Page 76 - 1927 Hartridge

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Commencement, 1926
Commencement! An air of expectation— great excitement— masses of flowers—all were marks of the eventful day. At eleven o’clock the guests were assembled and the members of the school marched into the auditorium leading the way for the seniors. When the Class of 1926, the
Faculty, and the speakers had taken their places on the stage, the exercises v’ere opened with a prayer by the Reverend John J. Aloment, D. D., and the commencement address was delivered by Dr. Macmillan, B. D., S. T. D., the president of Wells College, who proved to be most interest­
ing and entertaining. Before awarding the diplomas Miss Hartridge made her farewell speech to the seniors:
Members, of the Graduating Class:
This is a day on which all good wishes are your due. Yet I find my tongue singularly inapt when I comie to utter those wishes. Dear as you
are to me 1 can not ask for any one of you a swift and easy attainment of her desires. For ideals that are high are not easy of attainment.
One of the outstanding characteristics of our American people is said to be complacency, an evident satisfaction in what we are and in what we do, though rarely in what we have. If while we are longing for and working for more material success in the form of wealth and position, we
were also longing for and working for more knowledge, more judgment, more tolerance, more understanding,— humility, not complacency would be ours. Complacency means mental and spiritual stagnation. I would wish
for you rather a realization of what you fail to be and of what you fail to accomplish, in order that you may strive always to become even finer and to accomplish something even more worth while; in order that you may really live.
I can not even wish you freedom from sorrow or from pain. Every life that is complete holds both joy and grief. Without the experience of