Carl Schurz High School - Schurzone Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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A Parting Word From MR. SLOCUM I am told by your devoted senior teacher that a last word is due from me to the graduating class. I am loath to have you departg and, while not undervaluing the academic training that you have received, and the net results that you carry away with you, I am conscious that the best that you have acquired is something in the nature of culture. -Ienkin Lloyd Jones once preached a graduation address in the Carl Schurz High School on the subject of Culture He called culture the human plus, and cited a very striking example of the iron ore, worth a cer- tain amount as raw material, worth vastly more as a ton of ingot iron, worth still more as a ton of Bessemer steel, and fabulously more as a ton of tool steel, and still more as a to-n of Gillette razor blades, and still more as a ton of watch hair- springs. At each step' in the process something human in the way of labor and idea and ideals was added to the iron. That something Dr. Jones called culture He was looking at culture from the standpoint of the human race, the distance it had run, the reaching out towards an enjoyment of more intellectual, social and spiritual things, as against the ground work of mere physical necessities. Take, for instance, the Bessemer steel rail. It was invented in the neighborhood of 1850. In 1885, seventy-tive per cent of our population was in rural districts. Today, sixty-tive per cent of our population lives in the cities. The invention of the Bessemer steel process was the direct result of a human ideal searching for a rail that would make it possible to establish the great highways of commerce and draw our people together. It is a fine example ofthe culture of the race. As to individual culture, Macdonald says, Wliatever it be that keeps the hner faculties of the mind awake, the wonder alive, and the interest above mere eating and drinking, money making and money saving, that, be it pen or pencil or violin, is simply a gift of divine' influence for the salvation of him to whom it comes, for the lifting him up out of the mire and on the rock, for it keeps the way open for the entrance of deeper, holier, grander feelings, emanating from the same riches of the Godhead. George Macdonald was one of the greatest ministers of Broad Church of England. Emerson says, Culture corrects the theory of success. He means that, in order to be successful, one must be tremendously overbalanced, specially gifted and specially trained, as a surgeon, a violinist, a lawyer or an architect. A great tendency towards egotisrn sets ing and one can only find a just estimate of his own importance in the world, hampered as he is by this lopsidedness and ego- tism, in being cultured. Culture, Emerson says, is attained through education, which means books, the society of eminent people, travel, science, art, philosophy, religion. One never speaks of education without calling to mind that marvelous definition given by Huxley, That man, I think, has had a liberal' education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and .does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of 3 whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order, ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mindg whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operationsg one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel to a vigo-rous will, itself the servant of a tender conscienceg who has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of artg to hate all vilen-ess, and to respect others as himself. Note the double emphasis on the Will. Six

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Behicatiun S V' HE February Class of IQ27 with love and appreciation cleciicates this book to its beloved Principal, Mr. Waiter F. Slocum, ancl to dear Schurz, which, stanciing W U1 rf. Cl- o YD UI '6 ' '1 U1 O D FL. 29 'I UI ET 'U C0 C3 O- fl D B7 'T' 2Ei'?3 9188 s5'l? QU OE. :CT mE' :cm DTP, E62 O-E+. O BH' CD BE. ga: wg- Bmw if: E

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Commonly speaking, an appreciation of the H116 arts constitutes culture. I am conscious that I have met many cultured people who are not particularly familiar with all of the fine- arts-could not sing or play an instrument, could not draw pictures or write poetry., and in all probability could not build a cathe- dral, and yet I had that indefinite feeling that I was in the presence of someone who was cultured. It is evident that we are born with certain mental powers. VVe suspect that the unfolding or developing of these powers has only begun. T he possibilities of the future are immeasurable. Nature- lures us along certain lines of thought and feeling by something that we call beauty. She beckons us to travel that road. Can you look at a sunset or the twilight's purple hills and not think of another world where the prevailing light is not the common glare of our earthly day? Can you look at the stars at night and not think of the quotation, In my I7ather's house are many mansionsn? Can you read Tenny- son's lines, Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me,', a and not experience the deep religious calm that was over him? Can you per- ceive or remember the fragrance of sweet peas, the violet, lilacs or the rose, with- out suspecting that there is a separate meaning to each? Can you hear the Pilgrims' Chorus from HfIiZl1111l'lZlL1SC1',, or Hallelujah Chorus of Handel and not yearn to know what each separate thrill means? Can you gaze at two faces and note wherein the one differs in glory from the other, and not suspect that, as Lowell says, T here is a thread of the All-Sustaining Beauty that runs through all and cloth all unite. Culture in a sense is a yearning for this beauty-beauty of all kinds. To translate this into terms of human co-nduct means to so live that the windows of the soul are always open, that the different powers of the mind are not impeded in their unfolding, that all the subtler influences which can affect the mind may come in and find a sensitive registering plate. Culture in a sense is the po-wer to put one's self in a. condition of complete receptivity. It means the obliteration of egotismlg it means the desire to create, for we always want to create the thing we love. It means the many-sided development indi- cated in I-Inxley's definition. It means not letting the coarser things of life shut out the more spiritual things. If I were to- choose from all these quotations the very essence of culture, I should use Macdonald's language, To keep the way open for the entrance of deeper, holier, grander feelings emanating from the same riches of the Godhead. Your four years in this school have substantially opened the way. Keep it open. , Seven