Together we realized that learning comes more spontaneously and happily if we start with love in our hearts and the will to attain knowledge in our minds. The seed-bed for cultivating the brain cells has been prepared. After all, the body has a head! Therein lies the power house -- the brain; the engine is the heart. We passed mile-stones on a road that led to present understanding of life and resolved to wrench from it, its secrets. We learned back in childhood that this pump in the chest had gentleness, as well as power, built into it; that the post- manş's appointed round out to all the zip code areas was madde -- nothing nicked except possibly our plans for a winter vacation.

We also learned that a man thinks too much -- a giraffe does not. Lucky for a giraffe mind to have a giraffee's body under it. We have witnessed to quiet breathing of oour live. In-out; in-out.

On the top step, man the thinker, chews the cud of his thought. He thinks, and not only thinks that he alone on the planet thinks, but that his built-in human-brain manner of thinking is the only manner. His dog thinks, yes, but about a bone. Man does not think about a bone, not all the time!

Man's mind is an instrument that divides, cannot do otherwise -- divides, divides. Man's human head places its own limitations, but he does not know beyond his limitations. Mind makes the distinguishing factor.. An entire mind may be lost in words!

This body with the head on top, seeking to find the meaning of itself; is that the cause of the frown moving across the brow of Job -- that old worthy of patience -- or is it only the brink of our old hill (we climbed when we walked a piece together) and only the wind-wrinkled October sky? Remember how we hailed October's bright blue weather!

Recall to mind the silences we mulled over in our minds as we snailed along. We learned that silences alone often have the power to enable souls to understand one another and to create indestructible bonds of love and sincerity. We found that tender words were held back and struggled unhappily like a humming bird locked in a cage. (We talk freely now).

We now believe that destiny is something we carry within us; the desire that impels us to spread out, to overflow into the outer world in the form of ideas, words, or actions. We were sometimes absorbed in silence and meditation that revealed to each other, through silence, the depth of our spirits as we traveled afar in old days of the lost sunshine of youth. We were awakened to the truth that lay dormant in the music box of our souls. Then joyously we could speak -- that golden key of sound that unlocks and reveals the echoes of life.

We now know that to live life to the fullest, we must aspire to achieve in the outside world everything we dream within ourselves. We must try to shape the hive of our cares at every living moment. (We watched a hive of bees in an old hollow locust tree as we walked a piece along the way.) We have found by sad experience that we cannot always allow our spirits to soar among the gilded clouds of fancy. We must resolve to remain faithful to our destiny.

How often, my dear friends and fellow-students, we clamored for change. At the time we didn't realize that youth is a period of doubt because it is transitional time -- and all transition is dramatic and doubtful. Because youth is the springboard from which everyone must leap into maturity, it displays an air of doubt that characterizes all departures to distant horizons. Man's biological destiny is adulthood first, then concentric improvement, and after that perpetuation and only when he attains his final stage does he become fully a man (man has ever embraced woman, liberated or otherwise); until he reaches that point, he is capable of being but is not yet so. This doubt, this vague promise of a morrow, which is youth, can attain reality only in becoming free of itself. When youth fails to do that, life becomes eternal hope, an aspiration consumed in biological self-destruction. Doubt, if it endures longer than necessary, only destroys adult development by prolonging the stage in which a youth stands on the brink of life with all paths open before him.

In your early school days humanity went at an ambling pace; now your children are going at a dizzy full gallop. Men will weary of this haste, the machine and materialism and, stopping to breathe fully, will resume the course of life in accordance with the true rhythm of the moment.

Youth is also a promise. To be young is nothing in itself but in what it accomplishes. Only if that promise is kept faithfully does it acquire its full value and flies as fast as an arrow to its target. Youth, an offering of strength and decision that life makes to us only once, must focus on a definite route if it is to accomplish its mission.

Perhaps the most outstanding trait of youth is that it dwells outside itself, in the public square of minds in communion with every thing around it, lavishly pouring its surplus of biological power into the moment and the world. Youth is full of bursting impetus and master of the rich treasure of his vitality who lives his life lavishly and watches himself reflected in the mirror of the outside world. (How avidly many of you read the accounts of your school progress about your feats of valor, your victories, your honors, your success -- in the Kingfisher Times and Free Press which so meticulously chronicled each time!) His inner life is a treasure chest from which he extracts his wealth of ideas and feelings. Nothing more.

Moreover, as the world and its thousand horizons open up before him, everything impels him to squander his spiritual wealth without restraint. He is a gushing flood. His political beliefs are sincere and idealistic. His love is impetuous, with fire in his words and hope in his heart.

As our days rushed by and life accomplished its mission of ideals, the young person ceases to live on and for others, and concentrates on himself. He finds his real life independent of everyone else.

So youth lives TODAY. To live is to be catapulted toward the future and not to retreat into the past. To live is to battle, and to return to the past is not creation, but reconstruction. Also when we place too much emphasis on the past, we always run the risk of having it becoming our master by displacing us from the present. The best way to honor the past is to surpass it. (Frequently our present is some one else's past.) Sometimes the past falls upon us unexpectedly and involuntarily takes possession of us. The present crumbles away giving way to past that seemed dead but was yet merely dormant.

We know it is far better to live in the present -- a present so vast that it may sometimes be a future for others -- and enjoy the pleasures of the glorious and humble moment with its delightful uncertain ties, than to either stagnate in the past or to foreknow the future. For the worst torment we could suffer is to know everything; our own fate and the fate of our loved ones.

Each of us is like a grain of sand intelligently moved by certain forces in order to transmit that movement to other forces. Our puny and mundane aspirations will be erased by time so that the lasting light of Love and understanding will shine forth. The only eternal, immortal reality is the aspirations to good, the ascent of Truth, Freedom, and Justice through Love. The only thing that has a purpose is the reality of goodness.

What wonderful experiences we have garnered in history's Adventures in Human Relations as we walked a piece along life's highway. After forty-six years teaching in the classrooom and nearly four thousand students as a "captive audience" -- careful there, Mother Buswell, your age is peeking out. (What with snow in the thatch and many fine etchings on the face) -- I extend my sincere thanks to my dear fellow-students for granting me the privilege of "walking a piece" with them along the well-worn paths and the well- loved halls of our Kingfisher Schools. I never was acclaimed a great teacher, but according to John Milton, "they also serve who only stand and wait", and work hard at the job.

Let's walk purposefully down Broadway again and sing with the old time zip and zest your favorite "chorus":

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