Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

Page 8 text:

6 he ORACEE Good Bye, P. H. S. The class of 1912 has finished its four years in Plainfield High School, and we, its members, must now take our places in the ranks of the Alumni. We have had a happy time here, and now as we are leaving, we realize why we have been so happy. It is because we have been busy, so busy that we have had no time to brood over petty griev- ances, no time to criticize those about us. (There have been lessons to learn, and besides, we had no idea of omitting any of the custom- ary sports. It is not necessary to say that our class has been fond of dramatics. And we have entered into the various phases of school activities wholeheartedly. If we have done fairly well in most of the things we have attempted, and exceptionally well in one or two, then we are glad. In the years to come, we shall count it a privilege to feel a per- sonal interest in P. H. S., and we can only wish for the students of the future, that the life here will mean as much to them as it has to 1912. The Wisdom of the Simple Winner of the Babcock Prize Stanas leaned against the door of the cabin and listened to the voice of the girl. He, Perran Stanas, the wonder of the musical world, greatest critic of his time, composer of the most exquisite song of the last five decades, and the busiest manager in London, Berlin, and New York, had left everything and travelled swiftly into the heart of a wilder- ness to hear a Kentucky mountain girl sing a song. And why? Be- cause he needed a voice,—not merely a true voice, not merely a splen- did voice, but a thrilling, natural, living one. When a man has lived fifty years in this world of disillusionment, and especially when every hour of his time is crowded with work, he does not run off on wild goose chases for hundreds of miles, unless the need is urgent, and during the long, tedious journey Stanas’ mind was ill at ease and he doubted the wisdom of his action. For he had come,

Page 7 text:

PEHESOR AC TE 5 of these forces I know and the results I recognize, but for the most part they are unknown, and the authors of the forces are unknown. Before most of you were born a man began to work in your be- half. He has known but a few of you, and most of you do not know him even by sight. Yet he has been working directly in your welfare. Through his intelligent effort, by the use of his time, by the exertion of his energy, buildings have been erected in which you could sit and study, teachers of high grade have been selected and paid, that you might have the best of instruction. His thought and effort went into this beautiful building in which you have had such an enjoyable high school life. Whatever your superintendent has been able to add to your happiness and profit, has in some measure depended on the cord- ial support which Mr. Lovell has given him in the Board of Education. You are what you are, in some measure, each one of you, because that man his given of his time and his ability to build up the school system of Plainfield. The body, which was the visible instrument of his work, is now still. ‘Tomorrow it will be laid away in the grave. Ina few years it will be crumbled to dust, just as that old fence which ran through the pasture crumbled to dust years ago. But as that fence has perpetu- ated itself in the row of trees which grew up under its protection, so Mr. Lovell will still live in the influences which he has created, in this beautiful building, in the school system of Plainfield, and more than all else in the heart and life of each one of you who has been influenced by all these forces which his life set in motion. In a few years he will have been forgotten, by all but those who loved him most. A little later he will be known only as a memory, only as a part of the history of the city. But as you pass on to others the influence which he has brought to bear on your life, so he will still live. In European countries, on the death of the monarch, it is the cus- tom to say, “THE KING is dead. LONG live the KING.” So, as I th ink of tte influences which the life of this man has brought into your lives, making you better and stronger and more efficient in the service of the world; as I think how you will pass these influences on to the generations that come after you, I may truly say “THE KING is dead, but the KING still lives and will live for many years to come.”

Page 9 text:

-2 THE ORACLE not because he believed that there was any possibility of finding his “Dream Voice,” as he called it to himself, but because he dared not let a single chance go by. The failure to procure an unusual soprano would spell failure to his life’s work, a musical allegory, upon the suc- cess of which he had staked his reputation and fortune. He had come because Martin Carther had told him that it was worth while, and he respected Martin Carther’s opinion. Carther had spent the summer convalescing among the Kentucky mountains after a severe fever, and he had just returned to New York, wild with enthusiasm over Jess Ranson’s voice. He had made an attempt to pave the way for a flying visit from Stanas, and had done his best to make the world of beauty, fashion, and culture, the brilliant life of the northern cities, real and vivid to the ignorant mountain girl. But, somehow, he confessed to Perran, she had not seemed as much impressed with it all as one would naturally expect. In fact, he was not sure that she really understood exactly what he was talking about, but, at least, he had done his share, and his friend could be relied upon to do the rest. That was why Perran Stanas had come to Kentucky. But at the first sound of the girl’s voice, every doubt was swept away, and his imagination carried him on, through a year of careful training for her under his own direction, a tour of the Continent, and then the longed-for production of his masterpiece, “The Dawning,” and the whole world at his feet. Truly, the Fates were with him, for he had found the one thing needful to complete his dreams,—his “Dream Voice.” The music ceased. It was only a simple air, but the master mu- sician was enraptured. With an effort he brought himself back to the present. It was a late October afternoon in the mountains. The warm cnbeams slanted through the dark woods upon the cabin clearing and upon the face of the girl. Stanas felt the shock of disappointment as he looked at her. She stood dumbly before him, her face a blank, her figure lagging against the woodpile. Deep-chested she was, with brown hair and dull eyes, eveiy fibre of her deadened by hard toil, neither young nor old, neither sad nor gay,—a mountaineer, without imagination, without beauty. The man was amazed. Where did the voice come from? Was it possible for a woman to sing like that and still not know enough to live, to think, to realize the splendor of what she could do? Surely,