Johnson C Smith University - Golden Bull Yearbook (Charlotte, NC)

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THE SENIORS OF ' 48 Another milestone has been reached in your career. Many of the hopes and dreams that you have held dear for the past four years are beginning to (ipen up into new avenues. In a few days vou will be leaving the walls of this institution to go out into a world that needs you. A world that needs you to help reclaim it from its war torn thoughts and ideas and to rebuild it for stronger character and greater womanhood. As vou go out into this new avenue. may you render to your felluwmen the services that have been rendered to you. Many responsibilities will come and these must be met with courage, honesty, and faith. Regard it as your dutv to reclaim vour unfortunate brother and sister and set their destiny aright. The challenge is greater today than e er before. The world has under- gone many changes but the standard of character and womanhood have never changed. It is left to each individual to ee that they remain so. As you go forth into the fields of Hie, mav a major purpose be to serve wherever you are and to lift as you climb. Very sincerely vours. C. L. Ramseur, Dean of Women Dear Seniors; That vou will soon depart from these classic walls of Johnson C. Smith University gives me reason to write you this message. I hope that your lives have been enriched in all knowledge and wisdom and that you will go forth out ..f school-life into life ' s school girded for the strife. The poet Browning onct life ' s struggles with culturt studied to equip vour min ha ' e made a good iob of said, Man should be equipped for of the mind. Four years you have for life ' s struggles. ' I believe vou and I reioice with you because of your attain although others t. We shall greatly miss yoi take your vacant seats. I need not tell you and embittered. Not apart ad II. for are now grappling [ into which you are going s hatred in its vilest for; ?s that fought together in cause of deinocrac ' , ha t each other ' s throats. The world ' s economic and social orders have collapsed. Old foundations of civilization that once seemed stable have been heaved and broken. Men and nations are confused and bewildered. Even leaders of the United Nations give us the impression thai they do not know the way. You stand at the crossroads. I ask vou the trite question, where do you go from here? ' No doubt that is a great unanswered Where vou may go I little care, but I am ly concerned that where you go, you will illustrate your lives 1 old life of great meaning once did, whose brief biography David served his own ange the sentence. Put e for his, and make it leration by the will j)f arized in ' Holv Writ. I quote bv the will of God. Let us ihe personal pronoun J for David, and more personal, I will serve mine own God. That is n o, I pa To redeem this s itself into, the .rid fr the vful of peace with great so II go forth and interpret great uprising of young col ne missionaries, prophets, , ethical, and spiritual nut facts of our day and genera attention and folluwinu of better university in sending her radiant rays of scholarship, cha acter, and goodwill into every nook and corner of the world, i Christianize the impact of our western civilization upon a noi christian world. You are challenged to apply the principles of righteousness i economic and social order. Dr. Robert E. Speers, a great missionary, tells of an inscription he read on the walls of a little Toaist Temple high on a hill above a city in China, where there is an earnest beseeching there will be a sure reply. As I write my last and only message to you, that inscription becomes more real to me. I wonder if you will make a sure and adequate reply to the beseeching of this weeping world. rinally, my fellow students, be strong and courageous. Make ()ur lives fruitful, and when the going gets tough, as it surely will, do not lose faith, but gird your loins a little tighter and make a go of it. Therefore, I entreat vou to accept the challenge by the u-ill of God. Farewell, J. A. Grimes, Dean of Meu. ill of God to Paoe f ' nie

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A SPONSOR Dr. Thomas A. Long Head vj Depiirt)iie)il of Suc ' iolooy PiiS,e Eiiilit

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TO THE SENIORS: I am happv to have this opportunity to greet yo i, the members of the graduating class of 1948. It is quite possible that no other group of young people in history has gone out into a world which demanded as much of them as your world demands of you. The harnessing of atomic energy for destruction has created a world which is surcharged with possibilities. It is a world which either tantalizes man into seeking some escape from the stern realities of life or urges him forward in search of a more promising path to salvation. However, it is yet to be proven that man ' s spiritual resources have been cultivated to the point where he can make the proper use of them in unifying the nations and races of the world under a common ideal great enough to embrace the efforts of all men. Even so, man has seldom, if ever, been faced with the urgency of so comprehensive a need for all of his potentialities to be converted into forces of good with the same genius and effort with which they were developed for destruction. The challenge before you, therefore, is to carry to that world a kind of leadership which will focus the powers of the earth into channels leading to the oneness of humanity, to a higher plane of living, to the relief of human suffering— physical and mental, and to a deeper meaning of life. ' hate ' er contribution you may make to society, you must remember that today as never before, it must be measured in the light of eternity. For the period in which we li%e is not one which belongs to any one age; it is rather, one which will serve as a focal point for determining the future of the human race. With a well-disciplined self, with a keen sense of world relatedness, with an unswerving desire to serve your fellowman, with unfaltering faith in the principles of democracy, and with supreme loyalty to the God of the universe, vou must forever strive for the more abundant life. My congratulations to each one of you. Cordially yours, Moses S. Belton The Members of the Senior Class of ' 48 My dear Members of the Class of ' 48: It is true that, in going forth to find your places in the world, you graduates ha e no experience, but you have an eager, hopeful outlook. It is true that you lack wisdom; but you have boundless courage and a capacity for industry. It is true that you do nut vet know the rules of the game; but you have a firm faith in high ideals. In more than one social order, history shows that the rules of the game have been modified or else completely revised by revolts springing from the fervent idealism of youth. If you have all these gifts to bring to the world, you graduates need not worry about your poverty in the matter of riper gifts. If, during your years of preparation, vou have learned how to work, how to concentrate on difficult problems, how to search for truth, and how to make steadfast friends, the riper gifts will come of themselves, just as soon as you learn to applv the lessons of your college life to the weightier problems of life. You shall learn this lesson faster if vou approach it with becoming humility and with due recognition of your limitations. Once you have mastered it, your capacity fur self-development and service to your fellow men will become a reality, instead of a nebulous dream of your undergraduate days. With every goud wish, I remain Faithfully vuurs, T. L. GuNN, Librarian Page Ten