Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts - Mohawk Yearbook (North Adams, MA)

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In September we picked up our loose ends and continued along the way, As sophomores, we made a name for ourselves in various ways -- the award-winning stunt night which proved the value of cooperation, our part in Candlelight, and our star performers in H,M, S, Pina- fore. We had a great basketball team that year, one which was soon to win us the coveted Conference championship, A healthy spirit showed itself in our class, as in the entire college, We looked forward anxiously to the promise offered by the prospect of professional training soon to be upon us, Yes, it was only last year when we laid aside personalities as much as possible and em- barked on the adventure of learning how to be worthy members of our profession, Methods of teaching were our subject matter, the practice of teaching our evernearing goal, With a basket- ball pennant to the credit of the college and a great deal of pride in ourselves, we penned the finis of another chapter in our college career, This last year -- the final step of the terraces -- now faced us, We found a new thing in our senior year, the realization that we are more than just individuals, that we are a part of a whole, More unified than ever before in our ideals, we were forced to accept the prospect of losing some of our members to the service of our country, A new sobriety overshadowed us in our work as the world trembled with the threat of an international crisis, We found ourselves about to be faced with a decision and a greater challenge than ever before, As individuals to the last, we found ourselves asking the unanswerable -- what to do now? lf dreams conflicted with realities in an attempt to find an answer, again came our willing guides to help us find ourselves in the world, We close our book of reminiscence now, and each of us has many notes in the margin, Each time we travel the road again, it will be with more joy because of what we have earned and accomplished, Four years have gone by, but not Without dividends for the unsatisfied curi- osity ofa group whom Ishall call the pioneers of 1951, Mary Provencher 25

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CAM Mdfor From the cave of ignorance we have travelled upward toward the light, our eyes were dazzled. Now we gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven . . . and when we remember our old habitation and the wisdom of the den and our fellow-prisoners, we felicitate ourselves on the changes, and pity them, Plato booking back over the terraces . . Can it be that these men and women who are to don their caps and gowns today are the same group who in September, 1947, entered the doors of S,T, C, 2 The fusion which has grad- ually been taking place from that day to this incorporates a multi-faceted set of experiences, I deny that reminiscence is for old age alone, Let us together peer back over the road we have traveled, making a mental addition here and there for those personal enrichments which came our way, From that first day on which we set out on our college career, through the four some- times gay, sometimes serious years, we have left the impression, wherever we have brushed, of skepticism and disturbance, with the bestowal of degrees on our commencement day, we de- part as the last of the conquerors -- the group which even in its eventual obscurity in the field of the world will be remembered here, We have been stubborn, but dynamicg we have been naive, but honest, We shall look back on those who helped us along the road with a unani- mous vote of thanks for their patience and understanding, for their revealing to us the light of truth that we may seek after it always, As freshmen, we were the usual disconcerting melee of faces, but as we grew in knowl- edge of each other through such ftuictions as our well-remembered reception, the exhausting trek to Greylock, the exposure to a new type of teaching and new subject matter, which con- fused us all alike and together, our individualism emerged and was destined to live a long life, That first year was quickly put behind us, Groups and fond couples had about the campus, and reluctant adieus were said until the summer recess should be over, 24

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CAP AND GOWN DAY SPEECH The members of the graduating class extend their heart-felt thanks to you, the junior class, for the honor you have accorded us this day. We shall always remember this day as a significant link in a life-long chain of educative ex- periencesg a link welding the academic past to the pedagogical future. For some of us, this chain will be extended in a continuous series of applications of those ideals, methods and principles of free thought and free expression which we have learned and excercised here. These things are not only an integral part of our teaching, but lie among the foundation stones of democracy, So, as teachers, our duty is clear. We must establish these democratic principles in the thinking of those learners to whom we have dedicated our lives. Only by remembering this can we insure that each link in our chain of experience is as strong as those which preceed it. At this college we have made friendships, made contacts, and have tried to demonstrate that spirit which makes for the successful, mature adult. These vestments we don today are emblematic of the wisdom, skills and values we have learned and adopted here, and remind us that this day is not the end of our learning, but merely the completion of a stage of development, demanding intro- duction to the next level, So with clear vision of our function in the world community, and backed by the courage of our convictions, we, the graduating class of I95I, by the very act of donning these scholarly robes, ac- cept our self -appointed task of helping to educate a troubled world. Franklin Y. Smith 26