Phillips High School - Mirror Yearbook (Birmingham, AL)

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The difficulties that we a- individuals must face are more immediate, but far more serious arc those we shall face collectively as we attempt to play our part in the affairs of otir distracted nation. Vet even this picture is not without its exciting promise. Of course there have been bank failures, failures in key business concerns, and even the failure of some schools to remain oj en. hut let us not find in these, causes only for discouragement. Let us remember that tearing down the old is the first step of rebuilding. This is a world of adjustments. As our orator has just | ointcd out, there arc changes which must l c made social ly. economically, politically, and educationally. There is a need for a new application of our religion. Formerly men thought of religious and moral matters as strictly personal, hut industrialism has depersonalized society and intellectualism has depersonalized the universe. Under these conditions there is need for new thinking: wisdom and sanity can direct man in his guidance of the spiritual and mechanical world. Perhaps one of the most essential changes needed is a new mastery of the machine. Some people think that machines arc the sole cause of the depression. None of these, however, would go hack to the time when one had to hew logs to build a house, or when a trip across the continent required several months. Time and tabor saving devices have done much for the world and will do much more when people learn to use the time and labor they save. Mr. Hendrick Van Loon said in a recent article. “We are not suffering from an overproduction of material goods on account of machines, but from the underproduction of good, clear, honest thinking Anti now, my class mates, we have come to the time oi parting, but as we have learned from Pros!. “Men work together whether they work together or apart. There is work to be done and. though apart, we shall join hands and spirits in the task. As we do. let us always remember our Class Motto at Phillips—-“Mms ucqua in arduis.” ROSS C. St'KIK. Class President Winners or the Monogram

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PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS Mr Going. Members of tiii Facclty, ssociates of tiie Senior Class, Friends: Today with these exercises, we are passing a very important milestone on the road to our education. This is a time when wc like to pause and lock hack upon our experiences as friends together at Phillips: it is a time when we must look forward. In looking back we sec that the things which once seemed as mountains of difficulty now look like tiny molehills. There are many of us who remember the moment of decision on the football field when the game depended on immediate action. Others of us will think of the knee-shaking experiences on the Auditorium stage, and all of us will recall the recent and not soon to he forgone 1 ordeals of the final examinations. It is easy in retrospect to smile at the difficulties which we have passed, hut as wc face the future we find ourselves confronted by new difficulties which remind us of the need and value of ottr Class Motto, “Mens acqua in arduis,” “A mind calm in difficulties.” As I look from you. fellow students, to the leaders of the future, I see among you such inventors as Marconi and Edison, who used their talents for the benefit of humanity; such a poet as Burns who. wc learned, had a patriotism founded on something better than prejudice; and such statesmen as Lincoln and Wilson, who saw war with imagination and sought for the sources of peace. If we expect to attain such heights wc must keep our minds calm under difficulties. This is a most unusual time. As Glenn Frank expresses it. “new forces are making this at once a time of threatening insecurity and exciting promise. The challenge is not that of a gloomy world but that of a difficult one. Facing this difficult world, we need calmness. What is calmness? Calmness means patience, the willingness to wait and to understand, but it docs not mean inactivity. Calmness means moral discipline. Wc cannot remain calm unless we banish hate. envy, revenge, and even fear trom our hearts, for. as Virgil says, “Fear shows a degenerate mind. Calmness means mastery—a mastery of ourselves, and a clear understanding cf the world in which wc are to play a part. In mastering ottr selves we will give ourselves faith. We must have faith in ourselves and in O'.ir country. The future wc face is. as I have aid. most unusual. Many of us will not have available the money necessary to continue our formal education, tier shall we easily obtain the job to which we have locked forward ever since entering High School. But ii we keep our minds calm under these difficulties, this period of waiting need not he a period of yawning. Hawthorne spent twelve solitary years in preparing for hi- great work, and Milton gave a quarter of a century toward the creation of his masterpiece. I.ike these two famous men wc can use this waiting period in an active way. Fields cf work arc over-crowded, that is true, but there is always room ior the superior workman: wc can become experts in our line by reading and practicing during our leisure. Wc may even try our skill at writing, for who knows but there are some among us who are fitted for journalistic werk? Think of the cxicting premise of leading public opinion during a period of readjustment! Ho not fancy that this oeriod cf thinking and reading will not be of licnefit. To quote Joy Elmer Morgan. “Behind everything wonderful there are long periods of concentration. The bridge that spans the river, the building that rises in lovely majesty, and the sturdy airplane that sweeps the skies, all have lack of them endless plans anil blueprints.”

