East Sparta High School - Spartan Yearbook (East Sparta, OH)

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lr 5 -- '-ffff '-f - -- SALUTATORY--CONTINU,EDp b at this point and at that, in order to develop effective skills. The person who does only what he likes to do, who avoids embar- rassing situations, develops the habits of inferiority rather than those of superiority. Here we see the difference between men. On the one hand are those who are inferior and either refuse to recognize their faults or believe there is nothing they can do about them. Since these people will not take steps to improve themselves, they often want to reform the entire social system. They cannot see that in any plan of life, they would probably be misfits unless they changed themselves. On the other hand are those people who believe they can develop their personalities and achieve competence and.supor- iority. ' Probably ten million people admire Andrew Carnegie. Why? Because Andrew Carnegie remained forever the master of'his world rather than its victim. Neither poverty, nor starvation, nor war could daunt his spirit. He emerged with courage unimpared. Psychologists know that most people are potentially as self- reliant as Andrew Carnegie. Before it is too late then, Americans must realize the truth, that the difference between success and failure is essentially a matter of philosophies. A philosophy of defeat makes failure in- evitable even with the most richly endowed person, a philosophy of success, a determination to make thed most of one's self, can do miracles even with one poorly endowed.

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SALUTATCDRY Americans today are in danger of accepting a general belief of defeat. It is widely thought that the individual is a victim of forces, beyond his controlg that his makeup and abilitiest are determined by heredity, that his happiness is dependent upon con- ditions outside himselfg in short, that he is anything but the master of his fate or the captain of his soul. Scientific theories have filled our vocabulary' with recipes for defeat. Constantly we hear such statements as, HPersonality is something you either have or don't have, or I suffer frcmln inferiority complex.n These and similar common remarks show the general view that the individual is a helpless creature controlled by outside forces. Personality, for example is not an 'accidental gift but an achievement.. Nation-wide studies which have been made show that young people who sell magazines or who obtain jobs from the neigh- bors, or who work to earn money during sum er vacation, tend to have stronger personalities than those who do not. The importance of such activities lies not in the rewards or money received but in the habits and Qttitudes which they develop. As for'the inferiority complex, the term should never have been coined, because then there would be one less. manufactured idea for people to fear. A sense of inferiority is not a disease which mysteriously overtakes a person 'and makes him helpless. On the contrary, it can be of real value, for the person who recog- nizes his inferiority, and then does something about it, develops superiority. Acquiring superiority in any field may be illustrated by the process of learning how to dive. The individual gets .himself beautifully poised, leans forward, and at the last momentlaesitates and draws back in fear. If, his fears prevent him fromxnaking further' attempts, he never learns to dive and his f8D!'1SffIlBP conquered. If, however, he persists and makes awkward and painful dives, he will finally go in smoothly and come up feeling pleased. His friends will compliment his form and he will have made one more comquest over himself and his environment. Whether in diving or in any other phase of life, this is the basic idea in the development of personality and superiority. Again and again the individual must plunge into the stream oflife, lg ' 1 gg I I

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..-::-..: uno E, Y GRAUON W THE SEARCH FOR BEAUTY 'Have you ever lest something and you have searched and searched and finally found that you were holding itor that it ,very near to you?' So it is with beauty. We make a tour to find it while we are actually running away from it. Years ago there was a boy who was half blind and did not know it. When the glasses which had finally been prescribed for his near-sightedness were brought to him, he was sitting on the porch of his father's farm house. Near at hand stood a tree. A tree to him had been a green blur but now to his amazement he saw it silhouetted against the sky. He saw the delicate beauty of leaves and branches and the glint of sun and shadow. And the tree which sprang into its bright distinctness was a representdw ive of his whole new world. It had never occurred to him that there was any world except the foggy one he had always looked out on. Now he grasped at the real world which had never belonged to him before. ' ' We have only to become blind to realize the beauties of liv- ing, but then it is partially too late. While we may still clin to our spiritual beauty, our materialistic world is gone. We try to suppose that to appreciate beauty we must possess some rare sense. To say that somebody else may get pleasure out of natural beauty, but that we can not, is merely to use laziness as anroxcuse. Consider Helen Keller. How could she by any 'imag- ination be enabled to'enjoy the world of light and darkness, of sun and moon and stars, of clouds and hills and lakes and running waters, of flowers, of birds and bees? But she dld learn and she learned to enjoy those exquisitely. In order to appreciate nature 'to its full extent she used the senses that she did possess. She felt the shape of things with her fingers, EEE could smell and she could taste. She had the courage to start with them and .let them carry'her as far' as they'could. nDurkg the first 19 months of my life,U she said, HI had caught glimpses of broad, green fields, a luminous sky, trees and flowers which the darkness that followed could not wholly blot out. If wekuwe once seen, that day is ours and nothing can ever take it away from us. Life is not made up by its quantities, Its real value must come out of its qualities. During the months of World War, a lady kept a little part of her garden for flowers she'loved most. Receiving at her house one day a general of the army, she apolo- gized for not having the entire garden planted with potatoes 'and