Hughes High School - Hughes Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

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HUGHES HIGH SCHOOL, 1918-191 9 T is, I believe, one of the pardonable vanities of school life, that each suca I ceeding class should, on the occasion of its graduation, presume to regard its last year within the harboring scholastic walls as the most momentous and illustrious of all those many with which the dear old Alma Mater has been blessed. And so, repugnant as it is to our highly cultivated sense of modesty and natural inclination for self-effacernent, we of the class of 19 cannot refrain from bowing in deference to so. time honored a tradition, and pronounce with all seeming eclatthe pre-eminence of the Year 1918-19 above all others in the long annals of Hughes. But then, aside from the fact of mere class pride, we feel that we are truly justihed in saying that Hughes has never before experienced just such a year as that which now nears its close. In point of numbers the year 1918-19 has surpassed all previous records, there being enrolled 2,199 pupils, together with a faculty of 79. Moreover, it is probable that never again will Hughes house so large a family beneath her maternal roof. For the opening of the new East Side High School will undoubtedly relieve her of many of her present pupils as well as a goodly portion of the oncoming crop of Fr'eshies. There were no indications at the beginning of the year that any phenomenal proceedings would mark the term. Yet the storm was brewing; trouble lay but in the offing. Just a full score days had been rounded out, and we were fairly well upon our journey, when, alas and a'lack! we ran smack into a full grown soulwester which well nigh submerged our frail bark. To speak in less metaphorical and perhaps more vividly memoriferous language, we were, in common with countless other mortals, prohibited from gathering in our wonted places of assemblage; the all-important one of which was to us the school. Never before had we appreciated just what was the nature of a ukase, but there is none of us now, dwelling in retrospect upon the circumstances of the Health Departmentis Hflu ban, who may say, HI wot not of the blessings of autocracy. Five weeks Were the corridors of Hughes hushed and silent; five weeks were the minds of her pupils innocent of books and study. Albeit there occurred in the very last days of that long respite the one great event in the life of this generation. For, as the goddess Aurora came from out the golden tinted east on the mom of November 11, 1918, there stood at her side the blessed hgure of Peace, shedding upon men the world over those rays which reached into their very souls and made their hearts to leap with a joy unbounded and to iill with a gratitude which knew no words. Yes, truly it was the great day, and never shall we forget it. Back to school we hied when it seemed that no more did the black demon, flu, hold its menacing sway. For thirteen days we endured the imposition llll

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HUGHES HIGH SCHOOL

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of a lengthened daily regimen, and then 'we could stand it no longer: we were on the point of distractioneewhen the Health Department relieved our ern- barrassment by again putting on the official lid. Upon this occasion our Henforced vacation, as the dear teachers termed it, lasted for something like three weeks and terminated on December 30th. Profuse were the tears shed when the announcement came that there would be neither mid-year exams nor any frantic efforts to llmake up for lost time.H Heartless as it may seem, I deem it the part of real consideration to observe in passing that tears may be shed for joy no less than for sorrow. The next event of note in Hughes, chronicle for 1918-19 is the change which took place in the ofhcial parenthood of the schoolethis great family. Mr. Lyon, under whom we had passed our high school days, had been called to a field of greater promise in the line new East Side High School. Regret was in our hearts at the loss of him, whom we had come to link so intimately with all that was Hughes and our life therein. But the sense of our deprivation was tempered in no small degree by the trust, amounting almost to a perfect assurance, that in his successor we should find one who might ably and amply Hflll Mr. Lyons shoes.H And how hnely has Mr. Merry done it! By his own words were we assured that he could do just that, and in the brief time of his sojourn here he has proven that he can Hfill those shoes with a nicety and full sufhciency that leaves nothing to be desired. It was an almost inevitable consequence of the cessation of hostilities that patriotic efforts should very pereeptibly lag. Hughes must plead guilty on this count, but only provisionally, for, despite our interrupted term, the Thrift Stamp sales have gradually mounted up to the very respectable total of $530,000.00, and in the Victory Loan Hughes will surely be there in good form and with all her old time pep and vigor. Thus, we have concluded a year, disrupted by long periods of absence and inactivity, with all the confusion attendant thereon; taken leave of one whom we had come to regard as indisputably our own, and welcomed in his stead one whom time is rapidly making dearer to us; and have, above all things, witnessed the advent of that great day and time which cannot but make the year 1918 the Hannus Mirabilis of modern history, and the school year of 1918-19 one unparalleled in uniqueness and moment by any that have gone before, and a serious, if not unsurpassable rival of any that dear old Hughes may meet in the unknowable stretches of the future. 112'1