North Central High School - Tamarack Yearbook (Spokane, WA)

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THE r A M A R A C K Modern inventions are malting education more universal than ever before. The radio, especially, has become a means for instruction in the privacy of tlie home, Science, particularly chemistry, is daily oi)eninfr up new ideas. Art and music thrives as it never did before. On the other hand, learning means earning, but learning has replaced earning as our rul- ing passion. Books are better and more widely read than ever before. Today the education of the mas.ses is becoming more universal than it has been for many centuries. It was the com- mon belief that the lower classes were not to have any e lucation at all; today it is the urge of all intelligent .social workers to insist on the education of the lower classes. Political phil- osophers, from the time of ancient Greece down to the nineteenth century in England, have taught that the prosperity of society de- j)ended upon the existence within it of a large mass of ignorant poor. Such a belief today would be the height of ridiculousness. The period of immaturity has lengthened so that this generation is greatly enriched by the experiences and achievements of all the past. As civilization becomes richer and more com- plex, the time devoted to education naturally becomes longer. THK FUTURE AND YOU It is a known fact that man has long been, and always will be, in search of a mythical state of being called happiness. We have learned from psychology that man ' s existence depends upon his urges, his inclinations and his desires. U ' hen he has satisfied all these urges, he has a so-called contented feeling. He has reached a state of happiness. Picture the Neanderthal man, his wants were few, only .something to eat and a skin to throw over him, but today our status of living has instilled in us countless new wants and desires, some of them very artificial. Four years of high school education has awakened in most of us new desires and new urges. We are in quest of a newer state of happiness than the one we had when we were younger. In our infant stage it took only a rattle, something to eat at regular intervals and sleep, to make us contented. Today our minds have developed to a stage where we must have greater moral, physical and spirit- ual things to make us happy. Tomorrow we will need even gre.iter things as our lives be- come more complicated to make us satisfied. When we have left our high .school life, and have ventured ui)on a new life, we find that others before us have created for us new- wants. Our biggest need is to build for our- selves a life work that will provide for us. Thus far our schooling has helped to guide us toward a vocation that will be a credit to us in the future. In the days to come the seniors who arc graduating will have need of this foundation on which to build their castle of happiness. AN KNO AND A BEGINNING Four years ago this graduating class of .January 1930 entered this building as fresh- men. During this period of time we have at- tained many distinctions and many honors, both physical and mental. Our acquaintances and friends have been increa.sed, and our lives have been made richer because of them. Learning was our chief interest. The aim of every student was to take with him when he graduated the gleamings of the crop ... a buried treasure of knowledge that he was to find in books with the help of his teachers. Although we will be scattered in all corners of the earth in just a few years after gradua- tion, and although our ranks will be thinned consi derably, there will always be our inner eyes to look back upon the scenes we lived through in our high school years. Memory is the one thing that will keep all of us united. Our dijilomas will start us on a life vastly different than the last four years. For a while there will be that feeling of lost souls, a long- ing to be back with the ones we loved and admired. .As time goes on many other activi- ties will call our attentions. Countless hundreds of successful business men and women have come from the ranks of North Central ' s .sen- iors. Our futures lie in the hands of fate to decide upon, and we can only hope that our lives will be as successful as tho.sc before us. We will have ended a high school career, to start anew, after our graduation. To tho.sc we leave behind, we wish all the success in the world, and as a final tribute to the teachers who h.ive helped us to struggle through these four years of learning, we can only .say Thank You. [36]

