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

Page 10 text:

Ernest Leroy Silver The President's Message The Class of 1937 leaves college with reasonable hope of finding work to do. Let that work be well conceived. Your country calls for your intelligent thought and action in affairs political. Your college years have been times of political ferment; years when economic principles of long acceptance have been challenged and social philosophies once held fanciful and unworkable are seriously championed by strong leaders. Individual liberty and democratic government have been lost to some nations; new tyrannies for old ones have come to other peoples. Ten million young voters who have reached majority in recent years will soon shape the destinies of America. The educated voter must be a force unfailing.

Page 9 text:

The Conning Tower of 1937 ODC CLASS or J?57 r ■ ■■ « t i E Tl» mpltn [-zp-.-rp-i mr r r -f- =fc= -f- f - • (u ■■■■ E -t-f r 4= =f= =f= , J 1 -V 1 , , - , 11 . , ..I ,-fWi PrV4- WW —i—i.l.t W1 —i— —i—— [..g. U-.j J !-■ a I '' ' ; ' v ; ' ; j EE 1 J ■ 1 fM=U= r4 cs £ r4-i j 1 a iii - - j L|ili-LL o To thee, O Conning Tow'r, we bring Our hymn of love and praises sing; We ask thy blessing as we go upon our way, To find our place in this New Day! Great arc the heights wc long to climb. Deep arc the truths we needs must find, Grant us the strength to climb and eyes to see the light; Give to us Strength! Give to us Sight! Grant to us joy that comes, when life Tells us of love and sacrifice, Tries to defeat us and we laugh and rise again. Give to us Joy! Give to us Pain! May we not lose the vision clear Of fairer, nobler worlds by far Than this, and of a race of men who will be free,— Our vision for humanity! To thee, O Conning Tow’r, wc raise This, our last song of love and praise, Thy spirit guide us as we go upon our Quest; For life that’s full! For life that’s best! [7|

Page 11 text:

The Conning Tower of 19 3 7 Your state anticipates, and justice to yourself requires, worthy use of your investment in education and special training. The hope of a republic is an intelligent citizenry. Your state, like others, believes that education of all the people is a necessary investment to the end of state security. To the individual and to society, education should bring all the finer things of life, material as well as spiritual. As you train youthful eyes to see, ears to hear, and stimulate minds to intelligent and pleasurable comprehension, you will gather returns from the investment in satisfaction to yourself, good to the state, and happy living to the pupil. That teacher fails whose passing years of experience open no new vistas of opportunity, give no better insight into teaching, and produce no finer accomplishments. The good teacher is forever a student. Your Alma Mater expects, and self respect demands, loyalty to your profession. Be happy and proud that you are teachers; there is no other work more noble. There are ignoble teachers and incompetent ones. You should not be incompetent; you will not be ignoble. Loyalty to your profession will make you scientific in method, industrious and resourceful in techniques, self-critical of results, and always ready to accept new ideas after careful consideration. Not all new things arc fine; many old things are precious, even eternal in value. The conception of education as growth calls for the the open mind. Habits of thought, tradition, precedents, tend to be foes of the open mind. The teacher speaks as one having authority, and properly so, but the vice of excess in this respect may produce the closed mind. Wc are not loyal to the highest nature of our profession if we become fixed in our notions, bigoted, narrowly traditional or satisfied with limited scholarship. A dead thing is one that has ceased growing. The mind is practically dead when it is no longer concerned with thinking. The closed mind thinks little. Be concerned, then, for yourself and for your pupil, that you teach not what to think so much as how to think. Let us remember that we teach for the benefit of society, through individuals. All good teaching has its social implications. That teaching would be ideal, perhaps, which gives to all factual learning social significance, and evokes all finer things of the spirit, whose manifestations are beauty, goodness, and truth. Ernest L. Silver [9]