Ellie Butterfield a while back dropped off a copy of the 1931 Sabiduria, the yearbook for Missouri Valley College.

In the yearbook on page 77, there is an interesting essay titled "Are We Air-Minded?" accompanied by a famous poem. I reprint them here. I think these words apply today just as they did in 1931. Enjoy:

"As we lift our minds to the clouds and convert with the Barlings throughout the Art theme of this volume, we must also realize that in our modern age, the unexplored freedom of higher levels is the proper place in which the mind should bask. Although our feet are of necessity tied to the earth, in our mental life we can be both high-minded and broad-minded. To live in the twentieth century without being able to think in terms of any greater magnitude than the small sphere in which we individually exist is much like attempting to furnish competition to the Santa Fe System with the proverbial ox-cart.

"If the great civic, economic and moral problems of a civilization which is rapidly becoming cosmopolitan in its scope are ever to be solved, it behooves us as students and expectant citizens to train ourselves not only culturally and technically, but also in the development of a sense of the proper regard for the thought and privileges of others. Narrow-mindedness can have no place in our advancing civilization.

There are a number of ways in which the small mind reveals itself. Among these are included: Race hatred and prejudice; propensity to take in propaganda, damaging to foreign countries; credulity in regard to forms of bill board publicity and other high-powered advertising; belief in the insane delusion of warfare as a means of settling international disputes; creed or denominational intolerance; continuous fault finding; propensity to be annoyed by trivialities; peevishness; no regard for the opinion of others; and the lack of poise, generally implied by the term "temperamental."

"In order to help develop this much needed quality of "Air-mindedness," we recommend (Rudyard) Kiping's simple but beautiful poem "If," reprinted below. This poem has been hanging on the wall of the editor's room since Christmas, and while he realizes only too well his need in a number of these points, he is confident that this poem has been an inspiration to him.

"If."

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating.

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your

master;

If you can think -- and not make thoughts

your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out

tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings -- nor lose common

touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man,

my son!"

"If we are to live in a scientific age our thinking must be on a scientific basis. Let us be "Air-minded!"

Mason is the editor of The Marshall Democrat-News. Spectrum appears on Friday.