Classical High School - Classic Myths Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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HARRY XVILLIAM DOVVNEY

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PRESIDENT'S CLASS DAY ADDRESS GEORGE ELLSWORTH COLE r' ARENTS, TEACHERS AND FRIENDS:-Class Day marks the close of our life as Seniors of the ,Q , Classical High School.. Though this fact brings 9 'W Aen,4 7 as with it a shadow of regret, still this is the day we have looked forward to since our entrance upon L our High School. career, and is the one which we shall always associate with pleasant memories. Class Day gives us, as a class, the opportunity to extend our hearty welcome to all our friends. Parents: We appreciate the sacrifice many of you have made in order that this day might be made possible for us, and therefore extend to you a most hearty welcome. Teachers and Principal: VVe are glad to have you with us for these exercises. VVe thank you for your great' patience with us and for the deep interest you have always shown in the welfare of the Class of 1908. We are sure that the splendid training you have given us will be shown throughout our after life. We welcome all our friends who are here this afternoon and thank them for the friendly feeling they have shown us in so many ways throughout our High School life. , Here it is proper to thank the Junior cl.ass for securing this beau- tiful hall for our Class Day exercises. This is the first year that Class Day exercises of a VVorcester High School have been held out of the school building. Our departure from the old custom was nec- essary on account of lack of space in our own hall. Although my poor words do not adequately express the sinceri- ty with which the class greets you, yet again, in behalf of the Seniors of the Classical High School, I extend to you all a most cordial welcome. 9

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The first rays of dawn light the homeward 52 V , 01'MQ 1 G 'cial A' .S l Q CLASS ORATION CHILD LABOR HARRY WILLIAM DOWNEY DAY in June. A ray from the sun high in the heavens finds its way with piercing heat to a rude garret in the slums of a great city-to a little form huddled over a machine, its eyes with a vacant stare, eyes unknown to the country with its green grass and shady trees. path in the coal mines of Pennsylvania for another child, with sunken cheeks and dragging limbs, weary with the hours of its nightly toil. Sad pictures, but true. Not taken from the pages of some fairy book, not in some land thousands of miles from our hearts and homes, but here, here beneath the folds of the stars and stripes, the emblem of the free. V True? Yes, too pitiably true. Read the cold figures of the Uni- ted States census for 1900, and learn that there are I,750,62.4, or one out of every eight children between the ages of ten and fifteen em- ployed in gainful. occupations. just think! VVhile they yet should be romping in play and cultivating themselves in halls of learning. they long since have been sacrificed to mammon by an ignorant parenthood and a demand for cheap labor. These children were at work, not in the open air, not in the fresh country, where sound comes up to us from free and living things. They were at work under the deafening and deadeningi clank and clat- ter of machinery in the cotton mills of the south, in the glass facto- ries of New Jersey and VVest Virginia, in the sweatshops of New York, on the breakers of the mines in Pennsyl.vania. In the textile mills of the South, 25 per cent. of the operatives are under the age of fifteen, 2000 girls under fourteen are doing night work in Pennsylvania, Q2,000 children under fifteen are at work in the State of New York, while in the South, 43,000 children under II