Excerpt from The Individual: A Baccalaureate, Delivered to the Class of Seniors, at the Commencement of the Indiana University, August 13, 1851 This occasion, young gentlemen, is called the Commence ment. The word is very significant. A commencement is a beginning: and wherever there is a beginning there also is an ending. The day is dawning and the night ending at the same moment now to the people who live at a certain dis tance to the west of us; and, as the earth revolves on its axis, this point is brought in succession to the eyes Of all its inhabitants: and, as it pursues its annual course through the heavens, it brings, with the same unvarying regularity, the point at which one season of the year goes away and the next takes its place. What an impressive lesson does this emblem hold forth to our consideration! One generation cometh and another goeth. Life is a journey of successive stages: and at the ultima linea rerum where this life ends, another life begins.
The most interesting difference between that portion of life which with you is now ending and that which is in its commencement, consists in this, that, from this time onward, you are each of you to be more an individual than hitherto.
The Individual: let this be the theme, therefore, of our present meditations. I shall not undertake to discuss it fully, I 4 I but only to suggest a few things in relation to it, which may afford matter for useful reflection in reference to that part which you may severally be called upon to act in future life.
First of all, let us form to ourselves a distinct conception of What we mean by an individual.
You have all noticed the way in which the strawberry plant propagates itself. From the parent stock is sent forth what is called a runner, or, more properly, a creeper: for its progress is slow and cautious; and it keeps close to the ground in a lowly, unaspiring way. When it has extended itself to a convenient distance, a knot is formed, from which proceed a set of pointed fibres, which penetrate the soil and become roots for the new plant, which, with its tender stem and leaves, begins to shoot upwards. For some time the connecting runner to which it is attached remains in full vigor, conveying nourishment from the parent stock to the young plant. But, as this thrives, and grows from day to day stronger and stronger, less and less nourishment is sup plied from the parent stock; and at length it entirely ceases; and then the connecting channel having performed its sus taining Office, dies away, and is dried up. The whole process is now complete, and the young plant is an individual. Its life is in itself. It henceforth performs all its functions by the independent working of its own inherent powers, drain ing no portion of its aliment any more from any other source but the all-nourishing earth, the atmosphere, and the sun. I need not stop here to explain the points of resemblance between this phenomenon of nature and the case which it is brought to illustrate. You see what they are. But permit me, in following out the analogy a little further, to ask, Who is the gardener? For without the gardener strawberries do not grow here. The time was - it is not so very long ago but that some now living may have seen it - when, as I have[5.
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