Cardigan 1963—1967 by Arthur G. Broadhurst

CARDIGAN 1963-1967

Arthur G Broadhurst

1

2

The Chapel - Fall 1963 3

4

Introduction I arrived at Cardigan in the fall of 1963, a few weeks after school started. How I got there is a story of miscommunication and confusion and an illustration of how life’s accidents can change the course of a life journey in a way that could not have been anticipated. Working at a junior residential prep school for boys, the public school equivalent of junior high school, was not a career choice I intended and one for which I had not consciously prepared.

I had recently completed three years of graduate theological study at Colgate Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, New York. My career plan had been to obtain a teaching position at a private university in the field of religion. My immediate educational plan was to continue study toward a doctorate in theology, probably at Harvard or the University of Chicago, but after four years of college and three of graduate school I needed a rest. Taking a graduate fellowship was possible and a pretty good fellowship was available. I considered it carefully, but I lacked other financial resources and decided to wait a year before undertaking another grueling academic grind. In the meantime I settled in as minister of a United Church of Christ church in Gaines, New York, where I had served an internship while at Colgate Rochester.

Because the church could not afford to pay me as a full time minister, a county supervisor arranged for me to be appointed Acting Director of Court Services for Orleans County, a role that primarily involved the Family Court and family counseling services, but also involved probation and juvenile detention services.

It was in relation to that latter role where the miscommunication and confusion occurred. That requires a bit of explanation. When juvenile offenders in Orleans County had to be incarcerated my office had to recommend to the court any placement in a state or private detention facility. Private facilities contacted me from time to time to make sure that I was aware of their facility and their interest in taking our detainees.

While most facilities were in New York, it was possible in certain circumstances to place students out of state so it was not a surprise to me when I was contacted by the head of a New Hampshire school for boys, who tried several times to interest me in visiting his facility. I thought he was interested in selling his facility and services and I gently put him off. He was persistent and on the third phone call I suddenly realized that he was interested in hiring me at his school. I had been recommended by a friend at the Council on Religion in Independent Schools.

I was not interested in moving to New Hampshire, particularly to a boys’ school, but my wife suggested that we should at least go to New Hampshire to look at the school. It was late in August so we decided to take a trip to Boston over Labor Day weekend to see my mother [who for reasons not necessary to explain here had not been at my wedding 5

and had never met Sue], and since we were going to be in New England anyway, to also visit my mother’s family in Vermont.

We borrowed my father in law’s tent camping trailer, traveled first to Montpelier, Vermont, then headed across Vermont to New Hampshire to Cardigan Mountain School.

We met Norm Wakely at the assistant headmaster’s residence for lunch on a Saturday morning. We liked Norm and we liked the school. A new chapel, designed by a wellknown Boston architect had been constructed and was ready to open for business. I would be the first chaplain. Despite my initial lack of interest in being a school chaplain, it seemed like a good fit. I would be department head in religion, and while it was not quite the same intellectual challenge as teaching at a University, as I had envisioned for my career, at least for the moment it could be a useful interim position before I went back to graduate school.

However I was puzzled about the difference in the role of chaplain that had been described in the recruiting materials sent to me about the role of religion on the campus and on what Norm told me about what he envisioned the role of chaplain to be. We needed a frank conversation about philosophy and objectives. Why the difference in the initial philosophy and the current one? Norm explained to me that there had been some discussion over these issues and that I could be assured that what he was telling me was the way it would be. He was vague about where the headmaster was and why the headmaster did not seem to have a role in the hiring of a significant position for the school. That concerned me a bit, having no desire to get caught in a difference in perspective and expectation. Norm told me that the headmaster was unavailable and that all this would be explained in the next week or so. Something about the conversation led me to believe (although he did not explicitly say so) that the headmaster was ill; it did not occur to me that the headmaster was being replaced and that Norm was the newly-designated headmaster. That announcement had not yet been made.

As we drove off the campus that Saturday afternoon Sue and I looked at each other and agreed that maybe this would work. The following week I learned that Roland Burbank, the headmaster, was being replaced by Norm Wakely. We negotiated a contract and I accepted the position. I would move there in less than four weeks. We quickly sold our home on Lake Erie at Point Breeze, packed up our furnishings such as we had at the time, and moved to Cardigan, where we were provided a small apartment, the only one available at the time, in Brewster Hall.

It turned out to be a good decision and I never regretted moving to Cardigan. It was a very different lifestyle and it was hard on a marriage early on to have so many emotional demands, both as substitute parents to a dorm full of young boys and as chaplain, where 6

I carried the additional burden of both faculty and students who had concerns requiring the chaplain’s ear and counsel. In many ways those were among the happiest and most satisfying years of my professional career.

Coming to Cardigan at the time I arrived there was particularly opportune, with a newlyconstructed chapel and a desire for a spiritual and religious development program supported by the Trustees, an inexperienced headmaster feeling his way along in managing the school who gave me a great deal of freedom to set up the program as I thought best, and with no predecessor in the position and an existing program that I would have to follow or change.

The school had students of all faiths and no faith. The chaplain was to be chaplain to all students and faculty, without regard to their particular religious persuasion, and that posed some programs of implementation in a school that also saw itself in the tradition of New England protestant schools. I determined that the most effective way to meet the needs of non-Protestants (primarily Roman Catholics and Jews) was by obtaining outside help. A rabbi met occasionally with Jewish students and those that wished were bused to town for Hebrew services. The most regular relationship was maintained with the LaSallette Seminary, a high school level training school for future priests in Enfield run by the LaSallette Fathers, a teaching order based in Montreal. Father Benoit, the chaplain at the Seminary, became a good friend. He taught catechism classes at Cardigan for interested Roman Catholic students and in turn I spoke to students at the Seminary occasionally, taking advantage of the openness and the festive spirit of the ecumenical movement engendered by Pope John XXIII. It was a good relationship.

I saw my role as that of a provocateur through providing an environment in which the natural questions of youth and particularly the questioning of and about religion could get a safe hearing, as a stimulator of thought on ethical and spiritual issues, and sometimes as conscience of the school. In that latter role I found I could get away with saying some things that needed sometimes to be said in a school community and that could be said more easily from the relative safety of the chaplain’s position.

At other times my role was that of counselor and friend. Some boys desperately needed a friend because it was all to easy for groups of boys to make the life of another difficult and unhappy, and it was too easy for some of the adults not to notice the hurt that was caused or to indirectly get involved in the piling on that occurs in schools when someone is unpopular. Sometimes it was difficult, as when tragedies occurred, as inevitably they did from time to time, and it was necessary to tell a student that his mother had died. Sometimes it was a substitute parent, as when a student who had graduated to prep school asked me to take him to his new boarding school in Rhode Island because a parent was not available to go with him.

7

I look back on my days at Cardigan with fond memories of a great faculty and good friendships; good after-dinner conversations over coffee in Clark Morgan; sailing on our few warm New Hampshire days in the spring and fall, coaching the sailing team and great trips in New England from the prep school regatta held from MIT’s sailing facility on the Charles River competing with “tech dinghies” to a sailing regatta at Tabor Academy, sailing into the harbor in the Concordia Yawl Geisha Girl owned by Warren Morris’ family; skiing at the Pinnacle, or day trips to various ski resorts within a short drive, or “ski holiday” when the whole school left campus for the day; dorm conversations in the Common Room, with the occasional warm apple pies my wife made in the fall apple season to serve to boys on our floor in Hayward; Ted Linn’s unique after hunting season dinners at the assistant headmaster’s house where he served venison, and rabbit, and sometimes bear; watching with admiration the boys willing to get into the lake to help install the dock the day after the ice went out; and hundreds of other episodes and fond memories that made the days at Cardigan some of the best days of my life.

After Cardigan I stayed in independent school education for some time, as an administrator and teacher, serving as Assistant Headmaster and Upper School Head at Lake Ridge Academy in Ohio; Assistant Head and Upper School Principal at Trinity School in Manhattan; then a similar position at Saint Edward’s School in Vero Beach, Florida. From there I took a different career path, first to the National Association of Independent Schools in Boston as Director of Business Services, and from there to help set up and eventually become President and Chief Operating Officer of an insurance and reinsurance company owned by universities and some independent schools and domiciled in Bermuda, to insure educational liability. Yet teaching was always my first love and Cardigan my fondest memory. I am still in contact with a few of the students from those days.

Perhaps these talks will bring back memories of those years so long ago to some who experienced them. If so, then the value of bringing these talks back out of an old file will have been worth the effort.

Arthur G Broadhurst Palm Coast, Florida September 2008

8

Dedication Why compile and publish this collection of talks after 40 years? About six months ago while going through my files, I stopped to read these old talks to Cardigan boys [we now call them young men] and I was struck by their relevance through the years. Yes, they are somewhat dated with some references and language that only “Cardigan boys� or other prep school alumni of that earlier time will recognize, but in another sense they are timeless because they deal with growing up and acquiring values at a critical age, the years from 12 to 15 years old, when values are being formed. It seemed worth preserving at least some of them and this volume contains about one fourth of the talks delivered during the four years I was chaplain at Cardigan.

However there is another reason I wrote this volume. I have grandchildren now, and I wanted to pass along these talks to them as encouragement to them to think about the values they wish to live by as they develop their own priorities and begin to set for themselves an enduring philosophy of life.

I have four grandchildren, both older and younger than the ages of Cardigan students to whom these talks were first delivered: Ashley Marie Heen (age 20) and Randy Stephen Heen (age 14), children of my daughter Sandy, who was born at Mary Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover during our years at Cardigan; and Nicolas Edward Campana (age 7) and Zachary Archer Campana (age 5), sons of my daughter Kim, who was born just after we left Cardigan, and has often heard our stories of the great days while we were at Cardigan.

So I dedicate this volume to my grandchildren, Ashley, Randy, Nico and Zach, but particularly to Randy, who is in the 9th grade and is now the same age as those young men at Cardigan for whom these talks were originally written.

AGB

9

10

The Last Chapel Service [It may seem strange to put the last chapel talk at the beginning, but I did so because it lays out a bit of my philosophy of the chapel service and the role that religion played on the campus during my tenure at Cardigan. This talk, and the next few that follow, deal with theme of the role of religion on the campus and the part that the chapel service was intended to play in the overall personal and religious development of Cardigan students.]

This is my last Chapel service at Cardigan, just as it is the last Sunday that some of you will be here this school year. So I want to say something this evening about what I have tried to accomplish in the four years that I have been here at Cardigan.

As chaplain I have not done or said the kinds of things that most of you expected me to do or say. I've disturbed your ideas about religion, and in some cases I’ve changed your ideas about religion—and I’ve done that deliberately.

I have not told you what you ought to think about religion or anything else, but I have tried to make each of you realize that you have to think for yourself.

Thinking can be dangerous and some of you don't like to think, and we all know that some people don't think that you ought to think for yourself, at least not about religion.

I have not conducted ceremonies and rituals here merely so that you could carelessly come in here each week and think that religion was something that was done for you and all that you had to do was to come to chapel or to church and ignore the real issues of your values and your lives.

I don't like phonies any more than you do—whether phony ideas or phony people—and I suppose that phonies in religion are worse than most other kinds of phonies. I've tried to make you face the question of what religion is really all about. I've tried to get across the point that religion is not a matter of prayers or rituals or attending church but of being a certain kind of person.

I’ve tried to make you think about what life is all about.

Some people think you're too young to think about life, but you and I know that this is not true, because from conversations I’ve had with you it is apparent that at least some of you are beginning to think about things for yourself and to develop your own ideas about religion and values to live by.

11

I've tried to show you that how you live is every bit as much a part of religion as what you say you believe, and that a man or a boy cannot be dishonest or crooked most of the time and then put on a pious, religious mask and go to church and sing hymns and fake his way through life pretending to be something that he is not.

I've tried to get you to think for yourself, to develop your own values, to set your own standards, to think through the consequences of your decisions and your actions, and to try to find out for yourself what life is all about.

I've raised a lot of questions in your minds, and I have not tried to give you simple answers to complicated and thoughtful questions because this would have been dishonest.

I’ve tried not to give you answers, but to make you aware of the fact that there are a lot of questions about life that you ought to be asking, and that in the long run you have to develop your own answers. Having questions is a new experience for some of you because some of you have never asked any really serious questions before.

Some of you do not like religion, perhaps because it makes you uncomfortable, perhaps because it puts the responsibility for your life squarely on your own shoulders and it disturbs you to find out that there are more questions in life than answers.

But whether you like it or not is really not very important—it's only important that your childish ideas of religion be disturbed and that you are disturbed enough to have to think through your values for yourself.

In short, I have tried to acquaint you with the real spirit and meaning of religion.

Some of my friends who think about religion as I do have come to believe that in this generation the real spirit of religion has left the churches and the spirit and values of religion can be found in the music and literature of this generation, perhaps especially in its folk music.

The spirit of truth—or the spirit of god, if you prefer—is present in many places and we must not try to limit it only to those places where we’d like it to be, such as in the churches.

Music expresses the feelings of people and frequently the things that it expresses are deeply and truly religious.

12

Sometimes it is hard for us to see anything religious in what is new—just as it was hard for the people of 400 years ago to accept the King James Version of the Bible, because it was a new translation and people were not used to it. It was just as hard for people several hundred years ago to accept new musical instruments in the churches, like the organ and the piano, because such modern instruments hadn't been used in religion before, but reason ultimately prevailed over ignorance, and we finally learned to accept the organ. In our day the new media of religious music are the guitar and the folk song, and some will inevitably complain that this sort of thing is new and it wasn't done in the past and should not be in our traditional chapel.

We will understand this because some people will always oppose things that are new, and in time even religion will enter the Twentieth Century. But we can learn more and we can get more out of the music that expresses the religious feelings and the search for meaning in our generation than we can in singing the songs that express the religious feelings of past times.

Anyway, Jim Alden is going to take over from here and introduce to you some of the new religious music of our day—songs by Ian and Sylvia—and will be accompanied by the live sounds of Bob Vickers, Skip Paul and John Paull.

May 1967

13

14

Taking Religion Seriously Last week I told you that Chapel would be a new kind of experience for some of you because it would make you face new ideas, and that during this year you would have a number of different speakers who would have one thing in common—they all feel, no matter what their particular religious views, that religious faith matters very much.

You see, in the long run, some things do not really matter. The score of the Dartmouth football game some of us saw yesterday in Hanover does not really matter. It doesn't really matter if you get accepted at Exeter, or make first string in soccer, or get on the honor roll.

It doesn't even matter, not really matter I mean, if you fail to turn in an assignment on time or get a work detail. Naturally these things all matter in their place, but they are not the critical issues of life, and they do not really matter in the sense l am talking about.

On the other hand, if you are walking through a jungle in Viet Nam with enemy soldiers all around you and some of your comrades are being shot beside you, then it matters very much what life is all about. If you are in Mississippi when a frenzied mob attacks some Negro school children for entering a white school, and some of the children are badly hurt, then it matters very much how you feel about other people and how well you accept responsibility to help those who need your help. If a boy in your dormitory is becoming the butt of practical .jokes, or is being picked on in cruel ways by those on the floor, then it matters very much how you react, and it matters very much more in the long run than whether you win a football game or even make the team.

Religion matters very much. In fact, that is what religion is all about—the things that matter very much to all of us. Don’t miss the point now. Don't think that religion is concerned with going to church on Sunday morning, or going to High Holy Day services, or carrying around a Bible, or saying your prayers, or being “goody-goody." And if you think that is what religion is about, then you have seriously missed the point. Then, of course it is no wonder you don't think religion is worth taking seriously, and I don't blame you, for if that was all there was to it, religion would not really be worth taking seriously; for as good as these things are, even they do not matter, ultimately.

Perhaps it is not your fault if you have missed the point. Perhaps the fault lies with those of us, ministers or priests or Sunday school teachers, whose job it has been to teach you the meaning of life, because we have sometimes done our job badly by stressing all the wrong things. We were not always very clear about the difference between the things that mattered and those that did not; and sometimes what we said did not make much sense to you … or maybe we were not always clear in getting across what we wanted to say.

15

But this does not excuse you from asking yourself what life is all about and what things are worth taking seriously, and I personally feel that it would be a real tragedy for you to go through life without ever considering this.

Religion is concerned with the things that matter. When we go to church or to mass, or gather in this chapel, or say prayers, or do any of the so-called "religious" things that are a part of our lives as an expression of the things that really matter to us then they are fine and good. These ceremonial things are meant to express the way people think about life, and their understanding of god, and their view of their responsibilities to their fellow man—for these are the things that really matter. But when they no longer do this, and they are simply rituals and ceremonies that you go through week after week with no meaning at all to you, then you have missed the point.

And if you do these things just because you think they ought to be done, or because your parents make you go to church, or because you think that these are good "religious" things to do, then you have missed the point.

Some of us miss the point. Many so-called "good religious people� miss the point. When this happens we need someone to remind us that this has happened, that the point of it all has been missed.

So, if religion is concerned with what really matters, what are the things that really matter? I shall tell you what things matter to me and you can see if they matter to you.

Taking life seriously matters. This does not mean that life is not fun, but merely means that life is enjoyed most when we have some idea what it is about, and what our life is about and what our responsibilities are, and what the point is. In other words, asking questions about life really matters. Asking the right questions matters.

Just what are the right questions? Well, "Who am I?" is one of the questions: How do I fit into the picture at home, or in the dormitory? What are my responsibilities? How am I responsible for myself? How should I act? How should I treat the boy I don’t know well, or the boy who is teased or mistreated? What are my goals? Are those goals worth working for? What do I hope to get out of life? What do I hope to accomplish in the next year, or five years, or thirty years, if I live that long? What am I going to contribute to life? What am I going to leave behind me that will last?

Religion is all about attempts to give us answers to these basic questions about life.

Some of the answers we may not understand, and others may not seem to us like very good answers. But the questions are important and the answers to them are worth

16

finding. And when we find them, we will find that life begins to make sense to us because we have something to go by, Everything that I have said to you today can be put in one short sentence: religion is about helping us figure out what really matters in life. It gives us a direction and a compass to steer by.

September 25, 1966

17

18

Growing Up...Maybe All of you have heard adults say such idiotic things as how nice it would be if they were your age again. Nonsense! They’ve got bad memories. Growing up is not near so much fun as we sometimes think through the dimmed memories of time. It's terribly confusing, and frustrating and even painful.

