Eastern High School - Echo Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

Page 23 text:

THE EASTERN ECI-IO 21 in discovering several remarkable metals, the most remarkable of which was radium. ln l902, she and her husband and an as- sociate were awarded the Nobel Prize for this important discovery. The announcement of their work and of the honor that had come to them brought much publicity and many re- quests for interviews and for lectures, and offers of new positions to both of them. Madam Curie accepted a teaching position. She con- tinued to carry on her experiments, and also continued her research. ln l922, she visited the United States, and the women of America, including, doubtless, many of your own facul- ty, presented to her a gram of radium as the most suitable gift that they could offer her. The other woman in whom l have been in- terested was an American, and lived a life much like that of all of us. She was born in a Western town soon after the frontier days had passed. She went to school and Sunday School and looked forward to going to college as all her sisters had done. Two instances of her childhood seemed pro- phetic of her future. One Sunday morning she came down dressed in a beautiful new coat, which she called on her father to ad- mire. He told her it was indeed very pret- ty, so pretty that he was afraid she ought not to wear it because the girls who had no pretty coats might feel bad and her old one would keep her just as warm. Very sorrow- fully she took it off, pondering deeply over the difference between those who' could afford pretty clothes and those who could not. About a year later, when she was eight years old, she drove with her father into a part of the town new to her. There she saw small, mean houses crowded closely together, and she asked her father why people should live in such mean, ugly little houses. l-le tried to explain to her the difference between poverty and wealth, and she said, When l grow up, l am going to live in a great wide house, but l am going to build it right among these mean little houses. After her high school days, she went to Rock- ford Seminary. She would have preferred one of the large Eastern colleges for women, but her father's idea was that she should go to Rockford, which was nearby, and then have a year of travel in Europe. Rockford Seminary had been built in the pioneer days at a great sacrifice to the foun- ders, and that spirit of sacrifice and of devo- tion had produced in the college an earnestness and an eagerness to make the best of the op- portunity that had been brought about by so much effort. When Jane Addams. was there, the pioneer days were past, but the spirit of earnestness and zeal remained. She and her classmates discussed and tried to settle all the problems of the universe, as all college stu- dents do, and before her four years were over, she had decided that for her life work she was going to study medicine and live among the poor. After her graduation she had her year of European travel that she had expected, and in each city she visited not only cathedrals and art galleries, but the slums and tenement dis- tricts. It is not necessary for me to go on with de- tails of her story. You have all heard of Jane Addams and her l-lull I-louse, and know that she did live in a great wide house built right among the mean little houses in Chicago. These two women present very different types. The first is the pure scholar type,-a girl who had always loved to study, had always expected to be a student, and had pursued her object of research wherever it led, learning and announcing one truth after another. She has not only reached the highest point of honor in the scientific world but has the happiness of knowing that her work has been a blessing to humanity, in relieving suffering and preventing death. The other is a different type, the girl who perceived a need, who felt a call, and who proceeded to fit herself by study and travel to fill that need and answer that call. There is a third type that l would mention, --a type so well known that l have not taken the trouble to find an illustration. l mean the girl who expects to earn her living, or be worth her living, either at home, or in some business or profession, and who, at the same time, hopes to be of service to her family and friends and to enjoy for herself a useful, well-rounded life. If you belong to this class you will find that whatever business or calling you engage in you will want the training the high school gives you, and probably more besides. If you want to be a nurse, a teacher, a doctor, a saleswoman, you will want both general preparation and specific training. So well-known is this, that you would hardly hope to enter an occupation of any importance without offering a record of more or less definite qualifications for the work you seek. There is one career, the most important of all, perhaps, for which the qualifications are not so well-known or, at least, so definitely prescribed. l refer to the position of home- maker, the business of being a wife and mother. l can not tell you exactly the entrance require- ments to this field. But however indefinite the

Page 22 text:

