Bridgewater State University - Alpha Yearbook (Bridgewater, MA)

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NORMAL OFFERING 9 A Elrihniv. O the Bridgewater Normal School and its graduates the name of 1 Albert Gardner Boyden will always suggest an ideal schoolmas- ter, a good citizen, a Christian gentleman, and a personal friend. For more than threescore years Mr. Boyden gave to the school a thoroughly consecrated service. For forty-six years he stood at its head, directing its affairs and shaping its policies. During these many years of service his noble purposes, his kind and genial nature, his firm but just discipline, his positive convictions, and his clear vision made him always a most efficient leader and an inspiration alike to his pupils and his profession. Not to be ministered unto but to minister was the evident purpose of his entire life. For many years he stood as a prominent figure in the educational life of the state and nation, and few have contributed more than he to the efficiency of our present public school system. While his life was one of great power and influence, it was at the same time beautifully simple. As a citizen of Bridgewater and of the Commonwealth and as a faithful church member, he worked untiringly to bring to pass the things that are worth while. It is not, however, as a citizen, a church member, or a prominent educator that the Normal graduate has known him best, but rather, as a kind, personal friend, a wise counselor, and a sympathetic teacher. His youthfulness, preserved to the very last, was due to his sympathetic touch with young life. He could always take the view-point of his pupils and he never lost his love for little children. The great buildings of the institution stand as a fitting monument to the genius of this great man, but a monument of far greater beauty and worth, and one in which we feel sure that Mr. Boyden himself took the greatest satisfaction, is found in the many strong a-nd noble charac- ters which he has helped so efficiently to build. Mr. Boyden was greatly beloved, and ever with an increasing devotion, by the great multitude of graduates, and the memory of his wonderfully true life will now remain a precious possession of every son and daughter of Old Normal. C. P. S.

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10 NORMAL OFFERING Armenag Glhamirhiem. f' ELGIUM, Poland, Serbia, and Armenia! These are the countries that have been trampled down under the iron hoof of European militarism. But the fate of Armenia has been the most tragic. The year 1915 will be marked in the annals of civilization as the year of martyrdom for the Armenian race. No class of people has been spared-bishops, priests, ministers, and college professors were murdered ruthlessly. Among the pioneers of Christian civilization there were a few who had escaped in some way or other, and they were living in quiet, though subject to all kinds of sufferings in their de- dortation camps amidst the semi-barbarous races of Meso- potamia. Armenag Chamichian, one of the loyal sons of Dear Old Normal, was among these few survivors. But what the Turks left undone, the epidemics are fast finishing. It has been so with respect to Mr. Chami- 1 chian. He passed away on , January 19, 1916, owing to an attack of typhus fever. The i tragic loss of Mr. Chamichian, the young pioneer of American civilization, came as a shock to his friends, both Armenian and ' T- American, for in his zeal for the higher education and the refinements of American life he represented at their best the genuine aspirations of his race.