Cissna High School - Review Yearbook (Cissna Park, IL)

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AlDMINIS'T RATION THE CAR.D!INAL a fairy tale, and it is history. For halfa century I have been writing my thoughts in prose and in verse, history, philosophy, drama, romance, satire, ode and song Q I have tried all. But I feel that I have not said a thousandth part of what is in me. When I go down to the grave I can say like many others: I have finished my day's work. But I cannot say: I have fin- ished my life. My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley, it is a thoroughfare. It closes in the twilight, it opens on the dawn. -Victor Hugo WHAT IS A FRIEND? Two men were talking about friendship, and one of them had praised Emerson's splendid essay. The other said, I don't know what Emerson wrote on friendship, but I am willing to accept for myself the definition of a friend, written by some unknown writer, that I found some- where the other day printed on a little slip of paper. Let me read it to you. What is a friend? he readf. 'I will tell you. It is a person with whom you dare to be yourself. Your soul can go naked with him. He seems to ask of you to put on nothing, only to be what you are. He does not want you to be better or worse. When you are with him you fell as a prisoner feels who has been declared innocentl. You do not have to be on your guard. You can say what you think so long as it is genuinely you. He understands those con- tradictions in your nature that leads others to misjudge you. With him you breathe free. You can take off your coat and loosen your collar. You can avow your little vanities and envies and hates and vicious sparks, your meanness and absurdities, and in opening them up to him they are lost, dissolved on the white ocean of his loyalty. He under- stands. You do not have to be careful. You can abuse him, neglect him, tolerate him. Best of all, you can keep still with himl It makes no matter. He likes you. He is like fire that purges all you do. He is like water that cleanses all that you say. He is like wine that warms you to the bone. He understands. You can weep with him, laugh with him, sin with him, pray with him. Through and underneath it all he sees, knows and loves you. A friend, I repeat, is one with whom you dare to be yourself. -Thomas Drier

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AADMINISTRATICIN TH-E C A R DIN A 1. THE FUNCTION OF SCHOOLS The true function of education is to foster and direct the growth of children, not to teach so many pages, rules, facts, or precepts of this subject, or of that. And the one adequate rule of practice is, constantly to meet the growing needs of this and that individual child, not to teach this class of children as a class. From this proposition, there follows the cor- ollary, which is amply substantiated in practice, that the time, order, method, and extent of presenting any subject can be rightly determined only by the interest and capacity of the child for whose benefit it is to be presented, not by the logic and practical importance of the subject itself. Finally, the mind is not to be starved and pinched, perchance sharpened, on a diet of husks, of shadowy outlines, of form and symbols of thingsg it must be nourished with valuable facts, with potent ideas, with elevating ideals. These, even, are not to be stored away as a burden to be borne, but digested and assimilated into the living soul, Nor yet is this sufiicient, that the mind grow fat on the rich food placed before it, it must grow strong by its own activity, by strenuous exertion, the awakening interests and desires must be trained to exercise themselves worthily and earnestlyg in short, the child's whole soul must become the center of independent, wisely self-directed, ennobling aim and effort. These are the fundamental principles, of necessity stated very abstractly, in conformity with which we seek to order all our daily practice, even in its details. And in the light of these principles must this practice be considered, if it is to reveal any consistent, comprehensive, and intelligent plan. -Frank E. Spaulding THE FUTURE LIFE I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest once cut down, the new shoots are stronger and livelier than ever. I am rising, I know toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head-, The earth gives me its gen- erous sap, but the heaven lights me with the reflection of unknown worlds. You say the soul is nothing but the resultant of the bodily powers. Why, then, is my soul luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail? Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets and the roses, as at twenty years. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal sym- phonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvelous yet simple. It is

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