University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

Page 30 text:

14 THE REDWOOD COLLEGE IDEALS Toast responded toby John J. Barrett, Esq., of San Francisco at Alumni Banquet, June 30, 1908. College ideals, — the high resolves, the lofty standards, the fresh, clean dedica- tion of old college days. They seem but yesterday, — the long-gone times to which these reflections summon us. The lessons of life ' s duties and responsi- bilities that here were set before us and that here we pledged our manhood to are ringing in our ears today as clear and sharp as the well-remembered voice of that old familiar bell that has stood for years a sentinel at the outer gate giving ceaseless warning of the gather- ing hours. The ideals of our college days. How swiftly the thought carries us back but how far afield it finds us. From what remote and unexpected places it recalls us. Back through the years it leads us, over devious paths aad tangled roads on which we well nigh have lost our course. It leads us out again onto the ample highway of noble manhood and back up the steep road of appointed duty we have unwittingly descended. It plants us back again on that eminence on which we took our stand in those olden days, where the star-strewn firmament of heroic figures and sublime ideals was our constant contemplation, where daily messages of the dignity and glory of intellectual, moral and religious man- hood were brought to us straight from God on the anointed lips and in the consecrated lives of His black-robed emissaries, where the very atmosphere about us, the sky above us, the voice of man and nature all around us, and the ample prospect that stretched before us, enraptured our minds with stand- ards and ideals befitting the deathless stuff that our being is made of and the deathless destiny to which we are born. In his masterly work, The Idea of a University, speaking of the formation of character in college-life, Newman says: That youthful community will con- stitute a whole, it will embody a specific idea, it will represent a doctrine, it will administer a code of conduct, and it will furnish principles of thought and action, it will give birth to a living teaching, which in course of time will take the shape of a self-perpetuating tradition, or a genius loci, as it is sometimes called; which haunts the home where it has been born, and which imbues and forms, more or less, and one by one, every in- dividual who is successively brought under its shadow. A characteristic tone of thought, a recognized standard of judgment is found in them, which, as developed in the individual who is submitted to it, becomes a two-fold source of strength to him, both from the distinct stamp it im- presses on his mind, and from the bond of union which it creates between him and others. The fact and force to which New- man thus refers might be called in a looser term the atmosphere of the place. What are the traditions, what is the

Page 29 text:

THE REDWOOD 13 Again the scene is changed. A day Like this it is, the first of May ; And from the land a gentle breeze Just tips with spray The rippling seas, And clears away The smoke of battle to disclose The sunken ships of Spain. Here lie the latest of our foes. The battle of Manila bay Has not been fought in vain! But in my ear Suddenly rings a louder cheer Than those that went before. Our fleet is anchored and at rest Within the harbor of the West. Its voyage long is o ' er. All joyously I homeward go. My heart is glad because I know That hearts today as bravely beat Upon the ships of our great fleet As those of long ago, That while America is free Her strength and her supremacy Will ne ' er be questioned on the sea By either friend or foe. Maurice T. Dooling, Jr., ' 09.

Page 31 text:

THE REDWOOD 15 genius loci of this ancient institution? What are the ideals which govern edu- cation here? What are the ideals that are built up here? And on what forces is reliance mainly put to set up these standards ? In a word, what is the atmosphere from which the students of Santa Clara College draw their mental and moral fibre ? In the delicate work of education in its proper sense, — the actual taking hold of the plastic mind and soul and character of the student, with all their faculties and functions, and drawing them out and giving them their due form and development, — I can conceive of no more important forces than the character and quality of the educator. The part these elements play is mani- fold. They bring the student into what we might call an attitude of hospital- tality to the work in hand. They hold him in unreserved submission to the operation. They rouse him to forthright co-operation with his educator. They compel a recognition and appreciation of the full authority and weight of the instruction given. They persuade the student to a meek and utter surrender to all the influences of his teacher. The importance of such attitude on the part of a pupil is universally recog- nized. It goes a long way toward the full results of the educator ' s work. It is like the preparation and cultivation of the soil to receive the seed and to work in harmony with nature ' s forces as they bring it to fruition. But the character and quality of the educator do not stop at that. They run throughout the entire process, leaving imprints for good or evil that, as the life of the student runs on, prove more im- portant than all the direct lessons he was told by teacher or drew from books. In his panegyric on William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips said: This is only another instance added to the roll of the Washingtons and Hampdens whose root is not ability, but character; that influence which, like the great Master ' s of Judea(humanly speak- ing), spreading through the centuries, testifies that the world suffers its grand- est changes not by genius, but by the more potent control of character. So too does the individual student in the course of his education suffer the grandest changes not by the influence of the genius of his educator but by the more potent control of his character. Where in all the world does this great principle find fuller acceptance, where is it put into larger play, where does it find more emphatic exemplifica- tion, than in the educational scheme of the sons of Loyola, the Society of Jesus? In very many of the most responsible departments of life men equip them- selves for and complete their careers in shorter time than these men put in in a term of probation and preparation be- fore they receive the credentials which entitle them to just commence their work. And what a preparation and proba- tion it is! The world shudders at the thought of its rigor. It begins with a renunciation of all the pleasures, prizes and rewards that the vast majority of