I would think it would be rather frustrating to be acting your age, and doing what boys your age do, and then have someone come along and tell you to act your age—when that is exactly what you thought you were doing.

Along comes a free afternoon and you are encouraged to do some skiing and get a little fresh air and exercise. Comes the evening, and you have a little homework to finish up and request "late lights" to finish an assignment, and are told that you should have used your time more wisely during the afternoon. The next time a free afternoon comes along, determined to make "wiser" use of your time, you stay in your room and study, and a master sees you in your room working and tells you to go outside and get some air. You can’t win!

Then comes the time when you are being cautious, trying to think something through as a leader and you are told that you have to begin to make decisions and accept responsibilities and use good judgment. So then you make a decision and are really quite proud of the way you have handled the situation—and then you get jumped all over for overstepping your authority.

You work hard and put a lot of effort on an assignment or a job around school and no one seems to notice it. But step out of line just once and—Wham—you get stepped on and hard. One minute you feel that too much is expected of you; and the next minute you think you are being treated like a child.

It's confusing... and interesting... and rough... and even painfully difficult at times. But it's all necessary. Everyone has to go through it. It's a simple fact of life that growing up is a painful process. Most of us manage to survive the ordeal.

Each of you is growing in a number of different ways at the same time, and gradually you are developing from a boy into a man. There comes a time when you are somewhere in the middle of this process—not quite still a boy, yet not a man either. At times you play the part of the child, and at other times you act the part of the adult. No one seems quite sure what to expect from you... and you're not even sure yourself what to expect from one minute to the next.

19

It's strange, in a way, how different parts of our lives develop at such greatly different rates. For instance, it always surprises me that some otherwise intelligent and mature people have never grown up in their religious faith. It's understandable though, for spiritual growth, just as any other kind, takes exercise and nourishment, neither of which we are apt to get without some serious effort on our part. This kind of growth way be just as difficult and just as confusing and just as painful as any other kind but it is necessary, and in the end it is worth it.

If it is to be worth anything to us, religious faith must grow along with the rest of us.

As children we hear Bible stories, but as we grow up we need to learn that there is much more to religious faith than the Bible stories we learned as little children. If we do not grow up religiously, then it is no wonder that we come up with the peculiar idea that religion is something to make old ladies happy and little children good, but something that we do not really need. So hear this—we do not need childish religion, but we do need religion, good religion, which means growing religion. And religious faith that is worth anything is a religious faith which you take seriously and which grows along with you.

Not only that. A religious faith that is worth taking seriously must be about the right things. A grown up faith is concerned about those things in life that matter. Some things, you see, important as they might seem at the moment, don't really matter.

Flunking a history quiz, losing a ski meet, sitting on the bench when you wanted desperately to get into the game, disappointed by a friend you thought you could trust— these things are all important to us, but they are things of the moment, temporary things, things that will die and be gone. They do not affect us deeply, and in the end they are things that do not really matter.

Yesterday’s hockey game, the hard work which went into it, the anticipation of victory, the sour taste of defeat, the energy spent in a good game well played, the disappointment and the frustration with ourselves—these things are not terribly important. This is one of the defeats that life so often throws our way. We get used to it, and it does not cripple us. And in the long run the hockey game does not really matter.

So what does matter?

Being one of those who take everything that life gives and gives nothing in return, that matters. Just getting by, when you could do your best; producing less, when you are able to do so much more; letting another take the blame for what is our responsibility rather than speaking up; taking unfair advantage of another— all these things matter but they matter in a negative way. They matter because they reflect who we are, what we are 20

really like. And if we find that these things really matter to us, then we may discover something about ourselves that we do not really like very much. We may be disappointed in the self that we discover.

Having a sense of responsibility for others and for ourselves, so that we carry through with what is expected of us without being a disappointment either to others or to ourselves—that matters, too, and it matters in a positive way. Standing for principles and having principles to stand for and the courage to act on your convictions—that matters.

Having a faith that is concerned for others, the less fortunate, the less able, the less skillful, the less popular; that matters. Having a faith that is growing and eager to learn and unafraid to face truth or to face God, matters. Having a faith that gives us a purpose for our lives and influences the way we think and feel and act, and which carries over into our day to day lives so that it affects us whether in the dormitory, or in the classroom, or on the athletic field, matters. Having a faith in ourselves that is possible because we first have a faith in God and know that he has faith in us—these things matter, and they matter very much. And there is very little else that really does matter.

Funny thing about growing up: it doesn't do much good to tell someone to grow up. You will grow—physically and emotionally—on your own time table. We—all of us—grow only when we are ready to grow. We adults can help a bit by giving you the opportunities to grow.

Then we have to sit back and hope a little... and encourage you a lot... and wait to see if you get the point.

October 20, 1963

21

22

What's Wrong?

Education is more than books—it is learning about life. As we get older, and our experience grows, and hopefully we learn to think and ask questions, we may very well be confused, because we will find that we have more questions than we have answers. The more questions we ask, the harder it is to get an answer, and then we learn one of the most important lessons of education: there are no easy answers to important questions.

One of the most difficult questions to answer is how to tell the difference between right and wrong. How can we decide whether something is right or is wrong?

Some questions are easy. Is it better to be honest than dishonest, for instance?

Certainly it is. Or is it? Why? What about a particular situation? A boy goes to a movie theater, or a ski area, and lies about his age so that he can get in at a cheaper rate. Is that wrong? A boy cheats on an assignment or a test. Is that wrong?

Another boy forgets to do a homework assignment and, afraid that it will hurt his grade, he lies to the master and claims that he lost it, or he already turned it in. Is that wrong? Another boy takes an algebra test and does not finish it in class intentionally so that he can have time before conference period to find out answers to the problems he could not do. Is that wrong?

Is it better to tell the truth than to lie? Most of us believe that it is.

Is it wrong to lie, even when we know that telling the truth might hurt us or get us into trouble? Is it wrong to keep silent when someone else takes the blame (or gets blamed) for something that we did? Is it wrong to lie in order to escape the consequences and penalties for our actions? Wouldn't it be better to keep silent, or to lie, so as to avoid being found it, and just quietly learn our lesson and not do it again?

Is it wrong to steal? A man robs a store and takes money out of the cash register. Is that wrong? A boy takes a little small change from another boy’s dresser or desk. Is that wrong? A clerk in a store makes a mistake and gives you too much change. Is it wrong to keep silent, and keep the money, and figure "that's tough, lady, it's your mistake."

Is it wrong to destroy property that belongs to someone else? Is it wrong to take a car that does not belong to you without bothering to ask? Is there any real difference between that and taking a pair of skis without asking, or ice skates, or even a candy bar?

23

A boy in your dorm borrows a piece of equipment from someone else and breaks it, then returns it hoping the owner won't notice it. Is that wrong?

During the summer you are working in a store or an office and once in a while you pick up some little item and put it in your pocket and walk off with it, thinking that it will never be missed. Is that wrong?

Is it wrong for someone in authority to misuse their authority, or take advantage of it for their own interest? Is it wrong for Bobby Baker [ed note: Secretary to the Senate during the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson] to misuse his position in the Senate to line his own pocket and make himself wealthy? Is it wrong for a floor leader to pick up magazines and comic books from boys on his floor during study hall, and then read them himself?

Is it wrong for the strong to pick on the weak?

Is it wrong for a good skier to insult the less skillful or make fun of him? What is the difference between good-natured kidding and doing injury to someone by viciously making fun of him?

When are jokes that you tell funny, and when are they mean or just plain dirty?

When you are out on a date, where do you draw the line between having a good time and going too far?

How can we decide what is right or wrong? Do you know? That's a pretty important question!

Unfortunately there’s no easy answer, yet every day we have to make decisions that involve right and wrong, All of us need some standard by which we can judge what we do, and decide what is right. I don't know any simple formula to help you decide, but I do have a suggestion that will give you something to think about.

When facing a decision, consider three questions: 1. Will this injure anyone?

2. Will it injure me?

3. Will it cause me to think less highly of myself than I would be able to otherwise?

St. Augustine was once asked this question of how to tell right from wrong, and he gave a very interesting answer. He said to love God and do as you please. When he said “love god� he meant to love what is right and true and good. The point is that one who 24

sincerely loves God will want to do what is right and can be trusted to make the right decision. Perhaps it also means that the answer to the question can be found in ourselves, for each of us has to answer the question for himself, and each of us is responsible for answering the question honestly before God. The thing that makes the difference is our motive, that is, the reason behind our actions. Motives are pretty tricky things. Our minds are ingenious. They can construct all kinds of good reasons and excuses for doing things that we want to do and deep down inside we know are wrong. Sometimes we can convince people that we really do have good motives; sometimes we can even fool ourselves into thinking that something is right, when we have begun to suspect differently. We can be selfish, and cover it with all sorts of phony excuses. We can blame others for what we know deep inside is really our fault.

We can lie, when it would be particularly difficult to be honest, and convince ourselves that it was "necessary" to lie when we know differently.

So here's a warning. Don't try to kid yourself about your reasons for doing what you do.

You might really begin to believe your excuses. Then you would be in sad shape. Never allow yourself to be so convinced that what you do is right that you cannot reconsider it.

Only the gods on Mount Olympus do not make mistakes.

Here it is in a nutshell. There are no easy answers and formulas to help you decide right from wrong. You are responsible for the decision. Consider your motives. Consider the results, whether what you do or say will injure anyone. If you are really concerned about the question of right and wrong, and are honest with yourself, and honest with God, you will be able to make a decision that you need not be ashamed of.

25

26

Masters of Fate "Men at some time are masters of their fate." Anybody in 8a English who doesn’t know that the quotation is from Julius Caesar just flunked English. It's on the quiz tomorrow, Maclntyre, so get it right this time!

It's not often that I use anything quite as old as Shakespeare as a source of inspiration, but this is a rather special case. Shakespeare is a sort of 16th Century Alfred Hitchcock and he managed to compose some real thrillers. He wrote some pretty good stuff considering how old it is and the fact that Shakespeare seems to have had trouble writing clear and easily understood English sentences!

I don’t want to give away the plot and spoil anything for those of you who haven't yet read all the exciting parts for that quiz tomorrow. But in the hope that Mr. Rouillard will accept with apologies this profane version of the original, the story goes something like this. Julius Caesar is one of the bad guys in the story, and he becomes a bad guy when he decides to take over Rome and became a king.

Romans didn't like kings or emperors. Some of Caesar's friends thought he was getting some pretty big ideas for such a little man and there was no telling where all of this might end, so the group of friends was led by Cassius to form a little Cosa Nostra type assassination society dedicated to ridding Rome of that evil Caesar. Cassius was pretty persuasive. He kept reminding the plotters that they as free men and as Romans were masters of their fate and if they were oppressed, it was not the fault of bad luck or bad stars, but their own fault, and they would have no one to blame but themselves for the way things turned out.

And he is right. It's a pretty good thing to think about. Now I'm not suggesting that in the name of freedom we ought to bump off the headmaster. But I would like to convince each of you that you are the masters of your own fate; and that if things do not turn out the way you wish them to, then the fault is yours, and you have no one to blame but yourself.

Now it's one thing to say that each of you ought to be the master of his fate, and quite another to say that each of you actually is the master of his fate. What ought to be and what actually is are frequently not the same thing.

A boy who is master of his fate, or master of himself, is independent enough to think and act for himself. Most of you are not really ready for that. You think what everyone else thinks, and do what everyone else does, and are what everyone else is.

27

You think I’m kidding?

Sit in a dorm council meeting. An item comes up for discussion. So someone asks, "What do you think?"

And the answer usually is, "I don't know, what do you think?"

No one wants to be caught thinking on his own or take the risk of giving an opinion without knowing how everyone else thinks. Someone might not agree. Or even worse, someone might laugh.

Next time there is a vote around campus, do a little observing. A few hands go up.

Everyone else is eagerly looking around the room to see how it's going. Suddenly the vote gets contagious, everyone can be seen watching everyone else, and all hands are on the way up. No one wants to feel left out. Only some sort of a kook would vote against everybody else.

Notice how often you get your clues for what to wear, and what to say, and how to feel and how to act simply by seeing what everyone else is doing and what they are saying.

You even form your attitudes about people, about other kids on the campus, by noticing how others act toward them. And you follow along with everyone else’s attitudes without much thinking about how silly this really is.

Have any of you read the LIFE Magazine article this week on the really latest stuff in teenage fashions? From the comments I've heard, most of you seem to think that this is really way out stuff. Let's see what happens in a few months. Most of you will wait around and see what happens, to see if it is really in or not, to see if your friends start wearing this stuff. And if the right few kids on this campus were to suddenly show up one day wearing some of the silly stuff, the rest of you would go along with it immediately.

On the other hand, if the wrong guy started wearing bell bottom trousers or lace collars you would simply laugh at him. It would take a certain amount of guts to wear some of that stuff in public. But if, for some mysterious reason, it catches on, I suppose that it would take a similar amount of guts not to wear it.

Like so many sheep you follow along with the rest of the flock. Don't misunderstand me.

A certain amount of conforming to the ideas and standards of other people is important and necessary. But the important thing is to know when to quit playing sheep and start thinking for yourself rather than simply reflecting what everyone else is thinking and

28

doing.

To put it in Shakespeare's terms, there comes a time when you have got to start being master of your own fate.

Now, obviously, a boy who is master of his fate has some problems. For one thing, he’s going to find himself accepting the responsibility for himself and for his actions. When he doesn’t make it, he's not going to look around to find some silly excuse to take the responsibility off himself. When he flunks a quiz, he will put the blame on himself rather than try to blame the teacher for being unfair, or his room mate for telling him the wrong assignment. When he gets caught hacking around in the dorm, he won’t blame the floor leader or the master for catching him, he’ll blame himself for being wrong.

When he gets into a bad spot, he will realize that he got himself into that bad spot and it's up to him to get himself out. He won't blame his mistakes on bad luck, but will agree with Cassius that he is the master of his fate, and that if he goofs up, the fault lies with him and it’s up to him to make it right.

Secondly, the boy who is master of himself is going to find himself doing some things that no one else would think of doing, simply because these things are right and must be done, whether it's stepping in and getting involved when some kid on the campus is being picked on, especially when you know that it is the generally popular thing to do to pick on a particular boy, or when you are a student leader carrying out your responsibilities even when it is unpopular to do so.

So it boils down to this: each of you is responsible for himself and each of you can become, like the conspirators in Julius Caesar, the master of your fate. Sometimes it happens. But not very often. Most of you will probably be quite content to take the safe way out, and, like the chameleon, change your color, or your opinions and attitudes, or the way your dress or act, depending on who you are with.

The secret of being master of your own fate is knowing when to stop thinking and acting like everyone else and act for yourself.

May 15, 1966

29

30

Where Are You Going?

That's a question that can be used in a lot of different ways. For instance, when a boy is signing out to leave the campus Mrs. Talbert might ask him that. Or the floor leader may ask a boy ‘where are you going?’ when he is walking down the corridor during the middle of study hall. Or it’s the sort of question Mr. Linn might ask when he finds some kid sneaking across campus in the dead of night in the general direction of Hopkins Hall.

The same question can have different meanings depending on the context.

So now I am going to ask you that question--"Where are you going?" And I mean something quite important by it. Where are you headed? Where will you be—and who will you be—five years into the future? In 10 years? In 25 years from now?

The fact is you are headed someplace, whether you realize it or not, and some of you are just wandering around without the vaguest idea where you're headed.

Some of you alumni were here on my first Sunday three years ago. You probably haven't the vaguest idea of what I said that day. I asked the question: ‘What are you doing here?’ and then tried to explain why I was here at Cardigan and what I hoped to accomplish during that year and in the years ahead.

I said some things about why Cardigan has a chapel and a program in religion—and it all boiled down to a single important point, that nobody can escape asking himself the question of what his life is all about or what things in life really matter to him. Why? Because something matters to every one of you, even if you haven’t thought about it seriously yet, and what is important to you will determine to a large degree the sort of person you will become.

WARNING: If you ask yourself the question―’Where am I going?’ and you ask it seriously, it may lead to some uncomfortable conclusions.

First, you may not like where you are headed at the moment, and that may lead you to alter your direction to go in a direction you are happier with.

Second, you will find that there are no easy answers to guide you in whatever direction you decide to travel—each of you will have to struggle to find your own solution to where you are going and where you want to go.

I would like to make some suggestions that you may consider and that may be helpful to you in thinking about getting a sense of direction and figuring out where you are going:

31

The most important thing to think about is to choose a goal that is worth working toward. I'm not talking about what occupation you're going to get into when you get out of school. Or which college you are going to attend. I'm talking about something much more important: What values or standards are you going to live by? What sort of person are you going to become?

Right now you may not know the answer to the question. You may not have thought about it. You may not be ready to decide what values are going to guide you in living your life.

However growing up involves asking these types of questions and sooner or later you will have to decide how to answer these questions for yourself.

While you don’t have to make that decision right now, you should be thinking about it and trying to find models to guide you in helping to decide the sort of person you are going to become. You are making a big mistake if you don't make some attempt to begin working out for yourself the values that are important to you so you get your priorities straight.

I'm not going to try to force a standard on you, or try to talk you into accepting my particular set of values. It's much too important that you select your own values and make your own choices, so I am not going to let you take the easy way out by simply giving you some standards to follow. You've got to work it out for yourself. They have to be your choices. Who you are and what you become is a result of many choices and decisions you make while growing up.

But I suggest at least this much. No goal is worthy if it is primarily selfish. Any value important enough to guide your life and therefore to be worth reaching for and working for, must involve a concern for others.

In a book called The Plague, the novelist and thinker Albert Camus tells the story of a town that was isolated and infested by a terrible deadly disease—bubonic plague— brought to the town by flea-infected rats. People got sick and died. No one was concerned until it became obvious that everyone in the town was in danger from plague.

Some tried to escape. Some simply ignored the fact that others around them were sick and needed help. A few, at great risk to themselves, tried to relieve the suffering and help others. About them Camus said: ‘These men were risking their lives.... For those of our township who risked their lives in this predicament the issue was whether or not the plague was in their midst and whether or not they must fight against it....A fight must be put up.’

