Aquinas Institute - Arete Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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Right Reverend Thomas F. Hickey, D. D. Founder of the Rochester Catholic High School 6

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Excelsior ! The golden sun of autumn cast Its morning rays, as onward passed Our youthful band with banners bright, A crimson word on ground of white, “Excelsior!” To Alma Mater’s halls we came And there began our rise toward fame; She kindly on us looked, and said, What on our scroll she off hath read. “Excelsior!” O ' er many a difficult task we bent, Keeping our minds in wise content, Nor paused a moment save to hear, The voice of one who whispered near, “Excelsior!” It mattered not, what task was laid, It mattered not we but obeyed ; The march thru Gaul, though hard and rough We finished with our flag aloft. “Excelsior! We read until our hearts did glow, Of the great deeds of Cicero ; Which time we gave without a sigh With thoughts of that great vision high “Excelsior!” Our days have lied, our work is done, Our time is o’er, our victory won ; Our anchor drawn, our ship set sail, On mast top we our emblem hail Excelsior!”

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Foreword DARK CLOUDS of war have been for some time lowering er our country and now the storm has broken at last, le times are indeed ominous. We are all more or less stirred i by the abnormal condition of things around us. Neverthe- less, we, the Class of Nineteen Seventeen of the Rochester Catholic High School, have made a special effort to produce the records of our class history. Never before have such conditions existed which vitally concerned the very integrity of the nation. We are being weighed in the balance. Shall we be found wanting? Not so long as we live up to the motto of our school : “Deus et Patria.” Loyalty to God and country — and then to Alma Mater. We have produced this work with divers ends in view. Its main pur- pose is to record the reminiscences of the past, the activities of the present and the vagaries of the future. When these happy student days have passed and we look back upon them with a mingled feeling of regret and pride — a regret that we might have done better and a certain pride in our achievements as a class, small as they might have been — we intend that this shall be the bond to unite the past and future. If, in that most uncertain Future, this book serves to awaken for one joyful moment any happy mem- ories of our days in the Rochester Catholic High School, our hopes to a certain extent will be fulfilled and our object, at least in part, accomplished. Gentle reader, be not harsh in your criticism of this volume. Imper- fections and errors will, no doubt, be found. But we are mortal ; all human- ity is prone to weakness. We have done our best to picture the results of four years’ labor. How adequately we have accomplished this purpose we leave to you to j udge. We wish to thank all who have aided us in this work, especially Mr. W. Lalonde, who through his painstaking efForts designed many of the cuts in this volume. 7