Evaluating Valedictorianism

Abstract

With the rapid propagation of printing, ready access to the press and the popular appetite for the sensational have been encouraging startling statements for a long time. Such utterances, made far more for effect than for appeal to common sense, are seldom first weighed in the balance of logic and reason. To catch the public ear, very little more is ordinarily required than the aiming of a contrary dart at anything stamped with the label of tradition. The volume of the resulting noise is usually in direct proportion to the title and position of the one behind the megaphone. So simple is the formula that now there is hardly a field of human endeavor without its stentorian host of negative inquisitors; and their universal building of staggering effects has reached such dimensions that the sensational is becoming paradoxically commonplace. Among these ejaculations in the educational sector, we still hear: “Do away with the valedictorian and the salutatorian; they're nothing but inventions of the little red schoolhouse era!”