Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

Page 12 text:

8 THE ORAGELE: Roy Cliffton Whitall, Salutatorian Roy Cliffton Whitall, the salutatorian, has been with the class all four years, and he, too, has-maintained a high standing in scholarship. He has taken prizes at every commencement for the past four years, and his work in mathematics has been particularly creditable. He is one of the brightest boys in the school and does comparatively little study outside of school. For the past two years he has worked afternoons in a local stationery store. He is a quiet boy, but well liked by all his classmates and is popular in general among the student body. Mr. Whitall will enter Stevens Institute next fall. The honors this year carry more honor than in previous years because the class of 1908 is one of the largest classes to be graduated from the Plain- field High School, and the average standing in scholarship of the seniors is proportionately above that of any other class in the school. Percy La Barre Mygrant and Donald Cameron Mortimer were next highest for scholastic honors. “Never has there been such a class as 1908 in the school and it will be a long time before there will be another class that can beat them.’—Mr. Samuel B. Howe, Jr. “T shall be very sorry to see 1908 go; yours is such a nice class.’’—Miss Mary i. Perry. “My one regret is that I have not been able to see more of the class of 1908—it is such a fine class——Miss Laura Smith. “Everything comes the way of 1908—even the gods favor them.”— Mr. James D. Macnab. “There has never been a class in P. H. S. that has conducted itself so well in the trying days after their work was over as 1908. —Mr, Ira W. Travell.

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THE ORACLE. 7 ESTHER B. CRAMPTON. ROY C. WHITALE, Esther Barton Crampton, Valedictorian Miss Esther Crampton is the valedictorian of 1908. She entered the school in her sophomore year. Her course of studies has been one of the most difficult in the curriculum, but she has always maintained a high standing in scholarship, particularly in the languages. She has taken several prizes at every commencement since she has been in the school. She has been active in the various interests of the school life, and for two years has played guard on the champion girls’ basketball team. Last year Miss Crampton acted as manager for the team, and this year she has ably filled the position of president of the Girls’ Athletic Association. She also served on the OrAcLE, and took part in the Junior play of last year, and took the part of Miss Hardcastle in “She Stoops to Conquer,” the play given by the Seniors in the Plainfield Theatre. She is popular among the student body and among her classmates and has been a good class worker. She will enter Wellesley next fall,

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THE ORACLE. 9 Child Labor, a Disgrace and a Menace Valedictory Essay by Esther Crampton Child labor is a disgrace to the nation. That is a fact acknowledged by everybody except, perhaps, a few selfish manufacturers. But it is not only a disgrace, it is a menace to the nation’s welfare. It is a disgrace, for it is a slaughter of the innocents; a menace, because it is slowly poison- ing and corrupting the sources of the future life of the American people. What is it which is happening to millions of little children in this civilized land—children who should be in school, developing their minds, and out of doors developing their bodies in healthful exercise? Go with me first to the South and then to the older industrial centers of the North. In North Carolina, poor, half-starved little children, almost babies some of them, work in the sweltering cotton mills all day long and during the rush season even a great part of the night. Never resting, running from one part of the machinery to another, closely watching the threads, in order to mend the broken ones—when the day’s toil is over there is for them no healthful night’s rest. The threads dance before their weary eyes and restful sleep is impossible. Poor, tired, heavy-eyed little workers— is it any wonder that after a sleepless night they lose their nimbleness? There is a cry. The whirring machinery is stopped. It goes on again, in a moment. This is merely an incident in the day’s work. But a little child, scarcely. nine years old, perhaps, is maimed for life! No more use now to the mill, she is cast adrift upon the world, broken in body and in spirit, before her life should well have begun. A physician accom- panying a friend thru one of the mills shook his head sadly as they gazed around at the worn, shrunken bodies, often deformed thru lack of proper exercise. ‘In four years,” he said, “most of these children will be dead and others will be in their places.” In the New England mills, conditions, if not as disgraceful as in the South, are bad enough. Mr. Spahr tells us that he found hundreds of children at work there, but to his surprise apparently no men over forty or forty-five. The strain is so great that at the age of forty-five they are worn out and no longer useful. The great coal strike a few years ago called attention to the appalling conditions in Pennsylvania. Thousands of boys under fourteen were em- ployed in the coal mines in direct violation of the law of the state. Mr.