Reading Memorial High School - Pioneer Yearbook (Reading, MA)

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Faculty

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Headmaster Fellow Students: I use the above salutation because, though many of you may not have suspected it, all of us on the faculty have been students with you during the past three years. Although our formal education is a thing of the past, we have been daily carrying on our studies with you and about you. We have earnestly tried to understand you as individuals so that we might better serve you in the capacity of teachers and counsellors. We have tried to get you started on the road of self-education so that gradually you may develop your mental powers to meet intelligently in later life situations that will call for you to pass judgment on points of conflicting evidence. We hope that by now you have learned not to accept every statement as fact. There is real educational value in doubt, provided that it does not degenerate into mere skepticism or opposition for opposition’s sake. The American ideal calls for intelligent questioning of pre¬ sumed facts before acceptance. We hope that by now the fundamental philosophy of true American education has become part of your mental equipment. We hope that we have helped introduce the proper leaven into your mind so that you may live a happy, intelligent, and in¬ quiring life. No school, no institution can cure the ignorance and folly of man. Each must discover the path of wisdom for himself. You cannot “get” an education anywhere. You become educated only by virtue of patient con¬ tinued study, quiet meditation, intellectual courage to analyze and revise when necessary much of what you have come to believe is true. Someone — I think it was Lord Bacon — wrote, “There are four facets to Wisdom. They are Intellectual Curi¬ osity — the observance and study of the nature of things, Sympathy — the willingness to listen to and consider the statements of others, Modesty, and Piety.” I recom¬ mend that for a full and useful life you keep these four facets bright and clear before you. Rudolf Sussmann

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Pioneer Board EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Shirley Connors ASSISTANT EDITORS Barbara Garey Julia Miller Vircinia Reynolds ART EDITOR ADVERTISING MANAGER Barbara Rodgers CIRCULATION MANAGER Patricia Connelly HEAD TYPIST Nancy Richardson Lois Fulton