Alton High School - Tatler Yearbook (Alton, IL)

Page 27 text:

“TH E TAT LER.” 25 a mighty sermon on the value of integrity and sincerity in the lives of Luther, the poor miner’s son. who. through fidelity to God and his convictions, became the founder of Protestantism, and of Wolsey. who gained great power by the sacrifice of his honor and the interests of his God, only to fall miserably “from his high estate.” Hut perhaps history’s favorite lesson is this; that the ridicule, opposition, and cruel injustice of a man’s contemporaries are matters of small moment. She shows us a Socrates in his cell, a Wesley, ridiculed and despised, a Lincoln, maligned and scorned: and then she shows us the names of these “immortal dead” written in letters of gold in the imperishable temple of fame. Thus history proceeds, prophesying, preaching, and teaching men and nations. For, as an eminent teacher has said, “to instruct man bv telling the story of h'.s more serious and valuable experience n the most important spheres of his activity—in politics, war. religion, art. industrial achievement, education, scientific discovery and moral endeavor”—such is the mission of history. Alida C. Bowler. “A man severe he was, and stern to view, I knew him well, and every truant knew; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he. —Mr. Richardson.

Page 26 text:

24 ••Til E tatler: suited from such conditions. For, as Macaulay says, “the violence of these outrages will always be proportioned to the oppression and degradation under which the people have been accustomed to live. Let Russia in her pres- ent state of unrest, heed the warning of history lest she, too, suffer a Reign of Terror. It is to this great instructor, history, that wise statesmen turn in times of perplexity and doubt. When the French formed their first republic they ignored her teachings. Fiercely opposed to any regulation that savored of the old regime, foolishly disregarding the accumulated wisdom of ages, and depending entirely upon their own overestimated abilities, they endeavored to establish a government totally unlike any that had ever existed; they even thought to abolish God and set up in llis temples the Goddess of Reason. The result of their efforts was short lived. But when the convention met to frame a constitution for these United States, the delegates went provided with the experience of the founders of all governments since history began ; and that great document, our constitution, is the product, not of the original genius of our fathers, but of their wisdom in the use of that experience. To question the value of history is to question the value of experience. And just as this great teacher compiles an infinite number of lessons for the instruction of governments, so she furnishes innumerable examples for the guidance of the individual. Literature depicts the lives and deeds of imaginary men and women, draws from them most excellent moral lessons and outlines most beautiful theories. But of what value is even the best of theories without practical demonstration of its truth? History records the lives and deeds of real men. portrays them as they actually existed, points out their chief characteristics, shows how these characteristics led them to success or brought about their downfall, and teaches, as no fiction can teach, the difference l etween right and wrong. It shows us Washington in all the glory of his unselfish devotion to the cause of liberty, winning, by his disinterested ambition for his country, an imperishable name in the annals of history and the love and admiration of all people for all time. It pictures Napoleon in the high light of great military genius, but with a gloomy background of the devastation and distress he caused in order to satisfy that insatiable greed for power which eventually brought about his humiliating captivity and death. What intelligent reader of history can fail to appreciate the distinction between true and false greatness revealed in the characters of these men? Or who can doubt that history preaches

Page 28 text:

 THE T A T LER.” 26 T II E A P O S T L K T O T II E F L O It E N T I N E S . LWAYS in the history of the world, at times of special need, Providence has raised a leader to meet the crises; but the powers of darkness will claim their victim and too often the inspired leader has sealed with his blood his divine mission. Joan of Arc saved France and perished at the stake; Lincoln struck the shackles from the slaves and died at the hands of an assassin; and Savonarola, the apostle to the Florentines, drained to the dregs the bitter draught of the world’s cruelty. Does intellectual training alone tend to elevate men morally? Has art this power? No. History proves only too clearly that moral degradation can exist side by side with keen intellect, exquisite culture and fine artistic sense. Tt was true of Greece, it was true of Rome, it was true of Florence. Picture to yourselves the Florence of the fifteenth century; it was an epoch of marvelous intellectual awakening—the time of Columbus, of Michael Angelo, of Titian, of Raphael. Florence was known as the “mecca of culture,” yet beneath its boasted wealth, art and learning, lay a deep gulf of moral depravity. Villari says, “Artists, men of letters, statesmen, nobles and people were all equally corrupt in mind, devoid of public or private virtue, devoid of all moral sense.” Lorenzo the Magnificent, chief ruler of Florence, was one of the most cultured and brilliant men of all Italy; yet he was a cruel, dishonorable, licentious profligate. Under such a leader, is it wonderful that the pleasure-loving Florentines were so utterly regardless of God and duty and self-restraint? that Florence was a continuous scene of revelry and dissipation? But God called to the city a man who became master of the situation—a man who boldly faced the stupendous evils ot his time and made them ashamed—a pure, whole-souled, strong, courageous, independent, passionate man—Girolamo Savonarola. When first he saw fair Florence, Savonarola was thirty years of age; but no native-born Florentine loved Florence with a more passionate love than did this adopted son; no native-born Florentine sorrowed more deeply over its moral degradation—was more ready to shed his blood for its liberty than was Savonarola.