Bradford Academy - Chimes Yearbook (Haverhill, MA)

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grad ord .J-4n21a 115 1' if of cxierience Yotliinif is finished nothin' of life deposits some teacung 'xt ' . . 5 . - , g stationary. The whole world moves, and moves continually. And can it be that in this mighty flux and rush of things man alone is to remain stationary, and that the process which fits him to understand the world in which his lives and his own place in it, and his own significance to himself, ever is finished or has an end? The joy of life and inspiration of it spring from the belief that there is no end. And the great resource of life and the promise of the future lies in the fact that you and l are never going to be out of school or done with teachers. YVhen you try to explain life tu me philosophically I can follow you, and I accept certain things that you say: but vou do not reallv get at the heart of the mystery for me. XYlien you endeavor to explain life to me from the scientific point tif view there are certain great truths which I discern, but you do not put your hand yet on the heart of the tnystery. But when you tell me that life is an education, that the harder the process of education the greater the thing for which it trains: when you remind me that if l am to do at bit of meclianical or manual work I may be trained for it in :t week, or :t month, or at tear. but if I ani to master and to command the resources in me. l must gite myself. lititly, soul and mind, year after year, to heroic toil and untiring patience: when you remind me of these things and then tell me that lite is education. I will accept that because I can understand it. Xu man or woman would shrink from the most terrihle discipline, if till! of that discipline w as to come the assurance of power. No man or woman would slirink from the most thorough training. if out of that training was In come the largest liberty and the ability to deal nobly and freely with all the materials and tools which must be used. No man would shrink from the terrible pressure of experi- ence, if he could only be sure that under that pressure sotiictliillg noble was being shaped in his own spirit. XX'hen you tell nie that lite is education, I understand it and can bear it. .-Xml the harder it is, the more l eompreliene the dignity and the beauty of the thing for which it tits tue. .Mid the more Severe and rlilmious W5 fli5l'lPlllN'. Illc llitirc prtipllctit' it lwtwotllcs to me Ui my final emancipation into freedom and power. Nothing is finished: every- thing is begun. Ihe school and the college and the university are all pre- paratory schools. Life itself is the great school. and beyond lite eternity.--only ' Otllu SCIIOOI, with lllglltl tourses and diyiner teachers and more sublime opportunities. issi Thr WGH ' --tis In M 'fu 'M I if BF mr' if 15- Q7 PW' P4- fivfg 5 gr: Tit' 5? T... :xp I - . ,a , H 'H ,nv s. ,.,.,, M... :Lf- x 'S .. A.. F- . 4. AS?

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'il ,ms 'Q mv' KT ,, f :AM di Brad Ord odnnabs making ourselves part of it. And no education is worth counting, in the long run, by the larger scales, unless it ends in some form of service. And no man really contributes to his times or gets his own full growth, unless to the gaining of knowledge he adds the expression and the impulse of powerful character put forth in action. So that which has saved our western world from pessimism, and which will save it, if it is to be saved at all, will not be simply devotion to knowledge, but the expression of knowledge in action. :Xnd it is a great thing in the history of a school or of a college to have had a group of men and women devoted, HOI to themselves but to others, and who, from the start, wrote the words self-sacrihcew over the aims and ideals of the school. In the admirable address which the principal of this school made when she came here to assume her duties, I find four words which seem to me to interpret the history and its spirit from the very start: Scholarship, health, culture and character. In these one hundred years great advances have been made in educational methods: the horizons of knowledge have been pushed far back 3 there have come new and powerful influences into our edu- cational life. But to-day, as then, in those four words are summed up all the final results of education. And to-day, as then, in those four words are summed up what I believe to be the ultimate significance of life. We use to have, or our ancestors used to have, finishing schools. We have long ago discerned that there is no such thing as an ended thing here. VVhat is finished? Not the heavens above us, in which the astrono- mers tell us new worlds are continually coming into being and old worlds are burning out to ashes. Not the earth on which we live, the coast lines of which are constantly shifting and changing. Not the society to which we belong, which in every century takes on new aspects and modifies its organization. Not the government under which we live, which, in spite of its written constitution, finds the vital life of men more powerful than a written law, and from time to time mL1St adjust its written law to the new needs of the new times. Not even the churches to which we belong, which, while holding to certain ancient and historic facts, find themselves in every century compelled to deal with new questions of new men living under new conditions. Not we ourselves, on whose faces every day the invisible hand of time writes its meaning, and in whose hearts every day the invisible hand l 57 I

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Brad orc! o4nnat5 How rich and beautiful the school life is! When we speak of a school we think of the catalogue and of the list of the faculty and of the methods and instruments of education. And these are all of very high importance, but they do not constitute all of school life. There are women who are listening to my voice this morning to whom, when I speak of Bradford Academy, there comes the rush of memory, not only of teachers and of text- books, if they are so fortunate as to remember the names of them llaughterj, but the recollection of the beauty of the surroundings. How fortunate is a school which appeals to the imagination with every morning and with the splendor of every starlit night! How fortunate is a school which associates the choicest and most inspiring years of life with the entrance into the world of nature! I remember, when I was a student, Emerson, then an old man, came to my college one day. He was talking with a little group of us, and he said. looking at the mountains which surrounded the college, I don't see the names of the mountains in the list of the faculty. 'Iihey surely ought to be there. And everyone who has lived in the shadow of those moun- tains. and who has seen the little river pass through the town through four quiet. reposeful years, knows how much the beauty of Berkshire and the shadows of the hills have meant in his education. And those who hear my voice to-day remember, perhaps, above all, the dear companionships of those early days. :Xml nothing has more to do with education than what you call the atmosphere of a school 1 and the atmosphere of a school is largely the expression of the ideals of the student life. So much importance do I attach to the atmosphere of a school and to the edu- cational influence of school association that, if I were forced to choose between a school in which the life of the undergraduates was vigorous, and fine, and generous, and the faculty weak, and a school in which the faculty was strong, and the life of the undergraduates was mean, and ungenerous, and ignoble, I should not hesitate a moment. I should dislike to make such a choice, but I should not hesitate a moment to choose the school in which the touch of the student on the student was generous, and aspiring, and noble. These old fellowships,-how dear they become in after life! Those friendships formed in the generous years when the skies of morning are over us, and the world is before us, and the birds are singing, and the heart opens spontaneously to the incoming of every new influence, those days in l59fl