Johnstown High School - Spectator Yearbook (Johnstown, PA)

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Literature is one of the finest of the fine arts through literature me become acquainted with the thought experiences and interests of brilliant men and women in the different spheres of life Poets open their gen erous understanding souls to us and reveal Joy love sympathy humor and many other emotions which vse should never experience in the com monplace things of life without the aid of such great men as Burns Whitman Frost and many others Essayists criticize praise and comment upon people nature politics the universe Novelists drama t1sts and short story writers give us the story of living dead and lmag mary characters Reading of this type is not only enjoyable but it also enlarges the pupil s horizon by showing how fascmatmg or how cruel life can be Reading means vicarious living In high school students are given a chance to appreciate the beauty of classical literature lt would be necessary to write a book to discuss successfully all the values of literature taught in high school but a brief summary of the work clone in the ohnstown Senior Hlgh School will emphasize some of them It was not until the Nineteenth Century that the short story ap peared as a definite recognized type of literature Mr Heydrick th editor of Types of the Short Story has selected different types of choice short stories for the use of high school students He has included the psychological story the story of adventure the love story the story of the supernatural and the story based on a single event Among these are stories by many famous authors such as Washington Irving Edgwr nox el is studied in the College English Course much home reading is required The House of the Sex en Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne is an old fashioned novel based on the ln es of a quaint New England family Its theme is retribution The Sir Roger De Cox erley Papers IS an interesting collection of essays by Addison and Steele They are very satiric essays on both rural and urban England and some of them are characterized by deli cious humor Among Emerson s many essays his theory of compensa tion has a strong appeal to many mmds This essay awakens us to the startling realization that no matter how much one strives towards happi ness and perfection one w1ll nex er reach Utopia on earth for Emerson tells us that me must suffer a certain amount of sorrow and pain to com pensate for our happiness Carlyle s Essay On Burns is the flnest of the many essays wrltten about Burns in it Carlyle not only praises and criticizes Burns but also other writers All six of the speeches studied deal largely with the pa triotic spirit of the American people Among them are Washington s Farewell Address Webster s The Bunker Hill Cration Carl Schurz s True Americanism and Henry W Grady s The New South Iohn Hay s America s Loxe of Peace and Ehhu Roots The Pan American Sp1r1t William Shakespeare is the only dramatist who is studied in high school English classes although modern plays are assigned for home English an American Literature . . . . ' . V . . . V , . 7 I 7 I ' 4 U , Y Y ' A I ' I Y l Y r 1 ' I 'i l - ' 1 ' . I . . . . ' ' . F 9 Y . . . . I K Allan Poe, Sir Iames Barrie, and Rudyard Kipling. Although only one 1 l ' .. Y . . . . I

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Drama ls there among us one xx ho xx ould deny that the stage has 'always held some pecuhar fascmatxon for h1m7 ln many of us It lsn t the deslre to desxgn costumes or any other such techn1cal phase or the xvlsh to 'mct or dlrect plays but rt IS the genume thrrll of seemg a play to ex perxence that anxlous moment before the curtam rrses when we are led mto a delrghtful land of make believe the joy of whlch llngers wlth us long after the fmal curtam falls lf one does not expect to pursue a career on the legltxmate stage ln xx hrch the coachmg recexved from hxgh school dramatxcs would prove of endless benefrt there are other advantages to be derxved by the thea ter goers of tomorrow The school theater teaches that class of ardent admxrers mto whxch the majority of us fall how to enloy with understandmg the cultural gxfts to be obtamed from one of the most stxmulatxng forms of lrterature the drama A thorough study and understandmg of drama produces a student body wrth quxckened xmagmatxons better dexeloped bodxes and voxces and a keener apprecxatlon of art and humamty Through the fundamental prmcxples taught nn hlgh school dramatlcs classes one should acquxre such habxts as those of correct breathmg upon whlch a good xoxce depends careful artxculatlon and enunclatxon upon whlch good speech depends and vocal and bod1ly vltalnty upon whrch platform success depends One should dress ln better taste after studylng costummg and make up move wrth greater ponse and grace after studymg pantomlme and express oneself more effectlyely after studymg the techmque of actmg On the other hand one learns how to balance a theater dlet how to choose plays wrsely and m domg so to check the productron of worthless presentatxons From class d1scuss1ons on current plays one IS taught how to judge and apprecrate fxne dlrectmg castmg settlngs and actmg There IS a joy m bemg able to analyze and comprehend these s1gn1f1c1n1 pomts to blend them together and still to keep the beauty and flax or of the pohshed product Students of hugh school dramatrcs acqulre a keener msrght mto hu man nature By obserxmg the emotnons of thexr assocxates m every day lrfe they are bemg tralned to understand people and to cope wxth human problems rn a logrcal and sympathetxc manner The results therefore are txx ofold for ln learnmg to apprecxate the theater one also becomes conscrous of soclal trends and problems for the modern theater rs vltally Interested m socrety as xx ell as the m dnvldual A dramatlc class dlstmctly dxsplays a group actxxxty demandlng patzence. tact sportsmanshlp good nature and concentrated hard work and as m all actxxrty one gets from It xaxhat he puts 1nto mt The values and expernences to be derrx ed from a study of dmmatxcs are so many and xarled that ex eryone who possesses a zest for l1fe wrll fmd mental and moral stnmulatlon and an mcreased sense of beauty Concettma Santoro V 1 1 C V - V c , , .- ' V 7 - . . . . I .- ' V . V . V . . V V - . . . .- D V . . . . . . V V V 1 V V . Y . H . . . V V V V V ' 1 , . V V V - V V V V - C . 1 t V ' c c . ' Y. . . . . V V . . . V V V r C bv C V L pu V V V I V L I. V . C c 'c ' . . c .

