Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

Page 14 text:

10 ie ORACEE, Salutatory Essay Helen E. Pearce oe In -the first place, athletics are beneficial because they build up a per- manently strong body, an asset of no mean value to the man or woman who must fight his way through the world. The average student, who “makes a team,” reaps a harvest of surplus en- ergy and hard muscle for every minute spent at his tennis or baseball. In addition to this physical advantage, the athlete is apt to be better fitted, morally and mentally, for his life work. Every track-meet or critical game calls forth all his self-reliance and ingenuity ; every clash with opposing teams leaves him a greater tolerance for the peculiarities of his fellow-men and a deeper insight into human nature. As Dean Briggs of Harvard once said, “A football player gets his culture from his studies but he gets his real education from his football.” The Duke of Wellington, too, believed firmly in the good effects of com- petitive play, for while watching a match at Rugby, he exclaimed, “There’s where the battle of Waterloo was won!” Finally, athletics must have a place in the school simply to promote a spirit of good-fellowship and a lasting kindly feeling toward others, so rare in this world. For the team victories, the hard-won meets, the exciting moments on the field, all tend to fill the school, not only with enthusiasm, but with friendship.”

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DHE SORACLE, 9 Salutatory Address May V. Day For what your presence means we welcome you to our Commencement Exercises. To you, Gentlemen of the Board of Education, we extend a hearty wel- come. We hope to show our apprecia- tion of your unselfish work in our be- half by our endeavors for the good of others. Dr. Maxson, our greeting to you is of the warmest and deepest. Your cheery presence has made bright our days and your kindly advice has strengthened us on our way. Mr. Best and Members of the Faculty, you know what is our greeting to you. You have been the means of bringing out whatever was best in us. You have made the years of work in Plainfield High School years of pleasure as well as of profit. | We look upon you not only as teachers, but as friends. And you, our friends and relatives, citizens of Plainfield, we are glad that you are here. We realize our responsibility to you as the givers of these privileges which we have enjoyed, and we realize what return is fitting in devotion to the service of others and zeal for the welfare of the world. We thank you all and make you welcome.

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AMBUE, (CRIN CIEE, Tel Valedictory Address Louise Bird And so we may be quite certain that the seed which Jane Addams has been sowing so patiently in the un- promising soil of a Chicago slum, will after a long time.” “come up Classmates, this is the last night of our High School life; but we must not think of it as the end of endeavor. It is rather the beginning, a true com- mencement of the life we are to give to the world. In the four years of our course here, we have sowed the first few seeds of effort, faint attempts, it is true, but still seeds that may quicken in the years to come. The inspiration to plant the very best of seeds must come from the lives of men and women like Miss Addams. We can not all do what she is doing at Hull-house, but we can carry with us, as we go, her message of helpfulness and cheer; and, as we part, we can have the determination in our own feeble way to do simply and well the little things nearest home.