The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1923, Page 44

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44° — The Lutheran Pioneer.

After the program a business meeting was held,
in which it was decided to raise $200 for the library.
The rest of the evening was spent in a sociable way
in the dining-hall. While the refreshments were
being enjoyed, pledges amounting to more than
$200 were given by various alumni amid-short talks
breathing allegiance to, and support of, Immanuel.
Teacher Dinkins, who has the reputation of being
a humorist, did not make us laugh, as we expected
when he arose to say a few words, but was serious.
He struck the proper key and expressed the senti-
ment of all former graduates when he said:
“Ebenezer! Hitherto hath the Lord helped us... .
Immanuel Lutheran College, we former students
love you, we love you!”

Wednesday was the big day, for this was the day
of the commencement exercises. The: spacious
chapel was filled to capacity. Rev. IF’. J. Lankenau
delivered the annual address. He took up the ques-
tion as to what constitutes success and how to
attain it. -The address was replete with instances
and illustrations that vividly impressed the hearers
with the lessons which the ‘speaker sought to
drive home.

If the good readers could have been at Im-
manuel during commencement week, they would
have left as did Pastor ankenau and his friends,
full of enthusiasm for the institution, at the same
time deploring the fact that it is not properly
equipped for its work, and determined to help it
to obtain what it ought to have. What a golden
opportunity we have to serve God, the Church, and
our country when Colored boys and girls come to
us for a Christian education and hear the Word-of
God morning, noon, and night! May the Lord
grant grace and wisdom to find ways and means of
accommodating our students, to His glory and the
salvation of many blood-bought souls! P. E. G.

A Problem in Values.

A profound truth was that uttered by the art
_ critic, “A portrait has two values, a present value
and an eternity value.” ‘The artist paints, the
architect -builds, the sculptor chisels, and if pos-
sessed of this double vision of values, though he
departs this life, his works live after him. If this
be true of workers in oil, wood, and stone, what
shall we say of those who have to do with the mold-
ing of the heart and mind and with the building

of character? Surely every teacher’s vision should —

not be focused merely on the present, but on the
present plus the future.

Was it not this truth that filled the heart and
mind of the faithful teacher for sixteen years at
her post in a school for Colored girls, who, when
asked if she was ever discouraged over the faults
and failures of trusted pupils, replied: “Yes, some-
times I am a bit discouraged, when some I thought
were strong slip and fall. But then,” with brighten-
ing face and perfect assurance, “but then I remem-
ber we are not laboring alone for the present.
I look ahead and see the children of these girls
and their children’s children, and I know their
lives will be stronger and their homes cleaner be-
cause of the Christian training given to-day.”

Perhaps this thought needs to be passed along
to some who are loath to support the work which
is making this training for the present and future
possible. “Does it pay?” asked with doubtful in-
flection, is the question too often on the lips of
those whose perspective is easily blurred by the
knowledge of some failure. True it is, the sudden

‘opening up of new worlds does sometimes turn the

head of the Negro youth, and for this reason, what
is deemed necessary for the development and future
usefulness of the white child is considered a mistake
for the black.

But on what ground should this weaker race,
whether viewed individually or as a sharer of the
burdens of this workaday world, be asked to meet
its future handicapped by ignorance and inefficiency,
when we,.the stronger, have the power and oppor-
tunity to show them “the better way”?

With the poet’s instinct, Paul Lawrence Dunbar
says: “Slow moves the pageant of a climbing race.”
Yes, we forget the generations we have been climb-
ing; we forget -that our twentieth century is but
the rich inheritance which has come down to us
from those whose labors had a value not only for
the present, but for the future as well.

It: has been our Church’s privilege to help direct:
the first steps of many hundreds of Negroes. ‘The
Bible has always been the foundation of our day-
as well as of the Sunday-schools, and to-day there
are men and women of high ideals and of strong

character, the fruitage of those “first years,” upon:

the shoulders of whom has been rolled a large share
of the responsibility of training the ever-increasing
numbers who follow.

Tt means much to our Church that leaders have

_ been trained, and thnt more and more. are being

trained in our schools from year to year, leaders