32

The standard by which the few acted was that their lives involved others, that other people mattered, and when help was needed, help ought to be given. Not too many of us are that concerned that other people really matter. As you get older, concern for others may grow along with you. Not very many of you are that concerned about problems of the less fortunate right now, but hopefully that will change as you mature.

So, the first point: Choose a goal that is worthwhile and in choosing that goal, consider that a goal that is worthy of working toward involves concern for others.

Then, having chosen a worthy goal, take one step at a time.

Most of you are dreamers. You have big plans for yourself, although they are far off in the future and you haven’t given much thought about how you are going to reach those dreams and goals. ‘Someday,’ you think, ‘I’ll be the sort of person I can admire.’

The goal is in the future. It doesn't really seem to have much connection with right now. But the future depends upon the present, and the goal will only be reached by taking one step at a time. The place to begin striving for the goal is right here and right now. Otherwise you're only kidding yourself about ever reaching a goal.

You will never reach your goal, any goal, worthy or not, unless you take steps to walk toward that goal one step at a time.

Then, once you start heading in the direction of your goal, keep looking up. It is very easy to take our eyes off the goal toward which we are heading. It’s easy to get distracted and stray off the path. We've got to keep the goal constantly in front of us in order that we not lose sight of it.

So to summarize my point for today: Choose a goal worth working toward. Choosing a goal is a responsibility you cannot avoid. If it's a worthy goal you’ve chosen for yourself, it ought to involve a concern for other people, and involvement in the big issues of life in which all of us are concerned. So think carefully about where you are going and move toward the goal one step at a time.

Fall 1966

33

34

Some Impressions...and Some Advice The annual academic rat race is beginning again! Yesterday looked like Old Home Week at Cardigan. Old students moved in and took over. Little groups of students stood around talking, handshaking violently like they hadn't seen each other in years, telling wild tales of where they had been and what they had done over the summer.

Peter Abbot was lugging over-size footlockers to the top floor of Clark-Morgan—and Bob Pipes was helping him by holding the doors open.

Quantities of stored gear were carted out of attic storage and deposited into rooms, so that many of them already have that "lived-in" look.

Keith Hardy was trying to find the haircut schedule, and Topper Stone got his PLAYBOY calendar up.

I got the impression... strangely enough... that a good many of you were actually glad to get back to Cardigan.

Most everybody fitted in pretty well ... but there are always some guys that get left out of these little groups, perhaps because they're bit bashful, a bit unsure of themselves, so they stand around on the fringes of what's going on, feeling a bit lost.

To those of you in this boat—and this applies particularly to you new students—I would like to offer a brief piece of advice—When you're put into a new situation, a bit of strangeness and confusion and even sometimes homesickness is normal. Most of us feel like this in a new and strange situation.

But the fact remains—this is your home for a while, and you've got to make it just that.

Don’t stand on the sidelines. Get into the bull sessions. Get into the activities. Get out and find some friends. Get settled into the swing of things as soon as possible and begin to enjoy life here.

To you old students, one more thing to consider: it’s your job to make sure that new students get the feeling that they belong here just as much as you do.

II I've given a lot of thought in the last few weeks to what ought to be said to students and faculty at this first Chapel service of the year. It is important that all of us think together very seriously about some facts of life and face them squarely.

35

First, you are in a new environment. You're not home. You're not at last year's winter school. You're not at summer school. In a sense, all of us are in a place that we have never been in before. It's a new situation, with new students, new teachers, new leaders, new programs, and new opportunities.

For you seniors, this is the big year, the year that counts, the year to be on top of the heap, to play first string football, to run the school.

But it's also a big year because it is critical for you personally, the year that decides for you to a large extent where you will be next year. This is the year in which your promises to yourself, and to the staff, and to your parents about really making good this time, really settling down and producing, could actually come true. It's something to think about.

Some of you give the impression that you're pretty sure of yourself, that you've got the world by the tail. But inside, well, that's another story. Inside you're not quite so sure.

The word has gotten around that classes are going to be pretty tough and you're not sure you can handle it. Some of you have made a poor impression in the past and would like to change people’s view of you and you are not quite sure you know how, or whether you can, or even if you want to.

So the first fact to think about is that it is an entirely new situation, a new year, and most of us at least are a little uncertain of what lies ahead.

Because it is a new situation, you can do with it pretty much what you want.

The second fact you ought to face is that you have new responsibilities to carry out—all of you. You have a job to do.

Some of you are leaders, and you have been put in that position because someone has noticed you and believes that you have the potential for doing the job. That leadership job has been given to you in the hope that you will make the best of it. You will have to carry out that responsibility fairly and honestly and do the very best job that you can.

It doesn't mean you have to like everybody equally well, but it does mean that where your duty is concerned, you will treat the other guy with respect, tolerance, understanding, and fairness.

All of you have academic responsibilities. Not all of you have the same abilities in studies any more than you do in any other area, but you can all be responsible for doing the best you are capable of. A few of you have flubbed up in other schools, and so

36

someone has said, "Alright, we'll give you another chance, another responsibility, see what you can do with it."

And, of course, all of you have responsibilities to yourselves. Don't let yourself get involved in things for which you will later become sorry. Some of you will. It’s happened before, and there is no reason to suspect that it will not happen again. But when it does, do the sensible thing. Get it straightened out. Talk to someone about it. Don't get yourself in deeper.

So, not only are you in a new environment, you have a new set of responsibilities, leadership responsibilities, academic responsibilities, and responsibilities to yourself.

III There is a third hard fact that you must face—You can't go home again...unchanged. You can't go home again quite the same person that you were when you arrived. New things will happen to you here. You will learn new things. You will grow up in a dozen different ways. You will do new things, you will have different experiences, but even more, through all of these things you do and all the things that happen to you here, you are going to become someone different than when you arrived.

Who and what are you going to become? I don't know. I guess that's up to you.

September 19, 1965

37

38

Hiding Behind Bushes People certainly are strange—they do all manner of weird and peculiar things.

Fortunately if we are smart we learn lessons from the strange things people do.

The Bible is a book that is full of all manner of strange, and different, and interesting people and stories. In a way the Bible is sort of like a mirror in which we can see ourselves and it reminds us that we can do some awfully strange things, too, at times.

I would like you to think about a story taken from the early chapters of the Book of Genesis in the Bible, because it is a story that most of us don't really understand even though we’ve heard the story before. The name “Genesis” means “about the beginnings.”

One of the early stories in Genesis is the story of Adam and Eve. Most of you have heard the story. The story is "mythical"—which does not mean that it is not true, but only that it is not literally true. The story is in the Bible because the story contains an important truth and has something useful to tell us. The story goes like this: Eve let herself get tempted into disobeying direct orders from God to stay away from the fruit on a particular tree and then because she was feeling guilty, she went to Adam and persuaded him to take some of the forbidden fruit also. Apparently people who get into trouble like to have someone else right along with them so they don’t have to face the consequences alone (and some of you ought to think about that!). Adam wanted to be a good sport about it and he didn't want Eve to think he was “chicken" so he went along with Eve and took some of the fruit even though he knew he was not supposed to.

People way back in this time didn't think about God, or anything else really in the same way that we do today, so they were not bothered very much about making God seem very much like a man. As the story continues, Adam's conscience was already beginning to bother him and he was aware that he had disobeyed God. Shortly thereafter the story says that God took a walk in the garden looking for Adam and could not find him, and when Adam heard him coming and heard his voice calling him, Adam knew he was really in for it now so he hid behind a bush.

Now whatever you may think about whether the story really happened in just that way, at least this much is true—that Adam did what any of us do when we have been caught doing something wrong. He was ashamed of himself and feeling guilty so he ran away from what he had done and tried to hide. I think he knew he had gotten himself into pretty serious trouble and was scared to death about it, and the only thing he could think to do was to run away so he would not have to face the consequences of what he had done.

39

Here’s the point. Adam is all men. That’s what his name means. Adam is you and I. We all catch ourselves doing things that we're ashamed of down deep inside, things that we know are wrong, things that hurt other people; and we find that we are disappointed in ourselves because we had expected more of ourselves than that, and because we are aware that there is quite a difference between what we are and what we would like to be. Does it seem to you sometimes that you just can’t doing anything right? We're sorry about it, and ashamed, but we just don't know what to do about it.

And like Adam, we try to hide because we are ashamed. Hiding seems to be an instinct of all kinds of animals when they are in danger and need to protect themselves. We do it too, automatically, almost without thinking.

Have you every felt like running away from a problem that seemed to be getting too big?

Have you ever lied to get yourself out of a jam? And then found yourself getting in deeper and deeper because you had to keep covering things up?

Have you ever been so ashamed of yourself that you were afraid that someone close to you would be disappointed and lose faith in you?

Have you ever kept quiet about something that happened because it was easier to be silent than admit that it was your fault?

We're all like Adam—we do things we are ashamed of and then try to hide.

So I have a few things I would like to say about "hiding" from the things that we do that we are ashamed of.

The first is this; Very few problems are solved by running away from them, or by hiding them, or by pretending that they aren't there. An ostrich hides his head in the sand, but he is not really convincing anyone but himself. It seems to me that it is better in the long run to face a problem than to hide from it or run away from it.

Facing up to what we have done wrong is not the easiest way to go, or it may seem like it at the time anyway. Sometimes it takes more guts than we've got.

There is something else too. I am not telling you to face up to your mistakes because in the long run you're going to get caught anyway. There is always the chance that you might not get caught, nobody might find out, only you would know. That's not the issue though. You would know and be disappointed in yourself because you had let yourself 40

down and you had let others down who have faith in you. That's why you have to face these things directly.

The second thing is this: Facing a problem, facing something that we have done that is wrong and we are ashamed of, means to ask forgiveness. There is nothing harder to do than to admit that we are wrong and to ask forgiveness for it. It's embarrassing. It hurts our pride. But it’s part of facing a situation directly and honestly. And it is difficult for us to ask God to forgive us if we cannot ask our neighbor or friend to forgive us, and if we cannot forgive our neighbor as well.

There is one more thing about facing something wrong. We've got to make the wrong right again, as much as we can. You know best how that can be done. I don’t need to tell you.

It would be rather silly, wouldn't it, to suggest that there is anything easy about facing unpleasant situations and making the wrong right again? The consequences may be difficult, and may hurt us. Each of us has to choose. Some find that they have got to face the wrong that they have done, and ask forgiveness and make the wrong right, or they wouldn't be comfortable with themselves. This is one way.

The other way is the way that Adam chose—hiding behind a bush, running away, and sticking our head in the sand. Certainly a strange way to act isn't it? Doesn’t sound like he had much pride in himself.

May 17, 1964

41

42

Thoughts on the Creation: The Animals According to the Biblical myth of the creation, a long time ago somewhere back in the distant past at the beginning of time and in a way as yet quite unknown to us, God set into motion the process which led eventually to the existence of our world as we know it today.

The peoples of long ago did not know any more about how it began than we do, but they did have an appreciation of its beauty, and amazement at the power of the forces of nature, and a sense of its enormous size; and they attributed all of it to some thoughtful and carefully planned work of God. Whatever the process by which it began, there is something rather special and significant about the biblical story of the creation.

According to the story, the whole business began in a Garden, a quiet place in the forests beside clear waters, a picturesque little spot by a lake much like our own Canaan Street Lake. Like Eden, Cardigan is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The ruggedness of the mountains in the background and the quiet peaceful waters of the lake make it a very special place.

Just as it was in the original Garden, any Adam or other man who sits in our own special version of the Garden or the jungle, or whatever it is, can watch the various animals come out of the jungle and pass in review before him.

Did you ever have the feeling you were living in a jungle? You know what jungles are like—filled with ferocious beasts and monkeys swinging through the trees. In any jungle some animals are bigger than other animals, or smarter, or have whatever it takes to be Big Beast in the Jungle. There are lions and tigers, who are obviously more ferocious in jungle sports; and foxy, clever animals and then the average sort of animals and bugs that no one notices unless they get into your room or your sleeping bag, or your food supply, or make a lot of noise, or pick on the other animals or don't take a shower.

Just imagine the sort of animals that a modern Adam would see pass before him in our jungle.

First, there are the monkeys in the trees over your head, not malicious or dangerous perhaps, but mischievous and troublesome because they are getting into things that they shouldn't, and making pests of themselves in a dozen harmless but irritating ways.

43

Then there is the fox, sly, crafty, always trying to outsmart the next guy and put something over on him. He knows all the angles and spends his time trying to outfox the hunters, and keep them away from his smoky den in the woods, Then there is the pig, who eats with his nose in the trough amidst great slurping noises, hardly aware that others would like to share the trough with him. Or thoughtlessly pushing and shoving his way into line. Or making little squealing noises because someone is chasing him through the garden.

Then there is the laughing hyena, to whom everything is always a big joke, and who never seems to learn the difference between times when laughing and joking is appropriate and when they are out of place.

Inevitably, there are the jackals, wild, vicious, cruel. They hunt in packs because it's safer that way and it gives them courage. They are not very popular animals. They torment others and gang up on them. No one really likes jackals, not even other jackals, but they stick together anyway and try to convince themselves that they like being jackals. They get a real charge out of picking on smaller animals.

The parade of animals goes on and on. The turtles, who can never get any place on time.

The scavengers of various kinds, who are looking for something for nothing and hunt for what others leave behind. The parrots and magpies, whose constant idle chatter can be heard, even when the rest of the jungle has quieted down for the night. The skunk, whose presence is usually odorous. The weasel, who is always weaseling his way out of something. The clam, who shuts up at the first sign of a fishing expedition headed in his direction.

With apologies to the animals of the jungle, some of you are animals. Actually there is a bit of the animal in all of us, and so perhaps it is not so strange that we should see a reflection of ourselves in the animals. We'll never get rid of our animal nature entirely; it's too deep in our nature.

But we are at least reminded from time to time that it doesn't have to be this way.

There are always some men and boys who break out of the animal world by devoting themselves to something higher and more noble—as did Jesus, who seemed to have none of those qualities that make a man more like an animal, and who reminds us that we could do likewise.

But it's hard to turn the jungle into a garden. It's easier to be an animal.

August 1, 1965 44

Disappointment With Ourselves Have you ever been disappointed? Have you ever been disappointed with yourself?

Have you ever been disappointed in people you know because they just didn't seem to be what you thought they were, or because they had let you down? If you think about it a bit, most of you would have to say, yes, you have been disappointed. People disappoint us all the time.

One of the biggest disappointments that you—and any of us—face is that there are times when we are just plain disappointed with ourselves. Most of you at one time or another have been disappointed in yourself, haven’t you?

Some project or assignment on which you had worked hard just didn't come out the way you planned, and you were disappointed.

You worked pretty hard on an English essay, and it just didn't come out the way you hoped, and it got chopped to pieces with red marks when it was graded and you were disappointed.

You were moved down a section in English or math, and you were disappointed in yourself because you didn't do better and disappointed in yourself because you just couldn't make it in the “B” section.

You tried pretty hard for a position on one of the sports teams, but it looks as if someone else will get the place you wanted, and you're disappointed.

You seniors applied to several schools, and some of the schools you really wanted to get into turned you down, and you were disappointed because these schools didn't think you had what it takes.

Some of you are disappointed because you are not as popular as you would like to be, and you're not sure what to do about it.

You can be disappointed in yourself for other kinds of reasons, too.

Some of you have picked up reputations without quite realizing that this was happening— a reputation for being a ‘wise guy’ or candidate for the ‘Jerk of the Year Award’—and you're disappointed with yourself because of the reputation you’ve gotten.

(And I guess some of you couldn't care less!)

45

Or you've done something that you know is wrong and you're embarrassed by it; you've let other people down and they've let you know it, and you're disappointed with yourself for letting it happen.

Or you've turned in work that was not yours, or did a book report on a book that you had not actually finished reading, and you're disappointed in yourself for taking the easy way out.

You didn't turn in an assignment—you lost it or just didn't do it—and then came by in conference and swore up and down that you turned it in, lying the whole way, hoping that your aggressive bluff would lead the teacher to think that maybe he did misplace it after all and give you the benefit of the doubt. You were disappointed that you had lied, and even more disappointed in yourself when you realized that the teacher probably knew you were lying and he knew you didn't have guts enough to admit it.

Or you did something very foolish for which you are sorry, but it's done and people are very much disappointed in you, and you're very much embarrassed and disappointed in yourself.

Or you were caught in some misconduct after lights out that you were ashamed of; or someone else got the blame for something that you did, and you let them suffer the consequences for your mistake without owning up to it.

I don't think there is anything more painful than being disappointed with ourselves; but it happens, and it's part of life and part of growing up, and when it happens we can either feel sorry for ourselves, or we can learn from these experiences something that will help us become a better person.

In a nutshell, it boils down to this: there are many different kinds of abilities in the world. There are some things that each of us can do that others cannot do as well; and there are some things that others can do, that we just cannot do at all. It's up to us to find out what we can do, and do it well; and if we cannot do as well as others, at least to do the best we can.

Only when we are disappointed with who and what we are, will we ever have the desire to be something different. You don’t have to remain disappointed with yourself—the choice is yours.

April 11, 1965

46

The Legend of the Easy Way ‘Once upon a time....’

No! Let's not begin the story that way. That's not a very good way to begin a story, at least not if the story is one that could happen now as well as in the dim past, or if the story is actually about us as much as about someone else.

The story I’m about to tell you is a true story. You know the protagonist of the story.

We’ll call him our ‘hero,’ because at least for a while he thought he was a sort of hero.

He may be sitting in the chair next to you. You may have known him all your life.

Maybe you will recognize his face the next time you look into the mirror.

Sometimes the story teller asks you to settle back and enjoy the story. I can't tell you that, for this is not the kind of story you will enjoy. It's a tragedy of sorts both because it didn't have to end the way it did, and because some of you will one day find yourself playing the part of the hero of this tragedy.

We first meet our hero when he comes into the dorm after practice, griping because the coach said some ridiculous nonsense about nothing being won without a lot of hard work and sweat, ‘Nonsense,’ our hero thought, ‘there must be an easier way. All that work can't be that necessary.’

‘I wish ..,’ he said to himself … but other things came along and he had no time to finish his thought. Too much English homework he thought as he struggled to recapture his wish.

