Girls Latin School - Liber Annalis Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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Class of 193 7 cholera. Influenza plagued the whole world. From this epidemic alone three hundred thousand children in Czechoslovakia were made orphans. Many stories have been told of heroes in the World War. Some of them lived to receive their honors, but a great many were decorated after death. It is a fine and admirable thing to die for one's country, but somehow all compensa- tion is a little empty after life has gone. About twenty-five years ago there was a valiant young Bostonian who had done valuable mountain research for the United States Government and for the Canadian Government and was at the time serving under the American Ambassador in hospital service in the War. At last, under terrific fire, he turned his ambulance aside to save the life of a police dog on messenger service-and was killed. In recognition of the work he had done, the Canadian Government named a mountain for him, while the French Government did all in its power to compensate for his death by send- ing beautiful wreaths and decorating him with the Cross of the Legion of Honor. However, he was dead. No matter how. proud his family might be of their son and all the honors he had received, there was no bringing him back, and nothing could take his place. This is but one of many such cases. What poets, scientists, and artists might not now be alive instead of being buried in France under crosses which indicate that men once were and are no more! War goes on. There seems to be no stopping it for all our cries of futil- ity. Men are forever changing. and the gods of one generation are the demons of the next. Jeanne d'Arc led her army to victory and was burned as a witch for her pains. The world has long forgotten the war of the Greeks and the Turks which led to the bursting of a powder magazine on the Acropolis: but the Parthenon still stands, the beauty of its ruins merely suggesting its former majesty. It stands, though the men who built it and the men who ruined it are dust, to prove the utter futility of war. It will be long before the world forgets the War: but in time the memory of that, too, will fade away. Another conflict of world powers will come, more terrible than the last and with one great difference: not only will all able young men be destroyedg but by means of gas bombs entire cities will be wiped out so that even very few civilians will remain alive. When scientists bend every ef- fort to develop their inventions for the destruction of the world instead of for the bettering of it, there is but one conclusion. The world is becoming de- moralized. One can easily fancy the result of another great war. Culture, as we know it, which was born in the east, and through centuries travelled west. will finally collapse as it approaches the end of its circuit. Once more barbar- ism and savagery will rule: and then, perhaps, the human race will rise and start all over again. No one knows when the Day of Judgment will come. It may be in a year or it may not be for centuries. The Western Hemisphere is still young, and civilization has by no means breathed its last: but one never knows what may happen in the future. lt is only through education that destruction may be averted, that this forgetfulness of the world may be altered. Children should be taught in school, at home, and in church to realize and abhor the frightfulness of war. They should be brought up with that feeling so in- grained in their beings that nothing will be able to eradicate it. Then, per- haps, they will remember What happened to their fathers and profit thereby. We can only hope that future generations, with greater understanding and toler- ance than has been exhibited up to now, will unite in a common peace so that civilization may be saved from extinction. HELAINE F. KAPLAN' fPage Thirty-ninej

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,li ,...... Gl.rlS, Latin School ...... in the United States. And what was gained by it? Germany again threatens world powers, and democracy is practically a thing of the past. At the outset the war seemed very far away, and no one thought of cost: yet, when the Armistice was signed, 350,000 Americans had been killed or wounded, and for our active part in the fighting, we had spent twenty-five bil- lion dollars. That was just the beginning. The burden of debts increased. Interest charges alone have amounted to eleven billion dollars. Then, too, the wounded and the disabled, the widows and orphans must be cared for, and there are pensions to be paid. So far the World War has cost us over fifty-five billion dollars, and this cost mounts ever higher. Instead of benefiting and im- proving the conditions of the people, that money has gone to pay for a war, the most futile of all wars. Appalling as the cost has been to us, France has suffered far more than we, for it was in her territory that the war was fought. Beautiful cathedrals were ruined beyond repair and whole towns were annihilated. The allies won the war and France regained Alsace Lorraine: but this could in no way make up for the thousands of men killed or disabled. It is bad enough that the country was torn to shreds at the time: but destruction did not end there, for years after peace was declared, not infrequently a peasant would strike with his plow a bomb buried in his field and so be blown to pieces. A rather surprising after- math this to a farmer who was, perhaps, thanking God that he had been spared in battle! Germany is likely to be forgotten when war losses are considered: but she, too, suffered severely. By the Versailles Treaty alone Germany was forced to give up fifteen per cent. of her total area, including two seaports on the Baltic and twelve per cent. of her population, seventy-five per cent. of her iron ore sup- ply, and large portions of other resources. In addition she surrendered all of her colonies-over one million square miles of territory-in which she had in- vested five hundred and five million marks. No matter what one's personal opinion may be of Germany, it is not strange that a proud nation, forced to complete humiliation and degradation for a war she did not cause alone, should adopt a system of militarism and vindictiveness such as is practised by the Nazis under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. The actual cost in dollars and cents is relatively easy to calculate as is the loss in killed and wounded: but the effects of war on the morale and character of a nation are far more difficult to estimate. Not half as many young men who went out to fight came back unharmed: many were even injured perma- nently. Therefore, thousands of young women were constrained either to re- main unmarried or to wed old or disabled men. In some places there were practically no men between eighteen and forty-five years of age. The loss in unborn children was estimated in Russia, as nearly as such things can be calcu- lated, at about twenty-five million. Besides, in unnatural marriages the off- spring could not possibly be as healthy as in more normal ones. Starvation was widespread over Europe during and after the war: for agriculture had been ruined both by bombs and the lack of men to till the fields, while blockaded countries could not import the foods they themselves did not produce. In Czechoslovakia conditions were so extreme that the people ate a particularly nauseating grass because there was nothing else to eat. Starvation and poverty brought tuberculosis and other diseases which spread like wildfire over Europe. Starting in the east and continuing westward there were horrible epidemics of CPage Thirty-eightj

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g GirIgs'ggLati'ngSchoolg g gggg NHL THE WILL We, the members of the Class of 1937, being, we hope, of sound and disf posing mind and memory, do hereby make and publish this, our last will and testament. First, we direct our executors to pay all our just debts: to wit, sums owed to lower classmen for car checks and lunch checks, after-school sodas and candy. l'l'lix1: To Miss Fowle. we give, devise, and bequeath enough cod-liver oil to allow her to portion out equally to each member of the succeeding class one spoonful each morning of the school year. lMay this help to cut down the number of absenteeslj lllzkli 'lio Miss Stark, we give a pair of thickly padded ear-muffs with which to barricade herself each morning against the shrill voices of the heedless seniors in her homeroom. lWe wish to add that, when Miss Stark feels in the mood to Utake it, she may lend her valuable bequest to Miss Fowlej l'1'15M: To Miss Roper, in order that she may be spared the trouble of getting out of her seat and going behind each girl who translates, to see how many words the girl has written in her book, we are leaving a pair of opera glasses so powerful that they can, from some distance, discern any memory-refreshers. ITIEM: To Mr. Meserve, we bequeath a lens, ground especially to make acute angles that should be right angles look like right angles: isosceles tri- angles that should be scalene triangles look like scalene triangles: and squares that should be rectangles look like rectangles. We hope that those of our successors who have difficulty in distinguishing between the above sets of triangles will appreciate our efforts to help them out. CPage Fortyj