1
50
1
-
https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/files/original/045195e4e88d225e03632c43fef6fde0.pdf
abb897239079fc34e93a3c918e41d677
PDF Text
Text
<p>[Page 1]</p>
<br />
<p> If you live for tomorrow with the objective of</p>
<p>making today’s dreams come true tomorrow, you</p>
<p>begin to pace yourself and to deny yourself small</p>
<p>rewards in favor of engineering bigger things. In</p>
<p>a matter of months one can gain a pretty accurate</p>
<p>assessment of his personal power and of his capacity for</p>
<p>work, and time enables one to not only</p>
<p>play the game but to keep his own side.</p>
<p> The man who stands to gain the most from this</p>
<p>kind of self-paced living is the man who is above average</p>
<p>but less than a genius. This includes most of you; it includes</p>
<p>me; it includes most professional men to some degree. One</p>
<p>can outdistance his competitors if he begins to work at his</p>
<p>maximum level of effectiveness soon enough. The slower</p>
<p>you are, the earlier you have to begin to work</p>
<p>toward an objective w/ the idea of achieving it.</p>
<p>If you assess the cost of a really taxing effort and</p>
<p>literally case your objective, you are already half-way there.</p>
<p> Fate can engineer magnificent pratfalls that knock</p>
<p>the best laid plans into a cocked hat. Beyond a point that</p>
<p>apoint each man knows for himself, man is helpless. The world</p>
<p>much bigger than he is. But what fate deals out to most of us is</p>
<p>probably better than we deserve, so there’s no room for genuinely</p>
<p>justified bitterness. After all if you plow ahead but fail</p>
<p>for some uncontrolled factor that upset your red wagon,</p>
<p>you cannot be upset very long before you turn to tomorrow</p>
<p>and begin some work therapy on a new project.</p>
<p> Every quarter or semester in a university is</p>
<p>a test of planning ahead. You learn to work,</p>
<p>you learn to meet deadlines, you learn to avoid the pitfalls</p>
<p>of goofing off. You learn how to pilot yourself to avoid</p>
<p>most of the bumps. Each setback only stiffens the determination</p>
<p>to win in the end. The daily lesson is the mind’s food, unless</p>
<p>you feed the mind it doesn’t grow. If you learn</p>
<p>many facts and concepts and formulae and quotations</p>
<p>and definitions your mind will do a fine job of filing</p>
<br />
<p>[Page 2]</p>
<br />
<p>these away for later recall, but you have to cast</p>
<p>mentally regularly every school day to be ready for the eventual</p>
<p>test or examination. Study today for tomorrow.</p>
<p> How much do we really retain from what we “learn?”</p>
<p>50%? 25%? 10%? 5%? I’m inclined to believe we retain<br /> more than we can rediscover through recall, The man who</p>
<p>plans for tomorrow is subconsciously reviewing an recalling</p>
<p>even as he plans ahead. Ideas flow the fastest</p>
<p>when the mental spigot is opened every day. I</p>
<p>have a theory that I believe to be fact – it is that you can</p>
<p>do what you will to do about 80% of the time. The rest of</p>
<p>the time you are unable to do so. Some are luckier than</p>
<p>others, but it is not blind fate that rules us, –</p>
<p>its a fate molded mainly by ourselves.</p>
<p> If you have dreams of what you want the</p>
<p>and your ambition is to fullfill those dreams ·</p>
<p>Fight for them – make them come true.</p>
<p> Some silly students believe you learn in college</p>
<p>what you have to know + then you go out + use your</p>
<p>knowledge. This just is not so. You leave here with a</p>
<p>bullied and bruised head + many facts though they</p>
<p>be filed in your mind will never be recalled. You</p>
<p>do leave even if its by flunking out –</p>
<p>with an enlarged view - of the world + of yourself.</p>
<p> If college in some way or another shapes your</p>
<p>awareness, improves your scope of choice or discrimination,</p>
<p>and if it enlarges your frame of reference, you are</p>
<p>in a much better condition to do battle to make</p>
<p>your dreams concrete.</p>
<p> Now you are here in a good college and</p>
<p>you are attending to major in a department that</p>
<p>believes that in lite you are here it is our</p>
<p>professional duty to help you find yourself.</p>
<p>It is our duty to get you to find out just how much you can do by pushing</p>
<p>you now and then to capacity. The idea is not</p>
<br />
<p>[Page 3]</p>
<br />
<p>to break you but to be the making of you. We are</p>
<p>often looked at as sadists or worse – as though</p>
<p>we get our kicks out of torturing the students. The opposite</p>
<p>is true.</p>
<p>The fun in teaching is seeing ideas take hold + minds</p>
<p>grow and develop.</p>
<p> The longer I teach the better I know one cannot</p>
