Plymouth State University - Conning Tower Yearbook (Plymouth, NH)

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The Conning Tower of 19 3 2 The class of 1932 goes out to a challenging world. You were born into peaceful times; you have grown up through the troublous times of the Great War; you have known the jazz age following that war. Your youth was passed in times of extravagance and plenty; you are just now passing through a period of sobering economic distress, and a groping after fundamentals again to make for prosperity and comfortable living. You arc just now leaving a life of parental and institutional care, interest and protection, to make your own success in ways of self-support and service. The prospect of a few years ago for a continuing prosperity and ever-increasing opportunity is changed to one of serious concern for economic sufficiency and a demand for insight, common sense, and industry. As from your commencement you go out with hope and ambition for service in your chosen vocation, you cannot count on a sure job as other graduates of the past have been reasonably able to do. You must compete for opportunity, and, having found the opportunity, you must demonstrate in a superior manner your understanding, your attitudes, and your ambitions. You will need to accept seriously your responsibility for continuing in the young people you will teach, the on-flowing life of a democratic nation. You must be sensitive to the economic and spiritual virtues that make nations endure. You must realize that the hope of America must be conditioned upon the perpetuation of democratic principles, and that the destinies of nations are sometimes determined by the lapses of a brief generation or two. The young people you will serve may not have sensed economic principles; you can help them in that understanding. The present generation may not be so affected by jazz influences as the young of your generation have been; it will be your privilege to see that they are exposed to still better things. You have seen and weighed, I hope, the short-comings of our times. Conscious of our present-day troubles, you may be the better girded in your strength to make the near future even better than might be if you had not experienced the difficulty and therefore motivated to the making of a better world. Life goes on and on. What you fail to do for the children who pass under your instruction and influence will never be done for them. May the challenge to you prove a blessing to those you will teach. Ernest L. Silver. [15]

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Ernest Leroy Silver

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 Night is the time to weep To wet with unseen tears These graves of memory where sleep The joys of other years.”