Memphis State University - DeSoto Yearbook (Memphis, TN)

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®l e (ElaoB of ' 17. Another page in the history of the West Tennessee State Normal School has been finished and the heritage of the Great Volunteer State enriched. For six long years the embryo has been in the process of formation — resulting in 1917 in the magnificent class of sixty-four members. The school, the faithful instructors, and the general State of Tennessee, have erected to their memory a monument which time itself cannot erase and which future generations will look upon with inspiration and reverence. If all the energy, enthusiasm, and determination of this august body is dedicated to the cause of race enlighten- ment, there is every reason to expect with great anticipation the decay of illiteracy. This great body has waged stormy battles, encountered numerous ob- stacles, and made attacks and counter-attacks, but now the turbulent sea is calm, the battlefield silent, and peace declared. Democracy, equal justice to our fellow creatures, whether rich or poor, learned or ignorant, are firmly fixed upon us, and the problems of mankind now require our serious considera- tion. These are times that try men ' s souls. The summer soldier, the pussy- footed pacifist, the sunshine patriot, will in crises, shrink from the service of their country, their State, their school; but he that faces assailants and foes wi th an unfaltering trust and unparalleled bravery deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly ; ' tis dearness only that gives everything its value. But duty and perseverance are not the only attributes which this en- thusiastic and patriotic class possess. There was a realization of that greatest of all things, responsibility. At no time in the history of the institution was there a more responsive, sympathetic, ambitious body than this company of pedagogues of ' 17. Responsive to all requests from authority, deeply sym- pathetic with the needs of the institution, ambitious to so succeed that they might be an honor to instructors, school, State, and nation, it battled as a unit, denouncing wrong and championing right. Caesar met his Brutus, Charles II. his Cromwell, Napoleon his Wellington, and ignorance is doomed to meet the Normal graduates. Beyond the Alps lies Italy. The future lies before us. The soul of Tennessee is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair upon her face. She is thrilling with the consciousness of growing 20

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power and prosperity. She stands upright, full statured and equal among people of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanded horizon ; she understands that her emancipation of ignorance will come only through the inscrutable wisdom of God and her educational institutions, and has made provisions for the development of these wonderful factories. The responsibility is our heritage. What shall we do? Mav the words of Ella Wheeler Wilcox ever serve as our guide and standard, as it has done in the past: ' ' Tis easy enough to be pleasant When life Hows along like a song : But the man worth while is the one who will smile When everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is trouble, And it always comes with the years, And the smile that is worth the praise of the earth Is the smile that comes through tears. It is easy enough to be prudent When nothing tempts you to stray ; When without or within no voice of sin Is luring 3 ' our soul away. But it ' s only a negative virtue Until it is tried by fire, And the life that is worth the honor of earth Is the one that resists desire. By the cynic, the sad, the fallen. Who had no strength for the strife, The world ' s highway is encumbered today ; They make up the item of life. But the virtue that conquers passion, And the sorrow that hides in a smile — It is these that are worth the homage of earth, . For we find them once in a while. 21