AN UNOFFICIAL BACCALAUREATE
You may imagine that I have dropped in here this morning to remind you, with an indulgent smile, of how little you really know about this wide, wide world you are entering with such "high hopes and noble aspirations"; how many disillusionments you are bound to suffer; what hard bumps you are going to receive upon a somewhat enlarged head; what a truly pitiful and possibly absurd spectacle you young graduates present, vainly trying to set a rather solid world on fire by means of little sheep-skin diplomas tied with pretty ribbons. In short, that you are now saying good-by to the happiest period of existence—if you only knew it; that life from this time forth to the end is a series of struggles mingled with disappointments and sorrows; that you probably won't get what you want or if you get it you won't want it, and that most of the
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