Weymouth High School - Campus / Reflector Yearbook (Weymouth, MA)

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Few men have started out in life with a frailer body than Theodore Roosevelt. For years he could sleep only in a sitting position. But from the beginning he dominated his suffering and through strenuous training and exercise finally became one of the most masterful of our Presidents. His life is a splendid example of service to mankind and devotion to his country. His mantle has indeed fallen on worthy shoulders in the person of his kinsman, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In the fall of 1921, President Roosevelt was a complete and helpless paralytic. By patient perseverance and steadfastness of purpose, he gradually overcame his handicap, until to-day he stands before us, a man of clear vision and unselfish purpose, the President of the United States. Mothers and fathers, we are deeply grateful to you for the unfailing love and guidance which you have so freely given us from our childhood. May we never prove unworthy of such a priceless heritage. Mr. Pearson and Members of the School Committee, we sincerely appreciate the excellent work you have done in maintaining the high stand- ards of our schools in Weymouth. We shall ever remember our school life as one of our most important stepping stones toward success. Mr. Hilton and teachers, we thank you for your kindly help and cheer- ful co-operation. We hope that your tireless efforts in behalf of our class will not go unrewarded. Classmates, as we, the Class of 193 5, leave to-day this school where we have spent so many happy hours together, let us ever be inspired by the lives of these brave souls with their unwavering faith and dauntless courage even under the heaviest trials. There is no need to gaze only at the peaks on the skyline of history or literature, to find heroes of handicap. As we look around us to-day, we find much of heroism in the ordinary man and woman, unsung heroes, who are winning the greatest battle in the world — the Battle of Life. Let us go forth to meet the future with the determination to do whatever needs to be done, and despite the gray horizon that has been painted, let us keep before us in letters of flaming light, our motto: Look up and laugh and lift. [ 20 ]

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is nothing more magnificent in literature than the picture of the blind poet, day after day, dictating his great epic, Paradise Lost. Although handicapped in the same manner as Milton, Homer gave to the world the greatest Greek epics ever written, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Surely John Bunyan, the author of The Pilgrim ' s Progress, is worthy to be included in our list. And when we consider that much of this allegory was written in his little cell in Bedford Jail, where he was imprisoned for twelve long years, our admiration mounts higher for this humble servant of Christ. The history of English literature records no braver story than the life and works of the gifted story-teller, poet, and essayist, Robert Louis Steven- son. This brave heart never permitted constant pain and overpowering weakness to rob him of his gay spirit, nor to quench the flame of joy that is ever present in his writings. No list of heroes of handicap would be complete without mention of Helen Keller. Though blind, deaf, and dumb from infancy, she realized the goal of her ambition when, on Commencement Day in 1904, the Presi- dent of Radcliffe College placed in her sensitive hands her diploma from that institution. Her whole life has been a continuous attempt to do what- ever other people do and do it well. Her success has been complete, for in trying to be like normal people she has come most fully to be herself. In his inspiring poem, Invictus, William Henley has aptly expressed the thought of my subject. Although afflicted from childhood with a serious illness, he could bravely write: Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond the place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find me, unafraid. It matters not how strait the gait. How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. Incomplete would be any essay on masters of fate without a brief remark concerning the lives of two men who have made names for them- selves i n our own history — Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. [ 19 ]

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CLASS HISTORY