9 1925
£
COPY a - 1956
The Ch emawaAm erican
Printed at Chemawa, Oregon, and Devoted to the Interests of Indian Education
Vol. XXVI
Wednesday, February 11, 1925
OUR MISTAKES
No. 17
the scorn of our companions, and to compensate for it
all, to make up for it and stand out before everybody
through proper action as determined to live down
past mistakes and make good. If you show that you
are in earnest there are plenty of friends to stand by
you.
Think what it means to have the confidence of those
around you, who respect you for your determination
to reform, and who will stand by you ready to give a
helping hand. Thus the unfortunate past will be for
gotten—having worth while friends and with new
prospects and new ideals. Such results are worth it.
Let us see if those here at our school, and elsewhere,
who may have made missteps, will not stand forth
and have the manhood or womanhood to show by
their actions that they intend to retrieve the past, to
take the stand for righ*«ction, to be honorable and
play the game fairly.
These statements are not intended for anyone in
particular, but fit all of us more or less—probably
apply to some more than others. We have all made
mistakes and we still make them frequently, and
some of these mistakes may be more serious than
others, even to verging into an offense that in the eyes
of those around us can be classed as a crime, or at
least unfit us to associate with good people. But the
right kind of a boy or girl, man or woman, can live
it all down, here and elsewhere, by determining not
to allow the past to spoil the future, but tq meet the
problem each day with an honest desire to do the
right thing. It can be done and is done. Never
grow discouraged, for it is said that discouragement is
the devil’s (or evil’s) greatest tool.
The late President Roosevelt once said, “Show me
a man who never made a mistake and I will show you
a man who never accomplished anything.”
Students, you cannot afford to let your past mis
takes spoil your future. If your mistakes have been
bad forget them, erase them, if possible from your
memory. Get the good out of every experience, and
hold to it, but let go of the bad. If you are compell
ed to brood and worry over your past bad acts, do so
only to resolve never to make any mistakes of like
nature again; let your past be the stimulous for future
good acts.
If you spend your time in vain regrets over past sins,
your crimes, your difficulties or trials, you will unfit
yourself for future work and lose all the good you
could get from such regrettable experiences if you used
them rightly. Such misconduct has already been a
tremendous loss to you—a loss of respect on the part
of those who know you, a loss of energy which had it
been properly used might have worked up into things
worth while. A discordant, troubled mind cannot
create or produce, and a mind in such a condition
destroys, tears down, does not build.
So we say to you, young men and young women,
do not allow yourselves to live in the past, thinking
about your mistakes, short-comings or failures. They
are beyond you; forget them, but profit by them to the
very fullest extent. Of course you should have known
better and should have done better, but the only way
to retrieve yourself now is to get into the harness and
travel the right road, and enable your better self to fling
a full one-hundred percent of your efficiency into your
daily work.
The tailors turned out forty pairs of knee-trousers
How we all look back and long to begin all over
again, to retrace our steps, improve on our mistakes last week. Nothing slow about the tailors, eh!
Fred Cardin, who left Chemawa some years ago as
and avoid our past blunders, sins and crimes. It
would be a wonderful thing if we could do just that, first violinist of the Indian String Quartet, recently
but there is no going back. It is one steady forward sent a friend two of his published works for violin and
movement for good or bad from birth to the end of this piano—one published by Carl Fisher in New York
mortal existence. The only chance we have is by City and the other by Theodore Presser of Philadel
phia. They are both exceptionally fine and a big
making the most of today—the passing moment.
Every day, students, we have the chance to begin boost for Fred, who by the way, is now in his second
again, to try again; a chance to correct our mistakes year as teacher of violin at the University of Nebraska
and blunders, to redeem ourselves from failure, from at Lincoln.