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About The Chemawa American (Chemawa, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 9, 1918)
THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN PAGE 2 The CHEMAWA AMERICAN Published Weekly at the Salem Indian Training School, Chemawa, Oregon, HARWOOD HALL, Superintendent Address all communications to Ruthyn Turney, Manager Entered at the Chemawa, Oregon, Postoffice as Second- Class Mail Matter SUBSCRIPTION - - 2 5Cts PER ANNUM ADDRESS GIVEN BY CHIEF SUPERVISOR LIPPS In the Auditorium on Sunday, January 6th, 1918, to the Student Body at Chemawa Girls and boys, I am sure it is a pleasure to meet the Chemawa students and I appreciate the opportunity and the privilege of saying a few words to you. I expect all these little folks will be asleep before long as I have a faculty somehow of putting little folks to sleep when I talk. If I had time I would tell you a story or two—a story of how a bull frog lost his tail or some such story. Did you know the bull frog used to have a tail? Well! there is a story that says he did. Sometime I may tell you about it. I was up at the Tulalip school a few weeks ago and the Superintendent said tom e: “ About five or six years ago when you were here you told the boys and girls a story, and tho’ there are only a few of the older ones here now, they who heard that story have asked me to request you to tell that story again.” I believe I will venture to tell the little folks here about it. The story w'hich I am going to tell you isn’t a very funny story. It is about Opportunity. Opportunity is a queer fellow. The story ife one the old Greeks told and handed down to us. They pictured Opportunity as a man who rode a very fleet-footed horse and he made the trip only once during the life-time of each person. He had no hair on the back of his head at all and none around his ears. He was bald-headed on the back of his head. I suspect you have seen bald- headed fellows. But he had a great long forelock. The back of his head was just as smooth as a billiard ball. He came riding along swiftly and gave every fellow an apportunity to catch him. Because this long lock hung down over his forehead he was not very hard to catch. If you grabbed at him as he came riding by you could not miss him, if you waited until he passed by you could not get him. A fellow had to be watching out for Opportunity and had to be on the alert and active and as he came speeding by he must just reach out and grab him. But the fellow who was loafing around and looking the other w’ay would find him gone never to return. I told that story to a group of full-blooded Indian children in Utah several years ago and some days later a boy, a full-blooded boy from the camp, came in with long hair. It was a rule that boys must cut their hair when they came to school, so the boys got the clippers and clipped this boy’s hair perfectly smooth clear up around the top of his head and left a great long forelock and named him Opportunity, and that boy always went by the name of Opportunity. The point I wish to make is this: Opportunity comes along once during a life time and if you grab him as he comes; not as he passes by but as he comes along, you have that one chance to take hold and then you want to hang on and stay with it. This school is your opportunity now. The question is, are you taking hold of this opportunity? Are you watching for and taking advantage of all these opportunities? Are you looking for them and are you ready to take advantage of them as they come, or are you waiting until they get by and then regretting that you did not get them? It is always an inspiration to look into the faces of a large group of boys and girls—young men and young women. There are great possibilities in this body of young people. It is an inspiration to see the possibil ities there are for your future. What it means for you to grow* up into the right kind of men and “women. What it means to you individually, what it means to the country to have boys and girls in school develop ing into useful men and women—good citizens. In a few^ more years your school days will be over. Then you must enter the battle of life. Are you getting ready for that battle? Are you getting ready for all the activities of life? Are you equipping yourselves? The greatest thing that any school can do for you is to of fer you the opportunity. That is all we can give you. If you don’t take advantage of these opportunities, let them pass by, then you will have only barren lives. If you don’t come to school with ambition, with deter mination to do something, everything we can do for you in school will be of little account. Now, I believe that the great majority of you are here to get an education; you want to be successful; you want to go out from this school equipped to make a living, to be wTorth something. You have that de sire in your hearts. Every normal girl and boy has. That is the first essential—the ambition, the desire. The very first requisite is to have enthusiasm. No body accomplishes anything without these. Also, we must assume the right mental attitude. While we are young is the time to cultivate the habit of going about with cheerful faces; with smiles, not scowls; not with angry w’ords, not in a way that makes people shun us, but w’e should cultivate the (Continued on page 3)
