Bridgewater State University - Alpha Yearbook (Bridgewater, MA)

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Page 22 NORMAL OFFERING Volume XI The Search for Significance. Emily Curtis Fisher. Ever lei Ike Fancy vfoczm, Fancy, high-c01m1zz'ssz'01eerz' .'-semi her! I, EACHERS, read if you will for your text I-lenryis stentorian v appeal: You, good yeoman, whose limbs were made in I LL Tl 4 Q England, show us here the mettle of your pasture. The game's afoot: follow your spirit. Find your seemingly is small field within its walls of your school-room one of the foci of the world action today, This is no mere fancy: it is prophetic vision of the world response. Over in the corner of the world province: this school-room, is an empty seat. Far outside, somewhat farther away than the eye can reach, on the edge of the great swamp, in the little hut lay the sick child, the youngest child of the oldest remnant of the last tribe of the North American Indians. The doctor has merely stated conclusively that her life must close. It is a lawgsthat tribe must die. There is only the fading of the centuries behind her. No individuality attained 5 no immor- tality gained. just outside the gate of the schoolaroom huddle the Messinians over the few bundles of possessions saved by effort and gathered with them- selves out of the wreckage of their last heritage, and their vanished world. Within the hrm walls of the newly reached oasis sit the frightened, keen- eyed searchers. They have fled from the gods of undoing, they are seeking the gods of being The pathway is blazed and open for each one. There is no hesitation in their choosing and -eager acceptation of the entrance to American ideals. Thro' the open door of our school-rooms are filing the procession of Messinian children who have fled with all their possessions. Only a few months ago one of these pioneer Aideks brought into the school-room. with a noble mien, and a proud possession a band-box which

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Volume XI NORMAL OFFERING Page 21 effort and time that will be required to complete it, but with a confidence begotten of experience, that he can do it well. This is a very different sort of confidence from that which undertakes athing with the idea of finishing it with little effort because there has been no experience with the difliculties of shaping material. Manual training thus brings a sympathetic appreciation of the intelli- gence and labor entering into the planning and executing of the world's industrial work. Manual training also gives opportunity for a practical use of design. It should emphasize the truth that good design is not merely ornament added after a thing is made, but consists of the following elements : I. Well related proportions and shapes of necessary partsj 2. Excellent workmanship. 3. Such decoration as will unobtrusively emphasize the shape, structure, or significance of the object. Much of the beauty of a constructed object is in the relation of proportions of the necessary parts. For example, the greatest element of beauty in the front of a house is the relation of height to width, and the spacing of the windows and doors within the area. The feeling of satisfaction that arises because a piece of work is skillfully done is another large element in aesthetic pleasure. The addition of decoration helps, but is a much less important element than the other two. Manual training of the right sort is a necessary part of education for all, whatever the future occupation is to be. It also is the beginning of industrial education. The efficiency of any school system that does not include the manual arts may reasonably be questioned.

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Volume XI NORMAL OFFERING Page 23 he guarded and watched and sententiously observed and noted. As he departed the teacher said, I am interested in what you have in your box. Aide quickly replied, I have a Christmas present for my mother 1 a bonnet. Now she be a 'Merican lady. While he outwardly garbs his mother as an American, he gradually clothes his thoughts with aspects of 'American ideals. E In still another part of this room sits a little Russian boy, with eyes that seem to look inward instead of outward, whose face seems to be lighted from within. Altho' he has' a hundred year-old American name of an English source, he conceals naturally what his parents have always fearfully concealed of their refuge and safety in America. VVithin this same school-room on the front seats sit Oscar and Sophie,with near-sighted, searching eyes following closely every expression of the teacher's. r Several years ago they were born in Sweden, as babies they were brought to this country, only to be imbued with the spirit of the life of the individual and then dragged back to the place of their cradle. The following year, by begging and borrowing enough for their passage, they returned to the door-step of their New England house where they had once lived and there waited the opening of the neighbors' hearts, and the school-room doors. In these years of opportunity, they have worked from one grade to another, into college and into the great demands of American life. These are all partial stories. The great whole is not yet completed. All the American ideal is still in the forming. Although life may seem to be confronted with darkness, we can hear the whispering of Amycus and Celestin. Today there is being gradually defined the entrance into consciousness of what may be called a new faculty: telepathy-one is impressed occasionally with the clear inseeing that one soul has of another. One feels it In the Far Country, and The Great Adventure, of Fiona Macleod, and also in the great book of Revelations-in the Behold' I see before me an open door. This thought is not one that can be passed over lightly, or even laid aside. Each one who attains the infinity of this new faculty, now incipient in us all is helping to build a conscious' ness general for all human beings. i The years are not many when each one of us, in place of the excep- tional few at present, shall have attained the faculty, telepathy, even as