20 THE EASTERN ECI-IO Miss Cairnes's Message To The School is a great privilege to come here 5,353 in the capacity in which l stand this morning. The present occasion means much more to me than it does to you. To you it means simply another change in your school. You have had changes before,-a new teacher, a new text book, a new map, a new picture on the wall. This is simply another one more or less interesting. To me, it means a complete change of field-both as to place and kind of work. The duties, the opportunities, the as- sociates are new. That is why I appreciate so deeply the kind words of your principal and superintendent and your generous applause in welcoming me. Whenever l have looked into the faces of a high school audience like this, I have been im- pressed with the tremendousness of the cause that brings so many of us together so regularly and with so much earnestness. What is it that brings us here? A few years ago I heard an address by a prominent Baltimorean before an audience of students, alumnae, and professors of Goucher College. l-le began his remarks with a quota- tion from a book he had just read. The au- thor, speaking of the education of women, nad said, Why educate them? If a woman is beautiful, education is unnecessaryg if she is not beautiful, it is futile. This hopeless view of our destiny provoked a smile, but the next morning we were all back at school or college, busily pursuing our business of educating future women. Perhaps y-u may be interested in two sets of articles which I have just been reading, which deal with the story of the lives of two women. The first was a Polish girl, born in Warsaw in 1867. l-ler father was a college professor, and he expected to give his children a college education. There were two kinds of schools in Warsaw: Polish schools, which taught the Polish language, and Russian schools, which were supported by the state and gave the di- plomas, but which taught in Russian and did not allow the Polish language to be used at all. The Polish children were always under suspi- cion, and an unguarded word might bring the whole family to prison. Marie attended these schools, both elementary and high school. She was acquainted not only with the Polish and Russian languages but also with German, French, and English, and read the great lit- erature in all these languages. A great event in their home was when the father read to them from the Polish masters, and the little girl grew up with a fondness for literature. She was the youngest of the fami- ly, and when her turn came to go to college her father was unable to send her. At the age of seventeen, she was employed as a governess in the home of a well-to-do agriculturist. Here she taught the children, and she and the old- est daughter of the family spent their spare time in teaching the peasant children in the neighborhood how to read and write in Polish. They did this at some risk, for the Russian gov- ernment sent people to Siberia for less. After acting as a governess for two years a.nd living at home with her father for one year, her opportunity for college came. Her oldest sis.- ter, who had graduated in medicine, had mar- ried a physician, and they were going to Paris to live. Marie was to go with them and live with them and study at the Sorbonne. She had hardly decided up to this time just what was to be her special subject, but she had been giving particular study to science and mathe- matics. ln Paris she found that her brother- in-law's home was too far from her schoolg so she moved into a garret but scantily furnished and scantily heated. This was her home for the next four years. Although she endured many privations, still she enjoyed tremendously her study at the Sor- bonne, her association with other students who lived much as she did, and her independence in the great city. During this time she met Pierre Curie, and after she had won her de- gree, they were married. I-le was a physician, but was more in erested in research work and in teaching than in practicing his profession. His wife decided to continue her studies in order to gain a doctor's' degree. She had been interested in certain metals which seemed to emit powerful rays, and decided to experi- ment and try to separate these metals for her problem of research. 1-ler husband worked with her for four years. They carried on their experiments in a laboratory, which they fitted up in a shed in the yard of his school. Some days she spent hours stirring a kettle of boiling metal. Other days were spent in separating the most delicate crystals and collecting them in vials kept on the shelves of their crude labora- tory. They worked up about a ton of metal in the course of their experiments and succeeded

Page 24 text:

22 THE EASTERN ECHO qualifications for entering upon this career may be, I do not hesitate to say that the better train- ing you have, the more assured will be your success in it. You can all realize and you may have ob- served that the woman who has learned how to read intelligently, how to think things through, how to spend money wisely, how to plan her duties systematically, how to enjoy simple, inexpensive pleasures, how to work ef- ficiently and willingly, whether she feels like it or not, is able not only to preside over a well- ordered home, but also to take an important place in her community, in her church, and in the lives of her children. Whether or not you have consciously formu- lated your reasons for being here, it is probable that you belong to one of these three classesg and you expect to make very real preparation here for the life that lies before you. It is for this purpose that the school exists, with its studies, its clubs, its athletics, its arts, and its musicg and it is for one of these purposes that you are here. I thank you for your courteous attention.. l realize that what l have said is not new. You have probably heard or thought of it before, and yet I think it is not amiss for us to pause once in a while and restate our aims and remind ourselves of what we expect school to do for us. If we do this, it will help us to value our opportunities as we should and to make the most of them. l have enjoyed meeting you this morning, and I am looking forward to next year when we shall become really acquainted, and shall be friends and partners in the great enterprise in which we are engaged. A Brave Choir Dorothy Russell, 1924 QNDAY night, and all was emphat- lcally nit Zlvelll 'dfi 'grouph ofhten glrs wa e- t1m1 y 1nto t e c o1r loft and quickly seated themselves, 'QE ' hiding their flushed faces behind the kindly velvet curtain. It was not the first time they had done the same thing-oh, no! The choir had performed weekly during the previous spring and, according to the gener- ous congregation, had done very well. But never before had they attempted so difficult a piece, and never before had they been quite so dubious as to the rendition of the evening's selection. The leader had said at the last re- hearsal that they must not be nervous. She sat now in the back of the church, her eyes flashing, now and then, a look of comfort and assurance to her charges. Sweet strains from the organ filled the small auditorium, and the good folks settled back to enjoy the rare treat they felt sure was in store for them. The girls arose with one accord, faced the rear of the church, and-with eyes glued to the printed score, sang-in the wrong key! The organist fumbled, nobly tried to play the anthem in the key which the choir had se- lected, and finally gave up in despair. Be it forever to their credit, the girls did not laugh. With sober faces and unseeing eyes, they plunged ahead without the aid of the organ, ended on a note several tones higher and in- finitely more out of reach of their meagre so- pranos than the note of the original compo- sition had been, and calmly disappeared from View behind the aforesaid curtain. Before long, a succession of coughs, snorts, and violent blowing of noses was heard is- suing from that corner of the church sacred to its vocal aspirers. The smiling, highly-amused congregation may have guessed the rest, but they were deprived of the privilege of seeing the expressions on the faces of those ten girls when they were out of sight. Some antique devotees undoubtedly thought that the mem- bers of the choir had awful coldsg but those who had not forgotten their own youth knew that the coughs, snorts, and violent blowing of noses were tell-tale evidences of a convulsed choir. . .E 2-2 -m:.-- :-i Y 1 w l 4 1 I I l l l l