Technical High School - Techtonian Yearbook (Buffalo, NY)

Page 18 text:

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS ACH year it becomes the pleasant duty of the Senior president to welcome our parents and friends and the members of the faculty to the numerous festivities and exercises that mark our gradu- ation. I consider it more of a privilege than a duty to hope you will thoroughly enjoy our Class Day with us-the day that seems the beginning of the end, a day whose happiness for us is somewhat mixed with sadness. Tech has been our home, the scene of our severe struggle for four years, and we leave it with regret. It has through its fine traditions, thorough instruction and friendly discipline guided us in our aspirations to greater achievements. But as we step through the door with our coveted diplomas in hand-as we turn to read for the last time the words Skill, Knowledge, Power carved overhead, we leave this careful guidance. However, we should feel no discouragement nor fear of the future for we know that Tech men have received the training so necessary to make successful men. We have a definite product to offer to an employer. In the world of to-morrow where science and engineering will be dominant factors, where every new invention will create a new field, the technician will be the ruler. The graduates of our technical courses will secure positions in industry where they have many times been placed on a par with college men and have borne their full share of the work. Perhaps many of the present Seniors will take advantage of the fifth year courses, which have come to be recognized as almost necessary in helping students to obtain desirable positions. Of the success of those of our number who go on to college, there can be little doubt. Every additional year of training should increase the value of any man in the technical field. If it were only the essential knowledge of our specialty we had gained, many would feel that a vital part of our education had been neglected. Through our musical groups, we have developed valuable talents, by debating and public speaking, we have been taught to speak fluently and well, in our many clubs, we have gained power of leadership and made enduring friendships, and last but far from least, we have learned fair play and co-operation and have acquired vigorous health by means of our competitive sports. Our preparation for life has been a thorough education. This year of 1940 takes on a new significance as we gaze across the Atlantic and see thousands of boys our age sacrificing their lives in the grim game of warfare. We need only stop and think, as we read the names upon the bronze tablet in the corridor, of the Tech boys who died in the last war and of the waste of humanity now going on in foreign countries, and we can thank God we live in America, where we trust another war will never come. It will be our future duty not only to aid in the materialistic progress of our nation, but also to preserve its security by exercising the virtues of loyalty, co-operation and service we have learned at Technical High School. EDWARD G. RICH Tecbtanian, 1940

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THE COLOR GUARD SCATTERED about our community and even far afield one may meet the members of a large fra- ternity- graduates of Technical High School-a fraternity in the true sense of the word-a brother- hood, united by the bonds of service to the flags of the nation and the school-the former seniors of the Color Guard. For as many years as the tradition of the Guard has existed at Technical, the eight senior Guardsmen have represented some of the best the class could offer in achievement and character. Chosen at the end of the Junior year by the combined opinion of the Junior Class and a large faculty committee, the members, during their last year, ofliciate at each assembly by carrying into the auditorium the American flag and the school flag and standing at attention while the national anthem is played. When the assembly exercises are over, the Guard removes the colors before anyone leaves the room. The flag ceremony is impressive. It imparts dignity to our assemblies and receives the commendation of every visitor to our school. ' To be selected as a member of the Color Guard is a real triumph for a junior. He feels that he has earned the confidence of his classmates and his teachers. For years he will wear with pride the beautiful gold and enamel service pin, bearing the red, white, and blue with the maroon added, which he receives at the end of his term. He, in turn, by virtue of the position he occupies, has an ideal that he must live up to-an ideal of honor, of endeavor, of dependability and of real service-not only while he acts as Color Guard but after he has joined the number of his predecessors as an alumnus. They have gone out from the doors of Technical, and in many fields are still upholding that same ideal of honor and of service. As adviser of the Color Guard, Miss Anna Halloran will be ever remembered for the ideals she possessed and instilled by example as well as precept. O Tecbtomlm, 1940

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VALEDICTORY We are gathered here in the presence of parents, teachers, and all the friends of these four years to mark the passing of an era in our lives, one which we shall someday regard as a time of idyllic happiness. We are here to say farewell to a phase of life which has been secure, sheltered, and, to each according to his light, successful. We have been fortunate in securing four such years of peaceful, civilized, useful education in a troubled world, now as we depart to seek our separate, unknown destinies it is a wholesome and a fitting thing to pause briefly, glancing back and taking stock of ourselves and our equipment, before leaving to keep a rendezvous with life. Sufficient has been said of the kind and quality of education We received here 5 too little is spoken of the responsibility incurred by all who receive education. They must account for the use made of such assets. How to discharge such responsibility is a problem whose solution is vague to most of us, we only trust that when the time and opportunity occur we shall render a good accounting of ourselves, not alone by the assimilation of book knowledge, but especially through the less tangible acquisition which is providentially ours, the ideals of American culture. While we worked and studied here, enjoying the pleasures of good fellowship, there were in- stilled in us certain ideals of justice, righteousness, truth, honor, liberty, good citizenship, loyalty, patriotism, decency, and fair play. These ideals must be firmly intrenched in our souls that they may be the gleam we follow. The burden of living inexorably shifts to our own shoulders. It is natural that we should assume this burden, even assume it joyously, and confidently, and take up the work of the world for progress is the way of life. We must bend ourselves to the task of making our world a better place to live in and of building successful lives upon the foundation of our education and our ideals. As our ways wind onward we bid farewell to these familiar halls, to the comrades of our four years, to teachers who have guided us in the paths of scholarship and decorum. Now let us feel the exhilarating splendor, the matchless exultation of this priceless moment when we go forth undaunted to face the world, in the full pride of youth with head held high, alone, yet unafraid. MYRON GOOD Tecbtonian, 1940