Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

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18 Teor A GIR. “the sere and yellow.” One of these was Thomas Chatterton, who was destined never to know of his triumph. Chatterton claimed to have found in the Church of St. Mary of Redcliffe some poems which he ascribed to a priest of the fifteenth century. It was later discovered, however, that the poems were his own, but it was not until after the poet, tired with the struggle for existence, had committed suicide, in his eighteenth year. Chat- terton’s poetical work is among the permanent treasure of the English language. A trio of youthful poetic prodigies is composed of John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron. From Keats we have the “Endymion,” written at the age of twenty-two; Shelley has left “Queen Mab,” which appeared when he was only twenty-one; and Byron wrote his ‘Childe Harold” at twenty-four. What literary masterpieces might have been the production of their versatility can hardly be estimated. All three of the poets died before completing their work. The most wonderful of all youthful geniuses, however, must be placed in a separate class. It is she whom the world knows as Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, she who defied courts and judges, she who, best of all, was the purest of Christians. It was a triumph of the rarest sort when, a girl of eighteen, she took the city of Orleans; it was another triumph as she calmly and wisely and unanswerably furnished her own defense in the faces of some of the world’s best jurors; it was a triumph, too, when she lay down her life at the stake, a short time after, in the streets of Rouen. If there have ever been prodigies of youth, Joan of Arc is the first. What has been the influence of the lives of these geniuses upon the world we cannot tell with any degree of certainty. What can be their influence upon our individual lives is for each of us to decide. Like them, we must go forth into the world; like them, we must choose our careers. It may be that from among us, this class of 1906, unimportant in the eyes of the world, will arise geniuses such as those whom I have mentioned. It is not for us to know now. But it is enough for us to know that, whatever be our destina- tion, we have the inspiration of all that is good in the past, and the will and determination of the present to succeed.

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THE ORACLE. 17 there have been prodigies and triumphs of youth in every age. The roll-call of youth in the days before the term included almost all ages under the allotted three-score-and-ten was a remarkable one. Its names were splendid and inspiring, from David the shepherd boy, who began his history as king at eighteen, to Chatterton, the poet, finishing his tragic chronicle at the same age; from Alexander of Macedon, ruler of all the eastern world before he was thirty-three, to James Watts, the Scotch peasant boy of eighteen, who made possible our wonderful steam engine; from Napoleon, sweeping western Europe at twenty-seven, to Raphael, finishing his deathless work at thirty-seven; from Charlemagne, master of a nation at thirty, to Shelley, master of poetry at twenty-one. So the list runs, emphasizing more particularly warriors, statesmen, and poets, the most prominent of whom established their right to the name of great before the age of twenty-five, and many of them when not yet out of their teens. The stories of the world’s famous warrior-youths are especially inter- esting. Possibly the most picturesque of all is that of David, the shepherd boy who came down from the hills of Judea, where he had tended the flock and watched the courses of the stars, to become champion of his people against their Philistine enemy, Goliath. “A youth, and ruddy and of a fair countenance,” he was, yet “he prevailed over the Philistine—and slew him.” A story of wonderful power is that of Alexander, world conqueror. It seems almost impossible to account for the boy who pressed from victory to victory throughout the known world, who subjected kings and nations to his will, who knew nothing but triumph and the lust of triumph all his life, and who at last sighed for more worlds to conquer. Not only has the military world produced youthful leaders, but political circles also have exhibited precocious geniuses. English history has given us William Pitt, the second Earl of Chatham, whose useful genius dis- played itself with an almost unnatural precocity, and whose influence was greater than that of his king before his twenty-fifth year. By the side of Pitt we may place his rival, the celebrated Charles James Fox, whose talents were developed so early that he was elected to Parliament when not yet twenty, and who at twenty-one was a lord of the admiralty and a sharp thorn in George III’s side. Our own America has produced such statesmen as Patrick Henry, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson, who, while still comparatively young, helped to win for their country the independence which she has since been cherishing. Then, too, there are prodigies of youth in the literary world—men who gave to the world some of the finest works in literature before the age of

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THE, ORACEE: 19 VALE DIC TORY Classmates—The time has come for us to say good-bye. The time has come for us to leave the life which has been such a happy one for us all. We are parting now from the friendships that we have cherished so dearly in the years that are gone. We are entering that broader life which must come to us all, that field which separates friend from friend, which sends us into ways that are far apart. All this has been said before, classmates, many, many times. Does the word “good-bye” mean anything to us? Is there one of us who hears it merely as the barren expression of the formality of parting? I think not. Common as it is, we must all realize its deep significance, and that realization must have cost us all a parting sigh during the past few weeks. In a few hours the class of 1906 will have passed out of existence. In a few hours each of us will be starting on one of those separate ways. Good-bye, classmates, I say it with all sincerity. Yet not farewell forever simply, Aufwiedersehen— Till we meet again.” AWARD OF PRIZES ENGLISH COMPOSITION. The George H. Babcock Prize, given by Mrs. George H. Babcock. First Prize, Lillian Reed Cronkite. Second Prize, Matilda Srager. Honorable Mention, May Titsworth Hallett, Lena Bohan. ENGLISH COMPOSITION. A prize offered by the Continental Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Prize, Five Dollars in Gold, Benjamin Edward Herrmann. Honorable Mention— Christella Frances MacMurray, Laura May Baker. MATHEMATICS. The Dr. C. H. Stillman Prize, given by Mrs. J. K. Myers and Mr. William M. Stillman. First Prize, $15.00 in gold, William Hicks Osgood. Second Prize, $10.00 in gold, William Crawford Douglass.