Annie Wright School - Shield Yearbook (Tacoma, WA)

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THE HVAK. 7 in learning and manners, and by helping in many ways to set forward its interests and its welfare. The only sad thing about it is that it has made the year go by all too swiftly, until now it is all but gone, and much as we would like to hold you fast and keep you here longer, we must give you the rewards which shall be the outward and visible signs of the completion of your course and then let you go with our love and blessing. Here are the rewards ready and waiting, but I must tax your patience a little longer as I proceed with the Bishop’s address, which address, as 1 must forewarn you. will be directly to you. and only incidentally to the others gathered here. I want to dwell a little on some of the lessons of your class motto, lessons which I venture to hope may go with you as you leave this school, to serve both as reminder and incentive in the life before you. Hold fast the good. First, let me help you to gather up some of the good things which have come to you here, the good things which will remain if you will but hold them fast. The list is quite a long one, and I may not go through it all, but certainly it must begin with your study. Your chief purpose in coming here was to learn and that purpose has been kept constantly before you as chief. Each school day has brought with it its part in the carrying out of this purpose. As the foundation of learning you have had to fix in your minds certain facts,— the facts of literature, mathematics, history, music, and the rest. Then you have had to place one fact by the side of another fact, to discover the bearing of one upon the other, and so you have come to the knowledge of principles. These facts and principles you have now stored up in your minds and memories as good things which shall remain so long as you hold them fast. And this I hope you will certainly try to do, because it is most important that so far as possible we should try to keep some hold upon the separate details of what we have once learned to make us quicker to understand and better to appreciate the glories of nature, the wonders of science, the beauties of literature and the intense interest of history. But suppose we do not, (and who of us does?) retain them all. there is still good remaining when the facts and figures, many of them, have faded from memory, and here comes the next good on the list: Discipline. All the study and the work to which you have grown accustomed here have left behind them a lasting good as they have trained your minds

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6 THE HYAK. of a Christian home-life established more securely, and while there is ample ground for the hope that many more good years are to follow, still we are loath to part with this. We would gladly hold fast the good. 1 hen again we would like to hold fast in the sense of keeping with us, this good class of 1906. If there were not so many graduates of recent years here this morning, I don’t know but what I might be tempted to call it the best class the Seminary has had. If T did so I hope no one would accuse me of fickleness. You know it is always the custom to speak of the last as the best, — and then there are the records to prove that this is cer- tainly the largest class which, up to the present, has graduated. They can truly say, ‘We are seventeen.’ And the best that any class of previous years has been able to say is ‘ We are eleven. ’ Of course, I am well aware that it is not quantity alone which counts. And if you will insist upon quality being taken into the account. I am quite ready to go on with the case. The only quality that counts here, of course, is that which shows itself in hearty co-operation with the aim and purpose of this school, and in influence upon its life and work. The record cf the Class of 1906 is made, — and the verdict of those who Are in position to know is that for the kind of quality I have named, it stands facile prin- cej)s. I put it in Latin for the reason that perhaps it may be easier to take that way. The fact is that in the history ' of every iastitution of learning there are always the ‘famous classes.’ In the good old Yale days we used to hear - great deal about the ‘famous class of ’53.’ So the record stood until ’80 came along and moved the peg up a notch. I stopped counting then, but I doubt not, there are others by this time. The point I want to emphasize is that it is so and that it is well that it is so. Not only is it a mark of progress, but a mark of promise as well, as it gives an incentive to those who come after not only to equal but to excel those who have gone before. My dear girls, you at least, will believe me when I tell you that the Class of 1906 is the ‘famous’ class in the history of the Seminary. You have placed a high mark here by the work you have done, and the influence you have wielded. You have helped in no small part to make the year good by the hearty way in which you have entered into all that has made up the life of this school, by the willing acceptance of its discipline both

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8 THE HYAK. to think, your hearts to love and your wills to do. From the standpoint o experience I can tell you that you will appreciate this more and more when you are face to face with the real problems of life. I suppose that it often occurs to us older ones as we think back upon our school days— par- ticularly if we happen to come across some old and faded examination paper carefully folded in some old memory hook, to ask ourselves the ques- tion, hat good did I get out of all that, seeing that I cannot answer one of the questions now?” And there is always a sure answer. If I was able once to pass that examination, it has certainly fitted me for many a harder ' xan »nation since, and trained me for my work in life. I frankly confess that I am old fashioned enough to have little use for the merely utilitarian theory of learning which would measure every study by its market value— what it can earn in the world’s mart only. If that theory ever becomes the prevailing one-then all I can say is-good-bye culture, and farewell to some of the keenest joys and happiest hours which life can bring. The trained ear can hear the echoes of sweetest harmonies long after skillful fingers have lost their cunning to produce them,— and so the trained mind can retain and continue to enjoy the pleasures which early reading and study have made possible,— even though these may never have added in the least to material wealth. But discipline in its turn leads on to another good, -which is equally worth holding fast : Habit. The habit of right thinking, of careful, pains- taking investigation, of adding little by little to the real equipment of mind and memory. For habit in its turn is the make-up of character, and this is the real and lasting test of true worth. If the time spent and the work done here in this school have not helped to mould and shape char- acter in you, then it must be confessed that this school has been a failure so far as you are concerned. I am glad to believe, and to know, in fact, that it has been otherwise, -that it has been the means in more ways than one of giving you that which is beyond all else of lasting value. Slowly, quietly, imperceptibly many influences have combined to accomplish the result. Your books, this school room, your association with each other, and with your fellow-students, all and each have had their part. Part of it you have accomplished of yourselves. Cl imbing the hill of knowledge is not an inapt figure of school life. It is made up of duties rising ever