East Lansing High School - Ceniad Yearbook (East Lansing, MI)

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BIEMBERS or Laxsrxc. IIIGH ScHooL: Dear lozmg Fr1'e'mz'5-The closing school year suggests some thoughts for your consideration, which I preface with the regret that the duties pertaining to the Superintendency do not permit sufficient time for that close contact with you which reveals to each the purposes, aspirations and character possessed by the other. If it be true that Education is life, the days you are now spending in school are of priceless value. The problem which you are solving might be stated in the following terms: Given a physical, a mental and a moral being, united into one complex personality, the soul of which shall live for- ever, how can you make the mos! of Zyfc and get mos! therefrom? It is true that a harmonious development of your powers includes a strong, vigorous body, a well-trained intellect and a positive, forceful and con- science-clear moral nature. With such an equipment there can be no failure in the true sense of the term. Success means not only the high- est evolution of the whole being, but also the marshaling of the lesser powers, viz., those of body and mind, under the leadership of the great- est-the immortal part that survives time. Your life will take its trend and measurement from those principles and habits which receive the greatest emphasis in your daily life. The power of choice rests with you. On the one hand it is possible to throw life away by subordinat- ing your powers to purposes unworthy of those who have so glorious a heritage. On the other hand it is possible to crystallize virtue into character that, like the eagle, soars far above the low plains of life into the clear air of larger vision. The adoption of a right purpose, the choice of a noble ambition, the willingness to toil patiently and heroic- ally in that drudgery needed for mastery in any line of work must be your task. On this side of the Atlantic the question which civilization asks of you is not, who are you? nor, who were your parents? but what canyon do? VVhat will and honorable place can youjilf? The answer which your life, not your ?7'Uf655I'07'l, furnishes determines your place and your worth. The old truth that you are the architects of your own

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S. B. LAIRD

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fortunes should not be overlooked. From the vantage ground of sev- eral years' experience, I exhort you to courage, to industrious habits, to clean, wholesome livesg to unsellish devotion to all noble causesg to the vindication of the right against the wrong, to loyalty to ciuzjf rather than expedz'e1zQ1,' to high, noble aims, to a lofty morality that holds the life true to God, to a patriotism that serves country in peace as Well as in War. The right of Way to the highest place in any calling is yours. The humblest positions, however, are not to be despised, as they make pos- sible all those higher and more responsible tasks which appeal so strongly to honest ambition. That the World may be enriched by your noble endeavor and successful efforts is the wish of your friend, S. B. LAIRD.