ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES OF 



THE COLLEGE OF NEW 



ROCHELLE, 1911 



IT is with much diffidence that I presume to address so 

 many young ladies invested with the degree which marks 

 their separation from college life. My own graduation 

 still stands out so clearly before me that I hardly believe that 

 I am in that fit perspective from which I could safely address 

 words of salutary instruction to others who have assumed the 

 hood and received the diploma. When a scholar steps forth 

 from the college halls to take up her position either in the 

 world of learning or in that busier world of every-day life, it 

 is with a triumphant feeling somewhat akin to conquest. One 

 exults almost as in the winning of a hard-fought game of ath- 

 letic skill, in the feeling of mastery achieved over difficult and 

 abstruse subjects. With the feeling that the goal has been 

 reached, it seems almost as though it were a misnomer — even 

 a mockery — to call it a "Commencement," when in reality you 

 have finished your course and reached the goal of study aimed 

 at for four long years. And when the parting comes during 

 this week it seems an ending after all. What does it matter 

 that learned philologists tell us that it is really a "Commence- 

 ment" — that you commence to be persons of degree and begin 

 to take upon yourselves the honors of the learned world — yet 

 down in your hearts you look upon it as the end and the cul- 

 mination of your college life. But while it rings down the 

 curtain upon the old familiar scenes, it is really the awaken- 

 ing to a newer and a broader life in the realm of letters and 

 learning. 



And so the day of such conquest has come to each of you 

 in turn, and as the young women of the Class of 191 1, who 

 have done your duty faithfully, you must now put your studies 

 to active use and pursue still further the roads upon which 

 you have entered in the kingdom of knowledge. If you did 

 not do this, you would be untrue to the traditions of your col- 



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