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Englrsh and Amerrcan Lrteratu re 1Contmucdl French Literature readrng The three plays that are studred are ulrus Caesar Mac beth and Hamlet Emphasrs rs placed on characterrzatron vxhrch of course rnxolxes rdeals of lrxrng so dear to the hearts of youth Modern Amerrcan and Brrtrsh Poetry by Lours Untermeyer Mrl stones rn Amerrcan Lrterature and Mrlton s poems make up the vrork Debatrng and publrc speakrng drffer greatly from the other toprcs that haxe been drscussed because they make rt more necessary for the student to use hrs own rnrtratrve Students are not only taught hovx to address an audrence but also how to carry on com ersatron and hovt to rntroduce people properly Debatrng sharpens the vxrts by rts mental combat and also assrsts the students to face problems rn therr later lrfe He vxho loves lrterature lox es lrfe Homer Dennrson The e1rlrest form of French Lrterature to rex e'1l rtself was the play and French Lrterature rs very rrch rn plays Prerre de Cornerlle vxhose most famous work rs Le Crd was the frrst famous playwrrght Com parrsons vsere drawn from hrs artrstry It rs as beautrful as Le Crd Then we hear of Vrctor Hugo a most grfted poet who was knovxn as an rnfant prodrgy At the age of twenty one he commenced hrs wrrt rnq of plays and novels One of hrs famous works rs Les Mrserables vrhrch most of us haxe seen acted on the motron prcture screen Next we come to the great realrstrc wrrter of the Nrneteenth Cen tury Gustave Flaubert who wrote Madam Bovary It vxas one of hrs drscrples Guy de Maupassant who became the most vrvrd yet realrs trc short story wrrter Some of the other drstrngurshed French wrrters are Anatole France a member of the French Academy Edmund Rostand who wrot L Arglon a story of Napoleon s son acted rn recent years by Eva Le Gallrenne Cyrano de Bergerac and Chantecleer rn whrch the char acters are fowls Le Comte de Monte Crrsto by Dumas rs one of the best known of the French novels of the Nrneteenth Century The story tells of the unlust rmprrsonment of Edmund Dantes for polrtrcal reasons Durrng hrs stay rn the state prrson Chateu d If he communrcated xxrth another prrsoner Abbe Farra who was an old prrest by means of a secret pas sage vt hrch they had dug Before hrs death rn the prrson the old prrest had tauqht Dantes a great deal of hrstory and scrence and he also told hrm of a hrdden treasure At Farra s death Edmund Dantes escaped by changrng places vrrth the body of the old prrest He vras thrown rnto the sea srnce rt was the custom to drspose of the dead prrsoners rn thrs way Edmund frnds the treasure and dex otes hrs vxealth and the rest of hrs lrfe to revenge for the rnlustrce done to hrm French prose rs famous for rts clearness and pornt and far surpasses rts poetry Zoe Hughes O . Q 1 . rr . 11 rr 1 ' 1 11 .. 11 . . . . . 1 1 . , , ' 7 V ' 7' 1 . rr . . . 11 , rr . ' 0- . . . 11 . 1 Y 0 . ., c , . V y . . 4 V r V 1 s V I . , . .r . . 11 V 1 ' I 1 C , B. . U' , 7 , 1 . n . 11 . . 1 I - . . . rr . . 4 . 1 11 1 ' 1 . . V 1 1 , - 1 - - . . fr . 11 1 ' ' 1 1 ' ' Y - rr 11 r 1 1 - - 1 1 1 1 ' F, . , .. ll Y I YY I 1 1 1 1 ll YY ll ll 1 n . . , Y Y Y . u . 11 . . . . 1 . . 1 1 1 1 V 7 - r 1 1 , . . . . 1 - 1 ' V' . 7 . , . . y - 7