Girard College - Corinthian Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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Girard College Service Flag (1944) There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old, But dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that un¬ hoped serene, That men call age; The DeW—Rupert Brooke Copyright by . Dodd,. Mead Co. 1945 fflorintlitmt

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AIRPLANE VIEW Cilhr (Eoriutljtan [ 6 ] January

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The Principal’s Message TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF JANUARY, 1945: Eight years since you entered Girard College! Have you impatiently awaited this hour, when the inhibiting and circumscribing regulations of your foster home would no longer be binding and once again you could be sheltered under your mother’s roof? Well, the years have passed. Again the gates open for you, but this time not with the beckoning hand of welcome, but with the hand of farewell and Godspeed in final blessing. Now that the hour of graduation has arrived, you are a bit nervous, anxious, puzzled, and not too sure that the days ahead won’t be more difficult than the days behind you. But, truly, l think you should be happy at the thought of leaving the College. No normal young man desires to go to school indefinitely; no rational young man welcomes continued restraints and controls from above. To be happy! Of course you are happy at the thought of the successful comple¬ tion of a long course of study. I should like to be sure that you are happy because of what you have put into the life of the school and into your own life while you were here. Do you believe that younger boys here will always feel thankful for the inspiration for better living you have left with them? If you leave the College with the consciousness that the scholastic standards, the athletic prowess, the cultural achievements, the social decorum, the moral status, the spiritual life of Girard is on a higher level because you have lived, studied and worked here, then surely you can be happy. If you believe that each member of the staff who has learned to know you well feels a personal loss and a loss to the institution when you leave us, truly you have reason to be happy. To attain this happiness you will have to live unselfishly. To know each day that people about you are conscious of your interest in the well-being of others, to know that your family and neighbors delight in their contacts with you, to know that people come to you for advice and help and sympathetic understanding,—this knowledge will indeed bring you untold happiness. To be really happy you will have to find satisfaction and pleasure in the job that is yours. The task may be uninteresting, the boss may be churlish and ungrate¬ ful, but a day’s work meritoriously accomplished does bring happiness. And to be truly happy you must be possessed of a great faith. This is not easy to attain, but it is an attribute that will grow as day by day your belief and trust in people and institutions become more sure. You must have faith in the people about you. Faith in your employer is necessary that you may be happy in your work, faith in your wife and children is necessary that you may be happy in your home, faith in your neighbors is necessary that you may be happy in your community, faith in your schools and your churches is necessary that you may be happy in your cultural and spiritual relationships. Remember this, there is no happiness in the world for the cynic, the destructive critic, the misanthrope, the boor, the tightwad, the scandalmonger, the infidel. Let my final word to you be this: be virtuous, and let a great and abiding faith be ever yours, so that happiness, joy, satisfaction and success may ever attend you. Affectionately yours, Qtyf Carintljmtt January