COMMENCEMENT AT GRANDVIEW INSTITUTE, TENN.
The exercises of the Fifteenth Annual Commencement of the Grandview Normal Institute opened with the baccalaureate sermon by the principal, Sunday, April 29th, in the chapel.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were occupied with examinations in all the grades and departments, which afforded abundant evidence of a year of faithful and fruitful work.
On Thursday evening, May 3d, the public commencement was held in the assembly room of the school building, and was attended by a very large audience. The graduates were only three in number, two young women and one young man.
Two of the graduates were genuine American Highlanders, and were residents of Grandview, the third came from Sequatchie Valley.
The orations and essays were without exception creditable performances.
One pleasing feature of the evening was the presentation by Rev. W. E. Rogers, County Superintendent, of State diplomas to twenty juniors.
The perfect order which prevailed throughout the exercises was in striking contrast to former days when pistols and "moonshine" whiskey were most fearfully in evidence.
Of the graduates, one of the young women will teach school the coming year, the young man will seek work somewhere for a year and hopes then to enter the State University at Knoxville and so fit himself for some useful calling in life. These graduates are earnest young Christians who will go out from their alma mater to reflect credit on the School and to do honor to those who have generously given of their means that the children of the people stranded on these mountains may "see a great light." The year just closed was the most prosperous one in the history of Grandview school. The enrollment was the largest the school had ever known and was considerably above two hundred.
Next year, if the juniors all return, as is expected, the graduating class will number about twenty.