Bradley Bourbonnais Community High School - Bradleyan Yearbook (Bradley, IL)

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'chained,n for the pupils apparently passed by unharmed, or they 'would not have earned credits enough to merit a High School Di- ploma on June 7, 1957. It is noble, indeed, to attempt to learn what one is ex- pected to learn, in grades one to twelve. There is no e prise higher than that of unfolding the secrets of nature, beginning with the nature study in the grades and culminating with the scl- ence work farther ong through geography, to open up our kinship and interdependence with the whole wide world of men and thingsg through mathematics and the allied studies, to give those, forms of intellectual skill that shall enable the worker to win his daily bread and his place among thinking meng in pictorial art, to open up a whole enchanted world of form and colorg through history, to make the learner's life touch, in some degree, the lives of all those who have made their contribution and have left the stage of actiong through literature, to bring him into sym- pathy with the ideals that have everywhere stirred men to noble actlonsg and so on almost ad infinitum, but for those who have advanced to the station where high school diplomas are granted, it seems needless to prolong the list, Members of the Graduating Class of 1957, we know fairly well where you were twelve years ago, and the part you were playing in the great game of life, but now we are all pondering over 'lhe great and unanswerable question, unanswerable at the present to say the least, Wwhere will you be twelve years from now?n There is a bright ray of hope! You have been successful in the past or you would have failed to attain to the height that you have at this Commencement in 1957, and we have every reason to feel that you will all continue to meet with the same measures of what we consider SUCCESS in life, 'hen you leave the Bradley High School on June 7, 1957, you will leave with our sincere hope that Udame fortunen will smile favorably upon you at every turn in your active lives, and that you will, in time, rise to heights unthought of at the present ime, and be able to hold a high and noble place among the men and women of affairs, In the Great United States of America, the highest position is open to all who are willing to pay the price of competence, but we know that not all who are willing to pay the price of competence can hope to attain to the highest heights regardless of the nature of the enterprise. It is comforting, however, to know that there are many good and honorable positions 'below the top,' and nif we give the best that is in usn at all times, nothing more can be expected of use Class of 1957--'FAREWELL' and UBEST WISHES.' R, P. Welker, Superintendent l A

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A RETROSPECT, A PROSPECT, AND A SINCERE WISH To the Members of the Graduating Class of 1957: There was time when there was a deep-seated prejudice against the status of the so-called. educated person, for through three hundred years of literature the pedagogue was held up to scorn by the satirist, He was pictured as a man who belonged to the hump blest social class, an uncouth figure equipped with a sort of false scholarship, the butt of all the bright pupils--a sort or proverbial bookworm. Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Goldsmith, Irving, and Dickens, each in turn made him the subject of his raillery and the victim of his mockery, Then came a better day, when the educated person began to be looked upon as a leader, and from that time to the present he has held a somewhat enviable po- sition Sh his community. He represented a better social class than thep 'old time schoolmasterng his salary permitted him, and his cultivated taste led him to dress in the same fashion as the recognized leaders of the time. His associates shared his place in the public regardg the teachers in the grades became leaders in the womenis clubs, in the literary organizations, and in the civic federations in the community. The educated man actually won the recognition that should have been accorded to him long, long be- fore, The first half of the above paragraph presents a rather dark picture, but the remainder of the paragraph indicates hope and progress. Even the darkest works of art are illuminated here and there with light refractional rays. Members of the Graduating Class of 1957, for the past twelve years, you have spent much o your time travelling along the educational highway, and now your progress is marked by a well-earned and well-merited reminder of the distance that you have gone--a High School Diploma, There is no return trip for you over this part of the educational highway, but boundless opportunities lie ahead of you, if you make the most of your opportunities. Doubtless you recall how the lions were chained in Bunyan's Pi1grim's Progressg how the traveller felt when he approached them when they appeared to be unchainedg and also how harmless and tied the lions were when they were actually reached by those who possessed the courage to venture onward past their lair. This, though somewhat allegorical, maintains verisimilitude. As we go through life, Ufierce, unchained lionsn at times seem to make their appearance, but for those who have the proper fore- thought, initiative, preparation, and courage, many are the times that the lions are found to be chained and harmless when they are actually reached, True, 'lions have appeared in the pathwayn C' every member of this Graduating Class of 1957, at one stage '1 progress or another, both in the grades and in high school, b'l when these so-called lions were met face-to-face, they were

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