Nappanee High School - Napanet Yearbook (Nappanee, IN)

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nearly every pupil at Rowdoin and also was a favorite with the faculty, in fact, lie was loved by everyone. The college authorities esteemed him so highly, that they selected him professor of modern languages He went to Europe in order to prepare for this position and traveled in France, Spain, England and Germany, making himself acquainted witli the language of each country. In 1829.he returned and took up his duties of Leaching and preparing elementary text-books in French and Spanish. After serving five years at Bowdoin he accepted the professorship at Harvard. This required more study abroad. He sailed, accompanied by his wife, in the spring of 1835, by way of London, where they met the Carlyles and other literary people of note. In December, on their way south, Mrs. Longfellow died at Rotterdam. After seventeen years as professor in Harvard lie resigned and retired in Craige House where Washington once had his headquarters. On a third visit to Europe Longfellow met his second wife, Francis Elizabeth Appel ton, the daughter of a Koston merchant, which incident lie records in his “Hyperion.” in the yearof the publication of “Hyperion” appeared also “Voices of Night” containing the “Psalm of Life.” Youths with high spirits and ambitions rejoice in titiding their feelings expressed: Act, Act in the living present, Heart within and God overhead!” There is nothing strange or startling about this Psalm but it lias been translated into other languages and set to music. A workman who was aroused by tills poem stopped Longfellow on the streets of London and asked to shake hands with the man who wrote the “Psalm of Life.” It is said that in the interior of Asia the poem has been translated into the language of those remote nations. Then we ask, why is his poetry so popular? I think tiie best reason is that lie expresses a universal sentiment in the simplest and most melodious manner. Almost everyone will read poetry that puts their thoughts and feelings into words. A critic said that Longfellow is not grand and utters nothing which common people did not already know. Yes that is true but is there not something yet to be added? No one else had uttered tilings so gracefully, so beautifully, nor so pleasingly. Although Longfellow was a learned man his style is very simple and for this reason lie is loved by all children. The children of Cambridge especially felt him to be their friend and presented him witli a chair made of the ‘Spreading Chestnut Tree” under which the village smithy stood. Longfellow’s most noted works are Evangeline, Hiawatha, and theCourtshipof Miles Standish. These are written in a peculiar kind of verse, called hexameter verse, which no one thought could be used with success in the English language. Hiawatha is modeled after an old Indian epic, the Kaleoaln of Finland. Longfellow read and studied the old Indian legends and connected with them his hero, Hiawatha, belonging to the Ojibway tribe near Lake Superior. The poem tells of woods and birds, of Hiawatha’s boyhood, of his learning of the language of the animals and birds of the forest: of his first hunt, of his wooing of the beautiful Minnehaha, and of that dreadful famine that caused Minnehaha’s death. Cold and unsympathizing are the hearts that will not soften when they hear Hiawatha pleading: Give your children food, O father! Give us food or we imiHt perish! Give me food for Minnehaha, For my dying Minnehaha.” The story of Evangeline goes back to the days of 1775 when the English took Arcadia and drove all the inhabitants from their homes. Among those who became separated from each other are Evangeline and her lover Gabriel. She is a fair, saintly maiden and continues iier search for him for many, many long years, and at last tinds him dying in a hospital. Hawthorne related this incident to Longfellow once when they dined together. Hawthorne had thought of writing a novel of some such plot but gave it up and it was adopted by Longfellow. The Courtship of Miles Standish is a story dealing with two of Longfellow’s ancestors of the Mayflower, John Alden and Priscilla Mullens. Miles Standish, a gallant warrior, is not acquainted w ith the “ways of women” and yet wishes to gain the hand of Priscilla, llethinks Ills friend John Alden, is better adapted to such a task and finally succeeds in gaining Alden’s consent to deliver the message. John is deeply in love with Priscilla himself, and she knows it, so when lie has pressed the suit for Standish as far as he can, Priscilla cunningly says: “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” The result made Standish angry and he soon after disappears, but just as the ceremony is taking place he suddenly appears and, being cured of his love and anger, gives iiis blessing to the young couple. Longfellow’s happy, happy life was saddened by an awful event. His wife caught tire from

