Central High School - Red and Black Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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MISSISSIPPI I.- THE GREAT RIVER, painted by Frederick Odkes Sylvester lflP77l67TLl7PT?.77g F verleriel' Oakes Sylvesterj llow hold a river nnfler ribs of stone or limn in elzrome and elays its rest and roving? Its moving maze too swzftfor .s'n'zfter. loving words to hymn its days that drift alone? To wateh the ivanflerer while the eolor flriesq to round the word, lzemming the heart a minute, anfl while the minute slirles, the eolor dies, leaving so little of the river in it: so little of the lllississippi, snreh afaint light fading from the mucldiecl mirror. The living river slips its easy touch and oozes past the watcher and hearer. Herman Salinger, Clentral, ,2-I? Courtesy of Poetry, A lllagazinc of Verse. The author, a prolessor in the University of 'Wisconsin, once editor of the RED AND BLACK, tells us that he wrote this poem i as his train, carrying him north, moved along beside the lordly river, reminding him oi the mural, The Great River, painted by Sylvester Conce art teacher at Centralb over the rostrum of his Alma Mater, the old Grand Avenuebuildinq. FRCDNTISPIECE

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JIE RED AND BLACK Senior Annual Volume XXIV 1941 Theme TG THE CGLGRS By the mighty Mississippi Sweeping to the sea, Stands our glorious Alma Mater, Stands perpetually. --First stanza, THE LOYAL SONG by Cl ren e Stratton g ,. t N X . xs,,:...,g1 A X . Q gift in A W t ' sw

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TRIBUTE Mabel Olmstead had abounding zest for life. Her capacity for appre- ciation was almost unique, and her enthusiasm readily communicated. Her enjoyment of the world about her was contagious to a rare degree. I believe that these gifts more than anything else made her the wonder- ful teacher that she was. She was so eagerly interested in people, whether they appeared in real life or in the pages of the history that she taught. She saw them all with humor and understanding. Her scholarship was of the sort that always remains alive. She loved to travel - to know the backgrounds at first handy and her students benefited incalculably because of her wide acquaintance with the countries that they studied in her classes. While I was a student in Europe, it was my good fortune to make a number of excursions with 'tM. O. during her vacations, in England and in Italy. I saw surely more than twice as much as I should have seen alone. Everywhere delightful experiences of the kind usually missed by the average traveller came our way. She seemed to know by intuition just where to go - and when -- and what to see. And after any particularly fortunate event or discovery, she would laughingly boast, We manage well! Years afterwards she would recall countless entertaining incidents of those trips, many of which I had quite forgotten. It was a joy to have them brought to life again by her clear memory. The memory for interesting or amusing detail was one of the faculties that made her students look forward to her classes with a rare eager- ness. Most of us have had some otherwise dull period in history made real and stimulating to us by her vivid anecdotes in connection with it. But for all the pleasures of being in Miss-Olmstead's classes, none of her former students will fail to remember what standards were set for them there. Hers were no snap courses. We realized in her rigid requirements and in her impatience with slipshod work the integrity of her scholarship. Here again, just as her enthusiasm was contagious, so her keenness of thought somehow-stirred our pedestrian wits. It was an exhilarating experience. The feeling that we all had about her mind and character might be summed up in a remark so often repeated that it became almost a proverb among Central High students of my day: If Miss Olmstead were a man - she would be President. I think that we somehow felt that she spoke with the voice of au- thority in a time when it was already becoming the habit of many teachers to offer their students theories and opinions instead of avowals of belief. The great tolerance that was one of her most outstanding characteristics was built upon good humor and perspective, and went hand in 'hand with her great strength of conviction. What a rare and wonderful combination of qualities! Miss Olmstead's ideal was good citizenship. She felt deeply her own responsibility as a member of a democracy: and in her mind the train- ing of students for sharing that responsibility was paramount. A member of the present Central High School faculty writes me that most of the old guard teachers still at Central, as well as many of the newer teachers who had learned to know Mabel Olmstead, regarded her as the finest teacher there. One man said, That corner fthe left back corner of the faculty roomj will never seem right to me again without Miss Olmstead there, sitting straight and attentive and keeping watch over the best interests ot the students in all that was said and done. They don't make many of her pattern any more. Wzffefuf 4fwC0 Five