Dedham High School - Reflections Yearbook (Dedham, MA)

Page 30 text:

- IIDHAMILS.-' Honor Essay GOALS Almost every one has a goal in life. Some set their goals early, not too far beyond the horizon, and by striving constantly and relentlessly. reach them. A small ehild struggling to reach a gaudy toy has such a goal. Nothing else mat-- ters to him until he has elutehed the pretty bauble in his fingers, and then he erows and chuckles with delight, for he has reached his goal. The business man who seeks only a fortune, the aviator who flies for fame, the actor who lives for notoriety--they all have goals as definite as the ehild's and by perseverance like his they often attain them. And yet children, even with pretty toys in their possessions, don't crow and ehuekle constantly, and men who have reached their goals of wealth and fame are not completely happy. Emerson 's suggestion that we should hitch our wagons to stars implies not only that we should seek a worthy and unselfish goal, but that we should seek one so high that we can scarcely hope to reach it, so lofty that the mere striving for it is great. For often those who, after years of persistence, reach their goals find themselves left without a purpose and the zest gone from their lives. Solomon, who said, l gathered me also silver and gold and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces. I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, concluded that all was vanity and vexation of the spirit and there was no profit under the sun. And so today we find sueeessful men mired in boredom, famous statesmen trapped in eynieism, and millionaires turning to suicide from a life that has lost its savor. They are happier ones, though they might deny it. who have not reached their goals, who after years of climbing see them still shining as far away apparently as when they started toward them. The student seeking not merely a diploma but all the knowledge of all time, a Pasteur, hunting for the causes and cures of all diseases, a statesman still working for a perfect state-they will never know the satiety of ambition too soon fulilled. They will meet many disappointments, it is true. The diseords of disillusion will often wake them from their hopefulest dreams, and many at the end may feel that they are failures, but they will have had someflzing-perliaps some little progress, cer- tainly the glory of a struggle, which indeed is life itself. John Keats had inscribed on his tombstone. Here lies one Whose life was writ in water. Columbus failed to find the Indies. Sir XVHHQI' Raleigh died without discovering El Dorado or finishing his history of the world. The English were still in France whe11 Joan of Arc was burned. Each of these suffered: eaeh perhaps felt that he had failed: and yet each knew a sublimity undreanit of by those of his contemporaries who longed for food and got it, who sought wealth and became rich, and who tired of life and subsequently died. Probably the happiest of all are those who, having set themselves a goal that seems beyond their reach, yet manage to draw near it, or even attain it, after a lifetime of endeavor. They are the few who, like General VVolfe, can praise God and die happy. They are the ones we hope to imitate. Each student leaving high school has not only plans for the future but a goal as well. The two are quite different. His plans may include Where he will work, what further studies he will pursue, or how he Will spend his summer vacation. His goal will be that thing, as dear to him as life, for which he will do almost anything. Almost anything, for there is no goal so great that it can justify all means of attaining it. No matter how far we may go in business, no matter how many papers print our pictures, or how many mouths cry our fame, if we are conscious of but one unworthy deed done to further our ambi- tions, we will find a bitter taste in our mouths that will turn our triumphs to l932 28

Page 29 text:

