English High School - Brown Owl Yearbook (Providence, RI)

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ADDRESS TO UNDERGRADUATES Underclassmen-Lend me your ears and give heed to the words of wisdom which I am about to impart to you. Freshmen! You are now approaching the close of your probationary period and will soon ceaseto be looked upon as a mere incubus upon our student bodyg you will no longer be considered as a conglomerated mass of isolated particles with scarcely enough cohesion among its molecules to make it a tangible reality. VVe sincerely trust that by this time it has dawned upon your so-called intellects that you have been permitted to exist among us only as a necessary evil and that your future mental development will so progress so as to merit the approval of your teachers, thereby justifying the toleration of which you have been the unconscious recipients. just a bit of specific advice-Realize and remember that when present in the hall on Wednesday mornings you are not there as ornaments, neither are you considered the guests or the critics of the higher classes. Your presence on these occasions affords you the only opportunity allowed to freshmen of raising their voices to their full capacity. At all other times silence should be your motto. W Sophomores! By the processes of evolution you have shaken off the man- tle of many of your former crudities and have now crossed the threshold and entered fairly upon your student career. Do not for one moment, however, imagine that you have attained the heights of wisdom and that you can safely give an iron-clad guarantee that you are exempt from future errors of judg- ment. At this time fl can do no better than remind you of the saying of that famous American philosopher and humorist, josh Billings. He said,- There is hope for the person who, making a mistake, recognizes it and profits by it, but Heaven help the person who makes mistakes and stands OH and points to them with pride-his case is hopeless. May the truth of these words sink deeply into your minds. juniors! Now that you are about to make your formal entrance into the sanctum sanctorum, or Holy of Holies of this school, namely, Room l, it is to be hoped that you will appreciate to the full the exalted status of your new environment. The only admonition that we can give you is, remember that as you advance through your curriculum your responsibilities proportionally increase. You are ever to be shining examples to the under classes of what good students should be. Promptness at recitations. desire to anticipate the wishes of your teachers. and a display of assiduity in the prosecution of your studies, will bc the strongest factors in gaining the higher honors which await you. 45

Page 45 text:

But new mines have been developed, methods have been perfected to extract the gold from dirt that fifty years ago could not be made to yield enough to pay more than part of the expense of extracting it, all mining methods have been improved, and the result of these changes has been to increase the amount of gold in circulation. The value of gold, as a monetary standard, would of course vary inversely with the supplyg that is, the greater the amount in circulation, the less would be its value. All articles have a given value and the cost of anything depends on the ratio of its value to that of gold. lf the price of gold goes down, necessarily it will take more gold to buy a given article. A good illustration of this was given in the last days of the Confederacy, when it took as much as twenty dollars in Confederate money to buy what one dollar in United States money would purchase, that is, the value of Confederate money had decreased and, therefore, it took a greater amount to purchase something of a given value! lf the increased amount of gold in circulation is the true cause of the high cost of living, the only way to overcome it is to use something else more stable as a monetary standard. Another theory advanced is that many people are leaving the farms and going to the cities thus becoming consumers instead of producers. Still another claims that people live better than they did formerly. Both of these, however, may be condensed into the fact that there is an increased demand and a corres- ponding lack of supply. Many of the other so-called causes of high-living can be traced directly or indirectly to this reason. Naturally if there is an increased demand without a corresponding increase of supply, prices must go up. The United States Government through its Department of Agriculture, is doing everything possible to aid the farmer to make his land more productive, to utilize lands that are now arid, in fact, it is doing everything in its power to overcome this inequality in supply and demand. In time, it may accomplish this, and a long step will have been taken to reduce the cost of living. In a similar manner, chemists are experimenting to find some compound that will be more stable than gold, this to be adopted as a monetary standard, and thus avoid a surplus on the market as is now the case. Y Of course, there are many other facts which may tend to cause the present high cost of living, but after removing these before getting prices down to normal, something must be done to equalize the supply and demand, and to overcome in some manner the ill-effects of the large amount of gold in circu- lation. , I. ROBERT SWEET. 44.

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Sub Seniors! Wfe hail you as our worthy successors, and as such, we would admonish you ever to keep in mind and endeavor to live up to the best traditions of our beloved school. It should be your ambition to emulate the glorious example which this illustrious class of January, 1911, has set before you. The inspiration our class has given you together with your own past experience should be the spur to further efforts. My parting words of advice will be those long ago uttered by that eminent philosopher and statesman, -Benjamin Franklin. He said, I have no light to guide my path to the future save that shed by the lamp of experience, and oftentimes it is profitable to pause in our journey, turn backward, and study the road by which we have traveled. VV e bestow upon you our blessings together with our best wishes that you will prove yourselves worthy in the highest degree of the proud 'title of Seniors. ' S Q QE ':-.K....-egg li 4 6