e, am thankful to be able to say to you in
hearty welcome and in hearty greeting that the evidences are now
before you of the well-being, and the comfort, and the joy, and the
happiness of the graduates of the Class of '90-'91.

Valedictory

BY MISS HILDA BUSICK.

_Class of '91._

[A]Das ist im Leben haslich eingerichtet,
Das Bei den Rosen gleich die Dornen stehn;
Und was das arme Herz auch sehnt und dichtet,
Zum Schlusse kommt das Voneinandergehen.

[Footnote A:
'Tis said, alas, that life must have its sorrows,
That with the roses cruel thorns should grow;
And though we fondly dream of love's to-morrows,
Must every heart the grief of parting know.]

The words of the poet are but too true. What rose does not hold up its
pretty, fragrant head, feigning unconsciousness of the thorns hidden
beneath its bright, green leaves? And just so life's joys are with its
sorrows associated. There never was a _perfectly_ happy day, unclouded
as the skies of June, for every pleasure, inasmuch as it must end,
carries with it some sadness--every meeting, the pain of parting.

So to-night the joyous echo of "welcome" is still to be heard,
the fragrance of its roses is yet perceptible, when the solemn
"_Farewell_" rings upon our ears and its thorns pierce our hearts.

Ruskin says, "It is a type of eternal truth that the soul's armor is
never well set to the heart, unless a woman's hand has braced it,
and it is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of manhood
fails." If then, the honor of the world is dependent upon woman, if
she is to be responsible for all war and all peace, happiness or
discontent, it behooves us to consider the greatness, amounting to
almost awe, of the duty imposed upon us. Our task may, perhaps, be
a difficult one, but not if we seize it with an unyielding grasp,
and fight it to the bitter end--"to the last syllable of recorded
time"--if need be.

Our circle of usefulness is constantly widening. The doors of
colleges, and thus those of every profession, have opened to admit us
within their sacred precincts. In all parts of the world our sisters
are successful as musicians, painters, sculptors--Harriet Hosmer, for
example--physicians, professors, stenographers. Many of them are now
on the highest rounds of the ladders from which their lack of superior
education formerly excluded them. This is especially true of
stenograp