Show STUDENT LIFE JUNE 1903 COMMENCEMENT WEEK SUNDAY Commencement exercises began Sunday morning June 6th with the auditorium filled beyond its seating capacity Among those who participated were Senator Barber Hon John T Caine and members of the ladies' quartette Everything was characteristic of the day and time and culminated in the address of Hon Moses Thatcher which was full of beauty and eloquence and glowed with the fire of experience The text which follows may be taken as the synopsis of a successful life o BACCALAUREATE SERMON OF HON MOSES THATCHER AT THE A C U SUNDAY JUNE 7 1903 i i i “The young man who hesitates to accept or assume stations of responsibility and trust because of his youthfulness and waits for the dignifying and solidifying influence of maturing years to fit him for the station is not a close student of the lives of those who have impressed their names on the pages of their country’s history Older men may shake their heads while remarking that “boys know more than their fathers” these days “yet from no source does the determined young man receive more cordial encouragement and hearty support than from men who de clare they are being shelved by the boys” It is not that youth knows more than but when a youth buoyant with hopes inspired by confidence with a vision undimmed by the doubts and prejudice engendered by long acquaintance with the world his ambition unwithered by years of dreary toil for subsistence his heart full of love for humanity and his soul vibrant with the possibilities of life — when such a youth fresh from study and with intellect well stored can at once reach the point attained by his father through years of effort and bitter experience and from that vantage ground begin the battle of life he is undoubtedly of the two better equipped “A dwarf perched on the shoulder of a giant can see further than can the age giant” These youths who think that young men have not a fair chance and those older men who think young men not able to fill important stations may each learn lessons from the fact that Henry Clay was in the United States senate at 21 years of age though a provision of the national constitution had to be temporarily abrogated to permit it Webster was attending college at fifteen and at thirty was the peer of the ablest in Congress Mr Fox was a member of the British Parliament at nineteen Luther at thirty- - |