Bennett High School - Beacon Yearbook (Buffalo, NY)

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Mr. Rhodes Valedictory to the Class of 1929 And so you have completed your four years' course and are about to be g1'aduated. I congratulate you. You have again proved the validity of the law of the survival of the ittest. I congratulate you because you have survived, and because you are the first school generation at Bennett High School, and because you are the largest class ever to be graduated from any Buffalo high school at one time. These commencement times make us all very thoughtful, as they should. It would be most interesting to try to read your horoscope and learn what your futures, individually, are going to be. I am going to ask you to do your own thinking about your futures and to base your thinking upon what you have already accomplished. What you have accomplished, the habits you have formed, the attitudes you have acquired, and the characters you have developed-all these-will determine what your futures will be. Of course, new influences will enter your lives, new conditions will color your environments, new experiences will become your teachers. Some of the lessons they impart will be tragic. Yet, what you are now, consciously and unconsciously, constitutes the essential you, the you that is going to master your lives, if you have already caught the secrets of mastery here at school. If I cannot tell what you will be, I can express my sincearest hopes for you. May you all find yourselves very soon, for the finding comes harder as the years advance, may your years at Bennett make the rest of your lives richer in the things that really ccunt, in those qualities which are enduring, which enable you to take charge of your own lives wisely and well, may you accept the truth that life must be conceived as growth, as continuous progress toward ever advancing ideals. May you always scorn mediocrity and the too easy satisfactions which grow out of it. May you ,remember that the best things cost most and that cheap things are for the most part worthless. The soul is dead that sleepethf' Keep vitally alive in your spirits, prove your worth by your ways of living. Let each forward step be taken with growing assurance, knowing that you are on the way to something great. Learn to function so fully that you are always preparing for better things in larger spheres. Keep growing. Keep learning. Let courage be yours to meet all occasions. Find your highest joy in keeping your ideals alive and in keeping young in spirit. Live. Really live. So live as to show how fine a thing life may be. Keep moving. But remember that progress must sometimes be slow. It is only stopping that should discourage you. Keep moving even though your pace slackens and the climbing is hard. Remember that We build the ladder by which we rise From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, And we mount to its summit round by round. Farewell, Class of 1929. And may God bless you one and all. Most cordially, exam 65251-'f?4,44,

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CHARLES ELBERT RHODES

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i q,i 'Miss ELLIOTT nhggxn k--,-ef.. .4-,. .A . .,, A 1 r Sf12l91J?0Y?lH0m?.R901?3 Teacher MRS. WILKINSON Dean of Girls and Senior Girls' Home Room Teacher