r
that associations should adorn, than that they should conceal? If here
and there a relic of the olden time is cherished because it is
olden,--a house, a book, a dress,--shall we then live only in the
houses, read only the books, and wear the dresses of our ancestors? If
here and there some ship has breasted the billows of time, and sails
the seas today because of its own inherent grace and strength, shall
we, therefore, cling to crazy old crafts that can with difficulty be
towed out of harbor, and must be kept afloat by constant application of
tar and oakum? As I read the Bible and the world, gray hairs are a
crown unto a man only when they are found in the way of righteousness.
Laden with guilt and heavy woes, behold the AGED SINNER goes. A seemly
old age is fair and beautiful, and to be had in honor by all people;
but an old age squalid and pinched is of all things most pitiful.

After the Oration and Poem, which, having nothing distinctive, I pass
over, comes the "Collation." The members of the Senior Class prepare a
banquet,--sometimes separately and sometimes in clubs, at an expense
ranging from fifty to five hundred dollars,--to which they invite as
many friends as they choose, or as are available. The banquet is quite
as rich, varied, and elegant as you find at evening parties, and the
occasion is a merry and pleasant one. But it occurred to me that there
may be unpleasant things connected with this custom. In a class of
seventy-five, in a country like America, it is probable that a certain
proportion are ill able to meet the expense which such custom
necessitates. Some have fought their own way through college. Some
must have been fought through by their parents. To them I should think
this elaborate and considerable outlay must be a very sensible
inconvenience. The mere expense of books and board, tuition and
clothing, cannot be met without strict economy, and much parental and
family sacrifice. And at the end of it all, when every nerve has been
strained, and must be strained harder still before the man can be
considered fairly on his feet and able to run his own race in life,
comes this new call for entirely uncollegiate disbursements. Of course
it is only a custom. There is no college by-law, I suppose, which
prescribes a valedictory SYMPOSIUM. Probably it grew up gradually from
small ice-cream beginnings to its present formidable proportions; but a
custom is as rigid as a chain. I wondere