Bradford Academy - Chimes Yearbook (Haverhill, MA)

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E3-'gzci 02 Cl gb'421f21fGfl.5 man to read those things which were not absolutely prescribed in the course. And there is nothing, I think, that the man who has been out of college twenty-five years, rejoices in more than the recollection of the old sense of freedom and access to libraries before a hundred elective courses had laid their hands on every mimite of his precious time. Access to books, and the quiet and the leisure in which the voices of books can be heard ! I venture to say to-day that I remind many of you of some hour and some place where some great book first opened its heart to you, and in opening its heart made the heart of life plain to you. It was on such an afternoon that YValter Scott opened Percy's Reliques in the shade of that great plane tree, and forgot that there was such a thing as an evening meal 3 and when a boy forgets an evening meal, it means that something important is taking place inside him. fLaughter.l It was on such an afternoon that John Keats, in company with his friend Cowden Clarke, in a half ruined arbor on the outskirts of the London of the beginning of the last century, opened Spenser's Fairie Queene, and knew before the sun went down that he was not to remain the apprentice of an apothecary, but that he was to be one of the poets of the English race. It was such an evening that Robert Browning came home, a boy, with an early volume of Shelley under his arm, and when two nightingales began to sing at the end of the garden, in two great trees, one responding to the other, it seemed to the boy, not as if he were listening to the songs of the birds, but as if Shelley and Keats were singing, antiphonally, one to the other. Those are precious moments when, the imagination being sensitive, and the whole mind open, there passes into us the great impulse of the men and women who have had the deep insights into life, and have been able to make others see what they discerned so clearly. This is the age of the trained man and the trained woman. I venture to say, without fear of exaggerating, that there is no safe place in modern life for anyone but the trained man and the trained woman. God grant that the order of things in which it is possible for any man who has a good character and a strong arm and a willing mind, to support himself, may long continue. But the time has already come when no man can, by these quali- ties alone, hope to make his position assured in the world. The only man to-day who is safe in the industrial world is the man who commands i611

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trod ord e:4z1f2fvtJflf5 which the deepest education that we received came through our imaginations and our hearts,-how clear and beautiful they are ! And then our associations with our teachers! lt is astonishing how metimes we change our view of our instructors later in life. fl.,augliter.j so g You remember Dr. Hale says in his delightful reminiscences, that the earliest chool to which he went was presidec s the most learned woman in Boston, and who ie supposed for a long time cl discovered that at that time she was seven- l over bv a lady who, he was sure, was was the oldest. He afterwar teen years of age. fLaughter.l This is an that sometimes takes place in our minds with re infinite patience with our slow development 1 t' ineication of the sort of change gard to our teachers. Their ieir care for our daily needg iese things we do not know their watchfulness against our heedlessness: t until we come to see them in the light of memory. :Xnd yet how con- stantly it happens in everv school and college tiat the student recognizes at the time the vitalitv of the teachers, and feels and appreciates the inspiration that comes from contact with them. livery school, l venture to sav, that has great power, is associated with some noble personalitv. And one thing that I have found significant in the histori' of this school, as in the historv of all schools which touch and affect deeply their students, is the fact that from its very beginning it has numbered among its friends and teachers men and Women of vigorous character and of marked individualitv. bo strong a hold do these teachers come to have on our lives, so deeplv do thev come to touch our natures, that they seem at last a part of the very order of things. You remember when Tom Brown, coming in at night from a fishing expe- dition, found a newspaper which some friend had brought during the day. and opened it and saw that 'l'homas .-Xrnold of Rugby was dead, it seemed to him as if the world had stopped moving. How could the world go round without Thomas Arnold of Rugby? He was part of the order of life. So if is f0'df1j!- 501110 of US have had great teachers, and have felt that, because those teachers were identified with the impartation tif truth in the most SCI1SitiVe years, they were reallv part of the truth itself. And then access to books and the time to read them! Modern men a . 1 1 . . ' l , - ' nd Women, if they envy school girls and bovs anvthing, envv them their tim - . , h . ' i K 6 to read, but such has been the perverseness of modern life that to-day even 1 ' H , . - - ' the revised curriculum of the college has made it almost impossible fora 1 no 1 X uf' Mfr -stiff M, . WW . nf-1' ' . 'va' il' 'M :sf W 'X ,gm 'Kg 59' 135' 4 rn -i 325-' E YT' Slight? 1112.43 ttf Q75 'li'-Si 'T' rf'9m ?'1T,'g fs... 441 ' Wray c me 'ffr,,. s ,la 'X tu 'Mtn Qhnm u,,w than 'Na K-KM mx.

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his position by some superiority of skill. The only man who cannot be moved by Huctuations is the man who has rendered himself absolutely essen- tial. Nlen are not discharged and taken on by employers, as is constantly said, men employ and discharge themselves. XVhen the tides of prosperity are running at the Hood, any man can set his little bark alloat and keep it moving, but when the titles go out and the storms come, as they tlti from time to time, then the man must understand seamanship, and must have knowledge and skill as pilot and as sailor. XVhen there are opportunities everywhere, men of good character, of good intentions and of moderate skill, find their places in the world: but when the titles go till! and the shore is lined, as it sometimes is, with commercial and financial wreckage, league on league, the only man who holds his position is the man who cannot be spared, and ifl were speaking to an audience of young men this morning, I should say to them, Do not dare to go into Illia modern lite oi ours unless you are willing to put into your occupation such an amount of work in training as shall render you absolutely inyaluahlt-. linder ayerage con- ditions any man can succeed who is willing to work hard enough to secure success. The trouble is, we are not willing to pay the price of success. The price of success is heroic toil, heroic self-denial. Sllt't't'ss is eyerywliere based on education 3 not necessarily the education oi a school, litit tht- trgiinirig of the man, in the school and out of it, to do one specitic thing with indi- vidual power. The tragedy of to-day is not the tragedy of the had man and bad womang it is the tragedy of the half-trained man and the halt-trained Woman. It is the tragedy of the young man who comes to ytill and tells you that he WIIIHS work, and is willing to do anything. and you tind that there is not one thing that he can do. lt is the tragedy oi the delicately reared girl who comes to you and tells you that she is willing to tlti anything that is honorable, and when you question her you lintl that neither hand not brain has been trained for a specilic thing. 'liti master your tools and to get the skill of the hand and the skill of the brain together,-these are the essential things. This is the condition which is making education in our country and in our modern world, not a matter of luxury, hut a matter of necessity, a mat- ter of salvation, in all the walks of life. lielieye me, nothing was eyer yet done IH the world worth doing, without education: that is to say. without prepa- lti2l