Coe College - Acorn Yearbook (Cedar Rapids, IA)

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THE PRESIDENT HARRY MOREHOUSE GAGE Page 21

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PRESIDENT ' S MESSAGE THOSE who believe in hobgoblins, ghosts, imps, and evil spirits should read the ACORN and study its pictures. Those who enjoy — enjoy is the word — a fit of jitters when the red peril clad in academic cap and gown jazzes, grimaces, and weirdly gesticulates in their fevered imaginations may cool their brains by merely glancing at this book. Here is portrayed no person disposed and no activity designed to undermine the foundations of this republic. More of the wholesome life set forth in the ACORN will produce better and brighter citizens. Also, those who fear our wild young people may well take heart on opening this volume. Turn the pages, look at the pictures. Have times changed? Certainly. These youngsters ride in automobiles. Their an- cestors did not do that. But against greater obstacles than their parents faced they will do a better job of running the government and managing their morals than did their ancestors who made love in buggies and to whom a spark plug was a horse. Youth who do on the front porch what old timers did on the back porch prove that progress is a fact. Frankness and open-hearted smcerity are welcome lights in a new day. Those of us who are getting the stage ready to be occupied by our successors should ponder the pages of this book. Our drooping spirits may thereby be refreshed and our sense of humor revived. If perchance some of us have lost the spirit of play, find life in no respect a laughing matter, and in learning how to work have forgotten how to play, we may at least pray that the spirit of the ACORN may live forever in the college youth whose lives It portrays. The present value of the ACORN is, of course, its great value to those students who are on the campus today. To them it teaches no lesson, points to no philosophy as it does to those who look back on the days of youth. It is not intended to render that service to them. For the stu- dents of 1936 it is a picture of a life that Is being lived, a race that is being run, a game that is being played. In it there Is the thrill of present living. Philosophy will come afterward. Years hence one and another will turn the pages of this book with fond recollection. The events of today will come sailing in like ships on the seas of memory. Things which are merely interesting today will be understood; for a period will have been put on sentences which have now just begun to be formed. The ACORN of 1936 will be more precious then than it Is today. The time will come when burdened days have forced weary comrades apart. Then this volume may be the means of a real reunion and refreshing revival of old times. Though years are wedged twixt you and me, No way so long That Memory ' s song Shall not sound strong. And bear my message back to thee. — H. M. GAGE Page 20

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V DEAN OF COLLEGE Education has been defined as the sum total result of all the influences of life from the cradle to the grave, in the school-room and out of it. True education, then, includes more than attending school and being present in classes for a certain period of years. Education is not wholly confined to the school. Primitive peoples educated their young although they had no schools. Children were taught by requiring them to do things. Education means entering into activities, doing, responding. It is the first principle of sound learning. All activity results in some form of education — if it is well directed activity it is good education. As you examine this volume of the ACORN it will be seen that Coe College is a place of many and varied activities, and this book a complete record of the ways in which college students spend a part of their time. And the activities represented are essential parts of a well-rounded educational experience. Attendance at classes and lectures constitute one phase only of the learning of a student in college. The much derided book learning is Imperative, certainly, but not of sufficient impor- tance, may we say, to warrant the student excluding from his life on the campus, many forms of social and recreational experiences which should have an important place in the total program of the college. And there are activities to suit the needs and interests of every student. There are projects to work out, programs to organize, publications to edit, speeches to make, plays to be produced, lectures and musicals to enjoy, and sports of many kinds. It is all this — the work, the pleasures, the contacts and friendships, that give added value and meaning to life and experience on a college campus. And it is all these that the yearbook brings together as evidence that not all of education is drawn from a book. But the real value of this ACORN does not lie in the printed pages alone. It is what each student can read into it for himself. Each picture should be a reminder of the years spent at Coe. If the memory of honest work, pleasant associations, good times, and real friendships can, in a measure, be preserved in this book, the Editors will, I believe, feel their purpose has been fulfilled. C. HARVE GEIGER Page 22