Girard College - Corinthian Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 3 text:

Elu ' (EmmmnuTuuntt iRmirit (ttlaaa nf January 1931 iEMtflnal § taff EDWARD C. EPHAULT, Editor-it Chief LAWRENCE M. ESTILL GEORGE C. WHITTAM C. RAY HOWARD WILLIAM T. MICHAELS The Girard College Press

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January, 1931 3 “This, I zoos worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.” T HERE was a lump of clay on the potter’s wheel. The wheel of experience turned slowly at first. The nimble fingers of the potter went deftly to work fashioning, with the touch of his genius, the pitcher which had been for a long time only the creation of his mind. So this is the scheme of things in which the Potter creates the potter, and he, in turn, catching the spirit of the Master moulds others to rise from one condition to another until they aspire at least to assume the master’s place. Life is a process of growth. When we left behind us those dear mothers who to-day greet us as if at the end of a journey, we entered Girard some ten years ago with no expectations, hopes, or visions that light the spark of human ambition. No conception of hopelessness describes what we then saw before us. But God made teachers who have striven to perfect themselves with the fulness of experience, reason, and inspiration; and we were placed in the hands of such as these. Each of them is different from the other. Each one leaves something different from that priceless contribution of every other. As the individual finger of the potter moulds a design of beauty at the neck, or the bulge, or the mouth of the pitcher, similarly each teacher has left his mark upon the boy. It is there to stay. Each impression, each influence, each moulding of the texture, and each filling or designing has not come to him in vain. Time will go on but the words of his craftsmen shall ever endure. Boys of January 1931! Accept the challenge of the Potter! Strive on with the indomitable spirit of the potter to progress, to achieve, to build. Let what has been done for us spur us now to do for ourselves. We can face the wind, bear the strain, meet the fortunes and misfortunes of life with unfaltering purpose. “Potter and clay endure.” We shall succeed in the same measure that we strive. And on the way we shall go as travellers facing the west, but Wherever we go in the world, dear Girard; Whatever the work that we do; Whatever the fare, we shall have but one care, And that to prove worthy of you.