Radcliffe College - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

Page 15 text:

Baccalaureate Address 5 X S last the interest fades and the dull vacant look reappears. The mind which is stirred only after this fashion becomes a junk shop, filled with the most varied assortment of trash. No curious and venture- some magpie could gain a more strange assortment of old bones and fancy feathers and useless toys! It would be a shocking and pa- thetic sight to have the contents of the mind of the average man to-day voided here on the floor before you! What is the remedy for this? The only adequate remedy is the baptism of fire! There is in the mind of every man the possibility of turning on power. When you are training a man to know some- thing, the power is what we call interest. If you cannot connect interest with what you tell him, your work is vain. In the edu- cation that trains men to do things,-and indeed in all true edu- cation, -the power is a controlling purpose. If a man has one great center of interest, one over-mastering purpose, it unifies his whole mind and brings every fact of knowledge into relation with it. As in a recent novel, it may be that a man's controlling purpose is the success of a patent medicine. At once the world is changed,-all facts gather about this center, every man is interesting as a possible patientg every locality, every form of art and literature, suggests opportunities of advertising his remedy! I-lis life, his intelligence. goes tingling out on a thousand live wires of intcrcstg he is a part of all that he sees, and all is a part of his plan! The educated man must have a purpose to coordinate his knowledge- the higher and truer the purpose, the more real is his education and culture. Christ gave to every man whom lle taught one over-mastering purpose which made the whole world of interest and every man in it: it connected them vitaly witi the whole system of human knowl- edge! 'l'hat purpose in its simplest form was expressed in llis word, Follow me! ln its 'argest signiticance it was to trans- form and redeem the word. That little group caught llis spirit.- they were baptized with tire: ttey went out to conquer the world. to storm the gates of hel: no deed was too small to he of worth. no obstacle too great to attack. 'l'hey became educated lmecause all life hecame signilicant! hey imecame educators because they gave a new and higher interpretation to all life. This is your end! This Christ will do for you! lie will give you a purpose, -a great over- masteriug purpose that will donnnate your lite! 'l'hen whether you darn stockings or write poetry. whether you stay at li--me to do the household chores or get to the foreign tielfl. every smallest ac! and word is signitieant! lt is all a part of the great vocation! ln every deed you hear llis call. lfollow me! lhat great purpose 9

Page 14 text:

Baccalaureate Address f gf e 3 no normal human being could possibly like, because they have been told they ought to do so. They read books which are absolutely dull and uninteresting and tell every one how charming they are, because some literary person has admired them. They turn from some other book, that has struck into the very most vital roots of life, with horror, because some conventional person has raised his evebrows at it. Such educated folk become very clever. Thereare ciertain so-called canons of good taste or classicism which they have at their tongue's end. If a thing conforms, they know it 1n at mo- ment and call it admirable and wonderful,-if it does not, it is declared hopeless. They do not realize that what they enjoy is their own cleverness in applying the standard and not any worth in the thing itself. A Modern education is swinging away from the enforcement of conformity to the opposite extreme of individualism,-you must not force a man to learn anything, it says, his feelings must be his guideg let him follow his bent. They forget that the first steps in any new branch of knowledge are dull and hard and must be enforced by artificial stimulus until interest awakes. Very few enjoy five-finger exercises in any branch of knowledge, aft-er they have pounded away for months they acquire the freedom and joy of full self-expression in some great sonata. It is so with every- thing. It is possible that the students of our universities might even be interested in religion if they were compelled to listen to enough of it to find out what it was like! The elective system has its great dangers, from the kindergarten period up through that of the university. The young woman of to-day says to her professor, Interest me, or I Won't listen 5 the public says to the ne-wspaper, Excite me, or I won't read g the congregation says to the minis- ter, Move me, or I won't come l There is no disposition to do the hard, faithful work that is requisite to true education. We find certain universities engaging tuto-rs to pro-be into the mind of de- linquent and uninterested scholars for some evidence of intelligence and interest in something with which he can connect the studies of his department. The self within is a network ofninterests and de- sires, like a mesh of live wires. I cannot tell what your self,-that is to say, what your interests are. If I am. speaking to you, I have to probe around with various illustrations to discover. You may be interested in beetles, or postage stamps, or babies, or foreign mis- sions. You sit there, dully thinking about catching the trolley car for.home, until in some way the teacher strikes a vital interest,- a live wire,-then the eyes brighten and you look alive, until at 8

Page 16 text:

Baccalaureate Address was to irzinsiorin the world into the Kingdom of God. Wotild that e'.'erj.' one might receive the baptism of fire, might be filled with the pa-sion uf Christ! b la-sus not only taught people to do something,-He taught tht-ni lu he something! 'lihere are two ways of being something. Une is lu sei before you an ideal and laboriously to try to build up the virtues necessary to it and cut out the vices that impede it. This is slow and hard. Jesus did not do this. He did not say to men. You ought to be good. You must cultivate this virtue to- day :uid the next to-morrow. You must get rid of this fault now and the other next week! He said, Your sins are forgiven. You :ire Gods child. Go in peace and sin no more. He did not tell them they ought to be something. He made them feel they were something! XfVhen they felt it they were it! This is faithg this is the new birth. l-le will send you out into the world with that conviction in your hearts! Now are we the children of God, -- to rejoice in tribulation, to triumph over injustice, to be brave and glad and true. Come, then, to Him, that at His touch you may feel the sweeping and rushing of the mighty wind upon your heart, the kindling of the tongues of flame upon your mind,-and go forth in the high consciousness that you are the children of God, with one great purpose in your hearts,-to follow Christ and to transform the world into the Kingdom of God! JOHN HOPKINS DENISON. 10 e