Adrian High School - Sickle Yearbook (Adrian, MI)

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3 hitnrial - HIS is Volume XVII of the annual SENIOR SICKLE of the Adrian High School. Finally it is finished. The last proofs have been read. The last copy has been set up, and now it is in your hands, kind friends. VVe fully realize that it is not perfect. Nothing perfect is ever attained, if the ideal that one reaches after is high enough. We could very easily make excuses for its defects and likewise praise its commendable features. But it is not necessary, and furthermore it would do no good. The one who has the task of editing such an annual as this will neces- sarily meet with many diliiculties and have many obstacles to overcome. In securing the information he desires to make his book interesting and worth while, he is bound frequently to have his motives misinterpreted. But, as we said before, these things are inevitable, and it is the editor's duty to succeed in spite of them. How well we have succeeded, kind reader, is for you to judge, but in making your decision, bear in mind the following facts: In a school the size of Adrian High School, if the editor is a live wire, he must necessarily give a considerable amount of his time to some of the other numerous activities of the school. Then his daily recitations, which, after all, should be given the major part of any students time, must not be neglected. So one can clearly see that no editor of a High School annual can give his undivided attention to the workg in fact, it must occupy a second place in his mind and in his time. There is another thing that we attempted to do in editing this annual, which it is well nigh impossible to accomplish. Vtfe have endeavored to publish it at a less cost and yet not materially lessen its value or in any way reduce the quality of the book. We believe that weihave succeeded in doing this in a small measure, not through our own efforts entirely. but with the aid given us by Mr. Gallup, our principal, and the printer, publisher and binder of the book. VVe take this opportunity to thank them for their advice and to express our appreciation to all those who aided us in any way.

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COE SMITH RUTH CONNELY DOROTHY SPRAGUE N MARY MILLS T MABLE cnown W. HAROLD CORNELIUS GER ALDINE CREENWA LD BLANCHE WELLHAUSER DELILA JUDD F L L HENRY G. HOCH

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RECENTLY a professor in one of our leading universities said that if something wasn't done in the immediate future to stop the growth of the pernicious evil, cigarette smoking, among the boys and young men of today, that in the next two generations American manhood would no longer stand at the head of the world. One who has given the matter little thought can- not realize the vast hold tobacco has upon the youth of today. It is an ap- palling fact, but nevertheless true, that in nearly every one of the leading high schools of the state fully fifty per cent of the students use tobacco in some form. And the form that is most prevalent is cigarette smoking. Of course, the reason that cigarettes are used among the boys more than any other form of tobacco is that there is less nicotine taken directly into the body in smoking them than in smoking anything else. But every- one knows that is nothing in favor of cigarettes, as it is due to this very fact that such a large number are used by the boys. It is not my purpose to treat of the physiological evils of cigarette smoking. Volumes by more competent persons have already been written upon that subject, and any person today who stands up and claims that cigarette smoking is unharmful is casting a very serious refiection upon his own intelligence. The big problem today is how to remedy the evil. Much has already been written upon this subject also, and many ways and means of checking the evil have been expounded by different reformers. All of these, after having been tried, have met with more or less indifferent success. It has been my pleasure while in the local high school to go through two or three anti-cigarette campaigns, and it is my honest opinion at the present time, based upon what I have seen and heard while being closely associated with my schoolmates, that no permanent result nor permanent good has been accomplished by those campaigns. There -is no use in trying to cure any disease or remedy any evil until you first remove the thing that causes that disease or evil. It is generally admitted and likewise deplored that in the hurry and scurry of the twentieth century life the home is being neglected. Time is at a premium, and father and mother do not have any of it to waste. After the boy has partially grown up and reached the age of fourteen or fifteen, where he is out of the nurse's care, he receives all too little attention from his parents. He comes home from school in the afternoon and finds the house deserted. Father is at the office working, and mother is either doing the same thing or paying a society call to some neighbor. XVhat does the healthy, normal boy do, who loves friends and companions? VVhy, he goes down town. the most natural thing in the world. Here he meets some of