Ann Arbor High School - Omega Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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CZlPiQQ Ureiliimri- Upd':'rs5 Act, BY CHARLES WV. RIOKETTS. MY CLASSMATES: - A 7. GREET you to-day, in the last hours of our existence as a M high school class, not with tearful eyes and with sickness at heart, but with the thought that this is the beautiful, bloom- .ing spring-time of our existence, not with lamentation over our past lives and with fearful forebodings for our welfare in days to come, but with the thought that there is a prize at which we are all aiming, and that there is one platform, and only one, on which all men can meet, and the more power and' goodness we have within us, the more nearly shall we come into possession of this. Every human being has a ust right to this prize, and 'in the pursuitw- which is not a chase after a phantom-like something and is not a utopian project-no one impedes his neighbor. Every aspirant, by his success in the race, helps his -competitors. Since this prize is the high point of aspiration in each man in accordance with his natural tendency, and since its true basis is virtue, let us call it Greatness. How best attain this? I think you will all bear me out in saying by means of -an upright performance of every duty at hand. The nineteenth century is pre-eminently an age of action, an -age of development, an age of advancement in every way. And we can expect nothing less of that century on whose threshold we shall step in another decade. It may be asked what is the cause of the great advancement of the present century. Every- body knows the answer. It will stand boldly forth for all time that universal intelligence and free thought are the

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l?rezsialelnl:'5 Flalalressy- l.i... 1...... THOMAS ' E. GOODRICH. My CLASSMATES: HE hour has come when each of us can say, I have fought the good fight, I have finished my courseff How gladly would I stay the hands of Time and grant to us a new lease of the pleasant school days that are so soon to close! But, alas! I cannot. r If there have been storms which threatened us, they have been safely over-ridden and have only served to show our true character and to bind us more closely together. And although old Time will not be appeased but insists that in a few short hours from now we- must grasp each other's hands and say fare- well, I am confident that as we go away to engage in other and, perhaps, more arduous duties, the glimpses of things higher and nobler that we have had here, and the inspiration to strive for them which we have gained from association with each other, will go with us and will incite us to honest work and greater exertion in the future. Fate may separate us, but in pleasant memories, in warm friendships, in the kindly interest we shall have in one another, the class of '90 will never cease to exist. - The class of '90 will continue, and in the future, as in the d3YS just past, will prove the truth of our excellent motto, Sapzcns qui Assiduusf' -

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granite blocks out of which the nineteenth centurylbuilds its impregnable fortresses against the inroads of everything that is not for the advancement and upbuilding of the human race. What is the claim of the age upon us? To act, to move, to rise, to do, to surmount, to leap to the highest pinnacle of grand and noble lives-all are incumbent upon us and are indispensa- ble to the attainment of the object of the Eternal One in the creation of man. 'Tis sometimes said that industry begets ease. Yet is it not a beautiful thought to us in our earlier years to know that, when we shall have reached that proverbial number - that point which marks the beginning of second childhood- three score and ten, and the hoary locks begin to appear on our temples, we shall pass our reclining years free from the hurry and incessant toil of the world? It is a thought which should be a great incentive to us who are just on the brink of life's great sea. Is it true that they who have genius need not work? We who have been delving into the various branches of learning for the past four years can bear ample evidence to the fact that they who have genius are the 'most willing to work. 'Tis not what man does that exalts him but what he would do. Though men may act faithfully, yet the betterment of the world is not attained in a day. The conclusion which a youth reaches on leaving school for the last time is evidence of this. His blood is warm and his heart beats strong in sympathy for suffering humanity. He feels that with his generation the world is entering a new epoch and will soon be reformed and brought near millennial conditions. It seems to him as if until now all mankind has stood still, but is now buckling on its armor to right wrongs, and he is prepared to do his part. He works hard and effectually, but as the years wear on he finds that he is only like a great multitude who have gone before, that all y men have been working for the beneit of mankind, and that things go faster now than of old 5 still in con- . i n of mankind he must talk of centuries mstead of years. Thus he learns that he who works for the en is only a worker' with the great and good of the past and the present, who have learned to labor and to wait. lVhere is the man who thinks that all the neces- SHTY good for the world has been attained? I ask, is the paSff through the centur sidering the elevatio good of his fellow m