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STATISTICS A Synthesis Friends. I hate to ask you to undergo any more pain after the excruciating week of exams just finished, but I'm going to ask that you devote your minds to the fullest to what will be said. It might be embarassing to ask many of you what a synthesis is. although doubtless some of you erudite scholar ., such as Mr. George Graham, our gifted editor, with his colossal assortment of spiel and jargon, could afford to sneer over so elementary a word, and so I ni going to attempt to dispense the shadows Do you know what an analysis is? “A tearing down to set what a thing is made of. Well, a synthesis isn't that. Its just the opposite. A synthesis is a putting together, a combination to form a compound, a new whole. You arc a part of a bewildering celestial synthesis. Your galaxy, the Milk Way system, is perhaps forty or fifty times greater than the average extragalactic nebula: it’s an immense spiral cone some 200.IHKI light years in diameter, and a light year is about six million, million milt's. Ah, yes. there’s plenty of room for our dreamy-eyed star gazers and stars, too. But doesn’t it make you feel just too tremendous when you consider your wretched little five and a half foot body in a universe some one quintillion two hundred quadrillion miles wide. On our planet, old Mother Earth, there's a synthesis, insignificant, it would seem, hut to us of vital importance, the synthesis of life, for consider what you'd he if it were not tor life. When 1 choose to discuss life, I was purposely choosing something of which I knew nothing, because I knew I wouldn’t be hampered by facts. What is this thing, life, composed of? Simply this—man, whom Shakespeare calls the paragon of animals, and woman, the riddle of the universe, for neither she nor anyone else knows what she wants. Oh. what queer creatures arc these human beings. How quaint it is that some of them discolor their hair and eyebrows and beards witlt bright henna dyes as do Persian Mohammedans or besmear their natural youthful beauty with rouge ami lipstick as do modern misses, especially since forty out of every thousand of their intended victims are color Mind. And think of what masterpieces of art we might find if some of that astounding talent for painting were devoted to more worthy aims. Isn’t it just inconceivable that Buddhist monks often seal themselves up in tiny huts, with only a small opening for food, to spend the re t of their lives in cherub contemplation.” Isn’t it stupifying that the Siamese howl with glee when their boxers fighting with only two rules (no biting or kicking a man when he's down) kill each other with reckless abandon. Why. it's almost as brutal as football, think of it. nd aren’t you amazed to learn that that very lniy sitting by you has a neck built fust like i i iraffe’s' Yes. that's right, both with seven vertebrae. Why. that may account for his beastly grades' Isn’t it simply too quaint that these Americans go raving wild over a pop-eyed comedian, who goes Pfft. Pfft, Pfft. or an adventurous Baron who wants to know. Vas you dcre. Sharlic. and goes into spasms of grief liccau.se a Swedish actress tank you go home now. Oh, they’re clever folks, these Americans. Yes. friends. I’m inclined to believe that N’orotan Thomas was right when hr said, It’s a crazy world we're living in. In the I’nitcd States, among all these strange people there is a singularly distinguished little group, containing many youngsters of extraordinary talent, and. friends, we’re it. us. the graduating class of J. II. Phillips High School. Maybe you didn’t know vc were so worthy a group. I guess I’ll have to tell you how good we are, to tell you some things about us you didn't realize. In the first place, we have a unique president. He’s the heaviest in history, and yet he’s a sharp man, in fact, a Speir. Then, we have the makings of a bread factory in our midst, a Miller and a Baker. Maybe