Ann Arbor High School - Omega Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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better than the present? As we bid farewell to those who vanish from our sight, have we no word of welcome to those who are pressing forward? WVe grieve over the death of men we ha1'dly thought could be spared. VVe look around to see who are to take up and carry on the work they have been doing. The pillars of the political, social and religions ediiices fall, and as we look upon the fragments we fear that the structure is weakened. But the grand institutions ' of a nation may be bereaved of their most trusted and trustworthy counselors, and yet they will live. Divine providence Ends its agents and instruments, and by the inspiration and help of the divine pres- ence the blessed results for humanity will be attained. To act noblest in life man must have an ideal, a motive and a methodl The state of languor into which men often sink must be overcome 'and can only be conquered by enthusiasm, by a motive, by an awakening devotion to something higher, by the thought that there is more in life than mereidle existence. And enthusiasm can only be kindled by two things: an ideal which besets and takes the imagination by storm, as it were, and a definite, intelligent plan for carrying out that ideal into prac- tice. That motto- Sapiens qui Assiduus,'- which has, as a beautiful ensign and shining beacon light, illuminated our path from tl1e time of our first organization, and has served to bind us together as a class, well shows us that there is a grand ideal to which we may all attain, that there is a goal which we may all reach, that there is a cup from which we may all drink, that there is a fount at whose brink we may all kneel, and this ideal, this goal, this cup, this fount is wisdom. This can be found only by individual persistent efort. The intellectual domain of the future lies open to pre-emption. He who gets a fact or an idea first owns it. Every round in the ladder of fame, from the one that touches the ground to the one that leans against the shining summit of ambition, belongs to the foot that gets upon it Hrst. The great object of Education should be commensurate with the object, of life and should be as broad as man. It should be a moral one, to teach self-trust: to inspire the youthful man with an interest in himself, with a curiosity touching his own nature 5 to acquaint him with the 1' esources of his own mind, and to teach him that Hzcre is all his strength,

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granite blocks out of which the nineteenth centurylbuilds its impregnable fortresses against the inroads of everything that is not for the advancement and upbuilding of the human race. What is the claim of the age upon us? To act, to move, to rise, to do, to surmount, to leap to the highest pinnacle of grand and noble lives-all are incumbent upon us and are indispensa- ble to the attainment of the object of the Eternal One in the creation of man. 'Tis sometimes said that industry begets ease. Yet is it not a beautiful thought to us in our earlier years to know that, when we shall have reached that proverbial number - that point which marks the beginning of second childhood- three score and ten, and the hoary locks begin to appear on our temples, we shall pass our reclining years free from the hurry and incessant toil of the world? It is a thought which should be a great incentive to us who are just on the brink of life's great sea. Is it true that they who have genius need not work? We who have been delving into the various branches of learning for the past four years can bear ample evidence to the fact that they who have genius are the 'most willing to work. 'Tis not what man does that exalts him but what he would do. Though men may act faithfully, yet the betterment of the world is not attained in a day. The conclusion which a youth reaches on leaving school for the last time is evidence of this. His blood is warm and his heart beats strong in sympathy for suffering humanity. He feels that with his generation the world is entering a new epoch and will soon be reformed and brought near millennial conditions. It seems to him as if until now all mankind has stood still, but is now buckling on its armor to right wrongs, and he is prepared to do his part. He works hard and effectually, but as the years wear on he finds that he is only like a great multitude who have gone before, that all y men have been working for the beneit of mankind, and that things go faster now than of old 5 still in con- . i n of mankind he must talk of centuries mstead of years. Thus he learns that he who works for the en is only a worker' with the great and good of the past and the present, who have learned to labor and to wait. lVhere is the man who thinks that all the neces- SHTY good for the world has been attained? I ask, is the paSff through the centur sidering the elevatio good of his fellow m

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and to inilame him with a piety toward the Grand Mind in which he lives. u A man is a little thing whilst he works by .and for himself, for wisdom for a 1113,ll,S self is a depraved thing, but when he wives voice to the rules of love and justice, is godlike, his word D is current in all countries 3 and all men, though his enemies, are made his friends and obey it as their own. How different is the view of past life in the man who is grown old in knowledge and wisdom, from that of him who is grown old in ignorance and follv? The latter is like the owner of a barren country, that tillsv his eye with the prospect of naked hills and plains, which produce nothing either profitable or ornamentalg the other beholds a beautiful and spacious landscape, divided into delight- ful gardens, green meadows, fruitful fields, and can scarce cast his eye upon a single spot of his possession that is not covered with some beautiful plant or flower. And now, as we are assembled for the last time before the great unknown shall have swallowed up our class, though our hearts are happy, light and free, it may be well to consider some of the serious questions of life-to form resolutions for high actions, to plan and to determine. And, as we issue forth from the walls of the school we love so well, the most of us, probably, with the expectation to pursue work in higher institutions of learning, but some, possibly, intending to begin life-work in some avocation, I would that we might hold up to ourselves the bright model of some grand life that has existed, and study to be what we behold, and that we may contemplate the character of this life till all its virtues spread out and display themselves to our delighted vision, as the earliest astronomers, the shep- herds on the plains of Babylon, gazed at the stars till they saw them form into clusters and constellations, overpowering at length the eyes of the beholders with the united blaze of a thousand lights. And if by the side of this model we place our class motto as a light-house by the sea, and if within easy view we shall keep that old Spanish. proverb- Time and I against any two -we shall go forth not sighing for the past but feeling that the future is sure, we shall go forth marked with honorable independemle, and we shall have a fealty, an homage, to high aspirations. The written pages of history which we read give but a brief