Virginia Military Institute - Bomb Yearbook (Lexington, VA)

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y Kra homh c x c The lestitute The Class of Nineteen Hundred and Thirty has reached the goal it set for itself back in the fall of Twenty-six. We are now moving out into a world of activity quite different from the one in which we ' ve lived for the last four years. And the new position gives us a better focus upon the life we ' s led during that time. We think back to the warm September days when we were rats, when we had just arrived and were trying to adapt ourselves to the newness of discipline and training. What a change we found from the few short weeks before, when we ' d been seniors in far-flung high and prep schools! We had much of the fresh bloom of high school adolescence which needed to come off. And off it came. Four years gives time to remove the glamour from most things. And four years under a life of constraint and direction serves well to bring out the imperfections of character and make-up. There is a severity about the first year which well serves its purpose. After that year is over the material remaining well deserves the credit due it. And in the progress of time an element is growing stronger imperceptibly. The rising tide of sentiment and association cannot be overestimated. Suddenly we find that we have come to know our classmates just a little better than we do anybody. We find that we ' ve an attachment for the gray walls which have surrounded us. The end of a summer finds us a little anticipant over the thought of pressing this hand or that, over the thought of the scuffling, running of feet through Washington Arch. These are the intangible things that form very real meanings and are bonds which hold us with an undying love for the school. And now that the curtain has been drawn across our last retreat, now that we ' ve heard our last troop to line, we have come to realize in the true force of its absence just what it has meant to us. We have received an education as prescribed by the faculty. We have received an education, too, which vas prescribed by ninety-odd years of mellowed tradition, a tradition which binds to the Institute its alumni in all parts of the world. There is never any question about the quality or capacity of a true V. M. I. man. It is an ability which has been proven over again and again. When we leave we carry away with us something which isn ' t valued by dollars and cents. The spirit of the Institute lives forever.