User:Dc.samizdat/sandbox/Peninsula School

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"So easily does tradition seize us in its grip and close over the open mind! The radical of today becomes the conservative of tomorrow and nothing is easier than to slip into the self-satisfied complacent belief that what we have once decided to do is the pattern for all time. We can be forgiven our orderliness, but never the taming of the free spirit of inquiry, nor the loss of enthusiasm, nor the dimming of the vital spark of faith in our free ideals."

The twin existential questions the school's continued existence poses are the two all democracies must grapple with forever: how can a progressive institution survive without preserving its honored traditions, those of democracy foremost, from newer (or older) ideas that always arise claiming to be progress? Progress away from the utopian ideal must be resisted, in good times and bad, no matter how well-intentioned it is. But at the same time, can a progressive institution even be said to have survived, if it has ceased to progress? Progress toward the utopian ideal must be pursued, in good times and bad, no matter how inconvenient it is. As the founding mother of the school Duvenek wrote, we must never honor our past so much that we make the mistake of thinking we are perfect, and that what we have achieved is already close to our utopian ideal.