Blog Post #3

     Today in class we took some notes off of the powerpoint on Excellence. Originally "A Message to Garcia" was published as an inspirational essay in March 1899. It was reprinted as a pamphlet and sold over 40 million copies and was in 37 languages. It was made into a movie two times, once in 1916 and another time in 1936. "Take a message to Garcia" became a popular slang word to do what your told without asking questions and is still used sometimes in the military today. The time period was the Spanish War. Garcia was a revolutionary seeking independence from Spain. Rowan was an army officer (West Point class of 1881). The president at the time was William McKinley who was assassinated six months into his second term by an anarchist. The tallest mountain in North America was renamed after him, until 2015 which is when it went back to its original name "Denali". We also learned the definitions of the words perihelion, slipshod, imbecility, stenographer, and missive. Another word learned was the word arete which is the Greek word for excellence. It means excellence of any kind, moral virtue, fulfillment of purpose or function, but mostly... the act of living up to ones FULL POTENTIAL. Those are most of the notes we took in class today.