Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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ship was utterly devoid of all the ceremonies and beautiful objects associated with traditional Chris- tianity. The Puritan always placed the spiritual before the material. He wanted nothing between himself and his God. Christ was born in a barn. Was it unfitting for his fol- lowers to worship in like circum- stances? God said, “Thou shall have no other gods before me.” The Puritan placed neither God nor man, ceremony nor ritual, before his faith. The Puritan mind was not artistic ; it was strong, virtuous. “Virtue is a kind of beauty,” said a Puritan; but it was not artistic. Working with a gun in one hand and an axe in the other, one hardly has time to paint beautiful pictures or to write great poems. In the useful occupations there was much appre ciation shown. New England has a splendid tradition of crafts- manship. The excellence of Puritan cabinet-work is still recognized, and in the prose of the period one may find flashes of beautiful and effec- tive English. They built houses of the purest architectural standards in America. The Puritan placed fnith above beauty, and dutv above pleasure, but that does not mean that he despised either. Much, in- deed. on the contrary! One of the most valuable works of the Puritans was their govern- ment. It combined the best of the democratic and aristocratic systems. The voting list was small, church membership and a character test being reouired, and the official standard of integrity was very high. The town-meeting for local affairs and a representative body for state affairs were brought to high effi- ciency. Wealth and birth had little influence. A man was judged for what he was and not for what he had. On a small scale New England had that enviable body, an aristoc- racy of brains and character. The greatest thing which the Pur- itans did was to establish a system of education. This education was primarily to train men for the min- istry. As the Bible was the great book of the Puritans, the clergy must be able to read it in the origi- nal languages of Hebrew, Greek, and -Latin. Add to these mathe matics, ethics, and logic, and there is a classical education. The Puri- tans had formed a set of principles and attempted to continue them by education. Primary education of all boys was required and higher was encouraged. The standard of education in those days was higher than now. John Winthrop, Jr., who founded Ipswich, was in constant correspondence with over eighty world leaders in all fields of thought and action. Ezekiel Cheever, who taught here in Ipswich, was the greatest teacher of that time. Wil- liam Brewster and Richard Mather were accounted scholars in England. Cotton Mather, in addition to speak- ing several languages and being considered a great scholar, wrote more than most men have time or thought enough to read. The classical education taught men what to be; the modern teaches men what to do. The old gave ideas; the new facts. In twenty years from now the college gradu- ating classes of 1931 will have achieved success in material things and will have retired to comfort and enjoyment of Crane plumbing, Ford automobiles, and steam-heated houses. Twenty years from their graduation the classes of 1631 in England had conquered a wilder- ness, and set up a city of God, not on laws, prosperity, nor favour, but 2 :

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trayed, and there is good cause for all of his condemnation. This con- dition was the result of victory. The Puritan spirit was essentially a fighting spirit and when it had suc- cessfully fought the errors of Ca- tholicism and Anglicanism, and heresy within its own rank , there was nothing left to fight and it col- lapsed of itself. Intolerance left a smudge on history and hypocrisy became common. Yet the men of that time were not as bad as they were painted. Cotton Mather, the theological leader of this period, when he was forty and after the death of his second wife, received a proposal of marriage from the prettiest young lady in Boston, even in that age of propriety. There can be no denial nor softening of the faults of the Puritans of this later period. Religion became much theological than ever before. The strict character standards put face value high and fostered hypocrisy, which was the great curse of the Puritans. However, although the faults increased during this period and the early vigor faded, the vir- tues of the Puritans still stand. Among the qualities of the Puri- tans that call for praise is that of idealism. It was the spiritual grop- ing towards something better, the trying to progress by improving the man, not his conditions, that first started the Puritan movement. Rea- soning would have told them that a City of God was as impossible in one part of this earth as another. Yet idealism allowed no peace of mind until an attempt had been made. Turned into new channels, disguised under different names, this