We, the Class of "35," have come to our graduation. Our High School days are ended. We have successfully completed the course of study required of us, and this day divides, as no other day has done, the past from the future of our lives. What that future shall be, whether prosperous of disastrous, no one can tell. But, this we know, it will depend upon ourselves, upon the use we make of our gifts and the powers we possess, upon the worthiness of our aims and purposes in life, upon the attention we pay to little things for character is built upon little things well and honorably transacted.
We may try to deceive ourselves by saying we have had bad luck, but it is not luck but labor that makes men. Luck relies on chance, labor on character. "It will do!" is the common phrase of those who neglect little things. "It will do!" has blighted many a character. Those of us who learn nothing or accumulate nothing in life will be set down as failures, and it will be because we have neglected little things. Again and again our faithful teachers have impressed these truths upon us more tenderly and forcible than words of mine can do.
We have laid a few foundations in learning, only that; I am sure they are good foundations and well laid. The superstructure is yet to be reared. What shall it be? It will depend on you, on me. We can build it strong and beautiful.
The world is waiting for us; it has need of us; it has a place for each of us. It may not be a conspicuous place; it may be very humble, but there is a greatness which each of us may attain. It is the greatness of good life. Let us then be true to our Alma Mater, to ourselves, to our age, our country and to God.
Philip Edward Mann (born 1916; heaven 1998)
106 Pearl Street
Liverpool, NY 13088
Posted by his 11th child of 12/ 7th son of 8 (Mark Mann)
The world needs many more men like my dad. Men of hard work, honest, giving, caring -- godly character.
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