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Commencement

College commencement exercises have always been marked by advice showered upon new graduates. The Daily Nebraska State Journal, May 16, 1889, offered its congratulations and recommendations to the “graduates of the present year”:



“Commencement season is so close at hand that The Journal feels like offering to the graduates of the present year its welcome into active life in advance of the momentous occasion when the college life shall end. During the next month these young ladies and gentlemen will be informed by the numerous dyspeptic critics who never allow such opportunity to pass unimproved, that they didn’t know anything, that they think too much of themselves, that they are too conceited, that much learning made them mad, so to speak, that they must stop their foolishness and go to work, and a lot of other truck, conveying the idea that they are generally a worthless lot and sadly in need of a little contact with the world.



“But this is mostly gammon. Of course, it is natural for a young graduate to look out over the world with a good deal of scorn and with the feeling that he can get to the front, no difference what happens, and some start out with this idea, sad to say, and usually get wrecked about the first dive they make. But on the whole these graduates are a fine lot of young men and young women and when the rawness and inexperience wears off will turn themselves to good account, both to themselves and the world. The college bred man isn’t as bad always as he is painted.”

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Other Publications

The Bachelors’ Protective Union of Kearney

When the Bachelors' Protective Union gave a gala reception for two of its newly married, former members and their brides in March of 1890, the social club for young, ...

U.S. Weather Bureau in 1890s Nebraska

The U.S. Weather Bureau was established by an act of Congress on October 1, 1890. It took over the weather service that had been established in the office of the Chief ...

Canning the Way to Victory

During American participation in World War I the U.S. Food Administration, under the direction of Herbert Hoover, launched a massive campaign to persuade Americans to ...

The Shoemaker’s Ashes

"Edward Kuehl, one of the most peculiar characters that ever lived in Omaha, or anywhere else, was found dead in his bed last night in the back room of his place of ...

Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger Foreward

Red Dog, an Oglala Lakota who lived at the Red Cloud Agency, Nebraska, 1876-77 (Nebraska State Historical Society RG2955.ph).   In the summer of 1876, following the ...

Darryl F. Zanuck

Darryl F. Zanuck Darryl F. Zanuck (1902-1979), a native Nebraskan, produced some of Hollywood's most important and controversial films. He helped found 20th Century Fox ...

The Burlington’s Profitable Pork Special

Nebraska railroads were much concerned with developing an adequate economy in the areas they served. The Burlington, for example, had a long history of caring for the ...

Bungalow Filling Stations

After the giant Standard Oil Company was broken into thirty-four separate companies in 1911, the newly independent Standard Oil of Nebraska dominated the state's market ...

The Bull Fight

This is the perfect time of year for a visit to the old fishin' hole. But a group of fisherfolk from Plainview discovered that this bucolic pastime sometimes has ...

Buffalo Soldiers West

African-American soldiers on the western frontier are the focus of an exhibit at the Nebraska History Museum in Lincoln. Buffalo Soldiers West, on loan from the Colorado ...

Protection for Buffalo

The extermination of the buffalo on the Plains occurred largely between 1870 and 1885. The Nebraska State Journal of Lincoln on February 1, 1874, editorialized in vain ...

Buffalo Hunting

In late October 1877 young Rolf Johnson and three friends left their homes in Phelps County, Nebraska, for a buffalo hunt in northeastern Colorado. The hunt was not very ...
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