‘All Mr. Rouillard does is make us work,’ he thought, ‘Nothing is good enough for him. Red ink all over everything I turn in. Expects us to read all that old stuff and I can't even figure out what it says. It's just not worth it. I'll probably flunk anyway. He's never satisfied. All he ever thinks about is work and more work.’

And so our hero began to lay the groundwork for the trap in which he would catch himself. He began toying with ideas of how to beat the system. ‘There must be an easier way,’ he said to himself.

Modern writers sometimes interrupt their stories—or their plays, or even their movies— to talk directly to their audience in order to make some editorial comments, or put in a plug for their favorite ideas, as a sort of literary commercial, so I hope you will forgive me if I interrupt my story to observe that our hero seems to be a normal kid, thinking quite typical thoughts, and with the usual gripes about life and work.

47

But watch it carefully. Our hero will very shortly make a serious mistake. Right now he is just waking up to the very unpleasant fact that life is not a big picnic—or if it is, that even big picnics take a lot of hard work to be a rocking success. The grind was beginning to get him down—schedules, assignments, grades, hard work, all the unpleasant drudgeries that make the world go round.

As we get back to the story, we find our hero, already with his nose in the trap he is building, walking back to his room after special study hall, wishing harder and harder to himself that there was an easy way to get things done so he didn’t have to work so hard.

As he entered his room he was shocked to see a weird looking little man sitting on his dresser, not the sort of thing we would expect to see sitting on our dresser unless we had been studying English too hard or taking overdoses of Miss Howe’s cough medicine or having bad dreams. But there he was, just sitting there. Our hero just stood there waiting to see if he would go away. He didn't.

‘Kid,’ he said at last, ‘wishes are sometimes answered. I am the answer to your wish.

You'll find me pleasant enough, I am the Easy Way. Call on me when you are faced with a difficult problem or an unpleasant assignment. In my own way and in my own time, I'll get it done for you the easy way, short cuts and such things. I’ll do the hard things for you, but the easy things you will continue to do yourself.

‘However, there are some things about which I must warn you and you will have to agree to the terms of the deal I will make with you. Each time you are faced with a difficult situation you will have to make the choice between doing it the right way or taking the easy way out. The easy way will be more fun and less work, but in the end it will cost you something.

‘The second warning is that I will loan this power to you temporarily, but someday I will take it back from you without warning, and you will no longer be able to get by the easy way.

‘Third, no one will know your secret. I will remain invisible. No one, not even you, will see me. No one will be the wiser. No one will know that you took the Easy Way out, and you will not be able to tell them,’ Our hero, his halo somewhat tarnished now, looked a little doubtful, but the opportunity was too good to past up, so he agreed to the terms and the mysterious little man disappeared.

48

There was little that seemed to make any noticeable difference. At first everything seemed very much as it always had been. Again and again the pressures of work were put upon him, and he thought about taking the Easy Way, but he was a little hesitant about it, for he thought there must be a catch to it. Still, the temptation was strong, and he started taking the Easy Way. Surprisingly, it seemed to pay off. He did well in school, and his marks were satisfactory, even quite good. Every chance he got, he cheated a bit on his training rules, and he sloughed off a lap here and an exercise there, and nobody seemed to notice or to care.

He was really getting away with taking the Easy Way out. This was really something!

Or so he thought.

Each success made taking the next short cut somewhat easier. He did well in his grades and great schools smiled on him with favor. No one knew his secret. He was a little afraid inside that it might show, but no one seemed to notice—except one sore teacher who simply noted on his record that he was capable of better things than what he had produced—and so he was ‘accepted’ at senior prep school and well on his way to becoming a big success.

He was secure now and his worries were over. The Easy Way out became his pattern.

He felt at times that he was weaker now, less capable, his mind less strong because it was not used to stretching itself. ‘But,’ he thought, ‘it doesn't really matter, for I am getting along just fine.’ He got through school this way, for he learned the method well and he was very skilled at finding the Easy Way. He went on to bigger and better things. Life opened up before him. So expert was he at these skills that the Easy Way managed to land him the very job he wanted—an engineering job, large, complex, difficult, but glorious and important. His father knew somebody. There's always an Easy Way. He learned how to settle down and enjoy life. Why work at it when you can coast along taking it easy and enjoying life as it comes? He was having his cake and eating it too, until, one day....

Well, it had been a difficult day. Problems were coming at him faster than he could solve them. Nothing went right. He had taken the Easy Way so many times that he was creating his problems as he went along, and it looked as if the project would fail, and along with it his illusions and his dreams—and even his career.

Weary and confused,

49

our grown-up hero returned to the Project Engineer's office. Dusk was falling and the shadows were long and grotesque.

As he entered the office—he might have imagined it—but he thought he saw the strange little man sitting on his desk, and in the quiet darkness he thought he heard a voice saying: ‘You remember me, don’t you? We made a bargain a long time ago. You have been a fool for there is no such thing as the Easy Way. It is an illusion, a dream, a phantom, an empty wish. Now the dream is gone. This is the end of the road for you. There is nothing at the end of the Easy Way but a road that turns to dust and crumbles before you as you try to walk it.’

Then slowly into the increasing darkness the shadow of the strange man disappeared, until our hero was left alone with himself. In the end that is where all of us are left. I don’t know what happened next. I wonder, though, when this story takes place again, who its hero will be.

Each of us writes his own story, and we have to finish it in our own way.

October 18, 1964

50

Why Do What's Right?

One of the things for which you are responsible is thinking about the things that go on around you. All around us there are lessons to be learned and things to be thought about. Sometimes we find lessons in some places we do not expect to find them.

Some of us came across something to think about in—of all places—an English literature book. One of my 8th grade classes recently read a story and I asked each boy to write some comments on what they thought about it. Then we discussed the story.

Here’s a summary of the story: A young Mexican boy named Jose had a birthday coming up soon, and for a long time he had been saving his money so that he could buy himself a bicycle. He gathered up his 40 pesos and headed toward the nearby village, but on the way he met his friend Juan, who was crying his heart out and holding on to a scrawny little goat. Jose asked what was the matter, and Juan told him that his mother was very sick and had to go to the hospital, so he had been trying to sell the goat to get the money for the hospital bill. Nobody would buy his goat and therefore his mother might die. Jose gave Juan the 40 pesos and bought the goat, which he led home very sadly, thinking about the bicycle that he would not have for his birthday.

The next day, when Jose went to the barn, he found that the scrawny little goat had given birth to two little goats, so Jose took all three goats to a goat herder, who paid Jose enough money so that he could have his bicycle after all.

The story is a simple one and its theme is very simple too—a boy gave up something that he wanted very much in order to help someone else, but in the end he got back what he had given up.

When we discussed the story in class all of us agreed that Jose did what was right. He did just exactly what he should have done and what all of us hope we would do under the same circumstances. There are times when people need help and we just have to help them. There are things which have to be done simply because they are right and we must do them.

Still, some of us were disappointed in the way the story came out. In the end Jose got his bicycle. He had given up the bicycle to help someone else, but in the end he got it anyway. His good actions didn’t really cost him anything.

51

It's certainly a very nice story, and we wish it were like this in real life, but you know and I know that things just don't work out this way, and if we expect them to work out this way we are in for a big disappointment.

The story seems to tell us that the good things that we do for others won't really cost us anything in the long run because if we do what is right we will be rewarded for doing the right thing. That just isn't so. Giving up a bicycle so that a friend's mother can live may mean simply that we go without the bicycle.

So what is the lesson here? Telling the truth about something that we did may lead to consequences rather than reward. Admitting that we were wrong, or did something that we should not have done, may not always work out to our advantage, but we do these things because they are right and not because we will be rewarded for them.

Doing what is right is important. Helping other people is important. Sacrificing for others is important. But our reason for doing it is important too, and we are doing it for the wrong reason if we think that helping others may not really cost us anything, This is why we would rather the story had come out another way. It would have been better if the story had ended with Jose giving up his bicycle to help his friend's mother and leaving Jose with the knowledge inside himself that he had done what was right by making the choice to give up something which meant a lot to him, and going without it to help someone else.

Why do we do what is right? Simply because it is the right thing to do.

October 11, 1964

52

Looking for Something?

This fable was delivered in the chapel at Cardigan in the spring of 1965 and was published later that year in the monthly magazine Young People (September 1965), a publication of the American Baptist Convention.

In a place not so far away and at a time not so long ago, a group of young knights, their armor brightly polished, sat around a table in a large banquet hall, or seminar room, or some other unlikely place—a round table, tradition has it—and as knights in shining armor are prone to do when they sit around tables and talk, they had a vision. Some called it the "Holy Grail". Since it was a vision, there was really no way of knowing whether each of them saw the same thing. But you can be sure of this much, that they had a vision of something valuable and worth having, the sort of thing young knights dream about, adventure, excitement, freedom, life, the real world beneath the surface, maybe even wisdom.

With the vision still hot on his brain, one of the knights called out, "Let's have a crusade!" Others agreed. Everybody is for crusades, especially knights in shiny armor.

So another knight spoke up and said, "Great idea! We could go on a crusade to make everybody wear bright and shiny armor." Somebody else was not too happy with the idea.

"Who wants to wear armor all the time? Anyway, we would have to keep it polished." And so the subject was dropped.

Sir Lancelot was typical of these enthusiastic knights, who quite frequently have visions of great things ("visions of grandeur" they're called). He had a vision, but it was not really very clear. He set off looking for something, but he was not quite sure what it was that he was seeking. Impatient as he was, he set out immediately to find it. Of course, not knowing what he was looking for, he had no way of knowing when he found it.

He seemed more like a crusader than a traveler looking for something, and on his journey he could not resist poking his sword into many things and many people, slashing here and there, using his mighty power and his great skill to knock things down and trample on them. He had a tongue like a whip and was quite skilled at lashing people with it. Others thought his tongue could best be compared with a lance or sword, for he was always cutting people up with it. It was clear that he would become a hero very fast, for he was brave, and skillful, and people noticed his great courage and his daring.

One day, as he passed down the road, slashing to the right and to the left just for the sake of knocking things around, he met an old man standing under an oak at the side of the road. Said the old man, "You slash very hard but aimlessly, Sir Knight. What are you seeking with such determination? Why do you ride so furiously into the unknown?

53

Sir Lancelot was amused that anyone would ask him for a reason. He had never asked himself for a reason, why should anyone else? So he said kindly to the old man, "I'm on a crusade, Old Man. I've had a vision. I'm looking for something, something the world hasn't given to me yet, so I'm out to find it."

Said the old man, "What is it you are looking for?"

Replied Lancelot, "I'm not sure. But it's important. I've got to find it."

Said the old man, "Strange isn't it, that you would spend all this time on a journey without trying to find out what you're looking for, or how you're going to know when you've found it? And when you've found it, this strange unknown that you are looking for, are you going to take it by force?"

"Ah, you don't understand," said Lancelot, "the world will not give it to me. I have to take it."

"You are a rebel," said the old man.

"Is rebelling wrong, Old Man?" said Lancelot with a grin.

The old man was wise, and not wishing to offend the young knight, he made a very careful reply. After standing silent for a few moments, the old man began slowly. "No," he said, "rebelling is not wrong—if you have a cause, and if the cause is a good one, and if rebelling is the only answer. You don't have a cause. You don't know what you're rebelling against. You're banging your head against a wall, slashing away at everything, rather than choosing your enemy wisely. However, it is pointless to tell you this. You have to learn it yourself."

"Old Man," said Lancelot, becoming more serious, "I have been down many roads and many times I have had to retrace my steps. Some of the roads have been rough. Some were impassable. I have found myself in a land of sand and thorns. I have been thirsty and tired from searching so long and so hard. I have asked directions many times, and no one seems to understand my questions and no one, not even me, knows what I am really looking for. I strike out against everything because I don't know what else to do."

"You would save yourself a lot of wasted energy if you would learn the lessons of those who are older and more experienced, who have walked these same paths before you and can point them out to you and help you find what you are looking for."

54

"Old Man," Lancelot replied, "There is wisdom in what you say. I shall learn from you what you can teach me, so teach well that I might learn from your example. But now you learn from me. I dream the dream of every youth—to find the Holy Grail, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, to find my place in life and stand on my own two feet with no support to hold me up. There are things that I have to learn for myself. I may not know where I am going. I may blunder along. My vision may not always be clear. I may learn by my mistakes. I may learn nothing and keep on slashing away at life. I may even walk right past what I am looking for without seeing it. But in the long run, it's my search and I must find out my own answers.

Then search well and with courage, Lancelot," said the old man. "Goodbye, and God bless you. May the Lord renew your strength so that you may run and not be weary, and walk and not faint."

Lancelot turned and rode off boldly into the unknown. I wonder whatever became of him? Perhaps only time will tell.

55

56

A PARABLE ABOUT KNOWLEDGE Once upon a time there was a boy who set out on a very long journey on a road over which he had never been before. When he set out, he did not know where he was going, or where he would end up, or how long it would take to get there.

He set out on his journey when he was only ten years old. The first stop was a prep school far off in the mountains a long distance from his home. It was a new experience for him, but it did not take him long to get accustomed to it. He found that there were so many new and exciting things to do. He joined with others in games and went sailing on the lake and hiking in the mountains; he threw candy wrappers on the lawn and flunked inspection, punched his roommate and got slips for talking during study hall. He did pretty much what everyone else did.

He went to classes and read books, and learned about writing sentences, and what the elements of matter are, and how to solve equations, and who was responsible for the Civil War. And he thought to himself, "There is so much to learn. I wonder if I will ever learn it all."

Then, one day, he became a big wheel. He was elected to the Student Council, and was a leader in a dormitory, and served on this committee and that. He was pretty important.

He knew his job well. One day when he was thinking about his great responsibilities, he said to himself, "Maybe there is more to learn than history, and algebra, and English."

And he kept thinking about it, and sure enough, very quickly he recalled other things he had learned. He looked back on himself and remembered what a jerk he had been when he came, and he looked with more understanding on those who had still to come by that same road.

Then his thoughts wandered again, and he had to face into the uncertain future, and think of more schools, and jobs, and decisions. And he thought to himself, "There is still so much more to learn." He thought about responsibility, and how he often let things slide—time, assignments, jobs. And he thought to himself, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing well." But he couldn't seem to get into the hang of doing things this way.

But all in all he was feeling pretty confident in himself; and the way he was increasing his knowledge, surely it would not take too much longer to know everything.

Then one day while home for a weekend, he ran into a very strange creature on the street, a man who seemed to have some strange black scales over his eyes. He could not understand how the man could find his way around, or see where he was going.

57

Then he noticed that the strange manlike creature was mumbling some words, and he listened very closely to make out what they were; he heard the man say, "I've got it!

I've got all the answers!" Surely the boy thought, either the man is crazy or he's a Dartmouth student. And he was very surprised. For it seemed so strange for anyone to say anything as foolish as that. The man must have been off his rocker.

He started to laugh, but then he thought better of it and took pity on the man and thought, "Poor fellow. He can't see very well. He can't see any further than his nose. He doesn't really see how little he understands. He has a strange kind of blindness."

And when he got home, he discussed it with his father, who was very wise, and seemed to be getting smarter as his son got older. And his father explained to him that sometimes for reasons unknown people get a disease called "over-tired brain" and the brain stops working, and they stop learning and thinking, and eventually they die from the neck up.

All the way back to school he thought about it again. And back at his room on the campus, strangely enough, he got into a rather heated discussion; and even more strangely, it was about religion. And his roommate kept insisting that he was right, and all the boy could think about was the strange man with the scales over his eyes.

On his way to Chapel one morning, another thought occurred to him, and it seemed to be a thought worth thinking about some more. He said to himself, "There is so much that I do not know. Truth is so big and vast, that I don't see how anyone could have all the answers."

And again he thought, "God is bigger than the words we use to describe him or talk about him. I do not have all the answers, and I don't have near enough knowledge about God. Maybe my room mate does know something that I do not know. And if he does maybe it is important that we share our truth.�

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed important that there was truth enough for everyone to have a share in it. And he said to himself, "Maybe those who have some truth would be willing to share it with me, and if I am patient and willing to learn, maybe I shall find truth I did not know existed. Truth seems to be found in so many different places.

And the boy learned how to listen and to share his thoughts in humility. And he grew to be wise, and sympathetic and understanding. He was known for his wisdom and his knowledge. And people said of him that he was a great man and that he knew God.

58

And someone asked him, later in life, how he could know so much. And he said, "I found that truth is bigger than I am and it is found in so many unlikely places. I learned to listen for it and to share it with others. And so I found that by listening and sharing, there was so much to be learned."

And he said this, too, and it was the last thing he said—"Learning this is a mark of growing up."

Go, and do thou likewise.

November 1963

59

60

The Blue Angels and the Red Bears: A Parable Note: This Parable was written during the winter of 1967 following a lengthy and acrimonious informal faculty discussion over coffee after dinner of various simmering issues relating to the Viet Nam war. The faculty had diverse views on the topic, as we might have expected, and the subject at hand was how much should/could be said about the war in the classrooms and dormitories without upsetting the boys or their parents. The discussion was heated, and reflected the general divisiveness of the topic in society generally at the time, not unlike the discussions that go on today with respect to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The parable was written to have an indirect way of discussing the subject and raising some of the issues with and among students and faculty.

Once upon a time there was a community in New Hampshire in which there were quite a few gangs of boys struggling for control. The Blue Angels and the Red Bears were the two largest of these gangs, but there were other gangs as well.

Each gang had a territory staked out and operated, at least in theory, pretty much as it wished within the limits of its territory. There was an understood agreement that the territorial claims of the various gangs would be respected, but unfortunately the larger gangs were impressed by power and size and often hounded smaller gangs to join uneasy protective alliances.

Since the two largest gangs were the Blue Angels and the Red Bears, these two felt that it was in their best interest to control several of the smaller gangs and did their best to coerce the smaller gangs, under threat of their displeasure, to do obeisance to their gang leaders and render suitable homage and respect.

Often feelings were high, tempers strained, and insults passed, and from time to time there was gang warfare to settle a point of honor or to retaliate for territorial encroachments. Occasionally one gang would help another in their constant fights and feuds, a bigger helping a smaller, until the actual reason for the feud was lost in the heat of battle, and reason itself seemed to retreat into the background in the insane and interminable fever of battle. Knives would be sharpened and chains were carried, and many members of both gangs were badly hurt in the fighting, which frequently also injured innocent pedestrians and bystanders and did much damage to the property of those who had no quarrel with those who were fighting.

