Jón Bjarnason Academy - 01.05.1935, Blaðsíða 11

"Christian Education and Modern Life"
An Address Delivered at the Graduation Exercises of
Jon Bjarnason Academy on Jane 3, 1935
By REV. B. THEODORE S1GURDSS0N
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Graduating Class, Ladies and
Gentlemen:
In opening this short address, I wish to assure you, that as
a graduate of the Jon Bjarnason Academy and as a member of
the Board of Directors, I feel greatly honored to be privileged
to speak here on this auspicious occasion. I feel, too, a sense
of trepidation, for I realize the high hopes and the problems
which confront young men and women who have reached
this crucial point in their lives, especially in this age of economic,
politic, and spiritual chaos. The rising generation today is
faced with problems such as no generation ever faced before.
In generations past the average student coming out of high
school or college was practically assured of a position or trade
which would prove lucrative. Today that assurance is a thing
of the past—and what is even more tragic, is the fact, that the
type of instruction given in so many of our state or secular
schools, sends out graduates completely at sea, with regard to
the great spiritual values of life, which are in my estimation
on an equal if not higher plane than scientific know’eldge.
Scientific learning divorced from religious and moral instruc-
tion and training makes for an unbalanced and disintegrated
personality.
You, who are now graduating from the Jon Bjarnason
Academy have, I am sure, without exception, been the re-
cipients not only of fine instruction in the scholastic field, but
also of a fine Christian influence—spoken and unspoken—an
influence w7hich emanates from‘every word and action of
consecrated instructors w'ho have shown themselves in word
and deed, true Christians—true builders of the nations finest
citizens. This evening I shall not try to give you any patent
solution for all your problems,—not endeavor to prescribe a
panacea for all the things which we feel to be wrong in the
world today. I am still too close to my graduation days to
be able to speak to you as a sage or seer with years of ex-
perience behind me. Suffice it to say that I am fully aware
of the problems, hopes and perplexities wre are all facing—
young and old. I would that I could give you the touchstone
of happiness and success. But in our present day, that is not
even possible for the world’s great, to say nothing of a humble,
youthful clergyman starting out on a career. But of one thing
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