Elmira Free Academy - Torch / Sagoyawatha Yearbook (Elmira, NY)

Page 14 text:

DR, H ELM KAM P There is an old saying that if you want something clone. ask a busy man to do it. Besides tackling a full-time job as our school principal, Dr. llelmkamp has given up his personal pleasures and devoted his leisure time to the many tasks connected with the war effort. VYe admire and respect him for performing these duties so well, but we shall remember him most for the personal interest he has taken in us, for his kindness and his patience, and for his genuine friendliness towards us.

Page 13 text:

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Page 15 text:

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SENIOR CLASS: VVhen, in September 1939, you entered the Academy as carefree, happy freshmen, Hitler was invading Poland. That event must have seemed afar off and of little moment to you then. You were juniors when the japanese launched their sudden attack on Pearl Harbor. However eager and patriotic your response,-and it was both,--you must still have felt that the war was primarily the job of older folks, that perhaps the conflict would be over before you had a real chance to take part in it. But so swift has been the rising tide of events, that today, even before you finish your schooling, the pressing needs of total war require our government to reach down into the 'teen age group and call you to an active part in the struggle. Already, many of your comrades are in the armed forces. Some during the past year have seen service in Africa and the South Sea islands of the Pacific. Hardly a boy among you but expects to join one of the armed services in june. Hardly a girl, but sees opportunity for service, immediate and imperative, For all of you, normal peace- time hopes and ambitions must wait upon the performance of war time tasks that brook no delay. A ' To extol youth and to tell them that they are the hope of the future, has, in the past, been a usual part of the sometimes empty rhetoric of Commencement Day speeches. There is no need to tell you that opporunity and duty wait upon you, here and now, with clear and incisive meaning. A task comparable to that given to young men and women in 1776 and 1861 faces you. May you prove worthy of our great historic past and meet the challenge of our day. Your teachers wish you God-speed, great courage, and indomitable will in your efforts to win the victory, a full measure of equity, tolerance, and mercy to help establish a just and lasting peace. May the moral purpose that sustains you during the coniiict be motivated by the desire to raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. 'fjoyous you too launch out on trackless seas Fearless for unknown shores . . . With a deep and abiding confidence that America is gathering the strength of her youth to fulfill a noble destiny, Away 0 Soul! . . . Sail forth-steer for the deep waters only ,.... For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. Sincerely yours, 6745.