Greenfield High School - Evergreen / Exponent Yearbook (Greenfield, MA)

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10 THE EXPONENT ciate a college education in its full sense. I do not mean to imply that it is best for everyone of us to go to college. Certainly there are some to whom books are uninteresting and learning is hard. Such I believe will find better advantages thru indus¬ trial training than by striving for mastery of theoretical knowledge. But these individuals, I believe are comparatively few. To the rest of you, especially those who have de¬ cided not to go on to college or those undecided as to their career I wish to make some very brief remarks as to what I believe a college education offers. At various times during the past year our Principal has posted for our benefit, statistics concerning the money value of a college education. Some of us have studied them while more have passed them by as a mere juggling of figures. Of course it is certain that a col¬ lege education is a fine investment in just dollars and cents, if that is what a fellow is after, and it would be unnecessary for me to give you a long list of figures supporting this point; but I will merely mention one fact, Dean Holmes of Penn. State College after much effort in gather¬ ing statistics has discovered the fact, that the money value of a college course of four years is 20,000 dollars on a financial return of 5,000 dol¬ lars per year for every year spent in higher training. Charles M. Schwab the steel mag¬ nate, has often been quoted as not favoring college education, but he de¬ clares now that he is not and never was against such education. He says: “Whatever may have been true in the past, there is no doubt that to¬ day industrial conditions favor the college man. Old crudities are dis- anpearing, science is dethroning chance. Business is conducted on so vast a scale that the broadening ef¬ fects of higher education, gained thru proper application, write a large figure. “But the college man who thinks that his greater knowledge gives him the privilege of working less hard than the man without such an educa¬ tion is going to wake up in disaster. I regret that some college men enter industry with an inflated notion of their own value. They want to cap¬ italize at once their education and the time they spent getting it. neither knowledge of the classics nor mathematical proficiency can be con¬ verted over night into a marketable commodity. “Higher education has its chance later, when the college boy has mas¬ tered all the minor details of the business. Then, if he went to college with serious purpose, and studied hard and systematically, he has the advantage of a thoroly trained mind to tackle larger problems, a mind which should be broader and more flexible because of its greater powers of imagination and logical reason¬ ing. I shall now turn to a report of Clayton S. Cooper an author who has written several books on various sub¬ jects relating to college. Mr. Cooper once asked 100 college graduates from various parts of the country what they considered the most important values received from their college course. Thirty-six re¬ plied “The Influence of the profes¬ sors. ’ Twenty-one replied, “Broader views of life.” Eighteen replied, “Friendships formed,” and seven re¬ plied, “Training and ability to think.” The remaining answers were scat¬ tered. Are not any one of these values great enough to repay the glorious four years spent in higher study? I think that my idea of the worth of a college course is well presented by a student from the schools of Mines in Colorado who says. “The chief value of my college training was the giving me a vision of a life- work instead of a job.” Invariably when one asks a college professor what he considers the most irhportant contribution of a college to a man’s life, he will reply, “Learn¬ ing to think straight.” It is ability to think and think straight that counts in any walk of life today. The American college represents the enlarged and enlarging intellec¬ tual life of the American people. It has trained one-third of all our statesmen and best authors, and one- half of our physicians, lawyers and