Not only were the bystanders incensed by the brutality and the display of sheer force, but even some of the gang members themselves suggested from time to time that it might be better for all the gangs if more reason were substituted for violence, and if retaliation and self-interest were not always the dominant and compelling motives.

61

Some attempts had been made to get these gangs to unite in a federation to settle petty quarrels and to allow some arbitration of disputes without the inevitable eruption into gang warfare, but the gang leaders were incensed that such overtures could be made by members of their gang, because who had any right to question brute force and its efficacy or the war policy of its leaders. Snide remarks were made about undermining the authority of the gang and questioning the loyalty of those who raised questions about whether the present course of action and fighting was necessary or helpful and whether peace among the gangs was desirable.

To stifle opposition and to confuse means and ends, the war counselor of the gangs would sit down with the leaders in a high level conference and map out a series of slogans (‘preserve motherhood’ ‘might makes right’ ‘peace on earth through war’ ‘the end justifies the means’ ‘peace through power’) with which to whip up the gang spirit and to placate those for whom gang warfare was a waste of time and a terrible tragedy.

These gangs operated on the newly-espoused democratic principle of stifling assent by attributing base motives to those who questioned the wisdom of gang warfare.

‘Chicken,’ they said.

‘Aren’t you really for our gang?’ asked others.

‘The Red Bears do it too,’ said others, ‘why shouldn’t we play the game by their rules?’

‘To dissent from the will of the majority,’ said others, ‘is failing to show a proper team spirit, and your motives in undermining the gang war spirit are in question.’

The disputes often went on late into the evening. ‘You know our side only supports creditable causes,’ said one Blue Angel, ‘our history shows that is true." He did not realize that he had said earlier in another breath that "Our gang operates on the basis of self–interest’ and that ‘power has the duty to maintain itself at whatever cost.’

‘In the interest of Power members of our gang or the other gang are expendable’ and ‘Our leaders know best,’ said another Angel, "wait and see.’

One day a squabble occurred among the ranks of the Kiwi Birds, a lesser known gang operating in a small territory some distance away, and it seemed that leadership of the gang was the question and alliances among the various other gangs competing for influence were creating internal tension. The leaders of the Kiwi Birds appealed to the Blue Angels to help them out and so the Blue Angels sent over a delegation and beat the

62

hell out of some of the dissident gang members who had leaned toward alliances with the Red Bears.

The opposition leadership appealed to the Red Bears who were only too glad to lend support to those whose leadership was in their best interests. A free for all followed in which members of the various gangs armed themselves with clubs, chains and knives, and beat the hell out of each other in support of their ideas and consistent with their view that the reality of life was raw, brute power. Many in both gangs were gleefully whaling the daylights out of each other and many were hurt and injured but they called the injured heroes and the conflict noble.

Still one member of the Blue Angels continued to resist the gang warfare and tried to say that the slogans invented by the war counselors were interesting and sounded quite fine, but that the combatants were doing something quite different in their warfare than what the slogans said. One naive member of the gang even wondered out loud, ‘Why are we doing this?’ and he was heard saying it.

‘Well,” said the members of the gang in chorus, ‘That's the way it is! Anyway,’ said the chorus in unison, ‘We don’t really believe the slogans of the war counselors anyway. The slogans are for the weak, but we know better. We believe in power, power makes right.

Don't you think so?’

Said another gang member slowly, ‘From the beginning of time there have been gangs and one gang beats on another, and it is too bad that it is like this, but this is reality.’

‘After all,’ said a third, ‘it keeps us busy and it leads to an orderly gang, always ready for trouble. We really need something like this to keep us in shape,’ he continued dispassionately. ‘This is the way gangs are. You can't argue with reality.’

Then said the naive Blue Angel, ‘Is this the best we can hope for? Is this all man is, a brute, who enforces his will, without moral consideration or concern for individuals, without care for the damage and injury he causes?’

‘Progress,’ began his mentor, ‘is dependent upon power. We have what we have because power prevailed. Power contains within itself its own rightness, its own moral authority.

Raising questions like yours is superfluous and dangerous. What difference does it make whether our action is right? It’s whether we can get away with it that matters. What matters is whether we have to power to enforce our wants.

‘But,’ said the innocent one, feeling strangely like there was something about life that he must have missed. ‘I learned all the proper slogans and the key phrases of our gang— 63

egalite, humanitas, libertas, even concern for others, but these words do not come up in our discussions now.’

‘Life is full of surprises, isn't it?’ said an older member warmly. ‘But don't get excited over these sixth grade words. We say them but we don't mean them and they are only brought up at all to allay the fears of the younger members of our gang who do not really understand the way the gang works. No one with any common sense could possibly suppose that we could operate in any other way. No one else does.

‘The only thing that matters ultimately is power and our gang’s interests. The biggest and most powerful gang gets what it wants and it is in the best interests of our gang to make sure that other gangs understand our power. Your moral sensitivities about the conduct of our gang are really pointless.

‘If any other gang begins to grow in size or in strength so that it begins to wield any possible power that it could use to threaten us in the future, we should reduce the threat immediately by finding some pretext for an argument and we should beat them up so that they and others understand that they cannot mess with us. The other gangs need to understand who is boss It's always better to run the show ourselves.’

‘Why can’t we break the tradition?’ said the young and foolish gang member. ‘Why do we have to play the game this way? Why don’t we change the rules? Aren’t we free enough to play the game without being obliged to hit below the belt? And if the other gang plays dirty, do we have to lower ourselves to his level? And if he tries to play for power, do we have to let ourselves becomes slaves to his rules?’

At this point the members of the gang lost interest and left, leaving the young man with the unspoken question, ‘I wonder if it wouldn’t be preferable to be dead, even a dead martyr, then to be enslaved to an immoral system in an amoral world?’

Questions like this should not trouble members of gangs because it handicaps a man to have to ask why he is doing something. It is obviously easier to keep on doing it, day after day and never ask himself why, or whether there is an alternative, and whether it might be worth considering acting on principle.

The more he thought about it, the more obvious it became to him that they were right.

One night he entered the office of the gang leader and said that he had come to apologize for he realized he was wrong.

‘See,’ said the leader, ‘I knew eventually you would see the light.”

64

‘Yes,’ said the young man, ‘I understand what you mean, power is all that matters.’

Saying that, he stuck a knife into his leader and ruled his leader’s gang.

‘Boy,’ he said. ‘Power is everything.’

65

66

Freedom and Independence During the past week I spent quite a few hours giving some pretty serious thought to what ought to be said at the first service of the summer session. For most of you school has just gotten out for the summer in the past week or so. If you are like I was at your age, you probably spent the last month or so dreaming of all the things you would do in your vacation—and dreaming of the time when this education kick would be over and you were out in the world on your own, free of school, with no cares and no teachers.

Suddenly the vacation is over, you're back at school again, and your precious freedom is lost. And there is nothing you guys want more than freedom to do what you want to do, and not be told by parents or teachers or other adult meddlers that you can't do whatever it is that you want to do.

So, I am going to make some remarks about "freedom" and "being independent" that I would like you to consider—but before I do, I'd like to tell you a story that will kelp make clear to you what I mean by freedom and independence.

Some years ago now during World War 2, deep in the jungles of the Philippines, a young American army lieutenant was captured by the Japanese and held in a small prison compound. A Japanese intelligence officer was determined to get some information out of this American soldier, and so day after day he questioned the American and day after day the Lieutenant refused to answer.

The Japanese officer was determined to break this soldier, and the American was just as determined to resist despite torture and solitary confinement, for this was the only way the American officer could show his independence and his contempt for the enemy.

The Japanese officer became agitated and upset because he could not make the American talk, and he became so enslaved by his desire to control his prisoner that he couldn't take defeat, and finally in frustration and humiliation the Japanese officer committed suicide.

0ne man was a prisoner, the other his captor, yet the prisoner was the free and independent one of the two even though he was behind bars, He still controlled the situation and he destroyed the man who held him prisoner.

Hold this story in mind while we turn to something else for a minute. My wife and I have a little baby daughter. She’s only seven months old, and she's just learning to drink out of a cup. When her mother is attempting to feed her, she keeps trying to grab the cup, and if she could talk, she would probably be saying, ‘But, Mommy, I would rather do it myself.'

67

It's a good thing she's like this, and if she wasn't I'd probably be worried. It's a normal part of growing up to want to be independent. A little baby is completely dependent on others, but as it grows older it learns how to do more and more things for itself.

Your job while you are young is to work at becoming independent. It's not easy. It doesn't just happen. You must work at it, and you must accept the responsibilities and the headaches of being independent. This is all part of the painful process of growing up.

You want to be independent—but what does that mean?

Does it mean that you will no longer have anyone tell you what to do? I doubt it. Most of us will have someone higher up the ladder than we are all our lives.

Does it mean being able to do whatever you want to do any time you want to do it? Not quite, because no one can do just anything he wants to without regard to other people and conditions beyond his control.

What is "independence" then? It's a matter of attitude more than anything else. In the story I told you earlier, it was the prisoner who was really free and independent, even though he was behind bars. That's a pretty strange idea, I guess, but if you can get hold of it, it's a pretty good idea to keep in mind. The circumstances of your situation are not as important as the way you handle whatever situation you are in.

At Cardigan you will have a certain measure of freedom and you can do with it pretty muck as you wish. If you want to be independent, act independently. Be responsible.

Don't make it necessary for others to tell you what to do, or to have to pick up after you because you are careless or thoughtless.

Be dependable enough to do what is asked of you and what is expected of you without someone having to check up on you to see if it has been taken care of.

Be reliable. When you give your word, stick to it.

Don't be a constant complainer or whiner. A griper is not an independent individual. He's showing that he can't handle things as they come to him, The independent boy thinks for himself. He asks questions. He wants answers, He makes decisions. He shows initiative. He doesn't have to be told what to do next. He sees what has to be done and he does it.

68

He makes good decisions. He has good judgment. He’s not always trying to get somebody else to make his decisions for him. He knows what is best for him in the long run and does not take shortcuts. He doesn’t try to fool himself. He’s not concerned with doing something just because everybody else is doing it. He doesn’t get suckered into doing something he knows is wrong, because he is independent enough to decide for himself.

Perhaps most important for you to think about here at Cardigan this summer, the truly independent boy has reached the stage where he is going to start accepting the responsibility for his own life and his own education and the opportunities that are provided for him here.

What you do with your time here is pretty much up to you. I hope that some of you, at least, are independent enough and mature enough and free enough to accept some of the responsibility for what happens to you here at Cardigan—without the need for a babysitter.

June 26, 1965

69

70

Talking About God That's an odd subject to talk about, isn't it? Have you ever tried it? You probably don’t get much chance to talk about God. But if you have attempted to talk about God, you may have noticed that you weren't really sure what you were talking about. It’s hard to find the right words to use, and no matter how carefully we choose the words to talk about God, they always seem to sound a little strange.

We can't seem to help describing God as if he were very much like a man--a very large and powerful man, but nevertheless one that seems to be like us and to be as human as we are. We use the same adjectives to describe God as we do to describe our human relationships. We say that God loves us and that he judges us when we do wrong, that he gets angry with us and he forgives us, that he helps us when we need it and he speaks to us when he has something to say.

Whenever we hear these things said about God—maybe not all of us but at least some of us-- find it a little strange and even a little embarrassing, for we really know that God, whatever he is, is not just some kind of big and powerful man in the sky.

No matter how hard we try to choose our words carefully and say what we mean, our language doesn't seem to do the job very well. We don't quite know just what words to use to describe God or to say what we want to say about him.

Frankly, sometimes I'm a bit puzzled when someone says to me, “I don't believe in God.” Why is he so concerned to make a point of telling me that? Is he bragging about it? Is he merely rebelling against the beliefs of the adult world? Is he happy in his new found freedom? Or is he sad that the world is not as simple as he thought it was? Is he waiting for me to do something to prove that he is wrong?

I wonder what he wants me to do about it. He stands there as if he expects me to be horrified, or laugh, or try to prove God to him; and about the only thing I can do is say, "That's too bad," or "I'm sorry."

Then, after an awkward pause, he may say, "Believing in God just doesn't make sense!"

Of course it doesn’t. I can sympathize with his problem, because it doesn't make sense.

Something that is “sensible” is something that is subject to the senses—it can be touched, and measured, or felt, or seen, or tasted, or smelled.

God just doesn't fit. He is not a sensible object. In fact, he’s not an object at all. Our language was built for talking about things, sensible things, and it does a very good job 71

with these sorts of things, but it just doesn’t seem to be very helpful for talking about God, who isn't something that can be "sensed.�

But because our language is not adequate to the job, does this mean that God is not real?

I guess most of us realize that there is more to the world than meets the eye or the hands. There is more to the world than the objects and forces that interact one with another that we learn about in science class. Wouldn't it be a terrible and tragic world if all we had in it was what we could see and handle and describe very precisely? What would we do without beauty, and truth, and integrity, and love, and meaning?

If God is anything at all, he is like beauty and truth and love, which are no less real though we cannot measure them and our words are unable to contain them and exhaust them and explain them fully.

God is real but he is not a thing. We believe that he makes demands of us but we are not always sure what he wants us to do or to be. When we are sure, we're stubborn and selfish, and we do not always do what we know we ought to do. God disturbs us and shakes us up when we have gone our own way against right and truth and justice. He causes us to feel guilty. When we ask him--and even when we don't--he is with us and comforts us and sees us through times of great difficulty and deep sorrow that we all experience from time to time.

Most important to remember: We do not believe in God because we are persuaded to, or because someone has proved God to us. We believe simply because we believe in truth, and honesty, and values, and creativity, and human dignity, and love and meaning, and purpose. If we believe in God, he is all of these things for us, and they are what we mean when we use the word "God." God is the strength that gets us through each day; the love we share with parents and friends; the hope in the future and the significance of the past; the purpose that guides us through the course of life ahead of us and the meaning of the everyday events that make life worthwhile; the light that guides us through the darkness; and the creative power of love. God is all of these, and more, too, although our words are inadequate to say how much more. God is what the philosophers call the "ground of existence�--which in simple terms means the base on which everything else rests. To deny meaning to the word God is to deny that life has any meaning or worth or value.

72

When we have said all we can say, we still are not sure exactly what we mean by God, but at least we've made a beginning. Perhaps only experience and patience will teach us more about God, and only in looking back will we be able to understand what God means.

January 31, 1965

73

74

Broken Images Those of you who have been taking art lessons presumably have learned enough to realize that a painter doesn’t just paint to amuse himself or to create art work to decorate walls – not if he is a good painter anyway. A good painter, like a great writer, paints a picture for us of what the world is like and how things appear to him. Painting is a way of communicating.

One modern painter, whose name is Picasso, created a famous painting called Guernica.

Some of you may have seen it. It’s a very strange painting, showing what appear to be pieces of men and animals in very weird and distorted shapes.

There is a very interesting and important story behind that painting. Back in 1937 Hitler’s bombers attacked and destroyed the little Spanish village of Guernica, brutally killing the defenseless civilian population. There was no point to the bombing. It was done as a cruel and horrible experiment to see the effects of bombing on a civilian population. Picasso was horrified by what happened at Guernica. Several days after the bombing he started this painting of broken people to show the unbelievable horror which men were capable of doing to each other. It’s his way of saying that the world is a pretty screwed up mess and people can sometimes be pretty horrible to each other.

The Bible expresses pretty much the same view. There is the statement in the Bible that men are created in the image of God. I suppose that means that men have some very high and noble qualities that we think of as sacred, such as the capacity to think great thoughts and to create a better world and to love each other.

But no one needs to tell us that if we are created in the image of God, then it is a pretty broken and warped image. Men are capable of great and wonderful things, but men are also capable of terrible evil, and when men act badly toward each other, they can be terribly low and evil. What Picasso in his way and the Bible in its own way are trying to tell us is that there are times when men can betray their best nature and can be a disappointment even to themselves.

We’ve seen that here at Cardigan. When we see $99 taken from a dormitory, and we see a whole group of people suffer for the inconsiderate and stupid actions of one or two, we know that people can stoop pretty low. We can see pretty clearly in this incident that the “image of God” is a broken image.

Of course we say to ourselves that we would never do such a thing and we look down on the sort of people who do these kinds of things and it makes us feel kind of good inside that we are not like them.

75

Before we start feeling too good over our admirable characters we ought to think about the fact that this flaw in our characters is much more common than we care to admit.

And before we start pointing our fingers at the bad guys on the campus, those who have betrayed themselves and their responsibilities and us, it might be a good idea for us to consider that our actions may not put us in the clear. We may not be better than they are.

I doubt that there are very many of us who can come through a good look at ourselves without realizing that we too have been guilty of some of the same sort of things that show up in the next guy as dishonesty. And when things like the dormitory theft come along, as they do from time to time, they ought to make us consider the flaws in ourselves that lead us to find a wallet on the sidewalk and slip it quietly into our pocket until we have the chance to take the money and then throw the wallet away. Or to take a quarter from our room mate’s dresser so that we can get some candy at the store and hope he’ll never miss it.

It’s the flaw that leads us to play sick on the day of a big test or when an important assignment is due so that we can pick up an easy excuse for more time. It’s the kind of dishonesty that lets us borrow a friend’s homework paper and copy it with just enough changes and errors so that it won’t be too obvious we cheated on it. Or getting back too much change from the store and just keeping quiet about it. Or getting into a movie at child’s fare when you are over age.

It’s the flaw in us that lets us try to play dumb when we are caught—“Gee, Sir, I’m awfully sorry. I didn’t know…” -–when all the time you knew very well, but thought you would try to get by anyway.

Little things? Yes, I suppose so, but they point out our own little flaws that make it pretty clear that we have our own version of the warped and broken image of God in us.

If anyone of you thinks that he lacks this “broken” part of his character, he is probably doing a very good job of kidding himself.

When we get a really good look at what we are like on the inside we are apt to discover that we are not happy with what we see and we are likely to be disappointed in ourselves.