<p>assess or prognose the future of the potential of</p>
<p>a student. A dullard may catch fire. If the demon</p>
<p>will can be set afire, the mind can be made to do</p>
<p>wonders. You are born again. To do this is to</p>
<p>find out who you are + what you are. You must be able to</p>
<p>slip out of your skin and take an objective look</p>
<p>at you + at the state of affairs in which you will be</p>
<p>projected.</p>
<p> Some believe it is better not to play a game</p>
<p>than to risk playing and losing. The only</p>
<p>way one improves his batting average is to play the</p>
<p>game more often.</p>
<p> This earthly life shifted of all the transient</p>
<p>frivolity is pretty frightening. We are born so</p>
<p>that we can die and death is frightfully final</p>
<p>to us earth men. Some people inclined many people</p>
<p>prefer to sit down, live quietly, + wait to their</p>
<p>name is called to board a bus to eternity. They</p>
<p>are the pitied. What do they ever really enjoy. How</p>
<p>many big moments do they ever have.</p>
<p>Living is more fun than anything. So for as we have</p>
<p>we only live one. The good Lord has probably put</p>
<p>more talent in you than you will ever discover. But</p>
<p>aren’t you curious to see how much you live.</p>
<p> Make up your mind to have one helluva worthwhile</p>
<p>time on this earth. Decide what you want to do + where</p>
<p>you want to be when you are 40 years old. There’s truth to</p>
<p>the old saying that in later life begins. Work now to</p>
<p>make the most of the later years.</p>
<br />
<p>[Page 4]</p>
<br />
<p> Every year you complete here w/ a creditable academic</p>
<p>average of 2.0 or better – you have banked $2,500</p>
<p>on your future education which you can cash in by fellowship</p>
<p>subsidization in grad school. Who can afford to throw</p>
<p>away $2,500 or a year of his life? Alas, how many do just that.</p>
<p> In planning for tomorrow your competitive senses</p>
<p>come to the fore. You want to achieve. There’s fun</p>
<p>in it even if you do not win every time. In</p>
<p>the beautiful cemetery at Lexington, Va. is an</p>
<p>epitaph on a spinster’s monument that reads:</p>
<p> “She did the best she could” And I bet she did.</p>
<p> I have thought about Mrs. Demarches? Beacon? almost</p>
<p>every day since I was touched by her magnificent</p>
<p>personality. I thought of her especially as I sat in the</p>
<p>great theatre of Oberammergau in 1960. An elderly</p>
<p>lady – I would say about 78 years old - sat beside me during</p>
<p>the afternoon portion of the performance. She entered +</p>
<p>sad down beside me in high spirits. She comforted the</p>
<p>lad lived to make this day come true. This was her great</p>
<p>moment. About 10 minutes after the performance had started I</p>
<p>cast a glance at the elderly lady only to see that she was fast</p>
<p>asleep. Truly for her, anticipation was greater than realization.</p>
<p>Her tired body just was not up to remaining awake. The</p>
<p>fun + the pleasure of seeing that she got herself to Oberammmergau</p>
<p>was the important thing – not the performance. The great moments</p>
<p>in one’s life are individually brief – few + far between for some – close</p>
<p>together for others – but collectively the great moments are</p>
<p>probably less than 00.01 percent of your conscious existence. Unless</p>
<p>somehow you learn how to get great joy out of uphill plugging</p>
<p>+ working toward some sense of goals life will be empty. The power is</p>
<p>within you to do what you will to do. If you can harness</p>
<p>that power to make it work for you You will have justified</p>
<p>your existence on this earth.</p>
<p> There is a power that is greater than you, this I</p>
<p>really believe. In 1954 I discovered a graduating senior had</p>
<br />
<p>[Page 5]</p>
<br />
<p>made off with some books belonging to the school. I was so upset</p>
<p>by this that I penned him a hot letter telling him what</p>
<p>I would do if he did not apologize + make amends by</p>
<p>promising never to do it again. Within 5 minutes of the</p>
<p>time I mailed that letter, Someone had me up in my own</p>
<p>attic delving in a trunk for something I forgot what —</p>
<p>but in the process I was confronted with possession</p>
<p>of a book that did not belong to me - one that I hastily</p>
<p>saw returned to its rightful place. There is a Power</p>
<p>that works for good in all of us. If one can access</p>
<p>his own talents and get them working in a competitive way</p>
<p>with the Power we cannot control but which controls us,</p>
<p>there is little we cannot do.</p>
<p> The great men of history have possessed a sense</p>
<p>of their histories being even as they lived. If</p>
