Duxbury High School - Partridge Yearbook (Duxbury, MA)

Page 21 text:

HONOR ESSAY Youth in a New Age What opportunities lie open to us graduating tonight? Is the future to be sunny or cloudy, hopeful or discouraging? What can I, or any of us, do after we graduate? We are youth. The spectacie held up before youth is marching men in uniforms equipped with deadly weapons-terrible looking children in gas masks: fearful youth being rushed into bomb proof cellarsg youth, afraid, hysterical, timidg ogres and monsters only seen in fairy tales but now be- coming real. But this is a dynamic world. It is as never before a challenging world, not a world of defeatism. Although it is believed that youth is cowardly, cynical, and selfish, it is not so. Youth is an adventurer going into a changing world of magic, of triumph, and of adventure. Youth is thought to be soft . How can it be when it was found that of 50,000 recent graduates from thirty-one colleges in twenty states two-thirds of the men and almost half of the women had earned part of their way? Is youth afraid of work? A placement director of one of the state colleges says that young people of today beg for work. In one college a student c.ass-president worked nights in a garage, Qreasing and washing cars. One girl could not find workg so she lived on stale bread from the bakery. She said that she could eat on ten cents a week. It is not a diet for a young girl, nor is it a diet for softies. But what can we do after we graduate? For what shall we train our- selves? Plato, the great Athenian philosopher, said, No two persons are born alike, but each differs from the other in individual endowments, one being suited for one thing and another for another, and all things in superior quality and quantity and with greatest ease. when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts. So it was about 400 B. C.. and it is still true. In that one respect, youth is not different. Today every young man and woman is different and has different natural abilities. If one is an artist, he should not become a plumber. This new and mobile world! There are many opportunities open to us today, which were not open several years ago. In the early 1930?s building construction was the weak sister of the big industry family. Today, the upsurge in private and national defense building has made this field-hiring more than a million workers-one of the nation's mightiest industries! To a young man who wants to break into construction, the pr-esent building boom means that his chances of getting job training are probably better right now than they have been for a long time. It takes dozens of different types of workers to turn planks of lumber, heaps of bricks, and tons of iron and cement into finished buildings of every description. This work today requires brick-layers, carpenters, cement finishers, electricians, painters, plasterers. plumbers and gas fitters, sheet- l19l

Page 20 text:

of news, and the sperm was an undevelopd force. Thus opinion was of first importance, news ol' secondary. Opinions were based upon tnviron- ment and training as well as upon personal experiences and slower forms of communication such as cor. espondcnce, magazines, and books. But today-because we must mak-e decisions in the light of what we read and hear, rather than in the light of personal experiences as was gen- erally the case before the turn of the century, it is important that we help in evaluating what we hear and what we read especially in the of economics, politics, and war. The fact that propaganda is in the newspapers should not raise t ' question of th-e failings or fo.ly of il particular owner. It is not a matter of personalities or particular peoples or groups, but of certain human forces acted upon in an advantageous way. Since this is the case, cnly we, our- selves, can learn to react sensibly. The solution of reacting in s 'ch ri way is to take time to collect and sort pertinent facts, consider them, and finally come to a decision of our own. Then we would have our own solution and others would cease to affect us if we were strong enough to disr-egard them. get field MARY A N N PETERSON U81

Page 22 text:

metal workers, stone masons, structural-iron work-ers hod carriers, and other construction workers, including a growing number of building fore- men and supervisors. Can it be said that this field is limited? The defense program is surely opening a vast field which is much broader than it has been in any previous war. Ship-yard employment is being increased by government spending. It is estimated that more than 150,000 men will be working in private shipyards by the spring of 1942. If the present rate of growth continues, as many as 10,000 young men may have opportunities to become apprentices in some of the skilled shipbuild- ing crafts, although work may be only for the duration of war. But young men will have had experience. Every sailor learns a trade. If he leaves the service, he may be a ma- chinist, metal smith, patternmaker, musician, cook, baker, radio-expert, or a motion-picture operator. New opportunities for pharmacists will also occur in our armed forces. Pharmacists enter such governmental work as the Public Health Service, Bureau of Narcotics, and Veterans Administration. There is employment for pharmaceutical chemists in manufacturing laboratories, hospital dis- pensaries, drug research work, and in production of synthetics. Women also are employed in the defense program. The expanding manufacture of textiles, shoes, and clothing will need women. Women who excel in work requiring the use of light instruments such as gages, microm- eters, vernier calipers, wil. be hired for inspection of castings, machinings, and finished parts of routine powd-er analysis, and of testing electrical equipment. Women are experts in as-semb.ing delicate instruments and machines, loading shells, and filling powder bags. They have been used in operating all types of machin-es wh-ere lifting devices and other machines can do the heavy work. There are also new opportunities for women in biology, architecture, public health. It seems fairly certain that there will be opportunities for employment of girls in industry in the next year greater than at any time since th-e last World War. It is believed and said that all fields of work are overcrowded. This changing world has made that belief wrong. The ne-ed everywhere for trained occupational therapists is far in excess of the number of girls avail- able. The therapist deals with cardiac, tuberculosis, orthopedic, and mental cases. There are also opportunities for youth in radio. With 821 radio sta- tions in the country, all hungry for ideas, there certainly are opportunities for jobs. There are many branches to this work-script writing, dramatic producing or action, news editing and broadcasting, publicity, sound effects, research and interpretation music, sales, and market research. Another expanding field is photography. Pictur-es as a medium of news have greatly grown, and there is no reason to think that the public in- terest will decline. Opportunities in commercial art are rapidly expanding. The artist has a choice of two fields in which to work: the fine arts, and commercial art. People engaged in fine arts at the best make an insecure living, but usually do not find work at all. Commercial art is not overcrowded .ike the fine arts. Department stores engage staffs of artists to make attractive adv-er- tising displays. Newspapers need artists both for their advertising and for their editorial departments. Magazines need talented p-eople to illus- trate articles and stories. The same is true of book publishers. Since the fall of Paris, a talented and aspiring young designer has a chance with a situation full of golden opportunities. i201