Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 165

trustees permitted seniors to have music at graduation, "at their own expense. " The following year there was started the custom of a Baccalaureate service, the sermon being preached by Dr. Daniel Merriman. It was in 1893 that the last valedictorian, a brilliant "general scientist" named Charles Baker, appeared on the Commencement platform.

Two graduation speakers alone stand out in this twelveyear period, one in 1892, Gen. A. W. Greely, because of his immediate fame as an explorer, the other in 1890, Prof. Woodrow Wilson of Wesleyan, because of the future greatness he was to achieve. Professor Wilson, then thirty-four and about to take the chair of Political Economy at Princeton, addressed his audience on "Modern Systems of City Government. " It was a challenging talk, but why should an audience of that decade be disturbed by a mere professor's idealism! They were much more interested in the bright young valedictorian, Alton L. Smith.

"The convenience of the wealthy is not affected by the fact that a great part of New York is full of filth, because they live in cleaner places," Wilson declared. "It is the same in education, in the matter of rapid transit, and commerce. Isn't it a matter of public knowledge that the monied classes touch many of these things only to corrupt?" And again, "The community is an organic whole, and we must help the lower classes to live more in accordance with sanitary conditions. We must wake up the great pulsating community, and then hold its attention. We can't afford to have a revolution every time we want a reform. " This was nearly half a century before the great pulsating community began to awaken.

The last Commencement of this period was that of 1894, when Dr. Homer T. Fuller read his valedictory, a welcome one to some ears, though his passing from the scene was deeply regretted by others. III health was part cause for his retirement. He had twice been granted leaves to recuperate from bronchial ills, once in 1891 for four months, and again

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Last Modified: Fri Jul 30 11:15:25 EDT 1999