<p>you tie your wagon to a star + work to reach the</p>
<p>goal you have set - you have given your life meaning</p>
<p>but perspective and some historicity – and in the</p>
<p>process if you do so I assure you that you will have</p>
<p>one helluva good time in the best sense of that</p>
<p>phrase.</p>
<p> BNC 12-14-64</p>
<br />
<p>[Page 6]</p>
<br />
<p>of our society and they are determined to reverse the</p>
<p>breakdown in individual personal concern for the individual</p>
<p>and his problems, ambitions, and beliefs.</p>
<p> Despite the campus unrest and needless violence, young people are</p>
<p>beginning to care for one another’s welfare. Many a thief, rogue</p>
<p>and murderer is socially</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Byron Nelson Cooper Papers, 1925-1971 (Ms1973-004)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Faculty
Geology
Local/Regional History and Appalachian South
Science and Technology
University History
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Description
An account of the resource
This collection contains the papers of Byron Nelson Cooper, head of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute's Department of Geological Sciences from 1946 to 1971. Included are correspondence, writings, research data, and photographs, largely relating to Appalachian geology, particularly that of southwestern Virginia.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cooper, Byron Nelson, 1912-1971
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=oai/lib.vt.edu/repositories/2/resources/1279.oai_ead.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">See the finding aid for the Byron Nelson Cooper Papers</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1925-1971
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<span>The copyright and related rights status of this Item has not been evaluated. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/CNE/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en</a></span>
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Administrative records
Identifier
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Ms1973_004_CooperByronNelson_
Bibliographic Citation
A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: [item], [box], [folder], Byron Nelson Cooper Papers, 1925-1971, Ms1973-004, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Transcript
A verbatim typewritten copy of the textual contents of a document.
<p>[Page 1]</p>
<p<br></p>
<p> If you live for tomorrow with the objective of</p>
<p>making today’s dreams come true tomorrow, you</p>
<p>begin to pace yourself and to deny yourself small</p>
<p>rewards in favor of engineering bigger things. In</p>
<p>a matter of months one can gain a pretty accurate</p>
<p>assessment of his personal power and of his capacity for</p>
<p>work, and time enables one to not only</p>
<p>play the game but to keep his own side.</p>
<p> The man who stands to gain the most from this</p>
<p>kind of self-paced living is the man who is above average</p>
<p>but less than a genius. This includes most of you; it includes</p>
<p>me; it includes most professional men to some degree. One</p>
<p>can outdistance his competitors if he begins to work at his</p>
<p>maximum level of effectiveness soon enough. The slower</p>
<p>you are, the earlier you have to begin to work</p>
<p>toward an objective w/ the idea of achieving it.</p>
<p>If you assess the cost of a really taxing effort and</p>
<p>literally case your objective, you are already half-way there.</p>
<p> Fate can engineer magnificent pratfalls that knock</p>
<p>the best laid plans into a cocked hat. Beyond a point that</p>
<p>apoint each man knows for himself, man is helpless. The world</p>
<p>much bigger than he is. But what fate deals out to most of us is</p>
<p>probably better than we deserve, so there’s no room for genuinely</p>
<p>justified bitterness. After all if you plow ahead but fail</p>
<p>for some uncontrolled factor that upset your red wagon,</p>
<p>you cannot be upset very long before you turn to tomorrow</p>
<p>and begin some work therapy on a new project.</p>
<p> Every quarter or semester in a university is</p>
<p>a test of planning ahead. You learn to work,</p>
<p>you learn to meet deadlines, you learn to avoid the pitfalls</p>
<p>of goofing off. You learn how to pilot yourself to avoid</p>
<p>most of the bumps. Each setback only stiffens the determination</p>
<p>to win in the end. The daily lesson is the mind’s food, unless</p>
<p>you feed the mind it doesn’t grow. If you learn</p>
<p>many facts and concepts and formulae and quotations</p>
<p>and definitions your mind will do a fine job of filing</p>
<p<br></p>
<p>[Page 2]</p>
<p<br></p>
