Vesper Talks to Girls

by Laura A. Knott

Another thought that may help us to adjust ourselves to the hard things in our lives is that it takes some losses, some disappointments and sorrows to make us appreciate the good things that we have. Youth is wasteful, not realizing its riches. It always remains true that what we do not realize does not exist, for us. A part of the law of compensation is that the more we lose, the more highly we prize what is left. That, perhaps, is the greatest compensation for growing older. Though the relentless years have taken away much to which we clung with tenacity, yet, somehow, we have come to place so high a valuation upon what remains that we often grow happier in spite of persistent and increasing losses. In the old story of the Sibylline Books, there is a thought of very wide application.

How little do we know which paths lead to happiness and success! We are sure, however, that we do know and rebel at the least deviation from the road we had marked out. Yet again and again a Power wiser than ourselves changes the direction of the path, and compels us to travel a different and unwelcome way. Afterward, looking back, we often realize that the best things life has brought us have come along that road of the defeat of cherished plans. These words of Emerson should be taken to heart by every young person who is having a severe struggle or who is passing through fiery trials:—

“We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not know that they only go out, that archangels may come in. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden-flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banyan of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men.”

VII
SCHOOL SPIRIT

Among the forces which shape young men and women in our educational institutions, none is more potent than that indefinable, intangible, powerful thing we call school spirit, or college spirit, as the case may be. Students are often mistaken in the expression of it, but the spirit is right, though the expression may be wrong. School spirit always represents an unselfish attitude of the student. He has heard the call of something larger than himself.

Though school spirit may be only a sentiment, it is that which gives its deepest richness to the life of a good school. It belongs to an epoch in the life of the student that can never be repeated and never forgotten. It is the source, not only of much of the truest happiness of the precious school days, but of stimulus to high endeavor.

While there are many day schools that have a fine and strong school spirit, it reaches its height only in those schools and colleges where the students live a common corporate life, away from their homes and other influences which tend to separate them instead of unite them. Such communities foster the closeness and intimacy necessary to that complete solidarity essential for strong school spirit.

Many things operate to draw the members of a student body together. The games and sports, the fun and frolic, are shared by all. The work, if not the same, is done under the same conditions. All inherit the common school traditions and the same ideals of life are put before all. These things tend to eliminate distinctions and to make for democracy. In short, they foster school spirit.

The life of a corporate group is something different from the lives of the individuals who compose it. The members of such a group act and react upon one another. Their impulses and emotions, their words and even their deeds take different tone and shape when in the midst of numbers of others similarly circumstanced. There is a latent fire in the soul which is fanned to flame by the contact of life with life. This infection of nature by nature operates for evil as well as for good. Its harmful influence is seen at its worst in what is called mob spirit or mob rule. The mob may be guilty of deeds which not a single individual in it would countenance if left to himself.

By the mere fact of your coming together, then, surrounded by the same influences, under the spell of the same traditions and ideals, you create an element of life which did not exist before and which reacts powerfully upon every one of you. This is of the greatest importance in the growth of character, especially in these formative years. If you are ever to come to complete self-realization, you must breathe the atmosphere of pure and wholesome social influences. You should ask yourself, then, concerning the joint social life which you are living from day to day, what you are gathering from it and what you are contributing to it.