The most important quality that any of us can have is integrity—it means being true to ourselves, being whole rather than being broken. It has nothing to do with what other people think about us. It has to do with what we think about ourselves. Integrity is what allows us to see $10 lying on someone’s desk and let it remain there. Integrity is

76

what allows us to admit that we are wrong rather than try to make an excuse. Integrity is what keeps us honest when no one else but us knows.

It is summed up in a famous quotation that some of you have come across in an English class [For those that haven’t heard it yet, it’s from Shakespeare]: “To thine own self be true…thou can’st not then be false to any man.” It’s a thought worth remembering.

February 21, 1965

77

78

A Marked Man Do you know what a “marked man” is? It can mean a lot of different things. For instance, if you’ve done any business with Cosa Nostra lately—that friendly little club know more commonly as the Mafia—and you are a “marked man,” it means that you have become a special object of their attention and a winner of a free one-way ticket on a boat departing from the Boston docks.

On the other side of the crime fence, when the police talk about a “marked man” they have in mind somebody who is about to be picked up for a crime and they’re just waiting for the right moment to pick him up.

If you lived in France a hundred years ago and you had served any time in jail, you had to carry a yellow passport with you everywhere you went that identified you as a common criminal and made it very difficult to get a job or even to find a place to live. The yellow passport made you a “marked man.”

I hope none of you will be marked in that way. Yet in another way all of us are “marked men” and we will be for the rest of our lives.

It started off with our parents. Parents are a peculiar bunch of prejudiced adults who think their son is something special, a chip off the old block who is going to be a big financial wizard like his old dad. Here you are about six months old and they’re all set to put your name on the office door. It’s like that all the way through school. You make it on the ball team, just barely, and before the season is hardly under way they’ve decided that you ought to win the “most valuable player” award. And if you don’t make the honor roll, it must be because somebody along the line has misjudged your abilities and not appreciated your work and not given you a fair deal. Parents are like that. They expect a lot. They mark their sons for a place in the sky without realizing that it might not work out that way.

Have you ever felt that your parents were expecting more than you could deliver?

Sometimes they set some pretty high goals for you, without realizing that in the long run you are the one that has to choose your own goals and carry them out. Youth are dreamers. But parents are dreamers too, and they dream great things for their kids, and when your dreams conflict with your parents’ dreams there are bound to be some hard collisions.

While we’re on problems with parents, how about when this business of being “marked men” works the other way around – when you’ve let them down a couple of times and they don’t seem quite so sure that you’ve got any abilities at all, or that your judgment is 79

poor, or that you can’t be trusted? They’re reluctant to hand over the car, or to let you get your driver’s license, or to let you out of the house after you violated that midnight curfew they gave you last time. They’ve marked you, one way or another, and it seems like their mark never quite agrees with yours.

To your teachers you may be a “marked man” also. I’ve heard it and you’ve heard it too: “That guy is just plain lazy. He’s not trying.” And right or wrong, or right today and wrong tomorrow, that’s the mark you’re stamped with. Or another “mark” against you: “That guy has a lot of ability…too bad he doesn’t use it!” All the while you’ve been sweating away trying to make it, and in spite of everything you do, nobody’s been able to convince you that you’ve got all that ability, and it sure would be nice if you did! Marked again!

Maybe you’re marked in another way: “That boy has a lot on the ball; he’s going places.”

So you’re marked, and more is expected from you. No one is letting you get by with sloppy work that is less than you are able to do. They’re asking a lot. The word gets around. Other schools get the word and hold you to the same standards. “Quality” is stamped on your record. That’s what is expected.

Then the coaches may notice a guy who is going to be a real addition to the team—next year perhaps, when he’s got some experience behind him, so they make a mental note for future reference, and that boy becomes a “marked man.”

Dorm masters also make these mental notes that “mark” a guy for the future. “There’s an 8th grader who might make a good floor leader next year. I’ll keep an eye on him.” So it’s filed away for the proper time.

This business of being a “marked man” goes on and on, long after you leave Cardigan.

Once you are settled in the world of business, decisions about your future are constantly being made every time there are promotions ahead. Somebody will have his eye on you, and maybe he’ll say “there’s the right man for the job.” Or maybe he’ll say, “that’s not the man we want, not quite what we’re looking for.” Marked again.

There is another way a man is marked—by circumstances, by his values and commitments, by fate, some might say by God—to do a special job, to see things that need to be done and do them, to see problems and fix them, to see wrongs and try to make them right. The hundreds of people who have gone to Selma, Alabama, to help obtain civil rights for all Americans had decided that there are some things that are right and some things that are wrong, and they wanted to make things right again.

80

There will always be men who care enough about other people and about right and wrong to commit their lives to making the world a better place to live in. But there will never be enough good men to get the job done. It takes a lot of courage, more than most people have. It takes a strong desire to help, more than most of us have. Some men are marked for this work. You might be!

April 4, 1965

81

82

The Facts of Life I don’t know how many of you realize this, but the summer (at least as far as summer school is concerned) is now half over. Time is moving fast. For some of you time may be running out. Some of you are here at Cardigan simply because you have never learned how to handle your time. It gets away from you, and you are forever running out of time before you suddenly wake up to the fact that the time that has been wasted is gone forever.

So I got to thinking about time and how important it is and how few of us realize this.

So we get to another of those facts of life—pretty simple but terribly important.

There are only 24 hours in a day and when they are over they are gone forever, irretrievably lost. What you do with your time makes a difference.

It seems to be a custom at Cardigan that every once in a while a teacher will make an assignment that he expects to have completed by the next day. There is a rumor going around (I don’t know how true it is), that some people do not get these assignments done. As the rumor goes, a master asks a boy why the assignment isn’t done and the answer usually is, “I’m sorry, sir, but I just didn’t have time.” Strangely enough everyone else has the assignment finished. So everyone else must have had time.

I don’t know whether you’ve noticed it before, but some people never seem to have time to do anything…an assignment, a job, reading a book, or even playing baseball. And other people do all these things and lots more besides. And they do it with the same 24 hours a day. How come?

This is certainly very peculiar. Why do some people get so little done in 24 hours and other people so much? Those that have the biggest jobs and the most responsibilities seem to get their jobs done and those who have fewer things to do never have time to do the jobs they have. This is very puzzling and I was curious to know why it was this way. So I watched the busy ones to see how they spent their time, and here are some observations that might be helpful to you.

Busy people spend their time doing things that are important to them. After all, why waste an hour watching a television program on Sunday morning in which you are not really interested, just because you didn’t have sense enough to turn it off and do something you were interested in? That’s a strange waste of time.

They give top priority to the things that need doing immediately. If an English test were coming up tomorrow it would be rather foolish to spend all you time this evening studying math, wouldn’t it?

83

People who are busy plan their time. They know what has to be done, and how much time there is to do it, and they plan accordingly. There are always things that will interrupt any plan, and some of them cannot be helped. But have some idea in the morning as to how they will use their time that day helps them keep things in perspective and cuts down on confusion and wasted time.

Busy people can’t afford to spend 30 minutes doing a 10 minute job—whether it is cleaning their room or doing their math homework. It just doesn’t make sense to waste the time when with a little effort the job could be quickly finished and there would be time for something else.

Of all the gifts of god time is one of the most precious. We are free to use it was we will. But like most of our decisions, how we decide to use time is important. Time can’t be replaced. How we use time will determine the kind of persons we will become and what we will accomplish in life.

Don’t waste your time!

July 26, 1964

84

You’re Not Responsible?

A week or so ago I saw Secret Agent on TV while most of you were in the auditorium enjoying one of the wonders of the past—the silent movie. The villain of this TV program was a doctor who had been chief medical officer at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. At this camp he was in charge of medical experiments that used thousands of Jewish prisoners as guinea pigs. Sixty percent of the prisons in his camp were killed as a result of these experiments.

After more than 20 years of hiding he was captured by Israeli secret agents, and a kangaroo court was held in the desert by these agents, who sentenced him to death for crimes against humanity.

In his defense, the former Nazi insisted that he had done nothing wrong, for his medical experiments were in the interest of science. Anyway, he claimed, he was not responsible, for he was only obeying orders. A British agent who was present during the trial sort of agreed with the Nazi doctor, saying that the doctor in fact was not responsible, but in the sense that he was not acting responsibly, he was not taking responsibility for his actions. He was a moral imbecile. Any man who could do what that doctor had done and not see what was wrong with it was not responsible morally, he was irresponsible.

Several weeks ago I asked you to think seriously about yourselves, about who you are and where you are going. I told you then that you are still on the way to becoming someone, but that if all went well you would eventually reach the goal of the process of growing up—which is that you become a responsible person.

I imagine you are as tired as I am of hearing people tell you to be responsible. Because if you were responsible you would be an adult … and not even all adults are responsible people. We don’t really expect you to be adults, but we would like to see some steps in that direction.

Let’s take a look at a scene that will be repeated again tomorrow morning here at Cardigan and in a thousand classrooms across the country. Before you [use your imagination] is a classroom. I’m the teacher. Alfie is a student. The conversation will go something like this. You may see yourself here. [What follows is a skit.]

T: Alfie, where’s your homework?

A: I know you won’t believe this, Sir, but…

85

T: No, probably not, but try me anyway.

A: Well, it’s like this… It’s sort of…lost.

T: You’re right. I don’t believe it.

A: No, wait, sir! I have a good excuse. It’s not really my fault. I wrote down the assignment like you said, Sir, and I put it in my book, but someone stole my book.

T: Your book is in the auditorium where you left it!

A: Yes, Sir, I know, but I borrow a book from my room mate and started to do the assignment, but I ran out of ink and my finky floor leader wouldn’t let me borrow another pen so I couldn’t finish it in study hall.

T: It’s getting a bit complicated.

A: I haven’t finished yet.

T: Really? By all means finish it, it’s getting interesting.

A: I tried to get “late lights” but the master on my floor said No. T: Did he give you a reason?

A: Well, sort of.

T: What did he say?

A: Well, he said it didn’t look like I was doing anything during study hall so he didn’t see why I needed late lights to do more of the same thing.

T: So that’s why your assignment is not in?

A: No, Sir, not exactly. When I couldn’t get late lights I went to the bathroom about ten o’clock and did it in there.

T: OK, where is it?

A: That’s the part you’re not going to believe, Sir. I loaned it to my room mate and he lost it on the way to class.

86

T: Oh! A: So you see, Sir, it’s not my fault.

T: It’s not?

A: No, Sir, I’m not responsible.

T: Now that’s a good point. I had just about come to that conclusion myself.

That’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it. You’re not responsible… You’re irresponsible. I would think it would be pretty embarrassing to stand up in front of the class and admit that you were not responsible.

A: No, sir, that’s not what I meant.

T: I know it’s not. But there’s really very little difference between being “not responsible” and being “irresponsible” isn’t there?

A: [Shrugs. Folds up chair and leaves the stage.]

A good part of growing up is learning how to accept the responsibility for who you are and what you do; and until you are able to be responsible for yourself and act responsibly someone has to be responsible for you.

Some of you find yourself unhappy because people in your dorm make life miserable for you. You think it’s not your fault. Whose fault is it, then? Who’s responsible for changing the situation?

When you end up on “academic campus” or flunk a test or get kicked out of class, it’s awfully easy to say, “But Sir, it’s not my fault. You can’t blame me for that.”

When you get chewed out for talking during study hall, or hacking in the dorm, or being a wise guy, you can offer a hundred good reasons why it’s not your fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. You’re not responsible.

And that makes you a poor excuse for a human being, for one of the things that makes you a human being is your ability to be responsible for yourself. That means that you think for yourself, that you decide for yourself, and that you accept the consequences of your decisions and actions without complaining that what happens is not your fault.

87

Going back to what I said a few weeks ago, when I asked you to think seriously about who you were, you may remember that I said that you were on the way to becoming a responsible person. It’s a big job. Can you handle it?

February 7, 1966

88

Some Thoughts About Sportsmanship I had planned to talk this morning about developing a philosophy of life, sorting out what things are important and what are not, and helping you think through some values that would guide you in life and help you make good decisions. But yesterday afternoon I saw a rather exciting varsity hockey game in Hanover, and I was a bit disappointed that we lost, but on reflecting on the game and some of the things that happened there, I thought I would offer the team some helpful advice on how to play hockey. [Editorial comment: This talk generated some controversy. It was intended to be both cynical and somewhat humorous. Some faculty did not like the cynical approach and thought that only positive things should be said. Some were merely offended that I called attention to improper conduct, believing that it would be better off forgotten. However quite a number of students engaged me in discussion in the days following, and it provided opportunity to talk about values in sports and in life.]

1. Drop all your ideas about sportsmanship. None of us really believe that sportsmanship is important anyway, especially if we are losing.

2. Playing the game by the rules is for finks. It doesn’t matter how you play the game, winning is what counts. If you have to play dirty to win, then do so.

3. Some of you don’t take the game seriously enough. Hockey is an individual sport.

It is every man for himself. Six players are put on the ice by the coaches as a deliberate attempt to deceive the spectators into thinking that it is supposed to be a team sport.

4. There is a small hard rubber disc called a puck. The guy that has the puck is “it” and the object of the game is to charge, trip, hit, or club him until he relinquishes it or falls on his face.

5. Some of you may not realize it but when the officials are not looking tripping is permitted. Every player should try to injure as many opponents as possible while pretending to swing at the puck.

6. A good player is one who can play dirty and not get caught.

7. If at all possible try to play the game with only 4 men on the ice. Foul someone deliberately so you can get a seat in the penalty box. This has some obvious advantages. First, it is a good place from which to watch the game. It will give someone on our team a chance to watch how our opponents are doing, and in fact to see what is going on out there on the ice if he’s not sure. Then of course it 89

allows our team to get a bit of rest while our opponents are out there on the ice tiring themselves out trying to score.

8. It is a basic rule of competitive sports that officials are never fair. When our opponents score it is just a lucky accident or because the officials are stupid, blind or dishonest. When you lose, blame the officials. They are the ones who made the mistakes.

9. After the final whistle blows, get in one more blow for our side. Be very upset about losing. Throw a tantrum. Beat your sticks on the ice or break them against the boards. Get angry and in a fit of rage let the visiting team know what you think of them. This is called team spirit. Treat them so that they will not want to come back again. Make them feel unwelcome so they will talk about Cardigan and our sportsmanship wherever they go.

10. Then go back and sulk Don’t go to the reception. Don’t be friendly. Don’t be a good loser. And, of course, feel very sorry for yourself.

Whether it offends you or not there are times when some things have to be said. Some of us were embarrassed and disappointed at the game in Hanover yesterday because we had some boys who did not exhibit the kind of attitude or sportsmanship that speaks well either of them or of Cardigan. Hockey is a tough game and we expect it to be played that way. But we also expect that when a team of any sort is competing against another school that it display courtesy and good sportsmanship. It is easy enough to forget this in the heat of a game, but it is important that we stop and think about it now so that we do not have such a thing occur again.

Cardigan prides itself on being hood hosts. We try to make our guests feel like they are welcome here. And we usually do a pretty good job of it but sometimes we forget that we are involved in a game and that there are winners and losers in a game and we have to expect to win some and lose some. We invite other teams to be our guests so that we can have some good competition and see how well we stack up against the best that they can put against us. But win or lose it is still a game and we are still the hosts and we do have to exhibit a reasonable attitude and accept defeat like gentlemen.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that I am picking on the hockey team, because what I am talking about his occurred before—whether in football, baseball, soccer or sailing.

Naturally we want to win. But win or lose the game must be played fairly. And if we lose, let us do so like gentlemen. That’s the Cardigan way.

March 6, 1966 90

Your Internal Guidance System My wife and I went to Florida over the Christmas vacation. When you are lounging under a grapefruit tree in the warm sunshine it’s pretty difficult to think that it’s winter and people are looking forward hopefully to a white Christmas. It’s pretty hard to work up any Christmas spirit when you have to put Christmas lights on palm trees and go shopping in shorts. Some people must have had the Christmas spirit, however, for the stores were filled with shoppers.

Unfortunately not all the people in the stores were there as paying customers. I read an article in the Tampa paper about a very serious problem that stores there and all across the country were having—shoplifters. Across the country stores are losing 15% of their profits to shoplifters. The store detective that wrote the article said that there were generally two kinds of shoplifters: young teen agers in the 13 to 15 age group and lonely women over thirty-five years old. He said that of all those people arrested for shoplifting, 90% had the money in their pockets to buy the items they had stolen.

We won’t concern ourselves with the problems of lonely women over 35, but we ought to be very concerned about the 13-15 year olds – your age.

In some places clubs and gangs for boys and girls require, as a part of their initiation of new members, that the new kid steal certain items from stores. Other kids steal from stores just for kicks, to see if they can get away with it. It’s presumably a test of their guts … or maybe their stupidity. But the business of shoplifting is getting big enough to be a serious problem.

Let’s talk about shoplifting among Cardigan students. It happens. You know it does. But there is not much point in some of you throwing verbal stones at one Cardigan student because he was unlucky enough to get caught. It could have been you. Cardigan students have been caught before doing that sort of thing, and they will be caught again. I doubt there is anyone in this chapel who can truthfully say that he has never taken anything that did not belong to him at one time or another. If you’re an exception I would like to know it. Quite a few of you have shoplifted someplace, even in Hanover, and you know it and I know it. You have been lucky. One day you won’t be lucky.

What disturbs me about shoplifting is the attitude some of you have—that picking up something in a store and walking out with it is not really wrong. It doesn’t bother you, except of course when you get caught. Some of you think that shoplifting is not really stealing—after all there is enough in the store that the owner will not really miss a few records. Or the store has been overcharging us, so this is just getting a little bit back of what is really ours. Some of you see it as a competitive sport, a contest between you

91

and the clerks to see if you can outsmart them and get away with something. You treat it like a game, rather than a serious criminal act.

So if you want to treat it like a game, you might remember that there are rules by which games are played. It’s like a big game of Monopoly. Every time you take something from a store, you’re drawing a CHANCE card. It may read: “Go directly to JAIL. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.” The problem is that this is as close as it gets to being a game. You can’t just roll the dice, get doubles, and get out again and keep playing the game. This game is for keeps. The record of this game is permanent. It stays with you for the rest of your life. It follows you around every time you apply to a school or college or get a job.

