Central Michigan University - Chippewa Yearbook (Mount Pleasant, MI)

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E. C. WARRINER, A. B., A. M., M. Pd. PRESIDENT Page Nine

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QE. 9113. 102.5 cliibippztua 1923 The Teachers Raw malcrial HE earth is a mere speck in the universe. Even in our own solar system, the earth is small in comparison with the four greater planets and it would take more than a million earths to equal the sun. To look through a telescope into space is the most startling of experiences. It takes the breath away to begin to realize that these in- numerable heavenly bodies are all in motion but that they never collide, that each one goes forward in its own course. Last year they measured the distance to Betelgeuse and found that it takes light one hundred fifty years to come from there to the earth. When now you think of an individual man and of his size as compared with the earth on which he dwells, he is an at-om-an infinitesimal atom-in the universe. No wonder that the Psalmist of old said when he considered the heavens and the moon and the stars, what is man? But as man walks up and down this little earth, it doesn't seem so little to him. It seems great and powerful and it is. Beside the mountain, in the presence of the sea, how puny is man! The wind can carry him away, cold can freeze him, heat can strike him down. The earthquake can wipe out a city at one blow, the flood can carry off a whole valley. Man is a plaything in the hands of the elements. Man's body, that is, physical man, man, so much matter, is easily turned into a handful of dust. But there must be something more than physical substance to man. The Psalmist, so long ago, realized this, for in the same breath in which he wondered at man's little- ness, he says that man is but little lower than God and that he has dominion over all things. The solar system, the universe, has no meaning except for man, for this atom on this tiny speck of a world. There may be beings superior to man on other planets and in other heavenly systems than our own, but we don't know that this is so and therefore they are non-existent to us. The only planet of our system in which we have any deep interest is Mars and this is because we think it may be inhabited by beings similar to ourselves. And it is not man's substance that we are interested in, it is thinking, willing, doing man that we care for. It is the mind of man that makes the universe significant, it is the mind of man that makes the world a fit place to live in. The earth once existed without man. Land and Water and air were here before man. All the possibilities of life as we know it today were here before man. Every- thing that blesses our existence today was here on the physical earth, implicit from the beginning. It is man and man's mind that has made the world explicit. Houses to live in, clothes to wear, food to eat and drink have come about through man's inven- tiveness. Horses have been tamed by man, wheels have been wrought out, ships have been built. None of these things came by chance-man's mind devised them. And so on up the scale-fire, steam, electricity-these great forces, whose possibilities are not yet fully known to us. have been in the universe from the beginning. It remained for the human mind to discover them. How many new and unheard of forces there are all about us no one knows. But. this is certaing they will be discovered only by man's mind. What a new world this is since mind discovered electricity and began to use it! The battery and the motor, always possible, realities only recently, have given us the trolley car, the automobile, the telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph-and all these through man's inventive genius, through man's mind. Mind is the only thing in the universe of permanent value, mind or the soul, they may be regarded as one for our present purpose. And mind is the raw material of the teacher. This is what makes the teacher's work so important and so interesting. We are dealing not with matter, but with mind, not with lifeless, perishable matter, but with living, immortal mind. Mind is a microcosm. In it all the history and the achievements and the possibilities of the race are wrapped up. The teacherts business is to stimulate this mind to activity. Part of our work is to put before the mind the accomplishments of other minds who have preceded usg the greater part of our task is to lead the mind to new activities, to new discoveries, to new heights. Out- wardly, men look alike. They seem to be only so much matter. But when they speak and express what their minds have thought we recognize the diierence. Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, Lincoln, Edison, in outward appearance were no different from the rest of us, but their minds, how exalted! Somebody was Franklin's teacher and Edison's. Somebody opened their. minds. We, the teachers of today and tomorrow, have a part in opening the minds of the next generation. If we appreciate this privilege and this responsibility, we shall know that teaching is the world's finest opportunity. E- C- WARRINER. Page Eight

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Page Ten BERTHA M. RONAN Dean of Women Charming and gracious, of infinite patience, broad experience and abundant tact, Miss Ronan is a real friend of all the girls.