Valparaiso University - Beacon / Record Yearbook (Valparaiso, IN)

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PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. DAVID L. MeTAGGART. EMBERS 0f the Class, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is the natural destiny of every man to receive successively, as continually widening Views of his own nature, the great lessons of the agents of this social environment. While yet a youth, in the home, he is taught that greatest of all lessonsethe lesson of obedience. Next as a learner, in the school, he becomes developed, his body is made the fit medium of expression for the mind, his mind the fit governor of the body, and the embodiment of rational ends in itself. Following the school he comes into the business world whose great lesson is the inter- dependence of men. Here it is that he recognizes that alone his efforts are futile, combined with others he can perform a great work. As a member of the business world he must necessarily come into contact with state and church whose fundamental, underlying ideas are those of justice and righteousness respectively. ,Tis only through these elements that one can 'come into the fullness of his growth. Only by learning their lessons and habituating his conduct to their ideas can he rise through them to the full measure of his self- consciousness. As a child, in the institution of the home, he is not himself, he must be. another, imitate others, and Obey others. He becomes himself only by sub- jeeting himself either unconsciously or with effort to others. Accompanying the adolescent period7 the youth in school develops his powers, becomes all his nature permits, and gains the sense of his individuality and independence as a man. In the business, state and church worlds during the period of manhood he must find himself in the service of others, must make himself a contributor to society and must find his self by first losing it. First obey, then become, and then contribute. These are the natural stages of self-realization. The first two of these we, as a class, have in a measure accomplished. We have learned to be obedient, and during these few short years Of school life, an epoch of development, we have become what we are, learned the meaning of life, and encountered a few of her great problems. And now as we are about to go out from this great institution of learning we are confronted with the third great questionethe question of service to our fellow beings. . Are we, as factors of society, permitted as we have been during these years to withdraw for sequestered study, to develop the best body and mind

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Facile pm'nceps DAVID L. MGTAGGART Classic and Professional Clarissima insignibus nobilis vitae CLARISSA E. SMITH Classic

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to the Victim of our great mines and sweat shops, to him Whose opportunities have not been on a par With our own '1? Has the prestige given us dissolved the bond between us and our less fortunate brother or has it sealed the bonds of sympathy and gratitude Within us? concerns themselves alone. Such have entered during these years into 110 higher realm of hope and action and finally When the end comes they have but a finer incense to offer to their former idols. They have never caught the meaning of a liberal education. If our aspirations be the highest our sympathy Will be bread. The proper pursuit of place or fortune is most laudable; it is the ideal in View that gives character to the man and to his work; if place and fortune do not sway him, if they are made the means of Wider service they themselves become holy most dreadful curse t0 the self. Our earliest ideal is that of power; acquisition seems greater than self- denial, strife greater than love. This is all very well for a timefwe are yet in the period of infancy. Development is but working out its destiny. Some- one has said: tt Egoism is the armour of growth. True this may be, but woe unto him to Whom this protecting shell becomes a prison. It must be destroyed. T0 every strong spirit there comes a time When it must burst from the servitude of self; must rise into the realm of devotion. It is the evolution of true greatness and from that moment conquest Withers into Nor is the reward of service a thing of the past entirely. Its highest recompense is here in the living present. Every worthy ambition is sane- tioned by a generous purpose. Aye more, it is heightened and intensified. The feeling pervading all great work is the feeling of utter forgetfulness of self. Never has a great masterpiece been produced With a prevailing self- eonseious feeling. It is that same sublime losing of self in the higher Which we iind in all lofty efforts whether of art or oratory, literature or life; in Raphael, 7tis the Transfiguration light shining upon him; in Shakespeare,