| Emma McRae |
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By Mary Moore Youse. A community is enriched by cherishing the memories of those who have lived therein for the better things. Hence, all in this community should know of a life that has just ended. Mrs. Emma Mont McRae, who died Sunday at her home in Newton Center, Mass., was a true "and faithful servant of the people of Muncie, in one of the most important departments of human life namely, education. As principal of the high school, from the time of its organization, through many years, she played a prominent part in the development of our educational system, together with her distinguished husband, Hamilton S. McRae, who was superintendent of city schools. The character of tho life of a community depends largely on the quality of its schools. The quality of the schools is determined not alone by its methods and systems, but by the personality of its teachers. Mrs. McRae left the impress of her culture, her strength of character, and her wonder- ful personality, in a remarkable degree, on her students. How largely the element of personal influence enters into the character of the young, cannot be estimated. Some years ago a popular magazine published a series of articles on the subject "The People Who Have Most Influenced Me." Many Indianians, who cast about to find the answer in their own lives, will ascertain that one of the foremost is tho name of Emma Mont McRae. Through her work, she influenced a whole generation of Muncie people. Hundreds of men and women in this vicinity attribute their start at right thinking to Mrs. McRae, and all of these freely and gladly acknowledge their obligations to her. Of her it can be justly said: "The stern were mild when she was by; the flippant put himself to school and heard her; and the rudest youth was softened, and he knew not why." She never would have grown old. Nobody ever thought of her as even approaching old age. Hers was a young, glad life, because she was ever changing herself out of all that had grown too be old into the new youth. The song and the story heard within the school room have colored the thoughts and lives of most of us: have given us the inspiration of whatever poetry blesses our hearts, whatever memory blooms in our yesterdays; for attribute it to whatever we may, many of the rays which make the little day we call life, radiate from the school and the teachers. Many of the lessons learned under Mrs. McRae's teaching are so indelibly impressed that they will never he forgotten. One lesson in the English Literature class comes vividly before me now. Briefly expressed, it was something like this: "I trust you will all learn to love Tennyson, for Tennyson always loved what was beautiful. He placed this love in a way that was full of grace, and in a carefully selected language with music in it. Once Tennyson plucked a flower out of one of the little crannies in a wall-a wall that had begun to crumble, and in the little crevices of which was deposited soil where something could grow. "What did this great poet, filled with a large love for God. do with this flower that he had plucked from the cranny in the wall? He wrote this wonderful verse: "Flower In the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies- Hold you here, root and all, in my hand. little flower-but if I could understand What you are, root and all. and all in all, I should know what God and man is." The quality and number of one's friends indicate one's real character. The privilege granted to a few rare spirits of being a friend to many people, is one of earth's most sacred gifts. Among all the many hundreds of people with whom Mrs. McRae came in contact in her educational career, her memory will need no quickening. Not one has forgotten her charm. Her name and fame, her character and works, her personal influence, will live and be held in cherished remembrance by her devoted friends for all time. |