Mount St Mary Academy - Mercian Yearbook (Little Rock, AR)

Page 17 text:

Our Clzalafainh eafiage fo flne gracluafm Dear Graduates of the Class of 1951: The sponsor of your year book has reminded me that its deadline is approaching and that I am expected, as usual, to address a valediction to the class that is so soon to leave the tender care of its Alma Mater 'behind it and to launch out into the troubled affairs that constitute life beyond school. It is one of the tragedies of life that friends must part. You are about to take leave of your teachers and your school companions, and experience makes it evident that never again will all the members of this class and their teachers meet on this side of the grave. It is true that your intentions are the best and that you all have hopes that future meetings will take place. But at such reunions, always there will be absent members. This is a sad but a true fact. The theme that runs through the Mercian this year is the Centenary of the Sisters of Mercy in Arkansas. The sisters need no eulogist. Their work among the poor, the sick and the ignorant, during the past one hundred years, speaks for itself. They instructed, during this period, a countless number of young people unto justice and the names of many of them are already written in the Book of Life. These will be followed by others in their turn. It will always be the proud boast of this year's graduating classes in the schools conducted by the Sisters of Mercy, throughout this Diocese, that they are the crowning work of one hundred years of unselfish devotion to duty. You graduates of this year at Mt. St. Mary's Academy are the latest in a long line of students, who have been trained according to exacting standards. You have had before you, at all times, living examples of unselfish lives, dedicated to God's service and to your betterment. This is in striking contrast to the spirit of this age, in which so many are interested solely in their own security. You have had unusual opportuni- ties, it is for you to improve them and spend your influence for good in a world that is morally decadent. The character of any age reflects the conduct of its women. When Napoleon asked Madame Campan, What is wanting in order that the youth of France be well edu- cated? The answer was, Good mothers. It is the good mother, in every age, who makes the being, who would be a savage but for her tender care, a Christian man. And what is the hidden strength of a good woman? Milton tells us in Comus, 'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity, So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity, that when a soul is found sincerely so, a thousand liveried angels lackey her driving far off each thing of sin and guilt. You have this talisman, dear graduates of the Class of 1951. Wear it proudly and conspicuously. Never accept the standards that paganism has set up in modern society. Remember with affection and gratitude the teachers who have shaped your high-school years. Always be a credit to their teaching and example, because their lives are bound up in you and others like you. And now with stirrup cup in hand let us recall the words of Mizpah: Go thou thy way, and I go mine, Apart, yet not afar, Only a thin veils hangs between the pathways where we are. Yet God keeps watch 'tween thee and me, So never fear, He holds thy hand, he clampeth mine, And keeps us near. -Thomas L. Keany.

Page 16 text:

1 I Very Hovoreod Monsignor Thomas L. Hoaoy, Ph. U 6Au!9Al1'n, luzrAer, un,1!C0Lu'A

Page 18 text:

mari f85f ZJOLA in on fAe Cjfaddezi E '6Knowledge is the wing Wherewith we fly to Heaven?