Farrell High School - Reflector Yearbook (Farrell, PA)

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if9 REFLECTOR46 Statistics of 1926 In welcoming you to our exercises today, 1 do so with a profound realization that ours is indeed a most unusual class. Indeed, 1 have always had high hopes for this Class of 1926. Even when I saw them come into this school as Freshmen—so green that they thought social science was the art of making friends— I refused to shake my head over them the way the rest of the world did. “No, sir,” I said, “this crowd is going to improve. They’ll have to! And, friends, I was right! I know of no better proof of the heights of wisdom and sagacity to which this group of intellectual magnates has risen than its choice of a president. I predict that a class with such taste will go far. 1 am struck, as I have often been before, with their remarkable foresight and keenness of vision. They have shown in this act, as they have throughout their entire high school career, a wisdom far beyond their years. I am surprised to learn, through secret channels, that there are those who are yet ignorant of the fact that 1926 is the greatest class which has ever graduated from our school—and this despite the fact that they know who is its president! However, let it pass! As the poet says, glory is but a withered wreath. It has seemed to us fitting that whatever misapprehension there is about that point should be cleared up. That is, if there are any lingering doubts in the minds of any of you here tonight as to the scintillating brilliancy of this class,! we want to dispel them. Therefore, we have had two expert statisticians, Mr. Carine and Mr. Smith, working day and night for several months upon our class achievements to prove to you, in absolute figures, the remarkable mental feats of the Class of 1926. I am now prepared to present to you the findings of these expert investigators. I may say they are astonishing—and gratifying! As I put them before you, I would have you keep in mind the undeniable fact that figures cannot lie. Otherwise, I can readily believe that you tvould find some of our statiticians’ reports almost too astounding for acceptance. Like true scientists, Mr. Carine and Mr. Smith wrent back to the beginning of our high school career for their first computations. Strange to state, they found, back there in the early days, that wTe w-ere supplied with nothing but wishes. So they have prepared this interesting analysis: the poultry population of England, New Guinea, Armenia, and Port Said totals three and one-half billion; yet if a wish-bone were required for every wish made in the first year of the Class of 1926, the nearest thing left to a chicken would be a Mexican jumping bean. But we soon abandoned wishes for books, and in the last four years we have used books enough—but I’ll let Messrs. Carine and Smith tell it. . They say: “If the entire collection of books used by the Class of 1926, including the Scandinavian, were placed in a single pile on the banks of the Mississippi, they would reach to a height nine times that of the Woolworth Building.” They add that a lucky number raffle, entitling the winner to push these books into the river, would net the school a sum equivalent to the Chinese national debt. Continued on page Sq 26

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Farewell, Alma Mater Oh, Comrades, bound by friendship’s lasting tie, With courage face the coming breach of years, That visions unfulfilled may still not die, That sorrow may through us be eased of tears! Yes! Wars shall cease and seem a troubled dream, All battles shall be fought in Spring with flowers, And Beauty, cover all, a surging stream, Of sinewed youth: these boundless duties ours! As weary, seaworn sailors, tempest torn, Are buoyed up with hopes and thoughts of home, So shall our memories dear our hearts adorn, Renew our faith, when each afar shall roam. Our precious, cloistered hours, songs and books, The merry laugh of carefree play and game— These now must pass. Life holds no secret nooks, From ruthless time. New joys are not the same. As boundless, Alma Mater, as the sea, Has been thy love! nor shall the mountains last Less long than our enduring love for thee; To thy ideals of life shall we hold fast; Our wills have been well tempered by the old To mould and shape the nature of the new; So, with full hearts, high hopes, and courage bold. The class of '26 bids thee Adieu! 25

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if9 REFL4§ECTOR2f6 Corrections of 1926 Before the class of 1926 bows its final adieu—and with its hats already in its hands—it feels that it must take pains to correct several seeming misapprehensions which have somehow crept undejected into the text books from which it has studied with such, on the whole, surprisingly glorious results. As Socrates says, truth is to be desired even more than reputation. So, with all due respect to the books and their writers, and to our professors who have professed from them, we needs must unsheath Excalibur and fight for the truth. Long ago, when we were young and gullible freshies, the man who wrote the history book poured into our heedful ears a statement which we have since found to be exaggerated, to say the least. At that time, our respect for our dear teachers caused us to accept without comment this statement that the racial population of the world was so proportioned that every third child was Chinese. But we doubted. We began investigations. We have analyzed a fair percentage of the families not only in this city but in Wheatland and we have found that every third child was not only not Chinese, but even every sixth, ninth and twelfth child was decidely American, even to the fourth generation. There were, however, several instances in which we could not be quite certain. In these cases, with Miss Cooley carefully noting down all results, we carried out the following experiment. We sang in chorus several well known Chinese lullabys and held our eyes aslant while Miss Cooley dangled a Chinese laundry check in front of the infant in question. The child invariably took the check and swallowed it—so that we cannot ascertain the final results just at present. But in every case, the parents of the doubtful children showed not only unfriendly, but decidedly hostile attitudes towards the researches of science. When we requested them to notify us immediately in case they noticed any Chinese characteristics developing in their children, with one accord they were scornfully rebukeful. Yet, all in all, without being disloyal to our dear teachers, when it comes to a question of every third baby's being Chinese, we prefer to believe the baby. And that’s only one thing. Immediately there leaps to my mind a most unjust and unworthy slander which our infant lips were taught to repeat after the ancient Latins. They say Virgil said it. But we've often doubted it. The ancient and royal Irish race has been maligned in a manner which must not go unanswered. As everyone knows, the Irish are a mild and peace loving nation, desiring nothing so much as tranquil philisophic meditation. Of course, it’s true that most of the prize fighters, traffic cops, admirals, generals, firemen, and politicians are of Celtic descent. Yet this fact can hardly justify Virgil in referring (if refer he did) to a constellation as “stormy O'Rion, rising from the deep.” Then there’s another matter about which we are deeply grieved. We’ve loved our teachers and we’ve trusted them. And they’ve allowed us to stand at the door of our future lives with a fallacy firmly implanted in our minds which might have cost us time and money, tears and heart-aches, if we had not Continued on page qj 27