Page 7 - To Dragma October 1933

Published through the courtesy
of the A. A V. IV. Journal
WH Y FELLOWSHIP ?
»By ELIZABETH HEYWOOD WYMAN
A WARM FEBRUARY RAIN was s o a k i n g
gently into the earth and giving promise
of renewed l i f e . Imagination outran the sea-
son. S p r i n g had arrived in its j o y and beauty.
With it came the thought: how utterly foolish
our scramble f o r insecure wealth; our per-
sistent striving to hedge about our special cult
or party or race, the while we quarrel w i t h
others f o r the same practice. T h e moment's
vision was intensified by the memory o f a
recent sunset, clear, cold, illimitable, and by
the glad sight o f a cardinal a d v e n t u r i n g f a r
beyond its customary haunts. Infinite riches
for the taking and we preoccupied with transi-
tory values and ignoble rivalries!
In a great natural catastrophe we break all
barriers and clasp hands as simply as f r i g h t -
ened children, conscious o n l y o f o u r b r o t h e r -
hood and common impotence. A human crisis
has the same effect. I t a l i a n shoemaker, P o l i s h
shopkeeper, Jewish landlord, old American
family watching the encroachment of alien
trade upon its hereditary place of residence—
what matters the n a t i o n a l i t y w h e n a first born
son dies, a drinkcrazed husband takes his life,
or a soldier son comes home a helpless cripple!
W h y Fellowships? Because they open the
door to a speedier understanding of these
things which the beauty and terror o f life may
teach oidy through long experience. Mature
graduates have lived through the growing pains
which confuse college thinking. The majority
of women who go further are looking forward
to greater knowledge as an instrument of serv-
ice. They w i l l use it to open the eyes o f others
to what they have seen, to minister to the sick
and troubled, to create beauty. Their prej-
udices disappear as they w o r k side by side w i t h
those of different races and cultures. Before
the immensities of the universe human differ-
ences shrink into insignificance. Paradoxically,
the preventable suffering of one child, the
remediable misery o f one woman, the unnec-
essary failure of one man become matters vast
enough f o r the combined wisdom of the saints
and sages—and common people—of all lands
on the face of the earth.
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