YEARBUUK applies equally to those idle both hy inclination and hy l'oi-ee ol' eii'cumstaru-1-s. Therefore, particularly pertinent to the thousands ot' young' people grzuluatiug from schools all over the country is the question: NVhat shall we do with our uuavoidable leisure? Their training in school should have stimulated to a greater degree interest in science and the arts which could continue their devel- opment in the guise ot recreation. lt is up to us to plan to perfect the peda- gogical system to provide for these three basic needs. To do this, we should realize the uselessness of an accumulation ot tacts when there is no ability to interpret them, the futility of technical skills when there is no capability l'or judgment and reflection. There should be a wide range ot courses and methods adapted to pupils of varied interests and widely differing' capabilities. Through- out the system should be emphasized the development of character and person- ality. Fully to accomplish these aims, it may be necessary to provide public schools for the college age. Teachers should be trained intensively in psychology, so that no genius or talent will go undiscovered, and, on the other hand, no one, no matter how poorly endowed. he unable to find a place in the world or to contribute something to it. Never, in the course of their training, should the physical welfare ot our young citizens be neglected. Each should be taught to carry himself well, to eat sensibly, and to rest sufficiently to offset the strain of modern lite. The nervous breakdown, the mental derangement of an over-ambitious student should become an unknown thing in schools and colleges. The reverse should be equally true. The far more frequent lazy and indiiterent pupil should be aroused to intellectual curiosity and activity, to industry and alertness. The field of our generation 's responsibilities is limitless. I have touched merely the surface of a few of them. Assuming' sufticient knowledge and jiulg- ment to do so, I realize that it would be an impossible task for me to discuss, even to mention, all our national and international problems. I know that not by our generation, nor even by the next, nor the next, will society he made perfect. Each age can only do its best to bring about some degree of improve- ment. High and threatening, our problems loom before us, but we must not shy away like poorly trained horses. Already, we have had practice in clearing easy hurdles, and as we approach the greatest difficulties of our time, every iota of our previous training can and should be utilized to the utmost. But it will be entirely up to us individually, whether we approach the barriers with enthu- siasm and determination to make the best possible record, or whether we turn back and try to sidle around them. Shall we allow a black horse to surpass us, or shall We clear our fiery bars '? Anna-Betty Clark. i932 W

Page 31 text:

YEARBUUK wormwood and our self-respect to gall. To reach our goals by destroying the goals of others will prove a disappointment, we can not climb to our star on the dead dreams of our fellows. There have always been many who could not seek their goals. A respect for the lives of others made them confine their own, and only in their dreams could they go to the high places of longing. ltobert Koch, prescribing useless medicine for the tuberculosis of German peasants, could only dream of discov- ering the bacillus of the disease, until he was able to leave his little practice and go to Berlin. The painter Gaugin must have been dreaming strange dreams of color and light and form when middle age found him still a stoekbroker, and Ulysses Grant, poor and pitied by his relatives, may have been dreaming ot' Appomattox as he tried to earn a living. These men eventually untied or broke through the knots that held them from pursuing their goals, but others have remained tied all their lives. VVe do not hear of these others. lVe do not. seeing them reaeh their goals, look back and mark the paths they took. XVe are not aware that they even have goals. Occasionally we realize that some person we always thought of as ordinary and unimaginative is eating lns heart out because family ties prevent him from sailing to some strange, sparsely-lettered country on the map he studies nightly. Occasionally we learn that poverty is keeping a young man from studying medicine though he dreams of serums and breath-taking operations. Occasionally an imagination like Thomas Gray's can find Minute, inglorious Miltonsn in country churehyards. But most of the time we assume that those who live ordinarily are thinking ordinarily and can not understand our high aspirations. The pity of it is that they can understand themg they sometimes understand them better than we. Our goals seem perhaps more desirable to them because they ca11 not even start toward them. And yet they sometimes achieve goals that we never even dream of. The self-sacrifice that keeps them from seeking their earlier goals leads them often to a height where they can look down on even the stars we climb to. Parents know this well, and many of them, unable to climb to the goals they marked in youth, Hnd, in watching their children climb, a different goal and a better one. And those that lack this consolation are still not greatly to be pitied, for, in spite of all their thwarted hopes and their dreams that never reaeh reality, they still do have their goals. They still have their upward-lookings, and their strivings, however circumscribed, still are there. The ones we should pity rather are those very few who look always at the ground and never long, even hopelessly, for the heights. We can afford to pity them, for we have goals. Like Tennyson Ulysses, whose purpose was To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of the western starsfl we can say, It may be that the gulfs will wash us down. We may, in fact, get no nearer to our goals than the first faint strivings and the constant dreams, but we shall, at least, look upward. Catherine Hartnett. l932 29