West Texas A and M University - Le Mirage Yearbook (Canyon, TX)

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Proxy Le Mirage presents the first natural color photograph of the president of West Texas State College: A splendid thinker, writer, and speaker... father of a fine family ae. friend and adviser to thousands of young men and women... an inspiring leader . . a kindly executive . . . a man often called “the Panhandle’s first citizen”—DR. JOSEPH ABNER HILL. TOIMYs STUDENT FRIENDS: As I have tried to think about this, my annual message to students, it has seemed to me that nothing is relevant that does not in some way seek to meet the challenge in the present world catastrophe, for surely the young college men and women of today must fashion their lives out of respect to the very distressing and stubborn actualities of the immediate present. We are called upon hourly to weigh values—in education, in business, in government, in morals, in religion. To the average man there seems to be absolutely nothing about which he can safely feel certain. I am sure that some of you are tossed about by the winds of fear and doubt, though you genuinely desire to see a clear path. Personally, | have gathered much strength through the years in reading what wise men and women in all ages have found to be true about human progress. It helps us to a better perspective. Those who have been able to “take the long look’ have generally believed that the advancement of p Persp 8 g yy civilization is governed largely by fixed principles, and that individuals are only the instruments through which Destiny works out its purpose. This point of view and the proper relation of each of us to it, is found in the following words of [Theodore Roosevelt: “The leader for the me being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used unul broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won. In the long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of us, is spend and be spent. It is a little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men. If on this new continent we merely build another country of great but unjustly divided material prosperity, we shall have done nothing; and we shall do as little if we merely set the greed of envy against the greed of arrogance, and thereby destroy the material well-being of all of us.” With this philosophy I am in complete accord, and by it I am inspired to accept the challenge of the present hour. No man can ever lose the game of life if he keeps before his eyes “the light of high resolve.” Cordially yours, Ns ata ee ee ee RI EEE i ARE ON LO BEATE TS AIM TOR ts rn ig PLE TRAN OEE 9 RE Ata e maa cat ianitersiey oa ae cessatr il Na d SOROS