Central High School - Centralian Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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 Greer

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Introductory Gentle Readers: The work which we contemplated with so much awe a few months .ago is completed, and we submit to your judgment the result of our labors, the fourth volume of the High School Annual. With fear and trembling do we present it, hoping that you will look with favor upon its few merits, and with charity upon its many defects. In this work we have endeavored to picture accurately to you the school as a whole, and the class of ’03, with its character and doings, as a part. We have made it our object to interest and amuse you, even at our own exj ense. Therefore, if 3 011 see aii3 thing that looks like vanity (!), please remember that no seniors are such fools in that respect as the3 appear. One who has never ‘'hustled ads,” who has never read proof, who has never wrestled with the arrangement of “cop3 ,” who has never braved the printer or the dry goods man in his den, can not realize how arduous was the task of publishing this work. If, however, 3 011 are satisfied — if this book gives strangers an accurate idea of the class of ’1)3 — if to members of the class it brings back at some future time the days we spent together at the old high”—it has accomplished the purpose for which it was published, we are more than repaid for our labors. If 3 ou are dissatisfied, we are sorry. We shall be glad to have any of our readers call to express their opinions of this work. It will be only fair to say, however, that we shall lie “out” all next week, from G A. M. to 12 P. M., daily. If 3 011 have anything important to communicate, typewrite (nothing else will be read), seal your paper, address it to us, and file it in the waste-basket in the principal’s office. Whatever else we may have done, for one thing, at least, we deserve commendation: in all this work there is not one joke about going to Canada with the proceeds of the publication. Whatever is your judgment on this book, whether 3 011 think it too serious, or whether 3 011 judge it frivolous —we know that there will lie some of each class—pray consider that we have done our best, and that neither man nor woman can do more. Therefore, if you cannot approve, at least do not condemn the work of THE EDITORS.

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Professor Jofyo Qreer ROFESSOR JOHN X. GREER first saw life on a farm in Scott county, Iowa. He attended the district school until the age of fifteen, when he entered the public schools of Davenport, Iowa. Five years afterward he was graduated from the high school, having mastered in three years the full four years course, and was valedictorian of the class. A. year after, in ’71), he entered Iowa College, and was graduated in’82. There are many men who seem to have left their youth so far behind them, that it is almost impossible to imagine them as boys. Not so with Professor Greer. Though a man of utmost dignity, he yet possesses the freedom and elasticity of youth. Some of us, perhaps, may envy him, when, like Whittier’s barefoot boy, he roamed over the big farm, fishing, perchance, in the little stream, or chasing butterflies over the grass, and making friends with the birds and squirrels. Indeed, he was passionately fond of pets, and lost no opportunity to study them and their habits. It was then that he acquired that taste for natural history and that habit of close observation, which arc now so characteristic of him. But not long did he enjoy unrestrained childhood. At the age of ten he commenced to labor on the farm, and from that time onwards he worked as hard asany full grown man. 11 is father died, leaving him, a boy of twelve, in charge of the farm. He proved equal to the occasion, and for three years he successfully carried on the business and management which had so suddenly devolved upon him. But he was not the kind of boy who could be satisfied with the monotonous toil of farm life. His great desire lor study led him to seek, in the public schools of Davenport, the avenue to culture and advancement. For about a year before entering college he taught a village school at Blue Grass, Scott county, Iowa. He entered the college in September, 79, as has already been said, and for three years applied himself earnestly to study. His rapid advance through the classical course, paralleled by sjjecial work in the sciences, secured for him in this short time the two degrees of A. B.and B.S. It may Ik interesting to know that only one other person in the history of the college has been able to secure these twodegrees. The fact that Professor Greer was able to condense eight years’ study into three-years is certainly a remarkable tribute to the effectiveness of application and determination. But though Professor Greer studied hard, he did not neglect his health. 11 is life on the farm had given him a constitution which placed him at once at the head of college athletics, and his interest in base-ball, foot-ball and other sports was