More than anything else, what disturbs me is that a number of you don’t seem to be aware that what you are doing is wrong. You think that it’s not the stealing or the shoplifting that is wrong, but rather that getting caught is stupid. This bothers me because it means that you are lacking the internal guidance system that allows you to tell the difference between right and wrong. Some of you simply do not know the difference. You don’t have any set of internal standards that tell you when you’re off course. You’re like a ship on the ocean without a rudder, or a place without a compass, or a space ship without an internal guidance system. There is nothing that gives you direction or keeps you on course.

The question for you to consider is whether you have some sort of values that serve as a guidance mechanism to keep you on course. Would you go into Hanover and steal something from a store? Would you take something if you knew that no one would ever find out? Can you trust yourself to be honest when you are the only one who will know whether you’re honest or not? That’s the real test of whether you have a guidance system that is any good!

Some of you may wish to talk about what makes something right or wrong. If you do, let me know, and we’ll arrange it.

January 9, 1966

92

Who Cares….?

One day during the morning announcements the Headmaster reminded the students that each of them was responsible for his neighbor and ought to be concerned enough about his neighbor to help him when his neighbor needed his help.

But one student, wishing to justify himself perhaps because his conscience was bothering him, asked the Headmaster: “Sir, who is my neighbor? After all, I can’t be concerned about everybody. There are just too many people around here for that. I’ve got my friends and we look out for each other. I can’t be concerned about everybody on this campus.”

Rather than argue with him, the Headmaster told him a story, which goes like this: One day a boy arrived at Cardigan that no one seemed to like. Every school has people like this. He was not popular. He had few friends. He did not stand out in a crowd. He irritated people with his ways. He was left out of things because no one thought of asking him if he wanted to go along. He was not in anybody’s “in-group.” He didn’t matter. He was ignored, most of the time, but sometimes he was noticed and made the butt of jokes. He was humiliated and injured by all of this. Other students passed him by and did not care that he was injured and hurting.

Then one day some boys who did not know any better, and did not care about anyone but themselves, started making fun of this boy because he was different and because he was not “in” and because it was safe to do so because he could not strike back. So they said cruel things and acted toward him in an unfriendly manner, so that the boy became very badly injured by the things that were said and done.

Two boys from his dorm were walking by the injured boy’s room and saw him very hurt by all that was going on and the things that were said, and saw that he was very lonely because he was left out of everything that was going on.

“I feel sorry for the kid,” one of them said to the other. “So do I,” said the second boy.

“Someone ought to help him,” said the first boy. “Yeah,” said the second boy, “he’s not really such a bad guy, I guess.” Then they walked by his room and went out to play soccer.

Later the floor leader came by and saw the injured boy, sitting alone in his room and got to thinking about him. “It’s not my problem,” he thought, “there is nothing I can do about it. There’s no point in getting involved in something that cannot be helped. The kid deserves much of what he gets anyway. He opens his mouth at the wrong time. He 93

starts something, then runs to a master to get someone else in trouble. So what if he gets it back once in a while; he’ll learn. Anyway, I’m not responsible, it’s not my problem.

If I try to do something about it, it won’t look so good. My friends would not understand. Anyway, what can I do, I’m only one person.” And so he too passed by on the other side.

But there were some who passed by who felt badly that this boy had been hurt and went out of their way to be nice to him. They talked to him and tried to be friendly.

They invited him to join their activities, and volunteered to be his ski partner on ski holiday and even defended this boy when others were making bad comments to him and about him.

“Which of these three,” said the Headmaster, “do you think was neighbor to the injured boy?”

“Well, I guess the last one,” said the student, beginning to get the point.

“You have answered your own question. Go and do likewise.”

April 24, 1966

94

Beginning All Over Again A few days ago I took one of last year’s students to his new school. On the way during the long ride down to Portsmouth Priory School in Rhode Island we talked about a lot of things. As we got close to our destination, he suddenly said, “Sir, I’m scared!”

I was surprised. It didn’t surprise me that he was scared, but it did surprise me that he admitted it. “Why?” I asked him. “I don’t know exactly,” he said, “I don’t know quite what to expect. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get there. I don’t know anybody, just one kid I met last week in New York…. I guess I’m scared I’ll goof it up or something, you know what I mean?”

Yes, I knew what he meant, I told him. “The worst thing about it,” he said, “is that you just don’t know what to expect.”

It’s the perfect story to begin what I want to say to you. At the beginning of a new year, in a new school for many of you, it’s all so new and a bit scary. After I dropped him off at his new school I couldn’t help but think that a few days later there would be 175 or so boys here at Cardigan who would be in the same boat, a new situation that was just a bit scary.

It is a new situation. You’re not at home. You’re not on vacation. You’re not at last year’s school and even for those of you who were here last year, it is still a new and different situation. There are new students, new dorm assignments, new teachers, new student leaders, new schedules to follow, new opportunities to get on the right track—or the wrong track as the case may be.

Some of you are student leaders for the first time and that will be a new experience for you that will require some changes in your thinking and in your attitudes. You were put in that leadership position because someone has noticed you and believes that you have the potential for doing the job. You have been given the responsibility in the hope that you will carry it out fairly and honestly.

That doesn’t mean that you have to become an angel, but it does mean that you will remember that this new situation requires something more of you than previously. It doesn’t mean that you have to like everybody equally well, but it does mean that where your duty is concerned, you will treat the other guy with respect and understanding and fairness.

95

Some of you are getting a new chance academically this year, maybe because you flubbed up in another school and someone has said, “Alright, we’ll give you another chance and a new opportunity, and let’s see what you can do with it.”

All of you are meeting new people and are involved in new situations. So it’s important, for your sake, that you learn how to handle these new experiences and that you understand and get along with the boys and adults that you run into, and that you learn from each new situation that comes up and make the best of it.

Mangling the title of one of your summer reading list options, think about the fact that “you can’t go home again” – at least not the same person that you were when you arrived here. New things will happen to you here. You will learn new things, and do new things and meet new people. You will grow up in a dozen different ways. And through all the things you do, and all the things that happen to you here, you are going to become someone different than you are now.

One of your experiences here is Chapel. It is intended to help you become someone different. Cardigan’s founders were very concerned about the sort of person you would become, and your attitudes toward those around you and your conduct day by day. This was so important to them that they thought the Chapel facility ought to be first on the list of priorities, before the athletic facilities, before the field house. The existence of the Chapel is a living testimony to their faith in you and their faith that the kind of person you become matters very much.

During this year we will have a number of different speakers in our Chapel services. Some will be chaplains from other schools, some will be ministers and some will not, and they will represent a variety of religious traditions. They will bring new ideas. But the one thing they will all have in common is their belief that religion is very important and needs to be taken seriously. Some of you may not think that religion is all that important. So I’m simply asking you to listen to what is said here each week and take it seriously. You can decide after you have heard each speaker whether what he has to say is worth taking seriously. Religion is about what really matters in life, it is the foundation of your beliefs, and commitments and values.

You will get the most out of these Chapel services if you remember the traditions that we have established in regard to how we act in Chapel. Come in quietly and wait quietly for the service to begin. Think about why you are here. Try to get the point of what the speaker is saying. Most important of all, take your own faith seriously enough to ask some questions about what life is really all about.

96

Those Pigs Again – A New Old Fable Once upon a time (stories always begin that way!)—once upon a time there were three little pigs. As the story goes, these three little pigs wanted their independence and tried in their finest style to convince their parents that they were ready for it.

Momma Pig and Poppa Pig were not convinced, but the young pigs were determined and so one day they were finally granted their wish. They had seen Poppa Pig build houses and thought they knew everything they needed to know. In the excitement of their newly-found freedom they left home and obtained jobs with a building contractor as foremen in a large housing project in a nearby town. Each of them was responsible for the construction of a new home.

The supervisor of this project was a fellow named Wolf, a pretty tough guy and a hard man to work for. He was constantly around the project taking stock of how things were going, and whenever he was dissatisfied he huffed and puffed and blew smoke rings, and made such a fuss and commotion that the little pigs thought he would blow up the whole project and bury them in the rubble. But that was just the way Wolf was, and there wasn't really anything anyone could do about it, because good building supervisors were hard to find. So they learned that Wolf must mostly bluster and fuss, so they ignored him.

The first little pig—we'll call him Joe—was a rather lazy fellow and wasn't terribly interested in his work. "But," he said to himself, "any job will do, just so I can be on my own." He worked, but not very hard, because he heard that people who work hard get ulcers. The building fell way behind its schedule, and it began to look as if it would not be completed at the end of six weeks when the inspectors would come around to check it out. Joe didn't really care. It didn't matter that much. So it was late?

But the deadline was getting closer and closer. Mr. Wolf came around one evening after everyone had gone home and he worked late checking out the work and it was not very satisfactory. When he got home, he gave Joe a call, and he was very angry, and he huffed and he puffed and he told Joe that his work better be completed by the deadline and done properly—or else.

Joe wasn't sure what the "or else" meant, but he got the picture. As he took stock the next day, he realized that there wasn't enough time to get the job done and he became very fearful that he might lose his position. He was sneaky, however, and he had a way out. He figured that he'd better get the job done any way he could, just so it was finished on time. He bought a load of straw and he made the roof out of it; then he lined the walls with straw, and laid more on the floor like a blanket. And he said to himself,

97

"This is a really fine job." He convinced himself that it was the best he could do.

Anyway, he didn't really have time to do a better job.

Everyone who came by and saw the house thought it was very strange to see it made out of straw. The roof leaked and the cold winds blew right through the walls. When people walked by the house they smiled to themselves and nodded their heads knowingly and their tongues wagged, and they thought what a terrible shame it was, and what a waste.

Then Mr. Wolf came by again, his pencil in one hand and his clipboard in the other, checking out the work. Some of it was not finished. The foundation was weak and the whole structure could not hold up very long. It would have been funny if it had not been so sad. Mr. Wolf became terribly angry, and his cheeks were red with rage, and he huffed and puffed for a while, and wrote a lot of things in his little blue book, and could only say—"Straw! He builds his house out of straw!" Some say it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Shortly afterwards the house fell in and the first little pig was trapped in it by his own folly.

The second little pig—I think his name was Abner—didn't care too much for his job either. Not that he was lazy, but he had so many other interesting and important things to do. He just couldn't get excited about getting the house built. He plugged away at it from time to time, but his heart was not in it. Building houses was not as much fun as he had hoped, and so he spent more time doing fun things and less time doing his job.

It is amazing that he got the job at all. Despite what he said about his experience, he didn't seem to know very much about building houses, nor did he want to learn, but he had bluffed his way along so far without getting caught and, he thought to himself, there was no reason why he should not continue this way. He didn't have the slightest idea how to build the house, so he stole a set of plans from another builder. "So what," he said to himself when he thought about it.

"Building a house costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time," he thought. "I might as well save as much of both as possible." So when he ran out of building supplies he took the sticks to build his house from his neighbor's pile. "He can afford it," he said to himself. "He has a big pile of sticks. Anyway, it's his problem now!"

Because he didn't care, and because he didn't know very much, and because it didn't matter to him, the foundations of his house were carelessly made and it was not long before the weakness showed and it was obvious that the foundations were hopelessly cracked. "But," he said to himself, "it would take too much time and effort to fix it," and so he let it go and left work early and had fun. No one

98

would see it when the building was finished. He built over it the best he could. To make matters worse, he used a poor grade of lumber—a house made from sticks.

When the building was finished it too was obviously a poor job. It leaned way over on one side and was not very sturdy, but he covered it with whitewash, and painted the trim, and filled it with cheap furniture and trinkets, and some people were fooled, but he knew, and the building inspector knew, that it was a poor job.

When Wolf came around with his notebook he wrote on the inspection sheet a lot of things and none of them very good, and then he put the sheet in his file where it stayed forever and ever. And Wolf said to him—"It's your house. You made it. No one wants it. And now you will have to live in it." And with those words the house came tumbling down and buried the builder in the rubble.

The third pig was not a terribly good builder. He was not sure how to construct the house, but he had conferences with the architect and he was shown how to do it and was warned to work thoroughly and steadily, to put time and care and concern into his labors, and not to use cheap materials, but to be satisfied with nothing but the best.

The house that he built was not beautiful and it was not elaborate. It was simply made, but it was his house, and he worked over it long hours and each step was carefully done. His was the result of honest labor and careful craftsmanship. Its strength was such that it would endure. He took pride in his work and his pride shone in his eyes. He got a lot out of pride and joy out of it and he understood what he was doing. When it was finished it was solid and sturdy. All who saw it admired it. And even Wolf could not knock it.

And some prospective buyers came to see the house. They were pleased and wanted it for their own.

Spring 1965

99

100

The Drama That Didn’t Happen Some of you here today are alumni and so, of course, you have not been inside our chapel before. We welcome you to our new chapel.

Cardigan is growing and, if not already, it is well on the way to becoming one of the finest schools in the country. Cardigan is a school that you can be proud of. It is where it is now because you have helped to make it that way.

Memories are the things that stay with us, and those memories that are most important stay with us the longest. For those of us at Cardigan, the chapel has come to represent something important for us, and perhaps we can best express it as a symbol of that for which Cardigan stands. We hope, all of us, that the chapel will come to have this same meaning for you, and will be a part of your memory of Cardigan.

Several days ago now, Mr. Linn and I were talking as we walked toward Clark-Morgan one evening before dinner, and during the course of the conversation he mentioned that several times recently he had some boys with him in his car, and as he drove past some of the run-down shacks in the neighborhoods between Lebanon and Canaan that some people live in because it is all they have, he heard any number of comments from the boys in the car that they didn't see how it was possible for people to live under those kind of conditions.

Something both amusing and tragic occurred to him, and he said to himself, “What some of those kids don't realize is that at the rate some of them are going that is just where they'll be in 10 years.” OK, maybe just a bit of exaggeration, but the point is well made.

I suppose the moral of the story, if we have to have one, is for you to wise up and get busy or you may be somewhat lacking in real estate and social prestige some years from now when you are on your own.

But that seemed too obvious to mention and my mind started working in another direction. I tried to picture in my mind where some of you might be in 10 years or 20 years (and in some cases it was rather difficult), but most of you are sufficiently bright and sufficiently eager that you would probably, by that time, be what is considered "successful”--whatever that means. All of us would like to be a success, and we're brought up to believe that being a success is important and being a failure is a disgrace.

The more I thought about it, though, the more obvious it became that there may be a whole lot of things that are all quite different that each of us would think about when we thought about success. So I tried an experiment. Every few days some unlucky 101

person would wander into my office and get involved in a conversation, and I would very carefully work my way around to the subject and ask him, in a more-or-less roundabout way what he thought “success” was, or what he hoped to accomplish in ten years, or what he really wanted out of life.

Some obviously had not thought about that before and were a bit taken back by the question. The answers they gave were interesting enough so that I decided that I had here all the makings of a good drama. Just for the fun of it, I would put into the mouths of the characters in the drama the things that some of you said to me so that you could hear how it sounded when someone else said it. Then, to drive the knife home, I would have one of the characters, or perhaps the narrator, ask some awkward questions to make the characters in the drama think, and maybe even get some of you to think.

The plot would have gone something like this. Several boys would be sitting around in what might have been a dorm bull session and eventually the skilful hand of the dramatist would lead the conversation around to a discussion about the future, and about success and such things, and from the conversation it would be pretty obvious that to be successful meant to have a nice home in the "right” neighborhood; a good solid (and high paying) management job with a good solid company); a Lincoln Continental in the driveway, parked beside the Boston Whaler; membership in the country club and a second home at the Lake; and associating with all the right people.

Just about this time in the plot the dramatist would deal a crushing blow, as one of the boys (like the hero of Salinger's novel, Catcher in the Rye, who wouldn't be very successful anyway), objected that these things, as nice as they are, not only wouldn't necessarily make someone happy, they also might not even make one a success.

This character, whom you have probably already spotted as something of a nerd anyway, made the quite obvious observation that happiness and success were dependent not on what a man has, but in what the man is; or more accurately, whether a man was doing something that he enjoyed, and could do it well, whether he was contributing to his community and could be proud of himself as he did it.

You know, the more I wrote and thought about it, the more obvious it became that it would never be drama. Why? Too improbable! I couldn't imagine that kind of conversation occurring—at least, not here. Some of you have already learned that lesson, or are in the process of finding it out; and for the rest, it would never occur to you that there was anything to discuss.

So our drama failed, and now we are right back where we started. We are left with the question of what success is. The problem is still here. You want to be a success, but 102

what does success mean to you? What you want out of life? I know what I want out of life because I've thought it through. That’s why I’m here at Cardigan.

Sooner or later each of you will have to make the same kind of choice. Some of you will make it too late and you will regret your choice. Some of you, I hope, will realize that there are many things in life, and these things have different values to each of us, and if we were to rate them perhaps we would rate them in different ways, so it would be silly for me to try to make you rate life the way I do or select the same priorities as I chose.

But before you make your choice, you ought at least to give some serious consideration to those things in life that are most worth having and which could be candidates for being marks of success.

I have one suggestion. Whatever you decide to do in life, and you don’t have to make that choice for some time yet, consider doing something that you can enjoy doing, in fact, something that you can literally have a ball at. Let it be something that you not only enjoy, but can do well, something that is constructive, that adds to life and makes life more worthwhile both for you and for others. Leave the world a better place than you found it.

It is a strange thing, but true, that some of those jobs in life that are most fun or most constructive do not pay as well as other jobs, and you need to think about that as you sort out your priorities and select the values you will live with. If making a lot of money is terribly important to you, you have chosen one standard of success. Others will choose differently.

Everybody gets to make this choice, and you will, too Alumni Weekend May 3, 1964

103

104

In Memoriam: “Hap” Hinman [President of Cardigan Mountain School] Thousands of years ago there was a great civilization in the Near East in Mesopotamia, the land between the two rivers. It was called Babylonia. These ancient people were pretty sharp observers of the nature around them. They noticed that in the springtime the trees were green and the flowers bloomed, but in the fall all the plants and trees withered up, the leaves turned brown and fell from the trees, and all of nature seemed as if it were dead until the springtime—when life seemed to return and the new leaves came out and the flowers bloomed once more. They planted seeds for their crops and the young plants grew up and bore fruit and then as winter came they too died.

