ROGER'S VALEDICTORIAN SPEECH

p. 73 ADR Memoirs scanned 12 03 2020 dew

"Carve your steps deep and wide, that it may help those

who come behind you."

Our class has selected this motto as the theme for this evening's speeches because we feel that this should be one of our primary goals in life--to live our lives in such a manner that they will be continually helpful to all people and especially those who have not yet graduated from this school.

If we are to carve our steps in such a fashion that our lives will both be helpful to others and pleasing to our God, we must be skilled craftsmen; and we must have good tools; for our skill will come through training and practice in the use of such tools.

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Then, too we must know where to carve our steps.

We must remember that we have been preceded by many

craftsmen, whose steps might well be followed. We should

labour to carve deeper and wider those steps which have

already been found to be most sound, that more people

might follow these well-founded steps more readily.

Our time, our speech, and our minds are tools given

us by God. They are tools to be used for Him and He tells

us that in using them for Him, we should use them in

love for our brethren.

Time is perhaps our most wasted tool. We spend

time on trivial items--spreading gossip, reading cheap

literature, or simply loafing. Much time is also given

to earthly, temporal details, without considering weightier

matters such as: What kind of life am I living? Am I

serving God or mammon? Or Where will I spend eternity?

These questions should be answered and answered quickly,

for our time span on earth is very short, and it is

better that we answer the more important questions first.

Our speech is a tool which is often very dull. It

is a tool which could assist us greatly if used properly.

Unfortunately, it is used too often to make oneself

appear great in the eyes. of others. We should use our

speech to speak up for our freedoms and beliefs. Let

us attempt to sharpen our speech so that we can better

express ourselves.

Perhaps our most valuable tool is our mind. It was

our forefathers' dedicated minds which obtained for us

our freedom of worship, our freedom of speech, our freedom

of beliefs, our universal suffrage, and our universal

education.

Education is perhaps the tool which is closest to our minds this evening. Since the recent surge of public attention has been focused on education, many of us have been comparing our educational system with that of our strongest cold war opponent, Russia. Many books, magazine articles, and newspaper editorials have been written comparing the United States’ and the USSR's systems of education. It has been pointed out that they are graduating 200,000 more high school students than we are per year, and that these students have had a much more rigorous academic training program. The reason for their ability and desire to graduate so many fine scientists not commonly known, yet it is quite interesting.

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The Russians are following the doctrine of Lenin,

a Russian revolutionist, who, forty years ago, delivered

his philosophy that " the school must become a weapon of

the dictatorship, " and that the schools must conclude

the task of the October revolution of l9l7 in "converting

the school from a weapon for the class determination of

the bourgeoisie into a weapon for the complete destruction

of the division of society into classes."

In other words, Lenin advocated that education be

used as a weapon to destroy democracy and that the full

weight of totalitarian Communism should be put behind

the thrust of this weapon. To do this he placed the

Communists, consisting of three percent of the Russian

population, in complete control of the people.

This is why, although 40 years ago Russia was one

of the most backward nations in the world, the Russians

have recently been able to send up large sputniks rapidly.

But these sputniks are like the Egyptian pyramids-they

represent the massive enslavedness of the people who

build them. And, like the pyramids, the sputniks will

also, in future days, represent the death of the slave*

masters "

So, although we cannot properly compare education

in the United States and education in the USSR, due to

their diametrically opposed ideals and goals, yet, we

can and should consider the effectiveness of our educational system.

For it would be just as wrong for us to sit back

Idly and say that our system of education is best, as

it would be for us to be ungrateful for the many wonderful

freedoms and opportunities that our system of education

has helped us to obtain.

Paul Woodring, professor at the Western Washington School of Education recently wrote a nationally popular book entitled, A Fourth of a Nation in which he offers several major reforms to our educational system.

He especially emphasizes the thought that the school

should conserve the wisdom of the nation and the race,

not just recently obtained knowledge. In other words,

de-emphasize pragmatism and place more emphasis on the

cherishing of moral and spiritual ideals.

And lest some teachers feel that this would be opposed

to science and factual knowledge, Woodring adds, “Although

the public schools; cannot teach a religious creed or

foster a theological point of view, they must not destroy

religious faith nor create an intellectual climate

hostile to the faith for those who would believe."

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In conclusion, I would like to express the gratitude

of the graduating class for the help given to them over

the past years by our community, our teachers, our parents

and our God.

To our community, because of such noble actions as

the recent construction of a fence about Keewaydin Park.

To our teachers and parents, because each and every

one of them has helped give us something whereby our

lives might be more worthwhile. They have helped us to

learn our studies well-, yet they have also continually

reminded us of our responsibilities in this democratic

country of making wise choices in whatever we do,

Finally, we give thanks to God for giving us this

fine community, our faithful teachers and parents,

without which we could not have the Christian faith,

nor could we give our lives into the care of Him about

Whom the physician Luke said, *"With God nothing shall

be impossible”.

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*Note Luke quoted the angel of the Lord, Gabriel. Lk 1:37

Roger used the following notecards for his speech.