same spirit created and built America and supplied a whole new ideology for it. Merely a vision and hope of bet- ter things would have done little without strength and continuity of purpose. The Puritan not only saw what to do, but did it. He risked everything he had, life being placed among the least, when he came to America. Starvation, savages, the hostile nations of France and Spain, exposure, pestilence, and above all the heavy hand of England, were daily menaces. The Puritans placed degradation as the worst of condi- tions and preferred to die in inde- pendent poverty and danger than to live in dependent affluence. Puritan theology was narrow and sometimes bigoted. The New Eng- land clergy attained a power that never had existed in England. The Bible was the sole source of religion and the Old Testament more than the New. Theirs was no God of love and mercy but a stern God, though a just one. Fundamentally they were Calvinists, holding that the natural instincts of life are evil and that men are born sinners. Sal- vation would come only to the few that kept God’s covenant and suc- ceeded in improving themselves by judicious development of the higher and control of the lower emotions. They were the Elect. All others in the world and many of themselves were only fit to be damned. Shall we condemn this attitude? How do we know that it was wrong ? W e may judge only by the way they up- held it, and in this there is room for little but admiration. The oftenest and most persistent accusation against the Puritan is that he opposed and destroyed beaty. This is true in detail and untrue in general. It cannot be de- nied that the Cromwellian armies destroyed manv beautiful things in the Anglican Churches, and it can- not be denied that the Puritan wor- 22

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on industry, sound learning, and ' high morals. It is sad to see the scorn of this generation for that generation of 1631 which was cho- sen by God to be the rock on which American life is built. The concep- tion of progress has changed. The classical education fostered, devel- oped, and sustained English and American Puritanism. Their educa- tion sent them out to battle for ideals, social principles, and a new theory of life. Is it too late to knit into a glorious whole the heritage of the past with the accomplish- ments of the present? As we go forth into our modern world, let us take with us the facts which we have gathered here these last four years, given us with patience and generosity by those who have in- structed us and adding to them a desire to use them, not as ends, but as means, to attain to objectives as high as the Puritan objectives and by so doing we will live worthy of those sturdy men. whose descend- ants we are, fulfilling and not be- traying their traditions. Judged by his own standard the Puritan was imperfect. Judged by ours he was imperfect, but he came closer to his than any other group has come to its standards. In his- tory it is unfair to judge other peo- ple and times by our ideas. In con- demning the Puritans as a whole we should be more intolerant than they and much less intelligently so. Peo- ple may say, “Thank God the Puri- tans are dead,” but they know lit- tle about the true Puritans. Let us hope that the Puritan spirit is still alive. If we can ask ourselves, “Shall we do as we ought to do and not as we want to do?” and feel a strong affirmative response stirring within us, we are Puritans. The Puritan spirit is still alive, and it will be a disastrous day for Amer- ica and for the rest of the world when it ceases to be. GERMANY’S CONTRIBUTION TO CIVILIZATION Fabian S. Ciolek With the reinstatement of the study of the German language in the schools and colleges of our land and the softening of the bitter feel- ings against Germany resulting from her part as played in the World War, the time has perhaps now come when it may be well to forget our hatred and to review the great and lasting contributions of Ger- many to civilization. Who has not heard of the famous scientist Ein- stein, or of the world-renowned “Zeppelin,” or of the famous musi- cians, Beethoven and Mozart ? Thus Germany has shown her influence in the social, cultural, and political fields. The social influence of the Ger- man element consists in the cultiva- tion of those arts which divert from the narrow path of selfish interest and material gain and which ele- vate, enoble. and increase the joy of living. Of all the influences of Germany, the influence of music has been lasting and supreme. She had founded an empire of music before she created a political em- nire. The civilized world of today is more deeply indebted to Germany than to any other nation for its rich heritage of classical music. The first orchestral director in Boston was the German pioneer, Graupner, often called “the father of Ameri- can orchestral music.” Some of the well-known figures from the assem- blage of musical geniuses which have never been equaled are Bach, 24