<p>these away for later recall, but you have to cast</p>
<p>mentally regularly every school day to be ready for the eventual</p>
<p>test or examination. Study today for tomorrow.</p>
<p> How much do we really retain from what we “learn?”</p>
<p>50%? 25%? 10%? 5%? I’m inclined to believe we retain<br>
more than we can rediscover through recall, The man who</p>
<p>plans for tomorrow is subconsciously reviewing an recalling</p>
<p>even as he plans ahead. Ideas flow the fastest</p>
<p>when the mental spigot is opened every day. I</p>
<p>have a theory that I believe to be fact – it is that you can</p>
<p>do what you will to do about 80% of the time. The rest of</p>
<p>the time you are unable to do so. Some are luckier than</p>
<p>others, but it is not blind fate that rules us, –</p>
<p>its a fate molded mainly by ourselves.</p>
<p> If you have dreams of what you want the</p>
<p>and your ambition is to fullfill those dreams ·</p>
<p>Fight for them – make them come true.</p>
<p> Some silly students believe you learn in college</p>
<p>what you have to know + then you go out + use your</p>
<p>knowledge. This just is not so. You leave here with a</p>
<p>bullied and bruised head + many facts though they</p>
<p>be filed in your mind will never be recalled. You</p>
<p>do leave even if its by flunking out –</p>
<p>with an enlarged view - of the world + of yourself.</p>
<p> If college in some way or another shapes your</p>
<p>awareness, improves your scope of choice or discrimination,</p>
<p>and if it enlarges your frame of reference, you are</p>
<p>in a much better condition to do battle to make</p>
<p>your dreams concrete.</p>
<p> Now you are here in a good college and</p>
<p>you are attending to major in a department that</p>
<p>believes that in lite you are here it is our</p>
<p>professional duty to help you find yourself.</p>
<p>It is our duty to get you to find out just how much you can do by pushing</p>
<p>you now and then to capacity. The idea is not</p>
<p<br></p>
<p>[Page 3]</p>
<p<br></p>
<p>to break you but to be the making of you. We are</p>
<p>often looked at as sadists or worse – as though</p>
<p>we get our kicks out of torturing the students. The opposite</p>
<p>is true.</p>
<p>The fun in teaching is seeing ideas take hold + minds</p>
<p>grow and develop.</p>
<p> The longer I teach the better I know one cannot</p>
<p>assess or prognose the future of the potential of</p>
<p>a student. A dullard may catch fire. If the demon</p>
<p>will can be set afire, the mind can be made to do</p>
<p>wonders. You are born again. To do this is to</p>
<p>find out who you are + what you are. You must be able to</p>
<p>slip out of your skin and take an objective look</p>
<p>at you + at the state of affairs in which you will be</p>
<p>projected.</p>
<p> Some believe it is better not to play a game</p>
<p>than to risk playing and losing. The only</p>
<p>way one improves his batting average is to play the</p>
<p>game more often.</p>
<p> This earthly life shifted of all the transient</p>
<p>frivolity is pretty frightening. We are born so</p>
<p>that we can die and death is frightfully final</p>
<p>to us earth men. Some people inclined many people</p>
<p>prefer to sit down, live quietly, + wait to their</p>
<p>name is called to board a bus to eternity. They</p>
<p>are the pitied. What do they ever really enjoy. How</p>
<p>many big moments do they ever have.</p>
<p>Living is more fun than anything. So for as we have</p>
<p>we only live one. The good Lord has probably put</p>
<p>more talent in you than you will ever discover. But</p>
<p>aren’t you curious to see how much you live.</p>
<p> Make up your mind to have one helluva worthwhile</p>
<p>time on this earth. Decide what you want to do + where</p>
<p>you want to be when you are 40 years old. There’s truth to</p>
<p>the old saying that in later life begins. Work now to</p>
<p>make the most of the later years.</p>
<p<br></p>
<p>[Page 4]</p>
<p<br></p>
<p> Every year you complete here w/ a creditable academic</p>
<p>average of 2.0 or better – you have banked $2,500</p>
<p>on your future education which you can cash in by fellowship</p>
<p>subsidization in grad school. Who can afford to throw</p>
<p>away $2,500 or a year of his life? Alas, how many do just that.</p>
<p> In planning for tomorrow your competitive senses</p>
<p>come to the fore. You want to achieve. There’s fun</p>
<p>in it even if you do not win every time. In</p>
<p>the beautiful cemetery at Lexington, Va. is an</p>
<p>epitaph on a spinster’s monument that reads:</p>
<p> “She did the best she could” And I bet she did.</p>
<p> I have thought about Mrs. Demarches? Beacon? almost</p>
<p>every day since I was touched by her magnificent</p>
<p>personality. I thought of her especially as I sat in the</p>
