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

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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

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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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I account ot man's actions -his successful attempts and his fail- ures, his risings and his tallings. WVe can read our own history only so far as it is made. WVe can only dimly portray what it shall be from the signs which the Times unfold to us. VVe have no deiinite way of telling whether we hold in our hands the weal or the woe of the unborn millions. Two parties of History everywhere present, the party of the Past and the party of the Future, divide society to-day as of old. The Times are the masquerade of the eternitiesg trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise, the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history 3 the quarry out of which the genius of to-day is building up the Future. But the subject of the Times is not abstract. The nations of the world, their manners and customs, their varied institutions, their opinions, their dissent- ing and consenting voices, are to be studied as omens, as sacred leaves on whose surface is inscribed a weighty sense, if only we search it out. They hold within themselves the solution of many vexing questions. When we speak of the age in which we live, we only mean our own semi-company of people, as it were, as Dante and Milf ton painted in gigantic size their two divisions, and called them Heaven and Hell. In the highest idea of the progress of man, we cannot get beyond this personal picture of the association of man with man. T Since the Times can reveal so much to us, let us awake our senses to them. ' Let us grasp what lies within their bosom and strive on with the determination that, by our actions, we shall make happiness attend those who follow us. By our striving to act noblest and best, we do not' think that the blue dome of heaven, which hangs alike o'er all will put on a brighter hue for us, our honey be sweeter, our climate more temperate, but only that our relations to our fellows will be simpler and happier. Man has always acted g man will act. The years will come and go, time and change will write their inevitable legend upon all natureg the earth itself may shrivel and decay, and the heavens be rolled together as a scroll 3 but not until man has drunk of the cup of oblivion and is lost for- ever on the Lethean wave will he cease to strive for something better.