Phillips High School - Mirror Yearbook (Birmingham, AL)

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The Mirror MIRACLES OF WINTER Beneath a clear blue winter sky One knows the world is good; it makes One valiant to see and feel The miracles of winter: The sharpness of the bitter wind Sends his chilling gusts shaking The roots of all the trees to give Strength in nakedness; The high heartedness of the woodland Bare but for a few leaves still clinging To crackling limbs, is hoping vet to find New boldness in promised spring; The shyness of the winter sun, Reluctantly rising and eagerly setting. Falls from the heights, Subdued to tempered shining; The clutching of the frosty fingers Of night tears the purple dusk Of earth's shadowy figures, fleeing From bright-lit clouds; The glowing of the skies with stars, Wide-eyed in their twinkling, Makes the cold brilliance of night Rule high in heaven; Beneath a clear blue winter sky One knows the world is good; it makes One valiant to sec and feel The miracles of winter. [20] —Olive Bellew

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The Mirror SONG TO SENIORS Rock-a-byc, seniors, on the hooks’ top. As Ion as you study, your grades will not drop. When you stop digging, your standards will fall. Down will come seniors—diplomas and all! Marguerite Harris THE GOOD SHIP GRA0U.1T10 It was the Senior Class of Phillips, with a hundred men aboard Eager to steer their ship ’gainst every woe. A crew, ’twill he admitted, quite mentally fitted To navigate the class against the foe. It was the Senior Class of Phillips embarked full strong last fall. On good ship Graduation, ably manned; And all the air was ringing with Hoys’ Glee Club a-singing Noble chanties as they bravely sailed from land. But when the last weeks loomed ahead, behold, a dozen tests; A dozen tests of seamanship there lay, (Or, it that isn’t plenty. 1 will gladly make it twenty) In crossing over rough Diploma Bay. Said Captain Thomas, Ring, full speed ahead. Alloy, the port is now in sight — And when the class got going, she’d twenty honors towing, When port she made on January night. Harry Kowitz [19]

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The Mirror WISDOM An old legend says that Athene, goddess of wisdom, sprang from the head of Jupiter, radiant in beauty and wearing the full armor of a warrior. She represented the finest ideals of the Greek race—learning and wisdom, justice, righteous warfare and all those qualities of men and nations which make for the development of civilization. On the other hand, the author of the book of Proverbs says that wisdom dwells with prudence and finds out knowledge of witty inventions; speaks of excellent and right things. By wisdom kings reign and princes decree justice. Thus we sec that wisdom concerns science, morality, and government. Like all great and worthy things in this world, wisdom has many imitators. In modern times especially the shallow cleverness of the 'wise guv is often mistaken for the deep thinking of the sage. There arc those who consider the “wise crack” of the proverbial oracles at Delphi. The popular phrase get wise to this has often been thought the advice of a great seer. F.ven these impostors give the idea that wisdom is valuable and like all things rare, difficult to attain. Since “no man is wise b chance,” how can we got this treasure that is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and the revenue of which is better than choice silver? How but by study? Through books we can glean all the lore of past ages. As Emerson reminds us, the great influence in the spirit of the scholar is the mind of the pa t—in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed, and books arc the best type of the infllucnce of the past. Of course, there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise man. History and exact science he must learn by reading. 'I o make judgment by them however is the humor of the scholar. Studies should perfect nature and be perfected by experience. But we do not have to go entirely through the bitter school of experience. In this scientific age no mention need be made of the use of observation. Everyone knows that we prove things now by induction: the forecasting of the weather; the gathering of political returns before elections. Of the compiling of facts there is no end: yet, unless selected, ordered, and interpreted by judgment, they arc hut a conglomeration of data. Unless his facts were classified so that he could easily use them, the scientist could not work. The business man would be inefficient if he could not keep his files in order. The able scientist and the efficient business man were weighed in the balance and found wanting—in wisdom. For judgment itself is dependent upon a higher power, imagination, without which it is almost impossible to judge aright. A man to be greatly wise must imagine intensely and comprehensively, for it is imagination that awakens and enlarges the mind by rendering it receptive to a thousand unapprehended thoughts. If poetry has made us imaginative, if histories have made us wise, and mathematics subtile, our study at Phillips has cultivated in us this enabler of judgement, this purifier of wit, cnricher of memories, and enlarger of imagination, learning. Classmates, here is the stage on which we have enacted the drama of our school life Instead of ending in tragedy, this play has ended happily. After the comedy is finished, we enter into the world that is but a larger stage, for all the world is a stage and men and women merely players.” As Polonius would say, there is comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, tragical-comical, historical-comical, [21]