Central High School - Almanac Yearbook (Toledo, OH)

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Hiftory of the Clafs of '99, BY EDWARD WEILAND. T WAS on a bright September morning in the year 1895 that a great event occured in the history of the Toledo High School. The sun shone pleasantly upon dewy held and shady upland, upon flower-strewn vale and snow- capped mountain, upon picturesque hamlet, nestling in peaceful repose on the bank of some tiny streamlet, and busy city, whose throbbing current of life, never quite stilled, has awakened with renewed vigor to begin another day. Bounteous Autumn has arrived and, tingeing the leaves with red and gold, had made the forests veritable fairy bowers. Thus Nature herself heralded an event Which no man noticed. For of all the fair scenes upon which the genial sun shone that morning, the most beautiful, the most soul inspiring, was that presented in our own little metro- polis by the groups ofbright-eyed, rosy-cheeked boys and girls, the uncrowned lords of creation gathered for the irst time around this Fount of Learning. But no, some one noticed it, for, as the mild-eyed father of the school stood looking out upon the happy faces and heard the peals of joyous laughter, he saw as by revelation that here was true unassuming greatness. By a law of association Qbe it of similarity or contrastj he was reminded of the halcyon days of his youth when, a bare-foot boy, he whistled on his way, to school. Certain it is that he has taken a deep interest in their welfare, an unceasing watch- fulness which rewards the conscientious and gently but iirmly reproves the erring.

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Xalyrf qylf a -'L4z.S'.XX ij,f,,.. X . N 4 f Y J f .,-.xlmix . I f-iE?n.,gLiF .::f'2' 'fn LLa..afii.1'i . xx ik, ., , . C . B . f f N r V. 9 . ' , . ' a. - I BY Miss Dno. wnrcnrnnsnv. LASSMATES of Ninety-nine, from each other we soon shall be parting. W Q5 Into our minds come the thoughts of happy years spent to- gether, in Troubles they held, to be sure, and grievous enough were they seeming. I Now are the troubles forgot, and the pleasures onlylremem- bered. . I Thoughts' come, too, that this is the end, and that with graduation t W All our labors Will cease. But no--this is but the Corn- mencement, - But the beginning of work in the broader school of experi- ence, W Where we shall each one attempt to make the world brighter and better, Where each shall have his own place, and shall learn from his neighbor and teach him. Like to a fleet of boats, from the harbor we are departing, Setting our snowy sails and standing out to the ocean. Broad is that ocean and wide, and safe the port is, and sheltered That we are leaving behind, but in it no more can we tarry. And as the fleet of Columbus, that sailed so courageously Westward, Laden with trinkets and beads, for gold to exchange with the natives,

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I-Ie it was who showed us the glimmering light of the Will-O'-the-Wisp, called knowledge, and told us the best course to take in pursuing her. A difficult chase she has led us through marsh and jungle, wood and meadow. Some- times we stumbled, sometimes we fell, but always to rise again to renew the struggle. We staggered across the arid desert called Fundamental Processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication and di- vision, from which we rushed into the limpid lake of Fac- toring, only to find that it was salt and could not allay our burning thirst. Then we plunged into labyrinthine jungles of Equations, caught the malarial fevers called Theories of Exponents and Coefficients, and slew the hooded cobra which man calls the the Binominal Theorem. In all these wanderings the guide who directed our footsteps o'er the trackless waste, and soothed our fever-drawn cheeks, was one who had compelled them all to acknowledge him their conqueror. But as we emerged from the jungle with out-stretched hands thinking to grasp the prize, there was a puff of wind and the fluttering vision which we had followed so eagerly was as far ahead as ever, while a limitless expanse of lives straight and curved, broken and mixed, now lay between. We found upon trial, however, that the sea was very shal- low and could be passed without difficulty, the seemingly insurmountable barrier furnishing a delightfully refreshing bath. Knowledge, the dainty spirit, now led us upon land of an entirely new character. There were figures of many shapes fthe triangle and rectangle predominatingj which seemed to be controlled by hidden springs, for, as we approached, they would rise with a force as vicious as it was unexpected, sometimes causing great confusion in our midst. But now the country grew rough and broken. The earth was divided by yawning crevasses into huge angular blocks. These were of very unequal sizes, some requiring