Hudson High School - True Blue Yearbook (Hudson, WI)

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4 to liis tutor and asked for an education. His instructor replied, “Your Honor, there is no royal road to learn- ing.” This is the reply the ages have made to every in- dolent searcher after truth. The road the scholar must take, is not only difficult to travel but it is long. I hope you, my hearers, have taken this road for life. You should remember that the acquiring of the great things of life is usually a slow pro- cess. The secret of the impatience that is too often man- ifest in the acquiring of knowledge is often the low pur- pose to which it is consecrated If your acquiring of knowledge is to the end that you may undo your fellow then you are likely to become impatient for there will be many to undo. But if on the other hand you make it your business in life not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of yourself, life will have a holy rivalry that is wholesome for the soul. This impatience sometimes springs from a worthy, tho hasty, desire to engage in the world’s work, before the student days are numbered. Great numbers of stu- dents cherish a childish conceit that they are needed in the great endeavors of life and therefore must hasten from the school or college. Still others there are, who, for some reason have not advanced as rapidly as they think they should, and for this falacious reason entirely neglect their scholastic efforts. They do themselves great injustice. Eternity is long and the Schools of Immortality will never close. There we will push aside the veil of physical science and look beyond the path of the Milky way, beyond the gray matter of the brain cell and beyond the prophecies and promises of a new earth, into the immeasurable things beyond. The third enemy is Intemperance. Not merely the intemperance of the inebriate, but that of the broader nature, that is the parent of all ethers. Dissipation, which in the scholar takes the form of exhausted physical energy. Many students have fail- ed to win intellectual honors or even to make a reason- able success in life because of the dissipation of physi- cal energy. The storehouse from the mind draws in en- ervating powers must be kept replenished. The stu- dent that dissipates his or her energies by the keeping of long or late hours, for the enjoyment of the intoxi- cant, either in the form of alcohol, tobacco or opiate will at some time find the oil of life giving out and others will note that the once brilliant intellect is suffering an eclipse from which it will never be released. There is another form of intemperance that is far too prevalent in this age of books. That is the practice of congesting the mind with matter that is totally irrevelant to the

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3 ular cause, and made sacrifices that will not need to he made again. Men, who willed all good things, and in the execution of that will'gave themselves. Recounting these endowments of Time, Institutions and Examples that posterity has laid at the feet of our youth, 1 think we can see something of the importance of the battles we are supposed to win in the Individual before it became so largely obligated with the responsi- bilities of life. I said that the individual was a compact, and now, in order that we may more plainly see the nature of this compact, I call attention to the units of which it is com- posed, and the nature of the battles to be fought in or- der to possess mastery. The mastery of the Mind. The man who knows, walks with a firm and stead step, and with a calm and patient heart to the duties of life. Have you in your rapid passage through some darkened hallway sud- denly come upon someone slowly groping his way? This was the man who didn’t know. If this man was aspir- ing for congress he would have one chance in 240; if for the senate, one in 345; if for the presidency, one in 487, if for the Supreme bench, one in 547. Daniel Web- ster once said, “Mind is the great lever of all things. This is evident from the pull of life.” To beat back ignorance is an easy task. Emerson asks “What is the hardest task in the world?” And he answers, “To think.” It is harder than facing far flung battle lines, and dying for one’s country, “unhonor- ed and unsung”. For could lie think clearly he would find ample reason for sheathing the sword. And thus it is with every hard problem of life, the training and mastery of the powers of thought is the solving of all the other problems, therefore the greatest. But the mastery of the mind does not mean the ac- quisition of all of the facts of life; but rather the powers to acquire. The things one learns in school are not the valuable asset of schooling; but rather the ability one gains to think. The power to think has a mastery over facts that marshals them for the fray of life. And the greater this power of the mind, the greater will be the number of facts it can summon to its aid. There are three great enemies of which I wish to speak briefly, one of which, usually besets the path of the scholar’s life. The first in order of importance is Indolence. More students fail to become scholars for want of ambition than for want of brains. A lazy man never became a scholar. The great intelligences of the ages have without exception been prodigious work- ers. A certain Prince, who was in the habit of asking for what he wished and getting what he asked for came

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“Among the Breaker ,” May fi, ’OS, under uuspiee of A thiatio As oolntlon