i 1925
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The ChemawaAmerican
Printed at Chemawa, Oregon, and Devoted to the Interests of Indian Education
Wednesday, May 6, 1925
Vol. XXVI
OPPORTUNITIES
Weak students wait for opportunities—strong stu
dents make them. The lack of opportunity is ever
the excuse of the weak, changeable, or vaccilating
mind. Every life is full of opportunities. Every
lesson you have is an opportunity. Every examina
tion is a chance in life. Every transaction is an op
portunity—an opportunity to be polite, an opportun
ity to be manly, an opportunity to be honest, an op
portunity to make friends.
Every proof of confidence in you is a great oppor
tunity. It is the idle, lazy student, not the worker,
who is always complaining that he has no oppor
tunity. Some young people will make more out of the
opportunities which many carelessly throw away than
others will get out of a whole lifetime. Don’t wait
for your opportunity. Make it. Whatever ycu do,
both at Chemawa and after you finish, make any sacri
fice necessary to keep in an atmosphere, an environ
ment that will stimulate you to self-improvement.
Keep close to those who will help you to make the
most of yourself. This may make all the difference
to you between a grand success and an almost com
plete failure. Stick to those who are trying to do
something and to be somebody in the world—people
of high aims and lofty ambitions. Keep close to those
who are dead-in-earnest. Ambition is contagious.
You will catch the spirit that dominates in your envir
onments The success of those about you who are
trying to climb upward will encourage and stimulate
you to struggle harder if you have not done quite so
well yourself.
There is a great difference between the chances of a
young man or young woman who starts out with a
thorough understanding with themselves that they
are going to make a success of their lives, with a reso
lution to win at all hazards, and those who set out
with no particular aim or ambition, backed by no
firm determination that they will make good no mat
ter how long it takes, or how hard the fight.
Students, it is pitiful to see so many drifters in our
school and elsewhere; young people who would like to
get on, but who have not the ambition or grit to com
mit themselves to an aim to get an education and de
termine that nothing will discourage them. Those
No. 29
young people of loose aim and half-committed purpose
see many obstacles. Your firm resolution to conquer
will frighten away the bugbears which deter the faint
hearted and unambitious student. Yes, a grim deter
mination to do a thing will banish a lot of obstacles
and difficulties.
There is no use trying to keep back a boy or girl
with a strong determination. Doubts and fears flee
before resolute purpose. There is something fine in
the very determination of a student to win at all haz
ards, something grand in his resolution to conquer
and not waver, that not only inspires our confidence,
but wins our admiration and carries conviction. We
believe that the student who can take such an attitude
is a winner; that there is a great reason back of his
superb self-confidence; the consciousness of the power
to accomplish the thing he undertakes.
So, right now, boys and girls—each one of you—
resolve that you will take advantage of every oppor
tunity offered you at this great school and that you
will prove your resolution by being constant day after
day, for we want to tell you that you have opportun
ities staring you right in the face, which we urge you
to accept, free of charge—opportunities such as any
white boy or girl would be compelled to pay at least
$800 a year for.
Think it over and decide quickly—and right. Make
your decision to fight for an education, and make such
decision absolutely final, burn all of your bridges be
hind you, and then when you know that you have com
mitted yourself to the one task of securing an educa
tion you will be careful of your time. Your judg
ment will improve as you trust it, depend upon it, use
it, and your progress will surprise you. So, again we
say, make your own opportunities.
Do you know that as a rule it has not been people
favored with money, but the poor boys and girls, with
seemingly no chance, who have really done things?
There is nothing so fascinating to us as the story of
how men and women who have brought great things
to pass got their start; their obscure beginnings and
triumphant endings; their struggles, their long wait
ings amid want and woe, the obstacles overcome; the
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