Peru State College - Peruvian Yearbook (Peru, NE)

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DR. HOWARD

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Anna Morehead Joy Having reached that period when people are spoken of as living in the past, it is rather pleasant to have our young friends ask us for some of those reminiscences. After several years of personal experience right here, then seeing brothers, sisters, cousins, and lastly five of my own children educated in this school, I would naturally have some experiences of interest to students of the present time. This school, as you all know, was established as a church school, and I am glad to say that in all these fifty-three years, has lived up to the high moral standard set at that time. The only mark 1 ever had against my conduct was for going walking one Sunday afternoon with my roommate, on the road west of town, where we called on a family we were acquainted with. Another thing that Professor McKenzie instilled into us, was to never say can t, but to do whatever we undertook. This was brought up very vividly to me three years ago when he was telling of the troubles we had with the first old bell. He wanted it rung at half past five for us to get up and go to study- ing- The boy or man that was to do it was sometimes a little late, so my room- mate, Emma Brooke, volunteered to do it for a while. The very next morning when she attempted to ring it, the rope was covered with sleet and frozen fast, so she climbed up on a ladder through the attic and out on the roof and rang the bell. When she told me, I said, Why that was a very dangerous thing to do. 1 know it, she said, but 1 wasn’t going to fail, especially the very first morning when 1 was expected to do it.” May the next fifty years mark tin even greater advancement than the last have done.

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Greetings to the Class of 1920 Your Class-Sponsor, Professor Jean, has extended to me your gracious congratulations and your request for a brief message out of my half-century’s experience since graduating at the Peru Norma . Accept my warmest thanks and an expression of my deep regret that in bodily as well as in spiritual presence I may not share in your festal hour. I salute you almost with a feeling of envy, even of awe; for in my vision 1 am able to perceive, at least in shadowy outline, the rich experiences, the great achievements which surely await you together with the host of other teachers who today throughout the land are commencing the next half-century’s task. Great indeed has been the progress in American life and especially in American education since in 1870 my classmate and I read our themes and received our diplomas under the spreading branches of the trees which then grew near where the library build- ing now stands. In that same year I began to teach; and ever since, save for a pause of six years (1872-1878) while equipping myself by further study, teaching has been my profession. To me the teacher’s life has been full and satisfying. It is a life rich in spiritual if not always in temporal gains. At its best, is not the teacher’s function the basic social service? It is a many-sided service. During the plastic years of youth, it is the teacher’s hand, sometimes even more potently than the hand of the parent, which gives the first ’’set or mould to personality. From the kindergarten to the university it is within the teacher’s power to aid chiefly in preparing the child either for good or for bad citizenship. The public school, like the public normal and the public univer- sity, should be the seminar of democracy. Thus far society has failed to evaluate justly the teacher’s service. Rela- tively in every grade or rank the teacher has been underpaid. At this moment thousands of men and women are quitting the profession for better paid employments. The crisis is paradoxical; for never, seemingly, has there been disclosed in America such a demand for education as now. Due in part to the Great War, at last we are coming to have a clearer understanding of the real value of the trained mind. So I say to you, do not abandon the teaching profession. I feel sure that a prosperous future awaits it. Enfranchised woman- hood will not much longer suffer itself to be exploited for meager pay. Women have had nearly a monopoly of public school teaching; and they have done their work efficiently and zealously. When their possession of the ballot shall have blotted out the sex-line politically and therefore economically, may we not expect men and women more evenly than now to share in the profession which, directly or indirectly, should have as its goal the preparation of human beings for the duties of good citizenship? Onward, then, with high courage to share the great destiny which awaits the true American teacher! Yours fraternally, GEORGE ELLIOTT HOWARD.