Delaware Valley College - Cornucopia Yearbook (Doylestown, PA)

Page 9 text:

PRESENTATION QE THE HOE SAMUEL PRICE Dlenzbers of the Board, F aculfy, F riencls ancl Fellow Stuclenta' After three years of studying, and learning to love the soil and its products, we are sent out upon our own resources to show the world what we have learned at the school. In the process of transforming the city boy to one of the country, the Farm School has taken on a task of a most difficult kind. To make a young man change his ways of living and practically all his views, is a task that requires time and patience. This, the school has done to our class, and to those who have gone before us. Only about a third of the niunber who entered in the spring of nineteen twenty-four, have withstood the drastic change in habits and manners of living, and are now ready to graduate and become advocates of the soil. We came here fresh from the city, knowing little of farming. But by hard work throughout our three years, we have acquired a knowledge of agriculture and its ways, and have come to love it. VVe are now to test this knowledge which the school has sought to instill in us. We feel confident that we can withstand the tug of the outside world, and we are showing our confidence in our teachers by accepting positions along agricultural lines. VVe are determined to leave our mark in Farm School's Hall of Fame as a one hundred per cent agricultural class, and remain that way for the years to come. This hoe, which has been a symbol of agriculture from early ages, came to us from the preceding class. I now present it to the President of the new Senior Class, hoping that with it, as a symbol of their class and their chosen calling, they will strive to uphold the traditions of agriculture, and become better farmers than those who have gone before them. .mag .1 I 2'KQQ'.9a HKQQFS

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xtqyw gg ww SALUTATORY hu A. XVECHSLER Jlcmlners of the Board and Faculty, Friends and Fellow Students: It has been customary in past years for Commencement speakers to talk of their achievements, of what they have accomplished and gained, and of the school's progress while they were students. Although We still have some of the original ideals with which we came here, we have not kept that former attitude that, upon graduation, we would go out and immediately conquer the world. We have learned here in the past few years some of the fundamental requirements of agriculture, and of a farmer's life: but. as yet, we are far from being perfect in that profession. .Xt present, there is a great deal of talk about the coming prosperous days for agriculture. Great economists predict brighter days, and they are in all probability right. But, judging from the present condition of the farmer. and the attitude of the people in general towards agriculture, those happy days in farming have not yet arrived. .Xecording to all this, we should be leaving our Almer Mater dis- couraged with our chosen work. On the contrary, we can take an opti- mistic view of all this. because there is still left an open field with a vast amount of room for improvement, for, although it is still the oldest pro- fession known to mankind, it is the one to which science has been least applied. During our stay here, we have been prepared for the coming contact with the world, not only in the ways of agriculture, which We all have acquired with varying degrees of success, but also in the ways of practical experience, which will enable us to cope with all other problems outside of our scholastic career, concerning our fellow men. lt is only in a school of this type that one can gain this wisdom, for in other institutions one can only get this knowledge by coming in contact with the different problems of life after graduation. Here. they are brought to us when still in our undergraduate state, and we are left mainly on our own resources, to contend with them. .X nd so today I greet you to these exercises, not as one who has already sm-f-f-1-elf-fl, and is satisfied that he has made good, because he who has already H.f'lllf'X'f!fl sur-r-ess has nothing more to look forward to in life, but 1 welt-oine you as one who has not yet made good. but who still has in his heart all his aspirations and dreams, that yet seem brave and worthwhile. .43 -I ' BCM W 'QR

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' l- aw' , itll y I gl l . , l'.. iMi 1,nr tltlt ' .J I p I, .5 .llllillillllll llllll g lilgll g l iar' ffl, W,,,'iiw J ACK RosEN THAL .lfcnzbers of the Board, Lad ies and Gentlemen and Fellow Students: We have come here today for the last time as students of the National Farm School. It is appropriate at this time to review our past life and activities, and compare them to our present welfare. If you will pardon a personal allusion, I come from the tumultuous land of Russia, where misery has reigned supreme for generations. Schools for youths of our age were closed to the majority, because of economic conditions. Governments changed swiftly, almost overnight. The Revolutionary Government coming into power, would stop a passerby on the street and demand to know his political beliefs. If opposed to the Revolutionary Government, he was made away with quickly. The following day a counter-Revolutionary Government would come into power. Its agents would also halt a pedestrian and demand to know his political ideas. If fpposed. he too was swiftly disposed of. Thus, those of our age were living in a period of suspicion, turmoil, and constant fear of death. They spent their lives in strife with no better prospect of better times, hardly being able to eke out a livable existence. We, graduating from this school at this moment, also have our fears as to our future. but they are not the fears of life or death. In this country we enjoy an indi- vidual frcedoni of which Bolshevik Russia could not boast. Opportunities are open to a boy of average intelligence, ability and industry. Here we can turn our talents into any phase of human endeavor, our activities being only slightly limited by racial and financial differences. The freedom in this country is so impressive, especially to a foreigner who came here only three years ago. Democracy seemed a fine theoryg but for me, it ended in theory. Voniing here to this National Farm School I saw it put into actual prac- tice. llernof-raey, meaning equal opportunity for all, led to the foundation of this school. It is a place where those liorn in the l'nited States as well as those born aliroad f-an eonn- and enjoy the fruits ol' their own labor. It is, Ladies and Gentlemen, not a Xa'ional lfarnn School, but an International l'lZl.I'Ill School. .Xnd now, fienllenien ol' the Board, we, the members ol' the graduating class of nineteen twenty-seven, wish to thank you for your labors, which have enabled the school lo carry on its work. lint we have more to be grateful for than mere labors. 'f on' lllllfll on fulfil' .fly -:LI 6 ITT'