| Show ONCE IN A LIFETIME Commencement Day and the Memories Mem-ories it Recalls WHAT IT MEANS TO GRADUATE Olieniner of the Book of the World at the First ChapterPast and Present Contrasted hA SI1 r mot S r e 2t I t r IRTHDAYS come around 111 < r evcryyearwitli a regularity r which as ono grows older I becomes painful The methodical me-thodical mileposts in they the-y journey of life seem to slip Y by faster and faster Wo have Christmas and New Years and all tho other festivals of tho year Wo Lave centennial and semicentennial celebrations but commencement day comes but once in a lifetime the happy days spent in school are left behind But hold on there my young friend What is that I hear you say Youve had a pretty good time Plenty of fun but mighty glad to get over it all Mighty glad you can see tho world eh Sick of books Rather sit at a desk and write for dear lifo all day would you Rather run around and bo errand boy perhaps Rather get down to solid business and work from 8 until C than to be able to sneak off any afternoon and play ball Think you would prefer a dusty moldy office ten hours a day to a bright sunny school room with perhaps per-haps a lot of pretty girls sitting around you Is that tho idea Seems strange dont it Not a bit of it my boy Youve got that same feeling of independence which is common to us all But whats that I hear my friend down in tho crowd say Wish you were back at your books do you Regret all the time you wasted in school eh Would like to try it over again would you Happiest time of your life did you say You think so thats all You couldnt be hired to go back My friend you would rather get up at 4 oclock in the morning and toddle around the front I r P r 11 6i I r 5 + t THE HAPPY FATHER yard after a lawn mower while last nights due percolates through your uppers up-pers than be able to sleep until 8 oclock and have your own gentle mother come upstairs and tell you three or four times in rapid succession that if you dont getup get-up right away you will be late for school Yes you would I know you You would rather vibrato from ono end of the room to tho other with a shrieking child in ono arm and a bottle of soothing sirup in tho other four hours a night than be kicked out of bed by your older brother because you tried to steal the bedclothes bed-clothes away from him Oh those were happy days were they When you romped in the fields with never a care with no thought for tho morrow when you could sneak into the pantry at any hour of tho day and abstract therefrom a goodly hunk of bread and butter when you used to go in swimming incognito and get licked because your shirt was wrong side out But bless you my friend those cares that you didnt have Ihen all the troubles tho little things which make you walk the floor and tear your hair and which drive you to think that your lot is so much harder than the lot of any one else including Jobs those things are what you arc living for Dont you regret the time wasted over your books either If you could get back into tho school room you would study all tho time would you You would improve every shining minute eh How 1 old did you say you were Forty and i havent learned any better than that r Well well unwind from your brain somo of those bandages that you have been wrapping it up in so tenderly for If tho last twenty years Sit down and think it over And you will conclude in I five minutes that you wouldnt do anything any-thing of the sort Youll see right away r if you failed on that particular example in arithmetic it was because you were I having a rousing old time playing ball and that perhaps the ball was a great l deal better for you than figures that is better physically and therefore mentally men-tally in tho end t But havent said a word about the F girls You have all heard this talk S about tho sweet girl graduate the delicate I deli-cate bud of girlhood blossoming out into thin full blown rose of a riper womanhood I wo-manhood Well this is a good thought for Commencement day All these bright young girls in their white dresses their pretty faces glowing with the excitement ex-citement of tho hour and with expectation expecta-tion of tho life which is to come All very pretty isnt it Now Im no isono I i1 Blast But is this tho right sort of veneer I I to i J u tug J In lUiy young woman ss i UTo Lifri tJtJ all to some deli ca dower and we build hot houses for HM to live in and every onco in awhile a-while somo fair Joan of Arc breaks the il I glass and steps out and we realize that j i woman is not so weak as wo have pictured j Il pict-ured her C What do the girls think about it2 Qq around among the hundred girls in the class and take a ballot Ask each one if I she likes to be thought of as a delicate i 1 flower fit to livo only in a hot house j i How many of them will answer yes to that thatTender I Tender did you say Delicate and all thatLook here my friend perhaps youve I never lived in a big city and gone slumming slum-ming down in the tenement district and seen pale delicate looking women living I for years in an atmosphere and working under a strain that would prostrate a Sullivan in six months But theres ono thing you have noticed I no-ticed You havo seen the lines creeping up and down your own gentle mothers face I day after day you have watched that same dear face grow a little paler a little sadderyou havo seen her growing grow-ing more patient as the weeks and months rolled on but bless you my friend you never stopped to think of that then Hero is a romping rollicking rollick-ing boy bound to havo fun tearing his a r I a Inn HAPPr MOTHER clothes at the slightest provocation going go-ing half a mile out of his way to wade through a puddle of dirty water spending spend-ing hours devising some instrument of torture to let loose on tho delicate harp strings of a womans nervous temperament temper-ament anything to make trouble for his mother But we mustnt blame the boy Ho cant help it and we havo all done the same thing ourselves But how about the mother How long do you think a great strong burly man would stand this sort of thing You come home at night and your wife says to you Bobby has been misbehaving misbehav-ing again today but dear I guess after all youd better let him off this once i and what do you suppose the young rascal ras-cal has done Oh nothing very much He has only taken the five young kittens that appeared a few days ago and buried them alive in tho back yard Now how long my friend could you stand this sort of thing And yet your wife pale delicate creature that she is would have a fit if Bobby were out of her sight for more than twelve hours Let us stop a moment and think of what is goirac to become all these pretty girls who nave i lad their heads stuffed full of grammar I and mathematics and Latin verbswhat are they going to be Wives Yes and mothers some of them but tell me my friends can you bring this future that stretches out for a woman from commencement com-mencement day to the endcan you bring it down to the narrow limits of a wedding ring How about the old maids then Now let mo whisper a word in your car Asa As-a matter of fact marriage isnt the only thing a woman thinks about How many old maids are there who are old maids from choice Nine out of every ten How do you know some ono in ho crowd shouts out youre not an old maid yourself That is so but my young friend you havent a maiden aunt have you Come own up now like a man Well you dont know anything any-thing about it Sly son a maiden aunt follows right close after a mother and grandmother in a boys heart and the boy generally knows how many times she has said No to tho most important question in a womans life Let us take ono farewell look at these smiling faces before the curtain falls for ever on tho last scene of school life They have got through tho preface of the book of tho world Tomorrow they will begin be-gin on the first chapter and as the bell rings and they fade away from our sight let us send forth a wish that tho book may havo a peaceful and happy ending Ton MASSOX |
