A Message to Garcia

Address delivered to LCS faculty and staff on 18 Aug 2025

When Mr. Schaffer texted me and asked if I would read or recite the essay A Message to Garcia for the staff training, I was too quick to say YES.

I said YES before I remembered there were 200+ of you… And before I remembered, I have an accent. In a way, I said YES to the mission in the same way Rowan says, “Yes, sir” to President McKinley’s task to deliver his letter to Garcia.

Why? To begin to understand my reasoning, you would need to be the best therapist in the city. Nonetheless, I am going to explain as best I can why A Message to Garcia has changed the way I live my life and the way I train both student leaders and the students in my classes.

It was during my second year working at Liberty I came face to face with a moment that would change my position within the school. I would go from being a part-time teacher who had barely any idea of what was happening in the school, teaching her two classes and her after-school program and calling it a good day, to a teacher who is fully engaged in her school community to the point of needing a freezer full of ice cream in her room… for my students, obviously.

I was on my lunch duty, about a month into teaching at the high school, and I saw this girl sitting on the floor, right at the line to leave lunch and go back to class. There were still 20 minutes of lunch left. I told her we still had plenty of time for her to go chat with her friends. She looked at me with that teenage expression that lets you know you know nothing and said, “I have no friends." I tried to encourage her to “talk to anyone! All of the kids are really friendly." Let’s just say, it did not go well. The same day, I asked a boy who was one of our new students, “how are you liking the school?  How is it going?” He was unable to answer me, tears filled his eyes, and he just shook his head at me. I felt awful.

The next day, I came early and looked around the lunchroom.  There were so many kids sitting by themselves, not talking to anyone. The whole place seemed a little miserable.

I figured I ought to march right into Mr. Schaffer’s office and let him know that, in our second year as a high school, the new students to Liberty were not making friends and looked pretty miserable. I must admit I was pretty clueless as to what a principal’s job was, or how much of it there was, so I assumed the captain of the ship would immediately come to the rescue. Now, no offense to Mr. Schaffer, but he gave me that look that says a lot even when words are not coming out. He held the look, and then he said, “and what are you going to do about it?” I am sure I babbled a dumb excuse and left.

I decided I ought to go to the next VIP in our school, Mrs. Stoltzfus. Again, I did not know how much was already on her plate, but I assumed a Dean of Students must do everything to care for students. She did not give me the look, she gave me a promise. She said, “whatever you decide to do, I will support and help you." Again, I had no clear orders from my superiors. They said, “Yes, we see the problem, we need a solution, find it!”

I did. I guilted students in my classes to participate in this new peer program we would call the Ambassadors Club. We called meetings with the new students, we asked about their issues, we paired them up, and we forced the awkwardness to leave the school, little by little.

You see, most of the students at this point had been at Liberty since they were in kindergarten. They did not know how to be social with new people. Yes, believe it or not, we were a way, way, way weirder and more socially awkward community back then.

Ambassadors evolved to work together in serving the school community, veterans, parents, etc. You see, I realized once you present individuals with the idea of “what are you going to do about it?” they rise to the occasion. They show up.

The same year, during our professional-training day, Mr. Schaffer shared an essay that would fully show me the way.

 

A Message to Garcia was written by Elbert Hubbard in 1899. This short essay has been reprinted millions of times, because, although it’s set during the Spanish-American War, it deals with something bigger — initiative, reliability, and doing the work that matters.

The essay tells the story of Lt. Andrew Rowan, a U.S. Army officer entrusted with the nearly impossible task of delivering a message from President McKinley to General Calixto García, who was somewhere in the mountain strongholds of Cuba—no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President had to secure his cooperation, and quickly.

Without asking for more instructions, without hesitating or seeking recognition, Rowan took the message and completed his mission with quiet resolve and unwavering duty.

Hubbard’s essay honors the kind of person who can be trusted to carry out a task with integrity. Someone who doesn’t wait to be micromanaged or told what to do next. It celebrates initiative, personal responsibility, and the ability to follow through.

I would like to read to you a few excerpts from the text.

Hubbard says the following about the idea of taking action.

“The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to García; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, ‘Where is he at?’ By the Eternal! There is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land.”

The way I see it, at Liberty, our “Garcia” is student learning and growth. Yes, we need to uphold the curriculum and its rigor. We need to make sure students are truly learning and do everything in our power to ensure they are. But at the same time, we need to help them grow into citizens who contribute to our communities. We need to rejoice in guiding them in their virtuous growth as much as their academic growth if we truly wish them to live "the good life." We want them to leave LCS with wisdom, allowing them to seek the truth, the beauty, the good, and the perfect in their lives. And, just like Rowan, we don’t always get perfect instructions on how to do this. The path isn’t always the clearest. But our role is to act — to move forward, to do what needs to be done for students, for the school community.

Hubbard goes on to say, “It is not book learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do the thing — “Carry a message to García!”

