Elizabethtown College - Conestogan / Etonian Yearbook (Elizabethtown, PA)

Page 19 text:

Governor Duff addregttiiiy conrocuiion midience The Charter Day audience President Baugher conferring an honorary degree on Governor Duff

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Charter Day The academic procession, the attentive audience, the inspiring address by Governor James H. Duff, the conferring of the honorary degree — Uiis was Charier Day 1949. Men and women attending the first Charter Day here again — reminiscing, evaluating, anticipating. Faculty, alumni, students, and friends joined together in com- memorating the ending of a half-century of progress — and a beginning. Before the convocation program: L. to R., Dean H. G. Buctier, Dr. R. P. Bucher, Gov. James H. Duff, Dr. William Free- man, Pres. A. C. Baup;lipr. and Dr. Paul H. Bowman.

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By the Fiftieth Year At tlie turn of this century the founders of Elizabetlitown College could look back on a period of progress unparalleled in history. The passing of the frontier and the advance of technological progress were fresh in their minds. With hope and assurance they could look forward into our century be- lieving that at last man was about to realize the Utopia about which he had dreamed so long. However, from our vantage point we know that their aspirations were cut short by two world wars between which an economic recession of drastic proportions occurred. By the fiftieth year our backward look presents a different scene from theirs. It is shadowed by conflict and despair. Our technological progress is still advancing at an unprecedented rate. In 1945 we entered the atomic age. But instead of viewing the future with hope and assurance, we face it with the fear that we may exterminate our civilization by the very forces that are capable of leading us into a glorious tomorrow. By this fiftieth year the geographical frontiers have largely disappeared. But the spiritual and moral frontiers remain to be conquered. We, the Class of 1950, will to a degree determine the nature of the next half century. We are challenged to be the moral pioneers of tomorrow. The atomic age must have spiritual guidance and direction if we are to be saved. May Elizabethtown College conliiuie to fulfill her responsibility of educating for service. Then those who reach the threshold of the next century may look back upon ours, not as the Atomic Century, or the Rus- sian Century or the American Century, but as Everybody ' s Century because it produced disciples of that spiritual trail-blazer who said: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inlicril Ihc rarlii. ' 16