Eau Claire High School - Beaver Tales Yearbook (Eau Claire, MI)

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SUPERINTENDENTS ADDRESS HE chances or opportunities that exist for young people are many. In pioneer days few vocations were necessary, but as the country was cleared and railroads and other industries developed, more and more lines of endeavor appeared until now one needs only to prepare for his choice of work and if he is made of the right kind of material there is surely a place for him. Opportunity demands fitness and the time to fit yourself for life work is in youth. You are young only once. You perhaps do not realize it now but as time goes on. you will comprehend it more and more. Youth is the natural time to prepare to assume responsibilities, which if you amount to anything, you will have to shoulder in later life. Those that are farseeing enough and follow the advice of older people who have made good will not be disappointed later. Youth is the habit forming period of life. Your later life will be fashioned to a large extent by the habits you form now. Habits are but ways of thinking and acting, which by repetition become more or less automatic. We are creatures of habit. A single experiment will illustrate this fact. Notice which arm is thrust firstly into the sleeve of a coal when you put it on. Now try putting the other arm in first. It will seem very awkward. You have formed a habit. Youth is the time when your whole physical being is plastic and easily shaped. As you grow older the bones become harder and more brittle, and therefore harder to change. Consequently, youth is the lime to mould your life into proper channels. I he house you live in which is not built w ith hammer and saw may be undesirable. As some one puts it, “Principles are the foundation stones. Habits are pillars. Every thought drives a nail. Every act girds or weakens a beam. Every high resolve lends beauty and every ignoble deed defaces or mars it. The whole structure stands forth at last built of passions as worthless as wood, hay or stubble, or a building of thoughts and purposes more precious than gold or flashing gems.” Good health habits should be learned early. Cleanliness, good diet, regular exercise and sleep are essential to the welfare of you if you are to obtain the greatest good out of life. A house will not stand on a quicksand foundation and ill health is analygous to the poor foundation. Coaches of football, basket ball and baseball of our colleges and universities insist upon strict training rules so that the men on the teams may have clear minds and be in the best physical condition possible to meet their adversaries. If a man is found dissipating or violating the training rules laid down, thereby impairing the possibilities of doing his best for the team he is im- mediately barred from playing. In other words it has been found out that the person whose physical endurance has been impaired is terribly handicapped and his body cannot respond to the activities of the mind. If it is good for an athletic team to have regular and clean habits, it is surely good for those who are not as strong or athletic by nature as those able to represent their schools. It is a time of choice of classmates and associates. Both are important. A pal may make or break you. A good pal is an asset, a poor one cannot but influence you and may become a very dear liability to you. Many are the heartaches of mothers because their boys and girls are associating with bad chums. You cannot keep Patfe Eitfht

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BOARD OF EDUCATION HARRY HOGUE FRED SEEL President Treasurer F. E. HUBBARD S. M. MERRITT Trustee Trustee C. H. YOUNG Secretary Pasre Seven

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apples sound in contact with rotten ones. Neither can you associate with people of bad habits and remain uninfluenced. You must choose whether or not you will go on to school. You should go because this is the natural stage to acquire facts which will be of use to you in later life. Few ever go on to school who do not go while young. The demands of civilization are constantly increasing, having increased tenfold in the past half century. The field of knowledge has broadened enormously and the training required to fit one for a worthy place in whatever work he undertakes has increased correspondingly. Also, the opportunities to acquire the preparation have kept pace. A college or university education is within the reach of every capable student regardless of the financial condition of his parents. It is also an opportunity to prepare for service. We were not put on the earth for ourselves alone, but to help others, and thus leave the world better than when we found it. There is much need for all the talent available, to solve the problems con- fronting us. During the war the flu germ killed ten times as many people as perished on the battlefields of Furope. If medical science could behead this little microbe it would save more lives than a peace pact. At the present time prohibition is in jeopardy. Men and women of big minds are needed to save the eighteenth amend- ment. The World War is over but such a plight as the world is in. All Furope is in chaos and confasion, fresh wars threatening on every hand and many countries facing bankruptcy because of financial burdens due to militarism. What a chance for Amer- ican leadership to create a new morality and do away with militarism and its evils. “Master of human destinies am I; Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait, Cities and fields 1 walk; I penetrate Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by Hovel, and mart, and palace, soon or late I knock unbidden once at every gate! If sleeping, wake—if feasting, rise before I turn away. It is the hour of fate. And they who follow me reach every state Mortals desire, “and conquer every foe Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate. Condemned to failure, penury, and woe. Seek me in vain and uselessly implore; - I answer not, and I return no more.” P. J. DUNN. Patre Nine