St Ignatius College Prepatory - Ignatian Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

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THE CITY

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„1 ......... IAN 1961

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AROUND US On the hill crowned by the up-flung towers of St. Ignatius Church stands a high school named for the same great Saint. To many, this gray-brown building and its white- and-green gym would seem to be little more than just one of the many fonts of learning scattered, seemingly erratically, on one or another of San Francisco's streets. And they would be partly right. St. Ignatius, like every other school in San Francisco, partakes of the exotic city’s unique charm. It is a vibrant and pulsa- ting, cosmopolitan and vivacious city. It is a city that embraces miles of rolling green park, bright residential areas, graceful monuments. When graced by the sun it becomes a brilliant many-faceted jewel of glittering skyscraper windows enchantingly set in the azure frame of Bay and Ocean. Or it can be a foghorn bemoaned wilderness that creeps and slithers past the majestic Golden Gate. It is the Gateway to the Orient; the Western Portal of America. And its people—cos- mopolitan, urbane—are constantly hurryingly engaged in the city’s activities, caught up in the city’s clinging web that beguiles all of her residents into an undying affection for herself. But they would be partly wrong. St. Ignatius High School cannot help but be influenced by what San Francisco is. But it is not a blind acceptance. SI exists to help its students step back from this mystic milieu and view it in detached calm. Only thus can they dissociate the good from the bad. the right from the wrong, the beautiful from the ugly, the Godly from the worldly. As such. SI becomes a source of that newer, deeper, richer vitality that is Christ in the lives of men. And as such, it is the source not only of that full richness that God intended in the lives of SI graduates; it is also the push and drive and vigor that the graduates bring to bear upon the world about them. It is they who, taking St. Ignatius’ special sort of clear-sighted vitality with them, help to make San Francisco the city she herself knows she wants to be. Si’s students are heirs to the riches of San Fran- cisco’s culture, climate, and citizenry. But they are also heirs to the spirit of St. Ignatius, bringing the 20- century-old tradition of Christian culture to the city of St. Francis. We both influence and are influenced by THE CITY AROUND US. 3