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THE TAMARACK THE TAMARACK Published semi-annually by a staff seU-cted from the graduating class EDITORIAL STAFF CHAKLES CAMPBELL EDITOR IX CHIEF FRANCES JONES ASSOCIATE EDITOR MAX WEBER ASSOCIATE EDITOR CARL CARBON SPORTS EDITOR ERNEST E. GREEN FACULTY DIRECTOR Beatrice White Editorials Dorothy Jacobs Calendar Marjorie Rhodes Calendax Bertha George Humor Roberta Shanks Girls ' Sports, Clubs Lucille Sommer Girls ' Sports, Clubs Mary Ellen Floyd Music and Dramatics Leamae Cantrell Debate BUSINESS STAFF DAVID WOLFESTONE CIRCULATION MANAGER GERALD RUBENS CIRCULATION MANAGER PAUL BRYNILDSON ADVERTISING MANAGER THOMAS MUTCH ADVERTISING MANAGER JANUARY WSQ LIFE ' S IDEALS Van Dyke, the eminent writer, describes an ideal as a fixed purpose by which from time to time you can steer your life. Man holds the key to his every situation, and has within himself the ))Ower by which he may make himself what he wills. How often, though, are we influenced by some other per- son ' s power. In some one we have read about or have known in our lives, there has been, or is, something, some characteristic, that may in- fluence our lives grreatly. As freshmen in high school, we desired to have the dignity of a senior. As seniors, we were helped to remodel our lives by some other persons. And so it is through life, just one ideal after another. Somehow we contrive and struggle to reach the same heights of personal magnitude of the person who impresses us. If our ideal is one of the worthy type, so do our lives mould in that form of citizenry. As an example take the character of the boy in Hawthorne ' s Great Stone Face. The ideals themselves probably never guess of the lasting impre.ssions that they have left on the idealist. Perha] s you yourself are some one ' s ideal. Some one may be looking to you for an inspiration for life. If we could only know of such a thing, perhaps our lives would be different; better ones, maybe. It would be wise for many of us to re- member that one ' s success in life may depend ujwn the character he ))icks as his ideal. LEARNING VERSUS EARNING Institutions of learning have brought the younger generation of totiay nearer than it has ever been for a decade to an observance of the bill of rights; free education, free speech, a free press and freedom of worship. But it is not altogether with the younger generation that such improvements are being made; the older folks have taken it up too. Millions of grown-ups, having decided that they don ' t have to stop their education just be- cause they can no longer go to school or col- lege, are returning to many institutions for adults. Here in Spokane we have some excel- lent examples. [34]

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THE TAMARACK Black Mask First Prize Story By Charles A. Vedder James Marley leaned back in his chair with a contented smile. He was famous as the most popular fiction author of the day. He was equally famous as the Black Masked Bandit. The reason for his double life was his love of danger and excitement. As an author, he commanded a large income, so that it was not for money that he robbed, but for the enjoy- ment of matching his wit against one of the cleverest detectives in the world, Alexander Parker. Parker had worked on the series of amaz- ing robberies known to have been committed by the Black Masked Bandit, for seven months and he was still as far from a solution as when he had started. The greatest diffi- culty in tracing the Black Masked Bandit was that he never used the same methods twice. It was a well known fact that he never carried a gun. James Marley smiled again as he thought of the work before him that night, and he re- read the article he had been studying. It stated that Mr. Bartholinew was to give his wife the famous Craiz Pearls that night in celebration of their wedding anniversary; that the noted detective, Alexander Parker, who had brought the pearls over from England, would be a guest. Marley never kept anything in his rooms that would reveal his identity as a bandit. He kept his loot, clothes and tools in a different apartment under a different name. Going to the.se apartments, he dressed in his usual man- ner. Over his black evening suit, he wore a black top coat. With black silk gloves and mask in his pocket he set out for the Barthol- mew hou.se. The house was a large colonial type with many windows, each of which Mar- ley knew would be electrically wired. After circling the house twice, M.irley found that the servants ' door was unguarded. This was not unusual because it was several hours too early for the guests to arrive. Slipping quietly into the house, he made his way to the library, unobserved. He had scarcely concealed himself behind .some heavy draperies by the window, when Alexander Parker and Mr. Bartholmew entered the room, the former carrying the case of pearls. Parker was speaking. We ' ll put these in the safe, although I don ' t think there is any danger. The safe is over there behind that picture, replied Mr. Bartholmew. As Parker opened the safe, Marley carefully observed the combination through his smdl but ])owerful opera glass. Having put the pearls in the safe, Parker and Bartholmew smoked and talked for a long time, possibly an hour and a half or two hours. Meanwhile Marley had grown tired of waiting, and, reaching backward, raised the window. In- stantly an alarm bell rang. Parker and Bar- tholmew rushed from the room and through the house looking for an open window. Mar- ley, having donned gloves and mask, bounded lightly across the room, moved the picture, spun the dials of the safe, and vanished through the window with Bartholmew ' s pearls. Parker and Bartholmew, having gone through all the rooms, returned to the library dumbfounded, for the bell was still ringing. Look, the safe! cried Bartholmew. On the dial of the open safe hung a black silk mask. Black Ma.sk ! gasped Parker. How about the window in this room? asked Bartholmew. Flinging back the draperies, Parker found the window wide open. Black Mask had been in the same room with them for two hours ! The next morning, Parker called on his friend Bartholmew. It is clear that we will never catch Black Ma.sk by trying to trace him after the crime has been committed, Parker told his friend. He must be caught red-handed, agreed Bartholmew. 136]