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to turn faster than the other when the automobile runs in a curved path. At one or both ends of the propeller shaft and often in front of the gear set are placed universal joints sometimes called Carden joints or Hook’s joints. These allow the shaft to rock or hinge about in any direction while the shafts are rotating. The swaying of the car on its springs makes this flexible connection necessary. The third system of the car is the running gear. This includes the wheels, front axle, springs, the frame that carries the motor and transmission system, and the steering and control arrangements. In addition to these systems are the various adjuncts which are necessary to their proper operation. In the case of the motor these include the fuel and oil tanks, the ignition devices and self-starters if used. The transmission system is almost complete in itself and the running gear parts are such as the mud-pan under the motor, the hangers for the mudguards, and so on. Starting the gasoline motor has always been a question and in 1909 became serious because of racing cars constructed with motors too large to be turned over by hand unless geared down with an accessory shaft. Self-starters were also in great demand by women who drove their own cars. The year 1911 saw the first really serious agitation for starters, and so great has been the progress that by the year 1912 nearly every good make of car was equipped with one form or another. The first devices were springs, straps, chains, etc. They served their purpose well but were supplanted by presure devices using air, acetylene, and other sources of fluid pressure. These were followed by the electric devices in which the greatest prograss has been made. In some of the electric starting systems, the generator serves as a motor to start the engine and when the engine is running, lights the electric lamps and furnishes current for ignition, besides storing up current for starting the engine again. The automobile industry is only in its infancy and its future is great. This age is an “Age of Speed” and the automobile has its place. SPEED BY CARLTON EDHOLM The feverish motors Hashing by; The swift plane swooping in the sun, The skein of wires against the sky, All mean—unnumbered lives in one. These things we do in toil or play. Grow not as the deliberate oaks: The thought, the will, the deed to-day Are triple, tierce trip-hammer strokes. Old land-marks totter; in their place Rise overnight the spires the new Faith builds. They clutch the base and dare Like spears, the eternal blue. Our fate in one quick throw is cast. The Now. What far beyond know we: To live the day e'er it be past. Our answer is Eternity. (0ur iflnst Ultbrlu ICntirit IJnrt, 1®. ICmiijff llmu FRKIDA ELIZABETH PRICE T|s there anyone of America’s people who is not acquainted with Longfellow? Surely you all know of Priscilla's famous “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John,” and of “Hiawatha,” and of “Paul Itevere’s Ride.” On the twenty-seventh of March, 1807, our great poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was born in Portland, Maine, in a great brick house by the sea. 11 is father was a prominent lawyer; his mother though for years an invalid, had not lost the cheeriness which she possessed as a lively young girl. Longfellow had all the opportunities of a good education. He was turned loose in the library and there it was he became attached to books. Irving’s Sketch Book was the first book to attract his attention. At three he started to school, at six he wrote his first letter; and by the age of seven he was half way through his Latin Grammar. He was of a quiet, ambitious nature and loved to lie under a tree and read. He loved birds and animals just as well as the flowers and trees. He never could kill a bird or animal as his companions did. One time he did kill a robin red breast and lamenting on this he lovingly wrote: '‘The birds who muke sweet music for us all In our dark days as David did for Saul. He resolved never to kill another. He entered Bowdoin College at the age of fourteen. While there he wrote many verses of poetry and began to wish to make himself eminent some day. He won the friendship of

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a lighted taper and burned to death in the presence of her husband and children. He did all he could to save her but to no avail. He himself received such deep burns from the accident that he was unable to attend her funeral. That this grief was always with him afterwards we know from his pathetic “Solitary Way.” To forget his grief he translated Dante and succeeded as no one else has. Longfellow is honored almost as much in England as in America. The former has put his bust in the Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey—the highest mark of esteem. He is as much read there as here. At home he has one rare tribute of love paid him: his seventy-fifth birthday was celebrated by the schoolchildren. When he passed away shortly afterwards, on the twenty-fourth of March, 1882, school after school reverently draped their halls in mourning and even now his birthday is celebrated throughout all America. Let us hope he henceforward always will be praised especially for these noble lines of his: “Lives of great men all remind us, We can make our lives sublime, And departing leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother Seeing, may take heart again. — Psalm of Life. Ultras a Hfrapnn HENRY MAU8T any people have an idea that the sole object of the cartoonist is to amuse. Though wit is an important part of the modern American cartoon, the cartoonist makes men think as well as smile. The one who makes people think is the great cartoonist, while the one who only makes them laugh has second place. Cartoons are picture editorials. As a medium through which the public may gain an insight into the affairs of the day, the cartoon is superior to the editorial, which is often too weighty for the mind of the average newspaper reader. In the cartoon the idea is almost always grasped at first glance; and also, a picture makes a more lasting impression than words. Cartoons, cutting and to the point, drawn by such men as Cory, Nelan, Davenport, and Thomas Nast, have made deeper impressions than pages of written matter would have done. Through Nast’s UncleSam, theTammany Tiger, the Democratic and Republican party symbols, “Harper’s Weekly” exerted more power than it could possibly have done in any other way. For a long time the government of New York City was in the hands of the corrupt Tammany Hall forces, and about 1870 under the management of the Tweed ring, “Boss Tweed,” by fraudulent contracts, stole in three years from the county of New York about $100,000,000. Nast did more than any other man in the overthrow of the ring. Throughout 1870 and 1871 he published in “Harper’s Weekly” a series of cartoons of such effective and destructive power against Tweed and his confederates as to draw' the attention of the whole world. One of the strongest of the series, entitled: “Waiting for the Storm to Blow Over,” shows Tweed and his gang huddled together among human skulls and bones, behind a nigged cliff seeking shelter from streaks of lightning and downpour of rain and hail. When Tweed had been foreman of the Big Six Fire Company he decorated his engine with a savage tiger head. This he hung up in Tammany Hall as a remembrance of those days. Nast recognized the rapacious creature as a fitting emblem for the corrupt political gang. The final blow came just before election day, 1871, when thereappeared in “Harper’s” adouble page picture, the most powerful and destructive cartoon everdrawn: “TheTammany Tiger Loose, What Are You Going to do About it?” The people were aroused and the ring was soon put behind prison bars. The “boss” escaped to Spain, but through his resemblance to one of Nast’s cartoons which showed him kidnapping two children, New York City and New York State, was arrested as a kidnapper and sent back to the United States. Uncle Sam was derived from Uncle Samuel Wilson, an inspector of government supplies, who lived at Troy, New York, about 1885. When supplies were accepted he marked them U. S. A workman engaged in handling the boxes, when asked what the letters stood for, replied: “Uncle Sam ” The initials for Uncle Sam and the United States were the same. The answer was repeated and it was in that way that Uncle Sam was born. Nast somewhat altered his clothes and made him a lanky fellow, giving the impression of thrift, common sense and humor, the qualities expressive of