They noticed that young men grew up, and eventually with the passing years their work was finished and they grew old and passed on. Their soldiers went out to battle their enemies and some of them did not return. But there were always new young men to take the place of those who died. They noticed that all of life seemed to be a cycle of life and death and new life again. This is the way they saw things.

They did not like it this way; and they did not understand why it had to be this way, but this is the way it was.

They created a myth to explain it: a story about a god of life, who like all the world of nature, was alive in the summer but died each year in the fall, and came back to life again in the springtime.

This is the way they saw it, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it so they just accepted it as one of the facts of life.

“Hap” Hinman died yesterday afternoon. Some of you did not get a chance to know him.

Too bad. He was a great man and a good man. He was President of Cardigan’s trustees and one of its founders.

It's a fact of life that men live and do their job and pass on. Life is short and we have to make the best of it. "Hap” Hinman is a man who was loved very much by all who knew him. He’s the man who, more than any other, is responsible for what Cardigan is today.

"Hap" used to speak of “his job” and when you talked to him he’d say he had "work to do" yet. His work was building Cardigan. Cardigan was his dream and Cardigan was his life.

Much of what we have today we have because he dreamed and because he worked and because he cared. May he rest in peace, with our thanks for a job well done.

105

All of this is his creation. It is a good work, and it will stand perpetually a monument of what can be done with a man's vision, and his work, and his dedication to do the job well.

I think if he were here now he would want me to say this to you: a man has a job to do, one that’s worth doing. He can do it well, or he can botch things up and make a mess of it. But when his time is up, all he has is what he leaves behind him in the hearts of those who knew him and in the results of his labors. Those he leaves behind will judge how well he built on the sands of time.

"Hap� built for eternity, and we're proud that we've known him. His life inspires all of us to do as he did.

July 19, 1964

106

Actions and Consequences Last week we started discussing one of the most complicated and confusing things in the world—life, and what it’s all about; and we decided to tackle the job by thinking about some basic facts of life that will help us make some sense out of it.

There are some facts of life which we can learn that will make things easier for us. For instance, Jim Mainzer learned that what goes down into the lake must come up in a minute and a half or drown; Bob Bazley learned that his sailboat would turn over if he got it at the right angle; and Henry Fairley learned that you can be up a creek without a paddle and still get back. You see, there are certain basic facts of life which make life much simpler once we learn them.

So last week I mentioned that the first fact of life—a very simple one—was that some things in life are more important than other things, and that it is up to you to find out what things are important, and what things are not, and make your decisions carefully.

Today I want to add another fact to the first. It’s also very simple, but it trips us up anyway. Here it is: the things that we do have a habit of following us around and catching up with us at just the wrong time. As some of you have learned, this can be very embarrassing. To put it in another way, all of our actions have consequences of one sort or another.

Some of you know that before I came to Cardigan I had a job with the Family Court in New York State. I saw quite a lot of actions that led to unintended and sometimes serious consequences. I remember one 14 year old boy particularly well; I can’t remember his name, but we’ll call him Larry. He lived outside of town in an area that we would consider "across the tracks." His father had owned a junkyard and did pretty well at it until one day while he was walking through the yard a glass bottle exploded under his foot and injured him so badly that he could not work again. Larry’s mother started working so they could survive.

People looked down on a junkyard operator in this small community, so Larry had few friends. The only boys who were friendly to him were boys who were in trouble with the police, skipped school continually, and were operating a shop-lifting ring as an extracurricular activity. Larry started hanging around with them, not particularly because he wanted to but because they were the only boys he could hang around with. He started skipping school, too. The school decided to press charges against Larry and his mother, so the school officials called my office to arrange for a court hearing.

107

I invited Larry and his mother to come in and talk about it, and during my conversation with him Larry told me he had shoplifted a clock from a local store to give to his mother for a birthday present because he didn’t have any money. He wanted to set things right, so Larry and I took the clock and went down to talk to the store manager, who decided not to press charges against Larry. That took a lot of courage for Larry to be willing to face up to what he had done.

The story turned out right in the end, but it doesn’t always come out like this, and his actions could have had more serious consequences than they did in this instance.

Fortunately Larry learned quite a lesson about the results of being in with the wrong people.

Our actions have consequences. That’s an inescapable fact of life. This is one of the ways we learn. Animals learn this way. A dog is irresponsible in the house, and you rub his nose in it, and he eventually learns to be a responsible, housebroken dog. People learn the same way. You put your hand on a hot stove, and there are consequences, so you learn not to put your hand on a hot stove anymore. A few boys hack around in the dorm and the whole dorm has an early study hall; the whole dorm suffers because some boys were not responsible, and so you learn the hard way that the actions of a few can hurt a whole group.

None of us likes it this way, but this is the way life is.

Now for some of you who are still asleep, here’s what I’m getting at. All of us know that certain kinds of actions have penalties attached to them, and that is not what concerns me right now. I’m thinking of another kind of consequence—the damage to you on the inside, something that can hurt you very much.

Actions form habits and habits are difficult to break. Whether the action is being sloppy in your work, or your dress, or your room; being careless and thoughtless in your manners; making excuses for your work rather than doing what is expected of you; picking up things that do not belong to you; or being just plain not dependable, these are things that you get into the habit of doing and keep on with until it becomes your trademark. People start to think of you that way. You get a reputation.

When people get together and discuss things, as people always do, and some one mentions laziness, your name gets mentioned—"Gee, you should see Joe Shmoe, laziest guy I’ve ever seen"—or, "You have got to watch that kid—can’t trust him any farther than you can throw him."

108

All those things might be true! Or perhaps they were true at one time but they aren’t true any longer. Let's suppose you are Joe Shmoe and you change your actions, it’s pretty hard for people to notice that you have changed and to change your mind about you. It might take a long time to prove you’ve changed.

People are like that; they don’t change their minds about you easily—“once a skunk, always a stinker." Unfortunately for Joe, those around him may not realize that even a skunk can smell sweet with a little attention.

So here’s the point. All of our actions have consequences, the obvious penalties of course, but also the consequences of injury to us in our own eyes and in the eyes of those who thought we were capable of better things; and the most serious consequence of all is that we are disappointed with ourselves because we know that we are better than that, and now we have to prove it.

July 12, 1964

109

110

Youth and Dreams All around us, if our eyes are open to see it, there are lessons to be learned about life from even the most common events.

For instance: Sometime during the past week during study hall duty I noticed a strange event. One boy who will remain unidentified was staring up at the ceiling with intense concentration and a glazed look in his eyes. My curiosity got the better of me, so I too looked at the ceiling to see what was so interesting, I could see nothing at all that was unusual or worth looking at; so I looked back at the boy to see if I could determine exactly where he was looking. Again my eyes turned upward to the ceiling and again I was unsuccessful in discovering what he was staring at. Still curious, I asked the boy what he was looking at. He didn't seem to hear me. He just kept staring upwards with a blank look on his face. Finally, the second time, he heard me and, somewhat startled, he looked back at me and said, “0h, nothing, Sir, just thinking."

Just thinking and dreaming. It got me to thinking back to the time when I was his age— and your age—and how easy it was, especially when reading, to enter the world of dreams. How easy it is to forget the world outside and to imagine myself in new and different places, having a part in strange and exciting and wonderful adventures. How easy to imagine myself the hero of my dreams, and in my mind to lay great plans for the future.

It occurred to me then that it is characteristic of youth to dream, to let our imaginations go and lose ourselves in a world that is far different than the real world.

In our imagination we create our own world of places to go and people to be and adventures to have. We create a land of fantasy. Adults dream, too.

It is good that we can do this, for without dreams, life would not be half as interesting or as wonderful as it is. We would lose so much without it. We could not even read a story, or a novel, without the ability to create in our minds the scenes and the actions that the words in our books suggest.

Without dreams and imagination we would not have great scientific discoveries and new inventions. The creative ability depends upon a lively imagination and thinking big.

There is another side to dreams also. The dream of tomorrow may make it easier to face the difficulties of today. Think about it for a minute. Isn’t that the way it is?

Doesn't the thought of the cool spring water at the top make it easier to climb Cardigan Mountain when we are tired and our throats hurt from the dust and the dryness?

111

Doesn’t it make our present work for our education more tolerable when we consider the feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment that await us in June at the end of a difficult job well done?

But the dream of tomorrow can also be an escape from today, a kind of excuse for not working or for not facing difficulties. Escaping from difficulties is always easier than facing them, and escaping from today’s work is always easier than doing the job at hand.

Sometimes we dream about tomorrow without making any attempt today to make that dream a possibility. We may sit and daydream rather than face the responsibilities of doing Mr. Cutting’s history assignment. We may dream about being a hero and doing all manner of courageous things, instead of facing up to the responsibility and the courage to straighten out some difficulties we’ve gotten ourselves involved in. Let's face it!

From time to time we all do it! That’s a characteristic of being human.

We dream about tomorrow because we want to escape from today and from the things that kind of scare us inside. We dream about tomorrow because we want to escape from today’s responsibilities and problems. We dream about our importance because we feel inside that we are not as important as we might like to be—or as brave, or as strong, or as popular.

Dreams are important, but there is more to life than dreams.

We live in two worlds, the real world and the world of our minds, and sometimes we are in one and sometimes in the other. We would lose much that makes life worthwhile if we could not do this, Some of us live in the dream world more than others, but none of us can live there all the time. We have holidays, and it is good that we have them, but every day cannot be a holiday for there is work to be done and responsibility to accept. Dreaming and living in the world of imagination and fantasy is like taking a holiday. We do it because it is important and refreshing.

But life is more than a holiday and it is more than dreams. As we grow older, we learn how to tell the two worlds apart and keep them straight so that we don’t confuse the one with the other, and so that we use dreams and fantasies for what they are, but not as an escape from the responsibilities of life.

There is a time to dream big dreams, dreams that are bigger than we are, dreams of hope, of peace, of brotherhood, of hungry men satisfied and broken men healed. Dream big. Dream a dream that includes the future, for the future is fast becoming your 112

responsibility. Dream a dream big enough to include others beside yourselves, dream a dream that will give a purpose to your life and to guide you into doing something worthwhile with it. Dream big, because only by dreaming bigger than we are, can we become better men than we are right now.

Dreams can come true, you know—if you have a dream that is worthy, and if you work hard to achieve the dream.

May 2, 1965

113

114

The Difference Between Ostriches and Men There are lots of strange and interesting—and even surprising—things in the Bible, as some of the ninth graders in my religion class are finding out. Some of what we find is rather surprising unless you’re prepared for it—such as the little book that no one ever reads called Ecclesiastes, which was written several thousand years ago by a Hebrew philosopher who was a pessimist.

You should know what a pessimist is: he's a person from New Hampshire who looks out his window at dawn in July and expects to see snow on the ground. Or maybe that’s a realist. Anyway, a pessimist is someone with a negative outlook, one who sees the darker side of things; he’s always asking himself, "What's the use…?” Not only was the writer of this book a pessimist; he was also a skeptic.

A skeptic is a person who doesn't take everything at its face value. He asks questions.

He asks, “How do you know that?” And he wants answers and he wants those answers supported with evidence. But he's not always satisfied with the answers people give him.

The writer of this book—we don't know his name—was also a very wise man. He wanted to know what it was that makes life satisfying and worthwhile. He wanted to know what it meant to be successful or to have a good life. He tried very hard to find out. He thought very carefully about what people of his day said was important.

Some said that enjoying the good things of life was what made life worthwhile. This made sense, he thought, because religious authorities of his day said that God gave us the world to enjoy. But he concluded that was not enough.

Others said that to have wisdom was the most important thing—to know the answers to important questions. Since he was a philosopher and a teacher, he went along with this idea. That made sense. To be wise was better than to be a fool.

Then he shocks us, when he says that in the long run, it probably doesn't make much difference, because the wise man and the fool end up the same way—both dead. And forgotten. That’s a strange twist! We certainly didn’t expect that from a philosopher important enough to get into the Bible.

Then he adds one more thought that is just as surprising, something I don’t think your teachers will be happy about—when a man increases his knowledge, he increases his problems. There’s a good excuse for ignorance!

115

But it's true, isn't it? The more we learn, the more we discover that we don't know very much and that there is so much more to learn. Increase your knowledge and you increase your responsibilities and your headaches. As we learn more, we have more questions to ask, and fewer answers are available to our questions. The more we learn, the more stupid we feel in the face of all we do not know.

And how should we react? All that knowledge stretching before us like a vast sea makes us a bit fearful and overwhelmed, so we try not to think about it.

Thinking makes us uncomfortable.

We get confused. Or we react by insisting, "That's not what I was told before." This is natural.

We try to hold on to the things we've picked up and stored in our heads. New ideas upset things. We have to consider new ideas and that may mean that we have to throw out some old ideas we acquired along the way. We are afraid that we will find out things we don't want to find out, and it will be a lot of trouble and pain to fit this new idea into our minds. Some of these new ideas come in science classes, some come from reading literature or history, and some may come from religion classes or from conversations with friends or from seeing a movie.

It comes as something of a shock, a real let-down, when we first find out that there is no Santa Claus and that God is not a white-bearded old gentleman sitting on a cloud somewhere in the sky who manages the world like some big puppetmaster pulling the strings, just as it was a shock when someone a few hundred years ago said the earth was not flat like everyone else thought it was. New ideas are always painful and disturbing things, but they keep coming up and we have to do something with them—or just ignore them and hope they will go away.

Have you ever seen an ostrich? It’s a funny bird; he sticks his head in the sand whenever anything comes along that he’s afraid of. He thinks he’s hiding, just because he no longer sees whatever disturbed him. He doesn’t really know any better. He’s a pretty stupid bird. And he's only kidding himself. He’s not solving anything by putting his head in the sand. It just makes him look silly.

Some people are like ostriches. When new things come along, new ideas, new ways of doing things, they are a little frightened that their existing ideas will get shaken up, and they will have to change their mind, and think. So they stick their heads in the sand and hope the new and disturbing ideas will just quietly go away.

Growing up involves learning new things and unlearning old things. Education is part of growing up. When you stop growing, you start decaying, just like flowers when fall comes along. When you stop growing mentally, you’ re a dead man.

116

Growing up mentally means keeping your eyes open and constantly learning new things, even if they disturb you or make you uncomfortable.

Why should you learn new things, when its hard to accept new knowledge and uncomfortable to give up old things? I don’t know that I can give you a good reason.

Like the writer of Ecclesiastes that I told you about earlier, I know that new ideas and new knowledge can sometimes be troubling, but I believe that it is important to learn new things even if the new knowledge is troublesome. It’s one of my prejudices, like those of the writer of Ecclesiastes. He didn’t really know why either. Yet he still insisted that it was better to be wise than to be a fool.

Sure, increasing your knowledge can increase your problems. But unlike ostriches, men accept problems as part of life. Ostriches hide their heads in the sand and hope dangerous new ideas will just disappear by the time they stick their head out again.

Unfortunately, ostriches end up in zoos.

117

118

Playing Games [Editor’s note: I began this talk by reading a section of an essay called “Playing the Game” by syndicated columnist and humorist Guy Fridell, taken from his book Jackstraws. I no longer have the book, probably loaned and never returned.]

I read this story yesterday while sitting in the Common Room of Hayward Hall, and periodically looking out over the athletic fields below, observing the progress of the game of “Capture the Flag.”

After the game was over I overheard several boys from Hayward talking about it in the Common Room, and one of them was explaining how he had put an armband of the other team over his own armband and then pretended to be on the other team so that he would not be captured. It did not occur to him that this is not how the game is played and even amounted to cheating on his part.

I couldn’t help but think that what Mr. Fridell said in his humorous story was true. It does matter how you play the game, whether the game is hockey, football, capture the flag, or the game of life.

After all, life is a game and games are meant to be enjoyed, but they are more fun if we play them by the rules. In the game of life, the rules remind us what is fair and what is not, and the officials of the game make sure that we are all playing the game pretty much by the same rules. Break the rules, and there is a penalty. Personal fouls are not permitted. No kicking a guy when he’s down. No hitting below the belt. Gentlemanly and sportsmanlike conduct are expected.

Some of the rules are a bit unusual.

For instance, players have to supply their own equipment. You are issued some equipment when you join the game, but you have to add to it as you go along or you won’t be able to play the game very well. Good equipment is pretty important—courage, a good mind, knowledge of the rules, good judgment, and a clear idea of the goal. Make sure you don’t try to play the game of life without the best equipment you can get.

This is one game that all of you can win. The score is counted at the end of the game, and there can be as many winners as there are players. No one is in competition with anyone else. Players have to keep going toward the finish line until they run out of breath, or are knocked out of bounds by someone else.

No substitutions are allowed. Everyone has to play the game for himself. Every player is responsible for himself, for knowing the rules, for preparing for the game as well as he 119

can, but every player is also responsible for the other players as well. The only way to win the game is to help someone else reach the goal line.

There are several ways you can lose the game.

1. Cheating is not permitted. It is bad enough to cheat the other players, but a person who cheats against himself has almost no chance of winning the game.

2. One of the strange rules of the game is that by concentrating on your own score, you decrease it. Selfish people lose lots of points in the game.

3. Making up your rules as you go along will result in you being declared a "loser" by the officials and thrown out of the game.

4. If you violate the rules that everyone else plays by, you may be penalized and forced to sit on the sidelines for the rest of the game.

5. Dirty players are always losers.

Life is a strange game, and we don't really understand it very well. But we’re all in the game anyway, and we have to play it as well as we can. It’s a good game if you play it clean and hard and thoughtfully, put your heart into it, take it seriously, give it all you have, and remember that it is a team sport.

Have fun playing the game.

July 11, 1965

120

Photos – 1963 to 1967

Mr. and Mrs. [Sue and Art] Broadhurst with Sandy - 1965

121

The Chapel 1964 - Sky Rains in Foreground

Chapel View Toward Lake - Fall 1963 122

View of CMS From Pinnacle Before Construction of Ski Slope

The Chapel - Fall 1963

123

View From Clark-Morgan Toward Headmaster's House

View Toward Brewster and Clark-Morgan - 1963

124

Chapel Interior Looking Toward Pulpit and Organ

Chapel Interior Looking Toward Lectern and Choir

125

Seminar Room in Chapel 1963

Fireplace in Chapel's Seminar Room – 1963

126

Sailing Team Trip To Tabor Academy on "Geisha Girl" 1965 127

128