320 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



Must from the oak-tree drop 



Ere forest monarchs from the seed can shoot. 



Nay, even death itself must lay its blasting hand upon all 

 that is dearest and most precious, ere it can be transplanted 

 to a more perfect life and growth. Time has wrought many 

 changes in your midst. As I look down upon you, I miss 

 familiar faces, faces of those who set out with you. Some 

 have fallen out by the way, — others have entered upon 

 new purposes and activities, — and one, alas ! whose eager 

 soul outstripped the fetters of his mortal frame, has laid 

 down his young life at the very outset of his career and 

 finished his work ere it was well begun. This is the hour for 

 sober thought, for self-communion, for looking over your 

 stock in trade and seeing what you have to offer to the world . 

 Gone now are all the petty animosities of your college years, 

 banished the little dissensions and jealousies of your 

 younger days. The world is too large, too grand for you 

 to harbor them longer. The cry of battle is ringing in your 

 ears, and in the pressing duties of the present forgotten are 

 the resentments of the past. "When," says the Apostle 

 Paul, "when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood 

 as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man 

 I put away childish things." 



Young men, manhood with all its glorious possibilities 

 lies open before you, and the question comes to you, not 

 what can the world do for me, but what can I do for the 

 world? What can I do to make it wiser and better? What 

 can I give to my fellow men to help and bless them? 

 And just in proportion as you answer that question aright, 

 will be the measure of your success. 



And now, as for the last time we meet, as students and 



