Academy of Mount Saint Vincent - Chastellux Yearbook (Tuxedo Park, NY)

Page 116 text:

FATHER-DAUGHTER LUNCHEON The annual function which receives the best support and is most eagerly anticipated is the Father-Daughter Luncheon held in February. This year, with Mr. Clate Malleson .. President of the Club Mr. Frank Scafuro . . . Chairman of the Luncheon Mr. Melvin Holmes . . Chairman of the Fund-Raising and Mr. Jim Ameche .... Chairman of the Entertainment for the Luncheon it was again an unqualified success. His Excellency, Most Reverend Amelio Fernandes Coadjutor Archbishop of New Delhi, gave a talk on certain phases and effects of the Ecumenical Council which his listeners described as magnificent' 'challenging brilliant'

Page 118 text:

DR. ALBERT SCHWEITZER When Dr. Albert Schweitzer died in September 1965 he had acquired a world-wide reputation as a physician, musician, musicologist, philosopher, theologian and scripture scholar. His commitments were as deep as his involvements were far-reaching, and there was an intertwining of the two which made both characteristically his own. He had a moral as well as a medical mission, and he would wish to be remembered, not for his hospital, his leper villages, his services to men and animals, his music or his books, but rather for his philosophy . . . and the basis of his philosophy was reverence for life. Ehrfurcht is inadequately translated as reverence. It needs two English words: respect and awe. Respect for the other person and his will to live, and awe at his unknowable- ness and that of the universe. This unique man involved himself in the lives of others, trying to impress upon them the importance of developing ideals that life and its trials can never lower. No man is ever completely and permanently a stranger to his fellowman, for man belongs to man, has claims on him and is committed to him. Our first obligations are to ourselves, but Dr. Schweitzer would have us go one step farther and see others as alter egos. In doing this we find new significance in all the world about us, including our own being. Dr. Schweitzer felt that hope for mankind is renewed each time we see a person deeply involved in the struggle of life, helping and committing himself to another person. A string of medical clinics in the Cameroons, a Japanese orphanage, a South American hospital started by a young German, Tom Dooley's hospital in Laos, the work done by Larimer and Gwen Mellon in Haiti—all are the result of an inspiration given by Dr. Schweitzer, or have been given added impetus because of such an inspiration. In explaining his interpretation of reverence for life Dr. Schweitzer insisted that this demands from all that they should sacrifice a portion of their own life for others. In iis copy of Homer's Odyssey, he underlined a passage that says that guests should work, for thereby they become part of the household. Work introduces the stranger to the commu- nity, and in participating he becomes a friend. It seemed to us appropriate to choose Dr. Schweitzer to introduce our contributors—these guests who have become members of the household of the Academy, these strangers who have become its friends. Joan Holmes '66