Fairhaven High School - Huttlestonian Yearbook (Fairhaven, MA)

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TO THE CLASS OF 1938: A few years ago I spent some days in a New England college town. One morning I wandered into the library on the campus and saw on the wall the names of those students who had gone to the World War and had never returned. Above the list of names was the sentence Tout ce que nous avons est pour vous”. The significance was clear at once. Those young men were saying to their successors, All that we have is yours; we can not use these college facilities any longer, but we leave them to you along with whatever good to humanity has come from our sacrifice. All that we might have had is now yours.” This sentence in French lettered in gold upon a library wall seems to me to express the spirit of our American schools and colleges. Where can you find a school that is trying to hold back instruction from people or to render less service this year than last? All the schools I know are seeking constantly to make available to more people the benefits of the finest education they can offer. You, members of the Class of 193 8, have lived for years in such an atmosphere. Whatever could be secured in the way of better equipment or better teaching that would make education for you more vital and valuable has been at your disposal. The school has tried to help you master at least one language. It has stood ready to awaken your interest in the best literature. Through class room and laboratory it has been pre¬ pared to introduce you to the laws of science. It has drawn aside the curtain through classes in history so that those who would might become acquainted with the past out of which this con¬ fused present has come, and it has pointed the way to cooperation and social usefulness in our own day. It has been ready to teach those who cared to learn how to use some of the tools and machines of industry, and it has always insisted that, valuable as such skill of hand or brain might be, what a person is, is of more consequence than what he knows. All these things and more the school has been eager to do for you. Truly it has said, Tout ce que nous avons est pour vous”. Now the question is what you will do with what you have. Some of you are already aware that faithful work here has

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Chester M. Downing

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provided you with a passport to a more advanced school, and you plan to prepare yourselves by further study for some service that will bring you the enduring satisfactions of life. Some of you believe you are through with school and you want an opportunity at once to render service and to earn money. For¬ tunately you live in a country where libraries, evening schools, and correspondence courses are available at little or no expense if you later discover that some neglected part of your education stands in the way of happiness or success. But whatever your plans for the immediate future, it seems to me that you should determine to fit yourselves for intelligent citizenship by every means at your disposal. The school has given you a start in this direction, but you need to carry on by reading, listening, thinking, and improving your judgment. In some countries those in au¬ thority are saying to the people, All that you have is ours”. If we wish democracy to endure in our country we must pay a price. We must keep informed about political problems and policies; we must vote intelligently, and we must demonstrate our belief that the noblest motive is the pu blic good by consider¬ ing the public good as of greater importance than our own in¬ dividual gain. That is not easy to do. It requires real character on the part of citizens to maintain free democratic government. You have been well taught. Show that you have vision, charac¬ ter, and devotion to the public welfare, for the control of The United States of America is passing inevitably into the hands of you graduates and of hosts of others like you from sea to shining 5 sea . Cordially yours, Chester M. Downing , Headmaster