ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES OF 

 GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, 1911 



IN coming before you, after so much has been said, I feel 

 that in some way I am merely delaying you in the final 

 event of your scholastic life. You are now eager to be 

 up and doing, and no one can really say lasting things upon 

 this day of joyous farewells. When a scholar steps forth from 

 the college halls to take up his position, either in the world of 

 learning or in that busier world of everyday life, it is with a 

 triumphant feeling somewhat akin to conquest. One exults 

 almost as in the winning of a hard-fought game of athletic 

 skill with the glorious feeling of mastery achieved over diffi- 

 cult and abstruse subjects. 



With the feeling that the goal has been reached, it seems 

 almost as though it were a misnomer — perhaps even a mock- 

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

 finished your course and have reached the goal of study aimed 

 at for so many years. When the parting from old classmates, 

 from the familiar scenes around you, comes during this week, 

 it seems that it is an ending after all. What does it matter 

 that learned philologists tell us that it is really a *'commence- 

 ment," that you now commence to be persons of degree and 

 begin to take on yourselves the honors of the learned world — 

 for down in your hearts you look upon it as the culmination of 

 your college life. You say farewell to the old classrooms, the 

 "Walks," the athletic field, your comrades and professors, and 

 there is after all a sense of coming to an end instead of be- 

 ginning. Yet while the day rings down the curtain upon old 

 scenes, it is really the awakening to a newer and a broader 

 life in the realm of letters and usefulness. 



The day of final conquest has now come to each of you, and 

 you must now put your studies into active use and pursue 

 still further the roads upon which you have entered in the 

 kingdom of knowledge. If you did not do this earnestly and 



348 



