Illiana Christian High School - Spire Yearbook (Lansing, IL)

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OUR CHIEF EXECUTIVE Mr. C. Van Beek: A.B., M.A. twelve

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Today we present the faculty, Ladies and men who boast a degree. In our activities and problems they lend a hand And always strive to understand. eleven

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TO THE GRADUATES Among the many charges leveled at present-day Americans is the accusation that we are obsessed with the idea of security, and that we are generally more concerned about personal welfare and comfortable retirement than about the contribution (or lack of it) we are making to the pattern of life round-about us. The extent to which this charge is true may be difficult to determine, but that a generation which has seen two world wars and has passed through one of the worst depressions of history should be preoccupied with the problem of security is not surprising. And if we bear in mind the breath-taking rapidity with which one invention or innovation supplants another, we can understand a little of why, as a recent writer put it the world is living with its fingers crossed. That you as graduates are entering a world of confusion and uncertainty, distorted by greed and hatred, sharply divided by conflicting ideologies is a fact so obvious that you have become aware of it long before your high school days were over. The extent to which your teachers at Uliana have during the past four years helped to condition you for the rugged demands such a world will make upon you is a fair test of their success. No one can at present speak with any great degree of certainty as to the success of their labors; your lives will have to make their own testimony. Although a mind well-stocked with information and sharpened on the grindstone of intellectual endeavor is a valuable asset, it must function in a setting of emotional stability and spiritual discipline if it is to realize its maximum usefulness. Only if we have attained a truly Christian perspective can we meet confidently the perplexities of life and the complexities of living. When the pressures of the present and the uncer¬ tainties of the future distress, you will find no surer basis for confident living than the words, I am Jehovah; I change not. As your teachers, we rejoice with you in your youth; your natural optimism and en¬ thusiasm are a great blessing. We humbly pray that we may have been instrumental in forming channels of thought and ambition that will guide the flow of youthful ardor into the broad fields of purposeful Christian living. C. VAN BEEK thirteen