Welcome to the academic year 2015-2016 for Guiding Light Academy! After an enjoyable summer the students are all set for another exciting year! To celebrate the start of the new academic year, Guiding Light Academy has a new art piece hanging on our walls. The following is a letter from Abraham Lincoln to his son’s teacher on the first day of school.

A letter from Abraham Lincoln on his son’s first day of school

My son starts school today. It is all going to be strange and
new to him for a while and I wish you would treat him gently.
So dear Teacher, will you please take him by his hand and teach him things he will have to know, but gently, if you can.

Teach him that for every enemy, there is a friend.
For every scoundrel there is a hero, that for every crooked politician, there is a dedicated leader.

Teach him if you can that 10 cents earned is of far more value than a dollar found…
In school, teacher, it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat. Teach him to learn how to gracefully lose, and enjoy winning when he does win.

teach him if you can the wonders of books, but also give time to ponder the extreme mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hill.

Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him that his ideas are wrong. Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone else is doing it.

Teach him to listen to every one, but teach him also to filter all that he hears on a screen of Truth and take only the good that comes through.
Teach him to sell his talents and brains to the highest bidder but never to put a price tag on his heart and soul. Let him have the courage to be patient, let him have the patience to be brave.

Teach him to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind. Teach him gently, but do not cuddle him because only the test of fire makes steel.
This is the order, teacher but see what best you can do.
He is such a fine little fellow my son!