The young person says, "By next June I shall have finished my
education." Bless them all! They will have put another string on their
fiddle.
After they "finish" they have a commencement, not an end-ment, as they
think. This is not to sneer, but to cheer. Isn't it glorious that life
is one infinite succession of commencements and promotions!
I love to attend commencements. The stage is so beautifully decorated
and the joy of youth is everywhere. There is a row of geraniums along
the front of the stage and a big oleander on the side. There is a
long-whiskered rug in the middle. The graduates sit in a semicircle
upon the stage in their new patent leather. I know how it hurts. It is
the first time they have worn it.
Then they make their orations. Every time I hear their orations I like
them better, because every year I am getting younger. Damsel Number One
comes forth and begins:
"Beyond the Alps (sweep arms forward to the left, left arm leading)
lieth Italy!" (Bring arms down, letting fingers follow the wrist. How
embarrassing at a commencement for the fingers not to follow the wrist!
It is always a shock to the audience when the wrist sweeps downward and
the fingers remain up in the air. So by all means, let the fingers
follow the wrist, just as the elocution teacher marked on page 69.)
Applause, especially from relatives.
Sweet Girl Graduate Number 2, generally comes second. S. G. G. No. 2
stands at the same leadpencil mark on the floor, resplendent in a filmy
creation caught with something or other.
"We (hands at half-mast and separating) are rowing (business of
propelling aerial boat with two fingers of each hand, head inclined).
We are not drifting (hands slide downward)."
Children, we are not laughing at you. We are laughing at ourselves. We
are laughing the happy laugh at how we have learned these great truths
that you have memorized, but not vitalized.
You get the most beautiful and sublime truths from Emerson's essays.
(How did they ever have commencements before Emerson?) But that is not
knowing them. You cannot know them until you have lived them. It is a
grand thing to say, "Beyond the Alps lieth Italy," but you can never
really say that until you know it by struggling up over Alps of
difficulty and seeing the Italy of promise and victory beyond. It is
fine to say, "We are rowing and not drifting," but you cannot really
say that until you have pulled on the oar.
O, Gussie, get an oar!
