college

If I went back to college again, I'd concentrate on two areas: learning to write and to speak before an audience. Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively.

A college should feel alarmed rather than pleased if it graduates nothing but good citizens. For when the body politic is composed of nothing but submissive individuals, half of its health and all of its vigor have disappeared.

Addressing the Columbia crew after winning the intercollegiate regatta: I congratulate you most heartily upon the splendid victory you have won, and the luster you have shed upon the name of Columbia College. I thank you for the Faculty of the College, for the manifest service you have done to this institution. . . . I am convinced that in one day or in one summer, you have done more to make Columbia College known than all your predecessors have done since the foundation of the college by this, your great triumph.

When I was in my first year of college at Logan, Utah, I bought an old car for a hundred dollars. I was eighteen and thought that I knew all about driving. It was Christmastime, and my parents were living on a ranch in Wyoming. I picked up my two grandmothers and took them to my parents' home for Christmas. We had a grand time there. When it was time to return to school, the weather had changed and the roads were treacherous. That morning as we were ready to leave, we held a family prayer in the living room. My father prayed that we would have a safe journey. After we had loaded my car with suitcases, blankets, tuna fish sandwiches, and a thermos bottle full of Postum, Dad walked out to the car and said, 'I want to talk to you.' We went over and stood by the fence. 'You have a very valuable cargo,' he said, nodding at my grandmothers. 'I want you to promise me that if the roads are bad and it's snowing when you get down to Lander, you won't go over South Pass. I want you to take the long way.' I promised him that I would. My parents kissed us good-bye, and we were on our way. We had nice weather until we got to Riverton; then it started to snow. By the time we got to Lander, it was snowing pretty hard. I remembered my promise, so when we came to the intersection where you turn to go up the mountain, I made a conscious turn to go the long way. I remember thinking then that it was going to take us five hours longer to get to Utah. I knew the road, and I was absolutely certain that I had made the right turn. As we drove along, we were joking and laughing, although the snow was getting thicker. Then I saw a sign that read, 'Historic Old South Pass City,' and I realized that I had somehow become confused in the snowstorm and had taken the wrong road! I thought, Dad will be angry with me! I don't know how this happened-it wasn't intentional. I had only two choices: I could keep on going, or I could turn around and go back. By this time, we were at the summit, so I decided that we might as well keep going and that I would apologize to Dad later. As we came down the mountain, the snow stopped and the roads were clear. We drove to Logan and then to Malad without any problems. On my way to school the next day I happened to see the front-page headline of a newspaper: WORST BLIZZARD OF THE YEAR STRANDS HUNDREDS IN CENTRAL WYOMING. I bought a paper, and it was full of stories about people who had been stranded, lost, or killed on the road that I had promised to take. I realized that the prayer our family had offered had been answered. I knew that the Lord had gotten us on the right road, and I realized how He had protected us. I was never the same after that.

The young man of native ability, the will to work and good personality will, in the long run, get the equivalent of a college education in the tasks he will set for himself. If he has ability and determination, he will find ways to learn and to get ahead.

With faith . . . we must walk to the edge of the light and into the darkness. As we so walk I testify and promise that the light will move. When I was your age and wondering some of the exact same things that you are now wondering, I never would have imagined that someday [we] would be at Ricks College serving as we are. . . . I know the light moves as we walk in faith to the edge of the light.

What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is. Vice President Dan Quayle winning friends while speaking to the United Negro College Fund, 5/9/89 This gem has been added toBartlett's "Familiar Quotations."

Consideration is not merely a matter of emotional goodwill but of intellectual vigor and moral self sacrifice. Wisdom must combine with sympathy. That is why consideration underlies the phrase "a scholar and a gentleman," which really sums up the ideal of the output of a college education.

Legislators who are of even average intelligence stand out among their colleagues. . . . A cultured college president has become as much a rarity as a literate newspaper publisher. A financier interested in economics is as exceptional as a labor leader interested in the labor movement. For the most part our leaders are merely following out in front; they [only] marshal us in the way that we are going.

Franklin told of something which had happened at Lancaster in Pennsylvania at a treaty between the Six Nations and Virginia in 1744. The Virginia commissioners offered to take six Indian boys and educate them at the college in Williamsburg. The Indians, after politely waiting till the next day, declined the offer. Their young men who had gone to college in the northern provinces had come back "bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger, knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy, spoke our languages imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for warriors, hunters, or counselors; they were totally good for nothing." But the Indians would take a dozen Virginia boys and educate them properly in the forest.