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THE EXPONENT 9 ordinary sense of the word he was not a champion of conservation. But let’s see what he did. He estab¬ lished equality among men by eman¬ cipating the slaves. By his strength of character and tenacity to right principles he formed a precedent for succeeding presidents. By emanci¬ pating he was conserving for he was saving the south from itself. Eco¬ nomically the south is better today with compensated labor than it was before 1865 with slavery. That in itself is partly a return from the three billion dollars expended on the Civil war. Now I come to the greatest of our conservation champions, Roose¬ velt. Altho, to many people, he was not great yet he was preeminently a man of the people, with a mind virile and active to all great prob¬ lems. He knew what internal im¬ provements would mean, he carefully guided bills through congress. All of us have heard of the Roosevelt Dam and the Elephant Butte Dam, both products of Roosevelt’s active imagination put into material form. By means of these great reservoirs billions of gallons of water are stored up to be used on a land that heretofore had produced nothing but cactus and sage grass, now destined to become one of our most produc¬ tive sections. Irrigation accom¬ plished conservation. Furthermore, Roosevelt caused money to be appro¬ priated in order to buy land so that our domestic forests could be saved, thereby conserving our timber sup¬ ply. It is due to Roosevelt’s great planning and unceasing activity that we now have national forests equiva¬ lent iji area to France and Bel¬ gium combined. In saving our tim¬ ber lands, which border our streams, we are also sure of a continuous sup ply of water power. China is an example of a country which has not regarded her timber lands as a val¬ uable asset. Her hills are constantly erroding. Yearly great floods sweep thru her valleys, carrying away and drowning thousands of inhabitants. The world is looking today for in¬ creased production. America has great natural power stored in its hills. The damming of countless streams in the west has brought about a great, new source of cheap power; hydraulic-electricity. This is a crowning example of Roosevelt’s conservation policy. Finally I came to that form of con¬ servation which more directly con¬ cerns each one of us. We are con¬ stantly reminded that young Amer¬ ica is the hope of the world. Now it is up to us to show the world that we are not hopeless. Most of young America is in school now or at least should be. During the war increased demand for manufactured products and scarcity of labor, caused many young people to leave school for what appeared to them to be great op¬ portunity. They were temporarily blinded by what seemed to be high wages. We shall have to admit that in some cases leaving school would be excusable because of the financial aid which the family might need. Let us hope that young America will con¬ tinue to go to school and learn the three R’s as well as other things. Let us not forget that governments do not hanpen; but that they are born of a spirit, and a desire for something better. With these thoughts in our minds let our fervent prayers always be that this shall continue to be a government of, by and for the peo¬ ple. J. Norman Alberti. IVY ORATION Why Go To College The question of “Why Go to Col¬ lege?” is not so sharply contested as formerly, for the people of the pres¬ ent age see more clearly the neces¬ sity of trained men and women, and young people, understand, if they ob¬ serve carefully, that in order to com¬ pete for honors in the game of life, they must specialize or train them¬ selves highly along some particular line of work. In spite of this general change in sentiment, there are many who are too content to drift along into a mere job instead of striving to do something worth while. I have not quite made up my mind whether these people are just plain lazy or whether they do not understand the advantage of higher education and so I will give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they do not appre-

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THE EXPONENT 11 clergymen. Every Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has been a col¬ lege graduate except John Marshall whose course was interrupted by the Eevolutionary War. Indeed the American College has rendered a service of greater value • to American life in training men than by promoting scholarship. It has affected society more thru its graduates than thru its contributions to science. It is within the bounds of simple faith to say that the American Col¬ lege has rendered civilization of the entire world a greater service in pre¬ paring men for moral and religious work in foreign countries than all other American agencies and condi¬ tions have rendered. The American College represents the greatest and most direct work which America has done for the world. Would it not be wonderful to feel that you belonged to an institution about which such grand things may be said. I have already mentioned my own idea of the principal value of a col¬ lege course (that of preparing one for a life work). The value I con¬ sider second to this (one which was. given as a reply to Mr. Cooper’s questions to the college graduates) is the opportunity to form the finest kind of friendships both with the teachers and with one’s classmates. There are only a few among us per¬ haps who are yet developed suf¬ ficiently to appreciate the worth of true friendships. But certainly there is not one among us who will not some day discover that friendships are the choicest fruits of life. In conclusion I wish to quote a summary by an eminent author of the offer of the college as he sees it. “To be at home in all lands, and all ages, to count nature a familiar acquaintance and art an intimate friend to gain a standard for the appreciation of other men’s works, and the criticisms of your own, to carry the key of the world’s library in your own pocket and feel its re¬ sources behind you in whatever task you undertake, to make hosts of friends among the men of your own age who are to be leaders in all walks of life, to lose yourself in generous enthusiasms and cooperate with others for common ends, to learn manners from students who are gen¬ tlemen and form characters under professors who are Christians—this is the offer of the American College for the best four years of your life. Gordon C. Willard. HISTORY OF THE CLASS OF 1920 First Two Years Now it came to pass one spring, that in a certain town in the Con¬ necticut Valley a multitude of chil¬ dren were bidding farewell to their childhood days. For they were about to pass out of the Grammar School and enter into High School. And they thought it fitting to cele¬ brate. So they said one to another: “Let us prepare this evening a party which shall gloriously assist in sere¬ nading the teachers.” And it was agreed and was done. The party met at the appointed time and was conducted by the lead¬ ers thereof to the homes of the teach¬ ers. And at each they paused, and rendered sweet music, for which they were rewarded with gracious smiles and few delicacies. And it so happened that they had with them a flag—a flag of white with the numbers 1916 fastened thereto. And a great desire came to them to see it float from the top of the High School. But the task was great and surrounded with difficul¬ ties. So again they assembled and consulted one with another: “Who shall enter into the depths of the building and climb to the flagpost thereof?” Then Moppy the Carson- ite answered and said: “Power and courage are with him who fliest this flag in high places. Thinkest thou that when surrounded by snares, a Carsonite should be overtaken with fear? That way of thinking be far from me who shall laugh thee to scorn.” And he plunged into the darkness. Time passeth and sud¬ denly he appeareth having accom¬ plished his task. And all the people praised him and lifting up their voices, shouted for joy. But those things are not hid from the princi¬ pal. Wherefore having learned of this, great was his displeasure thereat.