Our Profession and Other Poems | Page 4

All things were made but to subserve
Man's powers to improve,

And beautify his being here
Through charity and love.
Power, gold, and wealth are agencies
Placed in a creature's hand
To
serve an end, but not to rule,--
Obey, but not command.
As mind and soul matter surpass
And error flies from truth,
So

should we train the nobler parts
Of plastic, trusting youth.
The sacred man by God ordained,
Links sinful earth with heaven,

But his success oft must depend
On how instruction's given.
The holy task of training mind
Is not a trivial thing,
Its influence
lives, grows and expands
Till harvest it shall bring.
No task, to human hands assigned,
Excels in force and weight
The
grave responsibilities
Of those who educate.
Let knowledge of the sciences,
Skill in didactic art,
Power in the
impulse of the soul
A knowledge to impart,
A love for God and human kind,
Forgetfulness of self,
A heart
devoted to the cause
More than to worldly pelf,
Be given as a heritage
To those who fain would teach,
Then living
truth shall flourish,
And all mankind shall reach.

There's an ebb and flow of sentiment
In educational tides,
Which
oft discards some solid old facts,
And on wild new hobbies rides.

The educator of modern times
Must prove the false and the true,

Hold fast the worthy of the old,
Unprejudiced, test the new.
COURAGE AND FAITH.
Courage and Faith are of heavenly birth,
Though sent down to our
lowly earth
To cheer the heart of man;
They are only strong when
the human soul
Yields perfect trust and full control
To heaven's
benignant plan.
Nature expands when this God-sent pair
Finds a fertile heart that
needs the care
Of a messenger divine,
And permits their strength to

succor give
That truth may grow and honor live
To yield their fruit
benign.

Who gives no sunshine from his soul
Must live in darkness ever,

For Nature scorns to such degree,
She blinds a sordid giver.
But he who scatters noble deeds,
And lives to bless mankind,
Shall
see the beauties God reveals
To men with hearts refined.
INCOMPETENCE.
Sometimes our soul within us burns
To see dark Ignorance aspire

To move toward light a mind that yearns
For knowledge that may lift
it higher
Upon the royal road of truth,
While every word and act
and thought
Betrays an atmosphere so fraught
With lack of
common sense and lore,
We plead for some almighty power
To
save from such our precious youth.
No ray of truth can ever shine
To beautify and make divine
The
heart and mind of anxious soul,
When doubts and fears have full
control
Of him who knows he blindly leads.
If human minds and
souls and hearts
May not command those who have arts
And power
to waken, lead, inspire,
Then knowledge fails of her desire,
And
Ignorance on Wisdom feeds.
Let science, art, didactic skill,
Be guided by unyielding will
Born in
some earnest, patient one
Whose heart glows like the summer sun

And warms all by its ardent fire;
Whose interest is so intense
It
readily itself imprints
Upon the tender minds of youths,
Precepts
and scientific truths
Such as their yearning hearts desire.
Then there shall come a brighter day,
When darkness shall to light
give way,
And Wisdom on her throne rejoice,
And speak with
accent in her voice
That charms and cheers a hungry mind.
Then,

students, beauty shall receive
Instead of ashes that deceive,
Their
days and nights of earnest toil,
Their struggles by the midnight oil

Give recompense complete, refined.
FACT VERSUS FORM.
As shadows are to material forms,
As mists to the copious shower

As dead calms are to tornado storms
That in tropical region lower

So are educational fallacies
That ignore and decry as naught
The
value and power that ever lie
In the scope of original thought.
No smooth device with a soulless form
Should obscure the living
thought;
It smothers the mind, destroys the charm
That comes to
him who has wrought
To discover new truth, by a truth well known,

On which he may safely build,
Till his mental strength by use has
grown
To a giant strong and skilled.
When thought is secure, the reason clear,
And the language to tell is
pure,
Abridgement comes like a friend sincere,
For it cannot the
mind obscure.
The wasted time on a form-clad task
Steals gems
from youth's precious years,
Leaves a wreck on life's shore, we
cannot mask
With our sorrows and sighs and tears.
If what we have learned has given no power
To acquire what yet we
must learn,
If all our past struggles leave not a dower
To which we
may joyously turn
And feel that a strength within us is given

Through efforts already bestowed,
In vain have we lived, in vain have
we striven,
Each task is the same weary load.
If task of to-day shall not lighten th' one
May come upon us
to-morrow,
It is but a proof our work was ill done,
And bodes to us
grief and sorrow.
Ev'ry effort of mind applied aright
Augments the
mental perception,
For God aids the brave, and giveth a light
To
shine away imperfection.

There's a magic power in a task well done,
There's a charm in solid
reason,
There's a mighty force in a victory won,
Which an alert
mind will seize on,
And with giant strength that is thus acquired

March on till the fields of science
And the zones of thought wherein
man