Fort Hamilton High School - Tower Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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To the Class of January 1950 . We rejoice with you on your graduation from Fort Hamilton High School. Now that you have achieved this goal, it is well to look back in order to evalu- ate what your membership in a cosmopolitan high school has meant to you. By this time it should 'be apparent to you that all of us on the faculty emphasize over and over again that it is the individual student that matters. There is no such thing as mass education. Each of you is an individual that we respect as a human being. It has been our objective to discover for you your hidden talent, to evaluate it, to develop it in order that you may make the great- est possible use of it, in the service of your fellow-man. This has not been easy but it has been most thrilling. To do this, we have offered many and varied experiences in the class-room, in extra-curricular activities, in athletic contests, in social gatherings, where you have learned to respect and to cooperate with stu- dents that make up a cross-section of our community. Out of these experiences, it is our hope that we have assisted you in finding yourself so that you may take your place in the community as an upright, honorable and valuable member of society. Our school is in reality a man-building institution. Our product is not the machine or the gadget of the assembly-line, but a human being, endowed with intelligence, a conscience and a heart to assume his responsibilities in the world and to serve his fellow man in making the world a better place in which to live and in which to make a living. Our own poet Edwin Markham has expressed it vividly in 5'lVIan Building. We are all blind, until we see That in the human plan, Nothing is worth the making, If it does not make the man. Why build these cities glorious, If man unbuilded goes, In vain we build the world Unless the builder also grows. And in building a better manhood and womanhood, we have not lost sight of the inestimable privileges that have come to us in living in a democracy. Our country offers you vast opportunities to use your talent, not for the enslave- ment of man, but for service to others. The greatest happiness can come only when we give of ourselves in working together as citizens in a community, of all nationalities and creeds, but all Americans, in service to God, to country and to humanity. May your graduation be the stepping stone to greater achievement, and a life crowned with happiness because you have learned to serve. Cordially and sincerely yours, AUGUSTUS LUDWIG Seven