East Sparta High School - Spartan Yearbook (East Sparta, OH)

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..-::-..: uno E, Y GRAUON W THE SEARCH FOR BEAUTY 'Have you ever lest something and you have searched and searched and finally found that you were holding itor that it ,very near to you?' So it is with beauty. We make a tour to find it while we are actually running away from it. Years ago there was a boy who was half blind and did not know it. When the glasses which had finally been prescribed for his near-sightedness were brought to him, he was sitting on the porch of his father's farm house. Near at hand stood a tree. A tree to him had been a green blur but now to his amazement he saw it silhouetted against the sky. He saw the delicate beauty of leaves and branches and the glint of sun and shadow. And the tree which sprang into its bright distinctness was a representdw ive of his whole new world. It had never occurred to him that there was any world except the foggy one he had always looked out on. Now he grasped at the real world which had never belonged to him before. ' ' We have only to become blind to realize the beauties of liv- ing, but then it is partially too late. While we may still clin to our spiritual beauty, our materialistic world is gone. We try to suppose that to appreciate beauty we must possess some rare sense. To say that somebody else may get pleasure out of natural beauty, but that we can not, is merely to use laziness as anroxcuse. Consider Helen Keller. How could she by any 'imag- ination be enabled to'enjoy the world of light and darkness, of sun and moon and stars, of clouds and hills and lakes and running waters, of flowers, of birds and bees? But she dld learn and she learned to enjoy those exquisitely. In order to appreciate nature 'to its full extent she used the senses that she did possess. She felt the shape of things with her fingers, EEE could smell and she could taste. She had the courage to start with them and .let them carry'her as far' as they'could. nDurkg the first 19 months of my life,U she said, HI had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out. If wekuwe once seen, that day is ours and nothing can ever take it away from us. Life is not made up by its quantities, Its real value must come out of its qualities. During the months of World War, a lady kept a little part of her garden for flowers she'loved most. Receiving at her house one day a general of the army, she apolo- gized for not having the entire garden planted with potatoes 'and

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lr 5 -- '-ffff '-f - -- SALUTATORY--CONTINU,EDp b at this point and at that, in order to develop effective skills. The person who does only what he likes to do, who avoids embar- rassing situations, develops the habits of inferiority rather than those of superiority. Here we see the difference between men. On the one hand are those who are inferior and either refuse to recognize their faults or believe there is nothing they can do about them. Since these people will not take steps to improve themselves, they often want to reform the entire social system. They cannot see that in any plan of life, they would probably be misfits unless they changed themselves. On the other hand are those people who believe they can develop their personalities and achieve competence and.supor- iority. ' Probably ten million people admire Andrew Carnegie. Why? Because Andrew Carnegie remained forever the master of'his world rather than its victim. Neither poverty, nor starvation, nor war could daunt his spirit. He emerged with courage unimpared. Psychologists know that most people are potentially as self- reliant as Andrew Carnegie. Before it is too late then, Americans must realize the truth, that the difference between success and failure is essentially a matter of philosophies. A philosophy of defeat makes failure in- evitable even with the most richly endowed person, a philosophy of success, a determination to make thed most of one's self, can do miracles even with one poorly endowed.

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f wwe le-- M tiff gf 1 T Q ,I Af ' .fiq' 1' ,' QS: -- is ogaimnmccowiamuteh carrots and eabbages, as was the custom every-where in those days when people were conserving food. He begged her not to apolo- gize. He said, VThis is the time when we need beauty more than we need anything else.n Life always does need beauty. And today beauty is a practical need. While we have remained neutral to the conflict between nations so far does not mean that we' will not ' eventually be forced into it, so why not enjoy these Hu gs while we can? Precisely as the boy whistles to keep up his courqgg so are we all crying today for something to reenforce confidence after our absurd hysteria of fear during the last few years. The strain of our modern mechanized civilization is making it more and more necessary to look toward the finer mental and esthetic things, to find the balance and compensation for the grind of daily living. John Keats wrote in his node to a Grecian Urnn,--HBeauty is truth, truth beautyg that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.W In the first quotation mentioned, it ispossible Keats meant that we can find beauty in everything if we just have ambition to search for it. Besides beauty in poetry, in music, in art and in nature there is beauty in spirit. Unconsciously it surrounds us in our everyday habits. The work that we are cn- gaged in can be filled with beauty if we only let our minds won- der. We are not to merely think things are to be done to get them over-with and not feel beauty in just seizing upon it with the hard desire to twist some practical advantage out of it. In- stead we should really study it in its own difference, and should wonder about it, hold it in our minds until we know what it re- minds us of, what comparisons and analogies it brings to us, and what searchlight of suggestions it reflects suddenly upon our brain. . If we have spiritual beauty we keep our minds full of kk spiring illusions and imagining the most beautiful thoughts from things we gee. We may see beauty in listening and learning as well as in teaching. We may sec it in the willingness to cooper- ate' and in the willingness of people to work well to-gether, We may see beauty in freindships and in the home. We may see it, in our cathedrals. Ancient art will come back to our world today in such measure as we the people, having looked understandingly upon beauty, desire beauty in things we create. Florence Nightingale, desperately ill of fever in the Crimea, left a record of the fact that the thing which brought her back to recovery was the sight of a single rose. Let us, too, 'have faith in beauty! Let us appreciate America for what it is, not for what we can get out of it, and let us all begin a crusade in quest for Beauty.