This is exactly what we want for Liberty students — not just to memorize, not just to pass a test, but to develop resilience, initiative, and character. Our job is to model this by showing students how to face challenges and figure it out. If we can see an issue and be independent enough to find a possible solution, it is our duty to act on it. However, acting on it will lead to more problems needing your solutions. I know this from experience just like many of you.

During our first few years at the high school, Mr. Schaffer often said “we are flying the plane while building it." Back then, some days, every seat on the plane was calling for the flight attendant, and we were losing engines! We all had to be pilots of our rows; we all had to be the eyes of the captain when flying. I feel we are now also at a point at which our school has grown tremendously. We have lots of planes in the air, and our traffic-control tower cannot always have eyes everywhere.  We need to make sure we are all doing our part. We are all sitting on the exit row and we have all said, "YES, I can assist during emergencies." So the message to Garcia is truly to me, a call I have answered. The call said, “you can see something you don’t like, and you can ask questions, you can complain, you can ignore it also, or you can do something about it.”

I particularly love this part of Hubbard’s essay that says,

“You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office—six clerks are within call. Summon

any one and make this request: “Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio.” 

Will the clerk quietly say, “YES, sir,” and go do the task?

On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions: 

Who was he?

Which encyclopedia?

Where is the encyclopedia?

Was I hired for that?

Don’t you mean Bismarck?

What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?

Is he dead?

Is there any hurry?

Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?

What do you want to know for?

And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Correggio and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the law of average, I will not.

Now if you are wise, you will not bother to explain to your “assistant” that Correggio is indexed under the Cs, not in the Ks, but you will smile sweetly and say, “Never mind,” and go look it up yourself.”

The difference for us is if we don’t train students to be self-sufficient, no matter how much we make them memorize things, no matter how much knowledge we try to engrave in their brains, they will not become the type of person who can take a letter to Garcia. So, how do we do this then? The answer is simple, enacting it is not. We become the people who can take a letter to Garcia. We learn to embody dedication. If we model initiative and resilience, students learn to do the same — they learn to also become leaders who find solutions, not excuses.

This essay is not about avoiding questions. It’s about asking only the questions that truly need an answer or approval. It is about finding the way. It is about being creative. It is about using everything in our power to do better and then telling the big bosses we have a solution.

I want to add a short anecdote exemplifying what happens when you teach young people to take a letter to Garcia. And since it is my last year, I figured it is time.

Maybe eight years ago or so, I was in school painting duck hats purple for our upcoming Order-Induction Ceremony.  After a while, I felt a little weird, but I was alone in my classroom during my off period. The next period was a very small sixth-period class. I had an Instructional assistant in that class. As soon as she walked into my room, she goes, “what happened to you?” I asked her why she was asking, and she said, “look at your lips."  When I did, I realized I looked like a Kardashian. My upper lip was particularly twice the size. It looked like I had had fillers put in, and it had gone wrong. I had to go home. I talked to the front office. I asked one of my colleagues who had eighth period off to cover my class. I left everything ready, and I went and found my eighth-period instructional assistant and I asked him to help the kids if they had questions from the study guide.

Around 4:00PM the same day I received an email. This boy asks how I am doing and adds, “who was supposed to come cover your class?” I literally panicked. To which, then, my husband panicked. I texted my colleague, and she says, “Shoot, sorry, I forgot!”

I was sure I was going to be in big trouble. I asked my IA what happened. He promptly emailed me back saying he had sent someone with attendance downstairs, and then, he had led the class in checking answers on the whiteboard. He added that they had corrected and they all understood. I asked if any other adult had shown up or if anyone had misbehaved.  He said no. I told them you had to leave because of your allergic reaction, so they were all working well. He then apologized for not thinking they needed to have an adult in the room. I asked my colleagues in the classrooms next door if they had heard anything out of normal and they said no.

And that’s my story of when I taught a whole class without being there.

This is the most extreme. But like this one, I have so many other stories. I have stories of leaders like last year's School Captains, both Order leaders, both leaders in IA for me, or Ambassadors. Both have done so many amazing things for our school community.

So… I would like to read one last section of Hubbert’s essay, it goes like this…

“My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the “boss” is away as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for García, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets “laid off,” nor has to go on a strike for higher wages.

Civilization is one long, anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town, and village—in every office, shop, store, and factory. The world cries out for such; he is needed, and needed badly—the man who can carry a message to García.”

Initiative and dedication may be rare in the world, but not in this room. Initiative and dedication are exactly what schools need most. Every time we go the extra mile, every time we take ownership, every time we “carry the message to Garcia” for a child — we are shaping a generation that will do the same. So, my challenge to us, as a teaching community, is this: When the path isn’t clear, when the challenge seems overwhelming, when the next step isn’t written out for us — let’s be like Rowan. Let’s carry the message to Garcia. Not just for ourselves, but to show our students what true initiative looks like, so they too can become leaders who find a way.

Thank you.