St Francis Preparatory School - San Fran Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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X . . ztwwiix? we M Y , - A ' K J F5354 T The eentral sun, unfailing sour:-e of life and light to the Earth. The faculty, from year to year bearers of the torvll of lrnon le1lg:e. ' 1+

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was pleasures in which he roams awhile, indulging here or there, always tiring in boredom. Yet in all this misdirected effort, his almost tragic attempts to indefinitely prolong the least of his sensations give evidence that there still burns an inborn longing for the boundlessness of God, the yearning for Infinity. This irrevocable impulse must then be called back to its natural destiny. Now all things, properly used, do lead us to God. And of all creation, the infinite order of the Universe leads us to suspect a Supreme Being. This is by no means only a Christian concept for even the pagan Cicero observed, When we look up at the sky and contemplate the heavenly bodies, can anything be more plain and obvi- ous than that there is some higher Being of surpassing intelligence governing all these things. Should not modern man with his ac- cumulated knowledge more strongly affirm what was realized in comparative scientific ignorance? Now he knows the Earth to be but a tiny sa-tellite whirling on its axis in a meas- ureless void of space at over a thousand miles an hour--and yet we feel no motion. At the same time, it sweeps along a path about the sun travelling one and a half million miles a day amidst innumerable heavenly bodies-and yet living as if in a great solitude, the danger of collision is negligible. Thousands of stars swing through the skys with such regularity that the position of each may be determined centuries in advance. The Universe proclaims the Intelligence behind its order. Of course we must all use our inheritance of Faith to fully realize God. But since Logic and Faith are as handmaids to one another, it is certain that to verify one is to enhance the other. We would hope therefore, that by directing some eyes upward to the splendid symmetry ofthe sky, Prepsters may be made more aware of the God of their Faith. And to be more aware of Him is to more nearly accom- plish the fruition of their Christian lives for we have thus brought ourselves closer to Him. By so doing we must inevitably, though prob- ably unconsciously, set in motion a power which carries others dispersed, back to a common path leading to the throne of God. Then mankind, united in a single purpose of existence, may be still more akin to the har- mony of the heavens. Wie' 3 John Astarita - James O'Neill Patrick O'Daly Sports Editor I5 Assistant Editor Photography Editor

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ACM And the king of Siam sent a messenger into the whole of his kingdom. And to this messenger the king said, Find the wisest man in all the kingdom, and bring him to me. The messenger went and looked for a long time. Then he returned. Now with the king's messenger there were two men. One was a very old manj the other a very young man. The messenger pointed to the young man and he said, Sire, this is the wisest man in all the kingdom. The king looked at the young man and said, And who is this? pointing toward the old man. And then the wisest man in all the kingdom said, This was my teacher. A teacher imparts a little of himself to his students. Regardless of where the path of life leads without the walls of this school there will always remain something of it within us, and, perhaps, if nothing else remains, there will forever be the influence of one-or maybe more-of the teachers whom we have experienced here. Just as the vast emptiness of space is pierced by a com- plex network of magnetic forces, so too is the diagram of life marked with a labyrinthine maze of influences. No matter what heights of fame or depths of depravity we may achieve as individuals, we will always be con- trolled by the life-forces around us-such is the very way of human action. lt is that which is about use especially our fellow men-that shapes what we do and are. We, as students, may tend to frown heartily upon eulogies of teachers-they are constantly thrown at us, and we, rightly so, become very tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. This is no eulogy. This is simply an account of what is the rather obvious order of things. A grand responsibility falls to our teachers. They are placed in the extremely awkward position of acquaint- ing us with the general functioning of the society into which we must eventually make our way. Their task does not, as so many think, lie in their teaching us the mechanics of a number of intellectual pursuits. lt is far above that. The teacher is, in fact, an emissary. For he comes to his students with the desires and even the demands of society, and he presents those things to them for either their acceptance or their rejection. And their choice in this matter invariably determines the position which they will occupy within the organization of society. The old will always try to guide us toward the correct choiceg they will even flaunt their errors in an effort to prevent us from making the same mistakes. We, more frequently than not, will refuse to listen, will make the same errorsg and will become the unheeded counsellors of a future generation.