6
THE BATTALION.
your willingness to*work*for its welfare, both in season and out
of season. You* have fulfilled your promise. Without fear,
favor or affection you have stood at the helm, enforcing disci
pline, maintaining laws, looking neither to the right nor the
left until you have guided the old ship safely through the voy
age of another scholastic session; and in bidding you farewell
M-e can truthfully say “you have fought the good fight, yon
have kept the faith.”
Gentlemen of the Faculty and other Instructors: We
realize that it is to you we owe our greatest thanks. As the
rough, shapeless block of marble goes to the sculptor to be
carved and shaped into a glistening symmetrical form, so with
us. A short time ago we came to you, thoughtless boys with
unformed minds. Today we leave you with our faculties culti
vated and our intellects developed. The methods of thought
and analysis which you have instilled into our minds will enable
us to solve with greater ease the more serious problems which
will confront us after leaving you. We feel that you consider
us worthy exponents of your arts, as you show by your signa
ture on our’diplomas, sending us out entrusted with your name
and honor,'and it shall be our pleasure and our duty to respond
to the confidence you repose in us by a constant fidelity to the
principles taught us by you.
We now take this occasion to bid our long and last farewell
to him who, for seven long years, presided over the destinies of
our alma mater, and by his lofty character and magnificent ex
ecutive ability placed this institution among the first in the
land. The sun seemed to shine more brightly than usual on
last January third—a fit emblem of the life so full of chivalric
deeds and deep devotion to the honor of his state, and as it
took its leave of the departing day the gates of Heaven opened
wide to welcowe the immortal spirit that had guided to perfec
tion the earthly career of Lawrence Sullivan Ross. We cannot
fathom the inscrutable ways of an all wise Providence in re-