President Calvin Coolidge Talks to Old Pals

1895. mr dust master this is another commencement season when those who are about to go out into active life look at the prospect that is before them and those of us for whom the shadows are beginning to lengthen are inclined to look more to the retrospect when we return on an occasion of this kind it brings back to us the memories of our early days of the sacrifices that were made in our behalf the tender recollections of our childhood and our early days in the college yet we held promise that we've been struggling through the years to fulfill and on the part of my classmates not without a great deal of success we found here a splendid college more wonderful perhaps than we realized at the time that was having an influence throughout this country and on the world that was broader and deeper and more significant and more significant than anything which we imagined had behind it that noble purpose that animated the founders of this institution to provide men who should be trained to lead their fellow man to inspire their faith and to protect them from what the founders thought was a growing sentiment of disbelief because i'm better acquainted with them than i am with the others their record has recently been assembled and it shows that my classmates have been preeminent in law and literature in the purpose in medicine and in the sciences altogether it is record that we may well look to with a great deal of pride and satisfaction i hope that if at any time any of the college begins to be discouraged that the proper authorities will present to them a picture of the entering class of 1895 and a record that has been assembled up today of what my fellow classmates have accomplished we have assembled this record especially for the information and instruction of the classes of 1894 and 1896. and as we have come to know those classes better since we have left college we have every confidence that they'll be able to meet this record and we hope they'll be able to surpass it i wish that i had the power to sum up briefly in a few minutes the teachings of the amherst college of my day but such i'm afraid it would not be possible for me to do it was preeminently a classical institution and the foundation of the education of that period was based on latin and greek of course we had scientists some of the most eminent that there were in the country and many of our men profited by their teachings but fundamentally it was a classical institution of existence in the ideals that ought to animate an enlightened community that has been of great benefit to us and of great benefit to the world we were taught a very wholesome regard for authority i think that's a lesson that always needs to be kept in mind especially in a republic there's little danger i suppose on the other side that our country and other countries somewhat similarly situated may fall into a state of personalization the danger is that self-government may run away with us and that danger lies in a lack of regard for constituted authority we hear and see and read a great deal about the lack of regard for authority on the part of the younger generation i suppose they're always disturbing some of the old fellows and that's not a new story we can find it very carefully set out in some of the earliest literature that we can find and yet was to treat men not as they are but to treat them as they ought to be and here again our picture would come in i wish i might go on but there are others to follow and i'm called away at this time and in taking leave of my classmates i want to command this success and the progress that has marked their course and in taking leave again of the college and its alumni express my hope again and my confidence in its teaching in its ability in the character and standards of its courses of training and in the inspiration that it will be to those who are seeking to follow the truth [Applause] um class of 1895. if we had to judge by the pictures of those of that occasion we were not especially pre-possessing i doubt if you would have found very much of the sanctuary a lot in our god didn't look very promising but the college went to work and treated us as we ought to be and made men out of my classmates who have reached some success in the world