wrested from us.
It is a good thing for the student to take the refreshment of looking back to the place of beginning. “What was I when I began?” This sense of gain is apt to be supplanted by discontent and looking forward; but the student should give himself the comfort of the backward glance. No one has pursued our course of reading and study to the end without very great improvement in mental power and method, or without large additions to his knowledge. “Look to the hole of the pit.” Take a long look at your old self and do not hesitate to prefer the new self. You are wiser, stronger, better. Allow yourself the luxury of fully realizing that. And how little it has cost you! A piecing together of fragments of time that would otherwise have been wasted, that is the greater part of the cost of your course. Whatever else you have spent you would have spent less wisely if you had not been in the course. You have sacrificed nothing of any moment to this object. All else that you had you keep still; this fruit of patient study you have as a clean and pure gain. It is a matter to be happy about. A good hour of self-complacency will do you no harm. Indulge your self-respect a little. All might do what you have done; most of them have not done it. Your graduation is of itself a proof that you have pluck, constancy, and self-control.
It is worth while to consider the elements of this victory. You have mixed time and method with reading and study. Hap-hazard study would not yield the fruit; it could not be ripened in a day. “Four months—and harvest.” Nor could method be left out. There is method in any work; method distinguishes work from play. There is method on the farm, in the mill, in the store. There must be method in gaining knowledge. Method makes tasks easy and combines many strokes into one result. In this combination of time and method lies the power of a course of study. All the mental effort is probably put forth by others spasmodically and unmethodically. You are at the end simply because you harnessed your efforts with years and system. Only stable and earnest characters are capable of the patient continuance in well-doing which is necessary to the completion of a course of study. College men say that the majority of those who begin a course fall out by the way; and they add that, whatever pretexts are used, the real reason is usually defective character. It is a rule in all undertakings of mankind; holdfast is the master quality. The men and women who complete the C. L. S. C. course do so on purpose and because they are capable of tenacity of purpose, and it is an education in tenacity. The man who has run such a race through is capable of running other races. He has learned how to “keep pegging away,” as Lincoln put it. He knows how to run—how to study. He likes to study. He has only begun in the great museum of knowledge, but he will go on searching its shelves until he is graduated into the large university of immortality. Ingratitude to our past selves is a human frailty which is often displayed, even ostentatiously, by men and women. Many there are who boast that they learned nothing at school; there are more who complain that they were taught nothing. Dr. Samuel Johnson was truer to himself in saying that he had learned nothing since. We hope that C. L. S. C. graduates will never fall into this cant. Be just now and always to yourselves and to those who have guided you through this journey. You have not learned everything, but you have learned how to learn. What you build yourself into hereafter will be built on this foundation. If you come to more wisdom do not be guilty of the meanness of despising these foundations. If the building rises high and stands firm, the glory of it will be these well-laid stones. If the building does not rise, yours the fault, for you will have neglected the solid base which invites you to build. Go on with the building; but do not forget now and again to bless the years when you were laying the first blocks of a studious life. In short, we have read you a little homily on self-respect. Take an honest satisfaction in your course; keep a just respect for your tenacity and application; cherish your love for those who have helped and inspired you in the good work.