Chester High School - Flamstead Challenge Yearbook (Chester, VT)

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FLAMSTEAD CHALLENGE telligent citizens for the protection of the democracy and to give all the children a chance to rise in the world. But after a hundred years of practice under this idea, education had encountered the distress of a depression. Millions of individuals, who were well trained, now found no chance to employ their talents. Soon people began asking the question: What can education do to keep the government from being disrupted now and then, bringing injury to the young, and to the republic? How could people take part wisely in government without having a knowledge of govern' ment and its work? Those who took part in the Revolutionary War knew that their education, formal and informal, had served them well in the days of the Revolution and in the work of setting up a new government As democracy grew into power, the lamp of learning grew brighter, and the darkness of illiteracy and ignorance was being lifted from the land. The American people were beginning to learn how to live by learning. Education was becoming a great national interest. Give everybody a chance to study anything he likes as long as he can, became an educational slogan, and it seemed to fit into the democratic theory of liberty and opportunity for all. A program of education was set up for the youths, not to serve such ends as the organization of the young people was made to serve in Europe under dictators, but to give the pupils a more realistic knowledge of the nation and the world. The main function of the new program was to prepare the pupils for promoting wiser and more effective co' operation among nations. . By the opening of the nineteenth century, education had taken that course. Pupils were becoming acquainted with the problems confronting the nation, with the history of human experience, and with thought about American questions. In short, students were preparing to take a broad and sound view on national questions. Americans took up the problems of the new age and were trying to deal with them. Even though the United States still has over four million illicerates, education has made a great advancement. When intelligence tests were applied to recruits for the Hrst World War, an astonishing lack of ability was shown, and a call went out for increased activity in education. Only 3.5 per cent of the soldiers in World War I had completed four years of high school. In this war 23.3 per cent have received high school diplomas. At this time, more than ever before the world needs all the aid which education can render. Everyone realizes that the main pillars of democracy are education and strength of character. These qualities are necessary to develop the kind of attitudes and habits the democratic process requires. The reason for education in a free country is not to teach people how to get rich or how to get power, but to preserve their freedom-freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of worship and freedom of speech. For instance, freedom of speech does not mean much unless we have something to say, or know how to think and have a mind of our own. After this crisis is over, education is going to have an important role in the postwar world. Plans will have to be made for peace, reconstruction and employment. These are difficult problems to handle, and cannot be carried through wisely and successfully without the careful and intelligent planning on the part of educated people. After the last war, President Woodrow Wilson made an effort to convert thc American people to the League of Nations idea. But the case for internationalism was presented too briefly and too late, and the United States withdrew into isolationism.

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FLAMSTEAD CHALLENGE away can be replaced by a new one. These new nerves are taken from people who have donated their bodies to the spare parts banks. These nerves are immediately frozen and then dehydrated under high vacuum. 'Cartilage is one of the most essential factors in plastic surgery. You have all heard stories of soldiers on the battlefront losing an ear or parts of a nose or lips and having them made to look like new through the wonders of plastic surgery. Cartilage under refrigeration can be kept in the spare parts bank in a sterile container filled with a saline solution. No longer is infantile paralysis the dread disease that it has been in the past. Sister Kenny, an Australian nurse, has given us the theory that polio cases become crippled because of the inactivity of the muscles during spasm. Hitherto the victims were placed in casts, thus giving no chance for activity. Under the Kenny treatment the limbs are left free but inactive, the spasm and pain are relieved with hot packs, and then simple muscle training is started. In Minneapolis there is the Michael Dowling School for Crippled Children-a public school for children who are so badly crippled they cannot very well attend the regular schools. In Minneapolis in three years there were a hun' dred seventyfeight poliofstricken children. They were treated by the old method and fiftyfseven, of them were later enrolled in the Michael Dowling School. For the same period of time ninetyfone children were treated with the Kenny method and not one of them needed to attend the Michael Dowling School. This war is not like any other war we have fought. It affects the minds of the soldiers sometimes far more than their bodies. We hope that this will be the war fought to procure a permanent peace. Many advances in science and medicine have been made during this struggle which will make this a better world in, which to live. Third Honor Essay EDUCATION AS A FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE JOYCE SLADE, 1945 What is education? I think all of us will agree that education is the development of the talents and faculties of mind, body and spirit. The goal of education is sound character and trained intelligence. These possessions are valuable in any political order and are possessions that will keep us free. We all realize that education is the way of progress, and is one of the chief pursuits of every wise man. In a democratic government like ours, that rests upon the will of the people, it is tremendously important that education is broad and general. The progressive nations of the world today have seen to it that most of their people can at least read and write. In the countries of northern and western Europe, not more than one in a hundred of the entire population is illiterate. In the United States, people have probably talked more about education than any other country in the world, and yet we still have over four million illiterates. At each great period in American history, the purpose of education in schools and colleges had been redefined by pioneer thinkers. This was done after the estab' lishment of the republic. The purpose of schools, it was then said, was to create in-

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FLAMSTEAD CHALLENGE This time the State Department, through an intensive educational campaign, is making sure the American people thoroughly understand world organization for world peace and what our participation in it will mean. Americans are faced with the greatest opportunity that has ever confronted a gen' eration in the history of our nation. Failure to grasp this opportunity might well mean calamity to generations to come, to our nation as a whole, and perhaps to the entire world. Grave dangers will overtake the American people in the World of Tomorrow if they do not seriously begin to accept their responsibilities of citizenship today. Attention is being brought to the fact that great changes are taking place in the world and education should contribute to make those changes benencial. Unless social thinking can more nearly keep pace with scientific progress which continues to be made year after year, how can we prevent unemployment and also wars which will be inf creasingly destructive? But if we greatly increase our efforts to develop our social thinking, if we devote more time to studying, discussing, and attempting to understand the changes and problems which accompany progress, we can achieve greater comfort, wellfbeing and security than mankind has ever attained. It is the choice of Danger vs. Opportunity-to give more time to the study and discussion of the great national and international problems of our day, which is our great responsibility. In our country, we all hope that in future, all young people will sacrifice for their education, to preserve this nation with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Then, this democracy shall never perish from the earth. Are You An American Autumn had come and it was the last of the season. Thanksgiving was only two days away and the families throughout the town were busy planning for the holiday. The village market had a display of turkey gobblers in its showcase. The frosts had turned the once green fields into brown patches, ridged and inter' mixed with bleak trees, bare and tall, silhouetted against the late autumn skies. The nights were cold and in the morning the ground was hard under foot. Last night had been typical, but the morning sky was not clear and bright as it had been other days. Though the people of the village went about their work as usual, Mother Nature was going to enter another phase of her cycle. Along in the latter part of the afternoon it began to grow dark. If you had walked through the streets you might have seen the lights in the house on the corner where Miss Van Guilder was having an afternoon game of bridge with some other members of the local Lonely Hearts society, a local group of those quaint exponents of the feminine world that had not been successful in finding their life companions, and had finally given up, satisfied to take up a more dignified life. From a hill on the outskirts of the township you could look far into the mountains of the next county, and the hamlet below looked peaceful and calm. Light breezes scurried among the treeftops, and looking toward the neighboring mountains you notice that the more distant ones are beginning to fade from sight. As you keep looking