East High School - Cardinal Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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circumstance, We, the class of Nineteen hundred eight. in the Junior room assembled, did ratify that weighty document. (Please forget for the moment, if possible, that it is copied verbatim from the one the Seniors have.) We next elected officers. The English Dictionary does not contain words half expressive enough to place their charms before you in a fitting manner. They are the superfine representatives of a superfine class. It was at this time that the talk of class pins first came to our lips. When children, our class must have been enthusiastic patrons of the neighborhood teeter-totter, for this now seemed to be our favorite sport. The class divided, and ranged itself on either end of the apparatus and then the sport commenced. First up, then down, then up, then down, ad infinitum. After two months of this exciting play the children on one end grew tired and jumped off. So those for class pins gained their hearts’ desire! After this wearing exercise coupled with a dance which netted the class the enormous sum of four dollars and sixty cents, our class appeared to lose all interest in life and showed no signs of returning vigor until the coming of the new term with its same old story of flunk, flunk, flunk. joggled it into a state of animation. Before the last word is spoken concerning our fifth term, two things a little outside the history, but well within the interest of our classmen, deserve notice here among the deeds of heroes and brave men. The first was a frolic for the class by one of its members on ghostly Hallowe’en. It is not exaggerating the facts, to say that an exciting time “was had. The second affair was a wonderful German Christmas Celebration given by two of our much admired teachers. Upon the festal evening, we arrived at the school at about five o’clock, our infant minds filled with roseate visions of rattles, rag babies, and other Christmas joys. After some unimportant preliminaries, during which we acted like children of about six who have never been away from their mothers before, we marched up the stairs announcing to the world, that Allc Jahre wieder kommt der Weihnachtsman.” Then we joined hands around the tree and bellowed forth, O Tannenbaum. Next we announced the enlightening fact that Morgen kommt der Wienachtsman. and later on we cased the minds of the waiting world by revealing the fact that even “Der Grosspapa was satisfied with what he received. After the awful suspense caused by this last, we settled down to the serious business of eating, at least we commenced to, with the best of intentions. But woe! what messes we received! It may easily be said that the like of them was never seen before on land or sea. If it hadn’t been so tragic, it would have been laughable to notice an unsuspecting 21 i

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Then we reached the highest pinnacle of life, our third year. All sorts of new and wonderful things opened up before us. Like the Romans of old, we stood in the marketplace, listening to that old street preacher, Cicero, tear the feelings of the populace and the knowledge from our brains, to shreds. We mentally applauded Catiline for his conspiracies and only wished that we could have had a shot at that dear Kick-a-row before he had had a chance to write his much admircd(?) orations. Many of our worthy class-men were in danger of being carried to St. Peter stark mad after six weeks in this beloved study. Then we all of us became rank, crazy physicists, and walked the streets, and gazed upon the passing mob, and wondered where their fulcrums were. We lisped our a, b, c’s in French and German. We joyfully sang in foreign tongue verses to the effect that “Mary had a little lamb. We entered the beautiful realm of fiction.” took on the manners of the middle ages and manfully decided to carry off our ladies or to die. After a five months’ dose of Shakspeare. we closed its gloomy covers, resolved, beyond chance of change, never to open them again. All these fine things we learned; and yet when the time came we lacked. List ye. further, to the record of the class of Naughty Eight. Altho our class had learned so much, altho each one in it felt certain he was destined to be one of the princes of this world. yet I doubt if any one would have guessed our future greatness, had he visited our first class meeting. We started early in the fall, and this was fortunate, as we would, surely, never have decided about our pins and—other things, in less than one short year. We formed the worthy habit even in the beginning of deciding and re-deciding each point at three separate class-meetings. Our purpose was, that we might never lack business to transact—and to furnish amusement to the Seniors. No one has even hinted that we failed in the latter. Our first meeting was a very wordy one. We decided many weighty matters. With dignity magnificent, we argued about— what? Nobody there concerned himself with that. But at any rate, at the next meeting we decided that all which had gone before was illegal, so we started from the very beginning once more. In this way. you perceive, we could once more enjoy that over-powering feeling of setting a precedent for future ages. This time, we commenced in an entirely different way. We first accepted a constitution. Each separate one of us felt as if it were a case of “We, the people of the Lnited States in congress assembled. We saw, mentally, coming generations worshiping before it. and lusty operators reciting it on future Fourths. Therefore, with pomp and 20

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child to take one of those pieces of “German Honey Board. called erroneously “German Honey Bread ; to sec him gnaw at it awhile; and then to see him throw it in wild despair over the banisters. Each new thing was worse than the last. I hey all looked so tempting too, but somehow or other, they always seemed to be filled with sawdust or glue. Finally, in desperation, we turned our thoughts and bodies homeward after seeing another brazen ido! display his clayish feet in the person of our worthy, and up to this time, revered Principal who actually sat upon a table and spun his top with only too evident enjoyment. At the close of the fifth term a more complete understanding of the survival of the fittest ' was brought home to our steadily decreasing numbers. After this, class meetings again came into the foreground and oratorial voices grew insistent in claiming attention. Considering our opportunities we behaved very well. At our first meeting in the new 'emester, many fine speeches were made. It was really very encouraging to see the great strides our class had made in practical politics. This is but another illustration of our continued preparations for the great positions we are to occupy in the future. One fine speech was delivered which related the great desire of one of our officers to lead Hie Simple Life in quiet retirement. How very unkind we were to elect him again when his friends were so anxious to relieve him of the burden of office-holding. The meeting continued, officer after officer being reelected, notwithstanding many long speeches made by the opposition. Their friends were probably anxious also to save them from the cares of public life. You can always count upon our class to do the right thing at the proper time, however. But the crowning of this our most brilliant year will be the Junior-Senior ball. Our class of forty-se cn, under the leadership of its small social committee of seventeen, forsook all other pursuits while the plans for it were brewing. Then it was that harassed youths might be seen, studying with troubled looks, long lists of the names of the fair sex. To take or not to take, —that was the question. And then, at once to fill out our programs so that we might dance with every loved one present and yet so arrange it that our “loved one might tread a measure with every cavalier she knew. An old sage has said that Nothing is impossible ; but after that wearing experience, one is inclined to say with Solomon, “Wisdom, how foolish a thing it is! There was another distressing feature connected with that Ball—a sordid, moneyed one. We started out last fall with one fixed purpose which was to make money for the Junior Ball. Tis passing strange”! That seems to be the one thing our class does not 22