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About The Chemawa American (Chemawa, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1915)
16 THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN vantages for personal advancement, to satisfy your own ambitions. If you do, you will be false to the best that is in you, false to the ideals that I know have been taught you here at Chemawa, false to the ideal of the new Americanism. This I would have you remember above every thing: a man or woman does not live unto himself alone. You are social beings members of communities, human brothers. You owe a sacred debt to your people, to society, to mankind. That debt you can pay only in terms of service. Your education is a trust. It involves an obligation to serve to the best that is in you, the community in which you live, the nation of which you are a citizen, mankind of which you are one. Young men and young women, members of the graduating class of Chemawa: Before I leave the platform I want to say a few words in a different vein. For the greater part of my active life, since I graduated from Prince ton fifteen years ago, I have been associated with young people in the relation of teacher and pupil; but I wish to confess that never have I quite got over the feeling that I have been . on the wrong side of the desk; that is, my point of view has I believe, remained to a degree, that of the student. Sometimes in truth, this predilection has come pretty near to involving me in difficulties. But I confess I don't want to be otherwise. To me, youth is one of the most wonderful things in the world, and the most beautiful so full of promise it is, so instinct with throbbing life, so quick and ardent and eager for experiences, so un calloused, so unafraid, so full of visions and dreams, high purposes, lofty ideals. The hope of humanity is always in the youth. To them, all things are possible. They are the great Crusaders The Knight Errantry. Their eyes are set on the gleaming, distant horizon, not bent upon the petty cares, the sordid realities that sooner or later seem to fill the greater part of our lives- that entangle our feet that would press onward; that bind our hands, that would fashion objects of beauty and service; that blur our vision, that would see ever the truest and best that occupy our minds to the exclusion of the high and beautiful thoughts that we would think. As yet you are free, poised ready for flight. To you, all things are possible. You know no defeat, nor the possibility of it. You are the true liberals, the idealists, the Sir Gala hads, the Joan d'Arcs, the promise, the hope, the only hope of the race and of humanity. Sometimes I look at the young men in my classesfine, clean fellows, sound of body and mind, vigorous, potent, high purposed, beautiful, apparently wuthout a blemish; and I look at the young women, fair as the daughters of Eve, pure as the dawn, with all of the sweet mysterious promise of womanhood and it seems to me that if the promise were
