Boston College - Sub Turri Yearbook (Boston, MA)

Page 20 text:

REV. JOHN BAPST, S.J. First President and a Challenge Gasson, Bapst, Fulton, Devlin, Lyons. These are the men who fashioned Boston College, who put the imprint of their own character upon the institution and upon us. They are the men whose ideas and convictions form a large part of our heritage, and whose courage, determina- tion, and dedication are to us a challenge. For just as they shaped and molded and gave form and meaning to the tradition which was theirs, so too must we make of the tradition which they have passed on to us a living thing, a body of ideas and ideals which is different and better for having been communicated by us. We must, following their example, firmly stamp the tradi- tion of today with the enduring mark of our own char- acter. This is a process that encompasses a man ' s whole life and work, and the extent to which he succeeds is a true and accurate yardstick of his greatness. Gasson, Bapst, Fulton, Devlin, and Lyons gave themselves wholly to this task, and their success and greatness is fittingly cele- brated in the monuments which constitute the university they fashioned. Our own molding of the traditions passed on by these men began the day we entered Boston College, and it will continue through the rest of our lives. The success with which we have begun this task can be measured by our accomplishments as we know them and as they are set forth in this book. We have established no monuments. The challenge of our heritage still awaits us. REV. CHARLES W. LYONS, S.J. Fourteenth President

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A Heritage Boston College is today the sum total of all that it has been in the past. It is what we have made it and what all who have preceded us have made it. For in passing through the gates and halls of this university we have not only drawn upon the traditions of its past but we have communicated these traditions to the future. And in doing so we have left behind something of ourselves. This is the great exchange known as education. But the participation of all in this exchange is not equal. There are some who, not content merely to inherit and continue the tradition, strive to put their own mark firmly upon it. In our own context there have been men whose influence is unmistakable, men who inherited the Western tradition, the Christian tradition, and the Jesuit tradition, and made of them something more than they were. These were the men who, through the force and energy of their own characters and intellects, shaped their tradi- tion into something other than it was, added to it, and gave it an effectiveness, a poignancy, and an actuality that it did not previously possess. They grasped the tradition which they inherited and of it they created Boston College. The accomplishments of these men will not be soon forgotten. For, in giving generously of themselves to the heritage which they passed on, they left on this university and on us, its students, a mark that will long remain — a mark that is as firm and as enduring as the very stones of the buildings which symbolize their achievements.

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REV. WILLIAM DEVLIN, S.J. Fifteenth President REV. THOMAS I. GASSON, S.J. Thirteenth President REV. ROBERT FULTON, S.J Third President