Emerson College - Emersonian Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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EMERSON COLLEGE

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THE EMERSONIAN 1 1 Besides her teaching at Emerson College, Mrs. Southwick was for three years assistant instructor in the department of Elocution at Wellesley College. In addition, she has for many years been active in summer school work throughout the country. But it is as a reader and lecturer that Mrs. Southwick is best known to the people of the United States. Apart from the reputation she has acquired in platform and dramatic work, Mrs. Southwick has been successful with her pen. The has published a book on voice, “Expres- sive Voice Culture, which is widely known and extensively used in schools as a text book. Mrs. Southwick is now preparing a book on The Art of Personal Expression. This volume will be an exposition of the principles and ethics of personal development through expression. Although Mrs. Southwick’s national reputation as a reader and lecturer has given her a prominent place in the held of educators, yet in spite of her larger duties she has not lost that personal relationship with the students individually. We regret that through illness, Mrs. Southwick was com- pelled to give up her class work this year and seek a temporary rest. As students of the class of Nineteen Ten, we feel that it has been a great privilege to know and to have studied under Mrs. Southwick, and we hope her spiritual concept of life and her constant endeavors to reveal the truth will always be an inspiration to each member of our class to seek and live the truth.

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Slir {htrpoBP nf iEmrrsmt (Cnllrgr (Written especially for the Emersonian by Jessie Eldridge Southwick.) We all know that expression is necessary to ev olution. 1 his is the motto of Emerson College. Why do we feel the need of expression J . Be- cause the life of man is fashioned out of mind ; and mind is shown in form ; and form is expression. All things are affected through form of motion, and motion is the sign of life. If life were absent the form would be still, or only present in the scientific consciousness as vibration of matter. As life is dependent upon motion, so motion is the sign of life. The life of the voice is dependent upon the fullness of its vibratory power ; the life of the body is dependent upon its vibratory capacity ; the life of the mind is dependent upon its voluntary power to vibrate, and to concentrate upon a chosen subject; the life of the imagination is dependent upon its power to conceive and hold pictorial symbols of truth and beauty; the life of the spirit depends upon its radiation and power to manifest; the life of Art depends upon its completeness in force of appeal and beauty of form ; the power to awaken in others the activities of mind, imagination and feeling, which were the incentive of the artist or creator. The purpose of Emerson College is to foster the life of the body, the mind or reasoning power; the imagination which is the basis of appre- ciation and the awakener of feeling; the body, whose life is the channel of manifestation ; the spirit, whose quickening is the source of all aspiration ; and the will, which is the basis of self-control, power of appeal and the summon- ing of one’s faculties to a given subject. The College develops these powers by exercise, incentive, and the study of true ideals, motives, feelings and aspirations as found in the best literature; in high ph ilosophy and the dra- matic interpretation of human character. The voice is taught to respond to thought ; the body to respond to right emotion and will ; the mind to discriminate in the world of litera- ture and art; the spirit to aspire through right motive and faith in the ideal ; the imagination to correct its wanderings and become true to life and aspiration ; the feelings to flow in response to right incentives ; and the per- sonality to be self-poised as well as responsive. This is the work which Emerson College sets itself to accomplish, and its aim is to produce nobler and stronger men and women, fitted to adapt themselves to human life and minister, through the revelation of the ideal, to human happiness and human welfare.