The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-10-08
THE SCHOOL OF A
MIS-SPENT LIFE
Prison Experience is of Val
ue if we Make it so.
Life is The Greatest Art of all, and the
Master Artist is one Who is Living
The Life Worth While. We
Should PerSeveTe.
By Sherlock

Fellows and friends, it is my de-
sire at this time, to write upon a
theme with which our population
as a whole is in sympathy, and as
l have referred to this as a school
we then, at the outset, shall adopt
for our class motto. 'Finis est In1-
tium," or The End is the Begin
ning."
The end of our prison experience
marks the beginning of broader
and infinitely richer life. if we
choose to make it 80. 1t means the
development of powers that lie with
in us, which will be more severely
tested as we encounter the larger
opportunities and harder struggles
outside in a world greater than can
be compassed by four stone walls.
Prison experience, for those upon
whom fate has chosen to settle the
red disc," is valueless, if it does not
train the mind to the highest thoughts
and the appreciation of things truest
and noblest. 1t should awaken the
man or woman TO dreams and aspl-
rations which be or she has not yet
experienced. True. very often these
dreams and ambitions are never re-
allied, but has not he been the better
for having them? Browning says:
"What l aspired to BE-
And was not, comforts me.
A brute might have been, but,
Would not sink in the scale y
Does it not sweeten our days in
durance vile when we realize that
we are preparing to encounter more
vital aspects of life? Then it can
only he with pleasure and a keen
sense of joyous expectancy that one
leaves such school forever behind
and embark upon an unknown and
somewhat obscure course of study.
his FUTURE" which cannot be COM
pleted in a given number of years;
but is only just begun at the end of
a lifetime. Life as an Art" be-
comes the major course required of
those who would be students in the
worlds great school. A certain
little book defines Art as: The
gathering together of the everyday
sounds of the world from anvil and
street and workshop, and the build
ing of these very sounds into a
Handels Messiah or the gathering
together of the everyday experiences
from the hearts of common men and
women into Twenty Third Isalm
or a beautiful hymn or poem"
We cannot all be such artists as
Handel. Mozart, Tennyson, or Brown
ing, but we all can learn the art of
creating a beautiful world out of the
materials which we can see about us
daily. Therein lies the credit due
the artist, if he has produced some
thing wonderful and glorious out of
humble and insignificant materials.
Life is the greatest art Of all, and
the master artist is one who IS living
the life worth while; and whether
we like it or not, we all are artists
in this art of arts producing either
beautiful or ugly lives out of the
materials and present experiences
at our disposal"
Some may be raised to higher
plane by the inspiration of beauti-
full picture, or poem, or song, or
friend whose life has set itself up
before us as a shining example Of
virtues. such as Influenced the lives
IF those four, who heard the little
girl Pippa, as she passed and sang
joyously:
"rhe years at the spring,
The days at the morn,
The mornings at seven,
The hillside's dew w-pearled,
The lark's on the wing,
The snail on the thorn.
Gods in his Heaven,
All's right with the world"
What an Inspiring, joyous song it
is, and how it enters into the hearts
of those of us who, with young
blood in our veins and undaunted
courage in our breats will go hence
to seek what life has to offer. AS
we go forward with the thought that
the end of every task is but the be-
ginning of larger one, we could
we'll be inspired by these words of
the poet:
s'Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough;
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand
but go!
Be our joys three parts pain,
Strive and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare,
never grudge the throe."