Athens Area High School - Athenian Yearbook (Athens, PA)

Page 13 text:

•m- To Our Graduates: “Nothing can make good citizenship in men and women who have not in them courage, hardihood, decency, sanity, the spirit of truth-telling and truth-seeking, the spirit that dares and endures, the spirit that knows what it is to have a lofty ideal, and yet to endeavor to realize that ideal in practical fashion.” This quotation expressed the truth when it was written by Theodore Roosevelt in his day, and it is just as surely the basic truth for us of this generation. It is especially timely and helpful for you graduates who are this spring leaving the shelter, guidance, and instruction of Athens High School either to continue your studies and to gain experience in higher schools and universities, or to take up some activity leading to a worthwhile contribution to our social, industrial, or professional field of endeavor. Above everything else, your high school education has tried to prepare you how to live and to plan for better living, and to give you the basic habits and attitudes so necessary to Be happy, useful, and well-adjusted members of society in the community in which you may live. It has been the aim and the endeavor of your high school to teach you that honest occupation, whether mental or manual, is necessary to a secure future. It must he the responsibility of society that you shall have the opportunity of employment. Yours is the generation whose interpretation of the meaning of real citizenship is going to determine whether the democracy of the United States shall continue to be a living, constructive, and guiding force in the world, or whether we too must endure the throes of a social and political revolution. There has been no class in recent years whose members have shown more pep and drive, interest and enthusiasm, knack for planning and accomplishment, and a striving for excellence than have the members of the Class of 1941. My wish to you is that these qualities as demonstrated by your class may go with you into your future endeavors, and that your lives and citizenship may be characterized by decency, courage, thoughtfulness, moral and spiritual stamina, clear vision and a practical intelligence in meeting the critical problems of your day. Elcene E. Crediford.

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Dr A. G. Coughlin, F.llery Bressler, Leon F. Loomis, T. .1. Cook. Dr. D. McClarty THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS You are living in a time of rapidly changing conditions. Perhaps at no time j-ince the Renaissance have there been such changes as in the present era. Only Divine Providence and historians will he able to write of its effects. Wonderful opportunities exist for the youth of today who are able to grasp them. To do this, you must he willing to work and ready to make the necessary sacrifices to secure the proper training so that when an opportunity occurs you will be capable to take advantage of it. Many successful people are not college graduates, but they had the will to read and to learn. You should read a good newspaper each day. study the editorials, and learn to think before you speak. Choose an honorable occupation, always remembering that an individual who works with his hands is equal to any one else, providing that he earns his livelihood by legitimate means. Don’t be satisfied just to work at your occupation: try to be the best in your field: maintain a due regard for constituted authority and for your fellow workers. You may not acquire riches: but if you are happy and retain your self respect, vour life will he a success. The purpose of genuine culture is not to enable man to amass wealth, although he incidentally may and frequently does, but to store his memory with ascertained truth.

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To The Class of 1941: You are being graduated into a world that is in trouble beyond anything known for a generation and perhaps for the whole history of civilization. What part are you to play in such a world? It is a sobering thought. Much that you are to do cannot, at the present time, be foretold. But the pattern which you are to follow is yours to determine It is our hope that there will be woven into that pattern for you and for the whole generation of which you are a part, the things of abiding value upon which the welfare of civilization depends and that these things will he so promoted in your day that the spiritual wounds of the present conflict may be healed and civilization be established on a basis that will forever make such calamities unthinkable. With sincere good wishes. I. W. Hazard. Giaduates: After leaving Junior High School in 1938, you, no doubt, thought that it would be a long time before you would graduate from the Athens High School: but, all too soon, the time has passed: and now’ you should have a good conception of what you are about to face in this Democracy of ours. This, I believe, is a good time for you to graduate, as there are now more opportunities for success than there have been in the previous decade. There is a great need for professional workers, military gen iuses, and technicians. Men and women, who not only know how to do things, but who will always insist on doing them well, conscious of their abilities as leaders, are jealous of their professional honors. They will sacrifice personal gain to uphold the dictates of conscience in their professional service. Vie have unlimited faith in your capacity as normal human beings, and if given a fighting chance to become self-sustaining, self-respecting, happy members of society, you will take your places, as did your forefathers, remembering always that those persons who are democratic are the only ones that can defend Democracy. The Junior High School says Au Revoir”, good luck and success to you.” William S. Courtney.