

ADDRESS. 



LADIES AND GENTLEMKX: 



The occasion of our assembling is one of no ordinary moment. 

 The commencement exercises of every College are full of interest 

 and importance to those immediately concerned as well as to the 

 friends of education and human advancement. While the aspi- 

 ration of the student on these occasions is to acquit himself in a 

 manner worthy of himself, his preceptors, and his friends, and their 

 hopes and affections are elevated or depressed as he succeeds or 

 fails, the lover of education and of progress beholds all evidences of 

 intellectual and moral development with the highest emotions of 

 thankfulness and satisfaction. All these aspirations, hopes and 

 emotions have their' possessors and representatives in the intelligent 

 audience before me, and should I not satisfactorily demonstrate my 

 appreciation of these surroundings, my tongue will fail to enunciate 

 the ideas and impulses of my head and heart. 



We have gathered here to witness and participate in the first com- 

 mencement exercises of this College. With this day ends its first 

 year's existence, and if its maturer years shall fulfill the brilliant 

 promises of its earlier days if, in truth, the ''child be the father of 

 the man," then, indeed, may Virginia well be proud of her late.-t 

 born, and, like all fond mothers, shower upon it her. choicest 

 blessings. 



Perhaps no event has transpired within our State for many years 

 possessed of greater significance or of more far-reaching conse- 

 quences than the organization of this Institution. For the first time 

 in her history she has established a College primarily devoted t<> 

 practical education. High schools and colleges she has had; schools 

 of law and medicine, of theology and theoretic science of high 

 character and givat usefulness have not been wanting; but never 

 before has there been organized, by her express mandate, to be con- 

 trolled by her own officers, a school especially devoted to instruction 

 in the practical industries of life. Its foundation forms an epoch 

 in her educational history, and evidences one of the chief character- 

 istics of our age. What are the laws, literature and institutions of 



