Page 60 - 1921 Hartridge

Graduation
On June third, nineteen hundred and twenty, we all came together to say a last farewell to that year’s graduating class, whose members were
Katharine Shellabarger, Ruth d ubby, tdelena Simkhovitch, Gertrude Bel­ cher, Hariet Davis, Anna Lamar, Nancy Doggett and Katherine Fite.
Dr. Richmond, of Union College, made the address and prayer, and then Miss Hartridge after giving out the diplomas, said good bye to her class with these words:
,
Members of the Graduating Class: From much that you have heard and read you must have gathered that, instead of beginning your lives in the apparently well-ordered world that at your age your fathers knew, you are about to enter a world in which order will be practically unknown; that misgovernment is
rife; that the spirit of anarchy or the lack of government is abroad in this land and in all lands; that men want to give noth­
ing and to get every thing; that everywhere greed and treachery and cynicism have replaced the old virtues of loyalty, of hero­
ism, of self-control, of faith.
It is true that we are experiencing a sickening reaction
with its consequent evils. It is also true that we are experienc­ ing a disconcerting upheaval with its attendant tragedies. But who shall say that the reaction is not in accord with the laws of Nature, that the upheaval is not the inevitable result of Prog­
ress ?
Do not stand too much in awe of the printed page. Do
not heed too much the shrieks of the goddess Rumor. A world of maladjustments is not necessarily well-ordered because ap­ parently peaceful, and the world of your fathers at your age
was a world of maladjustments.
I believe that some day we shall win through to some
thing better than the world our fathers knew, and that the out­ come will be worth the evils and the tragedies. But we shall never succeed without a certain measure of clear-sightedness,
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