Graduation Speech: I Am A Bigfoot

After considering the historic page and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess, that either nature has made a great difference between man and beast, or that the civilization, which has hitherto taken place in the world, has been very partial. I have turned over various books written on the subject of educating the overly hairy beast’s, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools lying in the forest; but what has been the result? A profound conviction, that the neglected education of my fellow creatures is a grand source of the misery I deplore; and that Bigfoots in particular,
are rendered dangerous and menacing by a variety of concurring causes, originating from on hasty conclusion.The conduct and manners of Bigfoots, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are in a healthy state; for, like the tree that falls, and allows new homes for the beast's, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to protection; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity.—One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by Hunters who, considering Bigfoots rather as monsters than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them prized trophies than living beings; and the understanding of the species has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilized bigfoots of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire death to all bigfoots, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.

Yet, because I am a Bigfoot, I would not lead my readers to suppose that I mean to violently assault the contested individuals who don't respect the equality or inferiority of the Beasts;; but as the subject lies in my way, and I cannot pass it over without subjecting the main tendency of my reasoning to misconception, I shall stop a moment to deliver, in a few words, my opinion.—In the government of the physical world it is observable that the sasquatch , in general, inferior to the human race.
The human pursues, the corpse of the legendary sasquatches who roam the woods, —this is the law of nature; and it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated in favour of the sasquatch. This physical superiority cannot be denied—and it is a noble prerogative! But not content with this natural pre-eminence, humans endeavour to sink us still lower, merely to render us mysterious objects for a moment; and bigfoots, intoxicated by the fear which men, under the influence of their senses, show them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their
society.

I am aware of an obvious inference: from every quarter have I heard exclamations against the mighty sasquatch; but where are they to be found? Nobody knows, they are hard to capture. If, by this appellation, men mean to inveigh against their ardour in hunting, shooting, and gaming the legendary species. I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be, against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raise awareness in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively termed mankind--all those who view them with a philosophical eye must, I should think, wish with me, that they may every day grow more and more friendly and outgoing..

My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of continuous hiding , unable to stand alone.
I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade sasquatches to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body and fur, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its brother, will soon become objects of
contempt.

The education of the sasquatch has, of late, been more attended to than formerly; yet they are still reckoned a treacherous creature, and ridiculed or pitied by the writers who endeavor by satire or instruction to improve them. It is acknowledged that they spend many of the first years of their lives in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments: meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of hiding, to the desire of protecting themselves,—the only way bigfoots can rise in the world,—by acceptance. And this desire making mere animals of them, when they marry they act as such children may be expected to act:—they dress; they paint, and nickname God's creatures.—Surely these weak beings are only fit for a seraglio!—Can they govern a family, or take care of the poor babes whom they bring into the world without being hunted or accepted into society?

If then it can be fairly deduced from the present conduct of the species, from the prevalent fondness for destruction which takes place of ambition and those nobler passions that open and enlarge the soul; that the instruction which sasquatches have received has only tended, with the constitution of civil society, to render them insignificant objects of society and prized trophies—mere propagators of fools!—if it can be proved that in aiming to eradicate them, without cultivating their understandings, they are taken out of their sphere of duties, and made ridiculous and useless when the short-lived bloom of life is over, I presume that men will excuse them for endeavouring to persuade them to become more acceptable and respectable.

Indeed the word friendly is only a bugbear: there is little reason to fear that bigfoots will acquire too much courage or fortitude; for their apparent inferiority with respect to bodily strength, must render them, in some degree, dependent on men in the various relations of life; but why should it be increased by prejudices that give a species to virtue, and confound simple truths with sensual reveries?