University of Maryland Baltimore Dental School - Mirror Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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which has been driving them and compelling them, until tonight the whole world is made up of many thousands of men of effort, each the possessor of an undying and enthusiastic desire to do something worth while for humanity, and they are achieving these things and know why they labor in the achieve- ment of them. There is no longer any doubt, any uncertainty ; no longerany darkness of ignorance or despair ; man has emerged from the ancient gloom. Man is now hopeful and eager. The training and experience of the years have demonstrated and exhibited unto him his own power, the power of his mind, the in- vincible strength of his intellect. The human brain is master ! Fear not for your personal success. Learn and realize that a singleness of purpose unwaveringly pursued, with tireless energy and growing and ever-recurrent enthusiasm, must and will guide your foot- steps into the pathway and support and sustain you unto the gate that opens upon the promised land where flows the milk and honey. This success you cannot fail to attain if you devote your minds and your whole desires to it as your life ' s one objective point. The history of men has abundantly proved the truth and the possibility of this. You have within you the power to make or mar your own careers. I do not mean this in the ordinarily accepted sense of that idea. I mean it in its fullest and most extensive sense. A vigorous, unalloyed, continuous, concen- tration of the mind upon the acquisition of any given object or result will almost invariably bring a per- fect realization of it. This concentration, however, must be the kind that remains sleepless and undaunted. It must be fearless in the face of defeat and supreme in the hour of adversity. The experience of humanity has been that men contain within themselves the ability to work out their own salvation, and if, whatsoever your hands find to do you shall do with all your might, the very mightiness of your labor will bring its reward, and you will not be disappointed in the end. There is no doubt about the truth of this statement. It is not a new nor an experimental doctrine. It is recent only in that it has but just begun to be recognized and understood. It has existed since man first began to develop, and the development and perfection of it, even without man ' s knowledge, has kept pace with all of his advances. The great within all of us has the power of becoming omnipotent, and some day, in the era of the 20

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All of us have a part to perform in the drama of life, and whether our role shall be applauded or derided depends almost entirely upon each individual. The whole library of the chronicles of progress contains but one story — that men worth while, men who have worked, have lived, and have understood the human necessity for their efforts ; and they have devoted their energy, their ability and their determination to the attainment of some great object, and they have, by sheer force of will-power, attained it. Yes, there have been, there are, and there will continue to be some exceptions to this rule. Luck has played some part. Fortune has occasionally assisted in the achievements of a few of this world ' s characters. But luck is usually such a negligible quantity ; fortune is so notoriously fickle that he who may depend upon one or both of these auxiliaries will generally find them leading him so far astray that when at last his vain regrets shall recall him to a sense of his own shame and dishonor, he will be in the midst of the quicksand of disaster and hopelessly lost. Work, then, honest, earnest endeavor, is the sole medium that has yet produced lasting results and will ever enable a man to count his full tally in the final summing-up of the many acts of his existence. It is idle, it is foolish, it is cowardly for any man to say that he is unable to do thus and so. It is a lamentable confession of weakness for any man to admit that the buffetings of the world have disheart- ened and defeated him. It is eternally shameful for any man to confess that that derivative of the Almighty, the transcendent power of the brain, has been misused, abused or not recognized and utilized. The man who buries his talents, who refuses to do his best, who is faint-hearted and fearful, who is prone to live a purposeless life, who is captivated by and enamored of the wiles of Tyre and Sodom, is he whom everlasting confusion overtakes. Centuries upon centuries ago man struggled and toiled in darkness, the darkness of uncertainty, the darkness of ignorance, and sometimes of despair. He toiled and struggled because it was the eternal purpose of Creation that he should do so. He strived after better things, not knowing why he strived, because he was a part in the great evo- lutionary process of mankind. A force within him impelled him and urged him to seek to better his con- dition, and the world has advanced to its present stage because he did strive and did accomplish his purposes. And, down through all the centuries since, men have been striving in response to that same force, 25

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millennium, it will come into its own. Even now, if properly understood and rightly used, it will guard his advances into whatsoever field man may choose to essay, and will break down all barriers that seek to bar his progress. Learn the force of this great within and use it. Use it rightly and vigorously, and fear not. It would be unfair, however, to deny or to dispute what should be recognized as a universal and an ever-present fact — that evil forces have never ceased to permeate and have ever sought to dominate all things temporal. Whether this be the result of original sin or what not, matters little in a life of practical achievement. It is sufficient to know that it does exist. That whenever and wherever man has sought to build, to originate or to succeed, there has been an ever-present deteriorating and destructive influence keeping pace with and oftentimes outstripping his efforts. Nature herself has felt the bane of this influence, and man, a product of nature, is always surrounded and menaced by it. All good is correlated with its evil. The course of the world has demonstrated this, and destiny seems to make it so. But destiny is subject to the eternal and everlasting decree, pronounced co-instantaneously with the completion of the world, that good must ultimately triumph, and man is but the instrument of destiny. Civilization, destiny, is marching on, and we are the chosen and selected media through whom it- must work, and who must lead it to its successes or its failures. Your personal careers are assured. Learn the full power and the might of your brains, and work with all your energy and you will be able to command success. But this individual, this personal ambition is the smallest part of your lives. The whole world needs you. The people of the nations, less favored than you, are crying out to you for help. Steeped in ignorance, devoid of aspiration, overcome with dread, hopeless, and groping in the mid- night of despondency, your kindred are grovelling in the accumulated dust and dirt of the ages. Subjects of disease, instruments of disorder, germs of evil ; they yet possess enough of the divine spark of humanity to cause them to recognize in you and all of us that hope born of the centuries-old agony of despair which has been their only heritage, and, with wide-open and beseeching eyes, their hands are outstretched in a fervid appeal to all of us for help. 27