Commencement 66: 1944
Issue date: 5/14/09 Section: Opinions
At the sixty-sixth Commencement, parents and relatives watched with pride and satisfaction as daughters marched up for degrees; seniors fumbled self-consciously with hoods and felt suddenly serious as the organ played the processional. Push Committee worked busily from morning to night, despite tired feet; heads of houses fixed vases of lilacs and were smiling hostesses at senior suppers. These things, no different from any of the sixty-five preceding commencements, are human elements that neither gas rationing nor acceleration, war work nor invasion-nerves can change.
Some things, however, were different. The class was small, the ceremonies shortened. The speaker was a woman in uniform. With the class of 1944 were leaving two women who have served the college long and well, Mrs. Scales and Dr. Gilman; and the knowledge of their departure deepened the note of sadness which runs through all graduations.
These likenesses and these differences of the 1944 Commencement did not mark it with unusual distinction. It had, rather, a calm and sensible air, an air of tradition adapted intelligently and without emotion to things as they are. It showed an adjustment of old to new and of new to old. The key which it struck has implications for the seniors who leave for new jobs, for the students who soon resume studying in the summer session and for those who are working for a few months before returning to college in the fall. It suggests that both the isolated advocate of the old order - academically or on a wider level - and the unthinking acceptor of a new have been outdistanced. It demands that college women, as everyone else, settle down to their jobs, whatever they may be, with an eye to strength and depth of achievement as well as breadth and flamboyance.
These are reflections at the end of another year's adjustments to new demands and new events in a country at war. We see the Class of 1944 go forth to face perhaps even greater demands than their immediate predecessors, but we have the same challenge within our gates. We are learning that not bright flames but steady coals provide the heat for the long winter's night.
Some things, however, were different. The class was small, the ceremonies shortened. The speaker was a woman in uniform. With the class of 1944 were leaving two women who have served the college long and well, Mrs. Scales and Dr. Gilman; and the knowledge of their departure deepened the note of sadness which runs through all graduations.
These likenesses and these differences of the 1944 Commencement did not mark it with unusual distinction. It had, rather, a calm and sensible air, an air of tradition adapted intelligently and without emotion to things as they are. It showed an adjustment of old to new and of new to old. The key which it struck has implications for the seniors who leave for new jobs, for the students who soon resume studying in the summer session and for those who are working for a few months before returning to college in the fall. It suggests that both the isolated advocate of the old order - academically or on a wider level - and the unthinking acceptor of a new have been outdistanced. It demands that college women, as everyone else, settle down to their jobs, whatever they may be, with an eye to strength and depth of achievement as well as breadth and flamboyance.
These are reflections at the end of another year's adjustments to new demands and new events in a country at war. We see the Class of 1944 go forth to face perhaps even greater demands than their immediate predecessors, but we have the same challenge within our gates. We are learning that not bright flames but steady coals provide the heat for the long winter's night.
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