Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 194]

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186 H^re might I pause, close the book, and% leave this seed, falling, 1 hope, ofl good ground, to germinate and bear fruit. Bear with me a little longer, while I indicate a few points of duty, whereby, In doing them, you may the better render unto God the things that are God's. 1. Let me urge the duty of continued self-development. The requirement to use all your heart, soul, mind and strength in God's service, also means that that all shall be all it can be. That all your powers of effort and of action, all your capacities of affection and for will, shall be kept growing in symmetry, in healthfulness, in activity and in efficiency. To this end you should care for your bodies, keeping them pure and holy, the temples of God, which temples ye are. That your minds should be kept under constant and vigorous culture. No matter what the kind and stress of your occupation, keep a little time for study or reading. If your past work has been well done, you have barely reached the point where reading may be most profitable. Keep your minds enlivened and aroused by sympathetic contact with the great minds, past and present, whose thoughts are garnered for you in books. Keep yourselves ever under control; your thoughts pure, your affections chaste ; your appetites under subjection, your wills obedient. In brief, make yourselves best, and make the best of yourselves. 2. Eemember ever the duty of helpfulness to mankind. The State has been at cost for your education. The State will look to you to see if this expenditure pays. You are asked to make the best of yourselves, not simply on your own account, but because in this way only may you be the better in your places, and thus the more fully render to man and to God your rightful service. You have been advised to keep your lights trimmed and burning. Do not worry about their brilliance, but see that your candle does rest on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house. Go quietly about your appointed work. Learn its duties, immediate and collateral. Do them fully, not looking to the recompense of reward, but thankful that you have the place and the chance to show your capacities and to prove your training. Be faithful; be patient; trust the results to Him who cares, for sparrows and <?lothes the lilies. I would have you each become a power in the community where your lot may be cast, and that because I believe that when you have attained such a place of influence your power may be efficient for good. To gain this, which surely is a laudable ^ambition, be cautious, wise, prudent, and modest in assumption, but vigorous and efficient in action when the opportunity is found. Take care not to waste yourselves. Eemember, too, that in no slight sense you go out as representative men and women. You will be counted as persons who have enjoyed large advantages of education, and you will be expected to show the culture and to assume the responsibilities of education. You will be more in the eye of the public than you would have been otherwise—more subject to criticism and cavil. Many things will be deemed unpardonable in you which would be overlooked in others. A. Barton is only a simple fellow, who passes unnoticed