Annie Wright School - Shield Yearbook (Tacoma, WA)

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THE HYAK. 9 higher and higher, and each new height gained brings strength and cour- age to try the next,— exemplifying this school motto which has been held up constantly before you— ‘from strength to strength Nor must I overlook the influence which your teachers have had upon you. Some how I love that old prophecy of Isaiah, ‘Thine eyes shall see thy teachers. ’ How constantly it is being fulfilled! I look back over my own school days and even in this far away distance I .seem to see some of my teachers now better than I saw them then, as I realize how first this one and then that one changed the whole trend and purpose of my life. Some such pleasant experience, I doubt not, will yet be yours. Another good, I am sure you will want to hold fast is the ‘good times’ and the pleasures you have had here. I needn’t take the time to recount them, for they are fresh in your memories. And then there are the friend- ships which you have formed, which, if your experience is at all like mine, I can tell you will continue to remain, for I am convinced that there are no friendships more enduring than some of those we form in school days. I am glad today that it has been part of your life here to establish the little Sorority, and that you can hand it on to those who come after you, I trust for many years. It’s one aim has been to bind you all to each other in a closer tie. Owing to the misfortune of birth which made me a f rater in- stead of a soror , I was not eligible even to honorary membership, but you have been good enough to let me far enough into your secrets to know how well it has already fulfilled its purpose. One more ‘good’ I want you to hold fast is this school itself, — your first Alma Mater, she will still continue to hold fast to you, and to follow you with loving interest. And you in your turn ought to hold her in lov- ing remembrance, and return again and again to the old home roof— to keep fresh your youth as you catch again its spirit and its influence. But the good which you are to hold fast is not only that which comes by way of reminder,— but also that which shall act as an incentive to still further high thinking and high doing in the life which awaits you beyond these walls. And as I think of your class motto in this light, I must tell you first of all that this holding fast to which it bids you does not mean that you are to stop where you are, but rather in the truest sense of the words it is a call to action. I sincerely trust that this Seminary will never gain the reputa

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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

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10 THE HYAK. lion of being one of those I have sometimes heard called ‘Finishing Schools because they are supposed to put a little veneer and a little polish, and so make ready for appearance in society. I hope this school will always remain what it is now, a fitting or better still a training school where girls are trained to take a real part in the ac- tivities of life,— in advanced schools of learning, in the home, in society, in the church, in short in every place where their lot may be cast. Life is altogether too great a gift to be frittered away in aimless drifting with the crowd, or in shallow dawdling with accepted conventionalities. The world s work is to be done, and every one has his and her part to do and the place to do it in. Every opportunity that comes to us, and every ad- vantage we enjoy only adds so much to responsibility. I love to recall that splendid saying of Phillips Brooks which contains so much of the true philosophy of life, — that ‘The highest function of our humanity is to stand between the highest truth and the needs of our fellow- men and so to transmit the one as that it shall reach and help the other. After all it is only another way of stating the great law of influence to which we are all subject either for good or for ill. We cannot live our lives separate and apart from one another. Hold fast the good then in such way that your influence may be ever for the good, — and that when your work is done, you may leave the world a little better than you found it. It is not too high an ideal for any one of you to have, and it matters not where your place may be. If your class prophecy comes true, as I hope it may, even to the one who repented not at the eleventh hour, but at the twentieth vear, you are all to be married and have happy homes filled with children. I could not wish you a greater joy, nor a better sphere of influence, for such homes, so blessed, are the strongest safeguards and the bravest bulwarks which this beloved land of ours has today. Yet another counsel I would give you, when I bid you as you take ‘the paths of tomorow ' and follow them through life, keep both your eyes and your ears open to the good and shut to the evil which are both all about you. There will be many voices to tell you that the evil outnumbers the good,— for there are always pessimists in abundance, and the best definition of a pessimist I ever heard is ‘one who of two evils always chooses both Perhaps that is why in their eyes they always seem to outnumber the good.