<p>great theatre of Oberammergau in 1960. An elderly</p>
<p>lady – I would say about 78 years old - sat beside me during</p>
<p>the afternoon portion of the performance. She entered +</p>
<p>sad down beside me in high spirits. She comforted the</p>
<p>lad lived to make this day come true. This was her great</p>
<p>moment. About 10 minutes after the performance had started I</p>
<p>cast a glance at the elderly lady only to see that she was fast</p>
<p>asleep. Truly for her, anticipation was greater than realization.</p>
<p>Her tired body just was not up to remaining awake. The</p>
<p>fun + the pleasure of seeing that she got herself to Oberammmergau</p>
<p>was the important thing – not the performance. The great moments</p>
<p>in one’s life are individually brief – few + far between for some – close</p>
<p>together for others – but collectively the great moments are</p>
<p>probably less than 00.01 percent of your conscious existence. Unless</p>
<p>somehow you learn how to get great joy out of uphill plugging</p>
<p>+ working toward some sense of goals life will be empty. The power is</p>
<p>within you to do what you will to do. If you can harness</p>
<p>that power to make it work for you You will have justified</p>
<p>your existence on this earth.</p>
<p> There is a power that is greater than you, this I</p>
<p>really believe. In 1954 I discovered a graduating senior had</p>
<p<br></p>
<p>[Page 5]</p>
<p<br></p>
<p>made off with some books belonging to the school. I was so upset</p>
<p>by this that I penned him a hot letter telling him what</p>
<p>I would do if he did not apologize + make amends by</p>
<p>promising never to do it again. Within 5 minutes of the</p>
<p>time I mailed that letter, Someone had me up in my own</p>
<p>attic delving in a trunk for something I forgot what —</p>
<p>but in the process I was confronted with possession</p>
<p>of a book that did not belong to me - one that I hastily</p>
<p>saw returned to its rightful place. There is a Power</p>
<p>that works for good in all of us. If one can access</p>
<p>his own talents and get them working in a competitive way</p>
<p>with the Power we cannot control but which controls us,</p>
<p>there is little we cannot do.</p>
<p> The great men of history have possessed a sense</p>
<p>of their histories being even as they lived. If</p>
<p>you tie your wagon to a star + work to reach the</p>
<p>goal you have set - you have given your life meaning</p>
<p>but perspective and some historicity – and in the</p>
<p>process if you do so I assure you that you will have</p>
<p>one helluva good time in the best sense of that</p>
<p>phrase.</p>
<p> BNC 12-14-64</p>
<p<br></p>
<p>[Page 6]</p>
<p<br></p>
<p>of our society and they are determined to reverse the</p>
<p>breakdown in individual personal concern for the individual</p>
<p>and his problems, ambitions, and beliefs.</p>
<p> Despite the campus unrest and needless violence, young people are</p>
<p>beginning to care for one another’s welfare. Many a thief, rogue</p>
<p>and murderer is socially</p>
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ms1973-004_B06_F07_UntitledSpeech_1964
Title
A name given to the resource
Untitled Speech
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1964-12-14
Description
An account of the resource
Untitled inspirational speech aimed at students within the geology program.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Speeches
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Ms1973-004, Box 6, Folder 7
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cooper, Byron Nelson, 1912-1971
Subject
The topic of the resource
Faculty
Geology
Local/Regional History and Appalachian South
Science and Technology
University History
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=oai/lib.vt.edu/repositories/2/resources/1279.oai_ead.xml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">See the finding aid for the Byron Nelson Cooper Papers</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<span>The copyright and related rights status of this Item has not been evaluated. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/CNE/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/?language=en</a></span>
Bibliographic Citation
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Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: [item], [box], [folder], Byron Nelson Cooper Papers, 1925-1971, Ms1973-004, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
Language
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English
Format
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pdf
Rights Holder
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Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech
archived