Vesper Talks to Girls

by Laura A. Knott

As I stood once in the chapel of Eton College, England, I noticed upon the walls certain scrolls and tablets containing hundreds of names in letters of gold. These were the names of graduates of Eton who had in after years brought distinction to their college. I noticed the same family names, recurring over and over again, and I was told that these same names are still upon the school rolls. I could not help asking myself, How can any young man who enters Eton, bearing one of these honored names, be anything but his best self? His family, his school, his country expect it. Perhaps that is one reason he so often is his best and that the same families generation after generation have so large a share of good and great men. And I thought, too, what a stimulus there must be in the very atmosphere of that splendid, five-hundred-year-old school, to spur these young men on to their highest endeavor! They were honored in being members of Eton and they in turn must honor Eton.

In this country we have no schools as old as Eton; yet all good schools have their fine traditions. The true-hearted service of noble lives has gone into the making of them. Of all such schools it may be said that among their sons or daughters are those who have loved their Alma Mater so well that being a credit to her they have counted among their chief aims in life. Only the student who is moved by such motives as these has the true school spirit. Such a student longs that his school shall be stamped with the stamp of true worthiness.

I suppose the most evident, certainly the most picturesque, exhibition of school spirit is to be seen in connection with athletics, and it reaches its climax in an inter-school game. The authorities of some schools say frankly that they permit such games, with their interruption of serious work and other disadvantages, chiefly because they tend to develop school spirit and school loyalty. Athletic contests are good, for they give training in self-subordination, self-control, alertness, and dogged perseverance. The individual loses himself in the good of the whole. This makes for character and good citizenship. We must not underestimate the value of the enthusiasm which comes from rallying against a common antagonist. When the rivalry is good-natured and every rule of fair play is observed, the effect is wholesome.

Yet it is not always the student who cheers most loudly for the team and who is most carried away by school spirit on public occasions who is at heart most loyal to the school. There is a greater loyalty even than that generous spirit which prompts one to rejoice in victory. It is the desire that one’s school shall stand only for that which is right. It is the determination that it shall be respected, and still more, that it shall be worthy of respect.

Now, the first and most obvious thing about any school is that it is an educational institution, and as such it must stand or fall. If a school is an educational failure, what avails its success in some subordinate thing? No one can take pride in an easy-going school to which any one can gain admission, and in which any one can remain, regardless of attainment. Students are not likely to think of this aspect of the case when they neglect their studies. They think the matter wholly personal and believe that only they are the sufferers. It is not so. By slack, indifferent work you are lowering the standard of your school, and you are thus disloyal. By your act you say that you do not care to have your school respected. This shows a lack of a sense of indebtedness on your part to the corporate group of which you are a member. It means a failure to apply school spirit where it was most needed. It is easier to sing and cheer on some moving occasion, but which does your school need more at your hands?

What I have said about upholding the intellectual standards of the school applies equally to its standards in other matters. By your dress, by your manners, by your behavior you indicate, wherever you go, the character of your school. You are its product. The world does not stop to ask what is going on inside of a school or what its influences are. The world judges a school by its results. If you want your school to be respected you cannot be too careful to represent it worthily at all times and in all places.

You come to school to get knowledge, but it would be a pity if that were all you were to get. A young man and a young woman, each of whom had been out of college several years, were discussing the advantages of a college education. One said to the other, “Looking back over your college days, what do you now regard as the most valuable thing you got out of college?” “Inspiration,” promptly came the answer; and both were agreed upon this.

School days deal with an earlier period of life than the college age, when the student is usually more susceptible to strong influences. The school that first gave you the determination to do something worth while in the world, the school that called forth your best self and set your heart on fire with a noble purpose, has a claim upon you that you can never forget.

Every school that has this transforming power is what it is by virtue of the personalities that have been connected with it. Ask yourself what you are doing to make your school in the future as inspiring a place for others as others have made it for you. Ask yourself what you can contribute to the enrichment of the life of your school. Be not over-anxious about what you shall receive.

Students rarely realize how much they leave behind them when they depart from a school. Something of you remains, mysteriously interwoven in the life of the school. “I am a part of all that I have met,” says Tennyson’s Ulysses. Just as you embody in yourself the influences that hundreds of other lives have exerted upon you, so others are bearing and will always bear the marks of your influence.