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

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THE EXPONENT 5 Love-and Pity, he, for one thing, justly considered hunting the most barbarous remnant of savagery In modern civilization. It was personal suffering to him to think of any pain, whether in man or animal. The characteristic trait of Wagner’s whole life was this love for animals. He always had a strange collection of pets and was never without at least one dog—mongrel or high-bred, it made no difference to him. Another unique form of recreation is the one which Edward Bok has made famous—that of auto¬ graph collecting. When he was young, he hun¬ gered for education, and so he went to the libraries and studied biographies. One day it occurred to him to test the accuracy of the biographies he was reading. James A. Garfield was then spoken of for the presidency. Edward wondered whether it was true that the man likely to be President of the United States had once been a boy on the tow- path, and with a simple directness, characteristic of his Dutch training, he wrote to General Gar¬ field asking whether the boyhood episode was true and explaining why he asked. General Garfield answered warmly and fully. Edward showed the letter to his father who told the boy that it was valuable and that he should keep it. This was a new idea. If General Garfield answered him, would not other famous men? Why not begin a collection of au tograph letters? Everybody col¬ lected something. So he took his Encyclopedia and began to study the lives of famous men and women. Then with boyish frankness he wrote on some mood in question in one famous person’s life; he asked about the date of some important event in another’s, or he asked one man why he did this or why some other man did that. Most interesting were, of course, the replies. Thus General Grant sketched on an improvised map the exact spot where General Lee surrendered to him; Longfellow told him how he came to write “Excelsior;” Tennyson wrote out a stanza or two of “The Brook” upon condition that Edward would not again use the word “awful” which the poet said “is slang for very” and “I hate slang;” Whit¬ tier told the sory of “The Barefoot. Boy.” One day Edward received a letter from the Con¬ federate General Jubal A. Early, giving the real reason why he burned Chambersburg. A friend visiting Edward’s father, happening to see the let¬ ter, recognized in it a hitherto-missing bit of his¬ tory and suggested that it be published in the New York Tribune. The letter attracted wide attention and provoked national discussion. Then reporters came to see him and he was soon in the public eye. Other autograph collectors all over the country sought to exchange with him, and he was both hap¬ py and prosperous in this, his avocation. Thus, though we may not know it at the time, our avocations may lead to greater things in later life. They may turn out to be the main reason for our existence and surpass in importance what we had hitherto supposed to be our main work. In other cases the benefits may not be evident at first. We may not realize their true value in our every¬ day life. Ho wever, as in the case of Thomas Jef¬ ferson, it is not necessary that we attain high de¬ grees in them. It is the fact that we HAVE the avocation that counts. Aristide Briand and Thomas Edison found the quiet and solitude necessary to rest their minds fishing on the quiet lakes and rivers. Florence Nightingale, because her regu¬ lar routine was that of the society girl, found en¬ joyment in hard work, studying nursing. What¬ ever our status in life, our work or play, our mind requires an avocation which offsets the fatigue of the day, and the choice of what this added employ¬ ment shall be depends upon the ingenuity and energy of each and every one of us. GERTRUDE S. MILLER ’22. PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS OF WELCOME Shakespeare tells us that ‘Welcome always smiles and farewell goes out sighing.” If sighing is to accompany our leaving Greenfield High School it should be at our graduation on Thursday evening. This morning, however, you have assembled to share the pleasures of these last exercises before we receive our diplomas. It is, therefore, with joy that I, as president of the class of 1922, welcome you here to the partly serious, partly humorous pro¬ gram which we have prepared. THOMAS L. NIMS ’22. CLASS ORATION The Good Fortune of the Class of 1922 What is good fortune? Various definitions may be given. To a multitude of people good fortune is wealth. Only to have riches, ah! that is fortune! Fortune is taken in another sense when you have your future told by a gypsy palmist. Here it is your future. There may be many other shades of meaning, but in my mind the greatest good for¬ tune is opportunity for service—for service to man¬ kind, and never before in the history of the world have there been such great opportunities for serv¬ ing humanity as at the present time in these post bellum days. Therefore I say the class of 1922 is fortunate in living at this opportune period. Let us for a moment consider a few of the op¬ portunities for service now open to young people. Perhaps the most urgent demand for service lies in the condition of France and the other countries that have suffered most keenly by the Great World

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4 THE EXPONENT All do not take up the same type of work, thus making it impossible even to suggest just what avocations to think about. Some will go to schools of further learning and may take up sports for their recreation, something that will be entirely different from the work of the day. We may be¬ come interested in taking pictures, as was Gene Stratton Porter, one of our leading naturalists. She says, “In my spare time I mastered photogra¬ phy to such a degree that the manufacturers of one of our finest brands of print paper once sent the manager of their factory to me to learn how I handled it. Thus her avocation led the way to her success as a novelist today, by putting her in charge of departments of the publications of Recre¬ ation, which had to do with photography. In this way she came into contact with literature and de¬ cided to try her hand at it, with what result we all know. Of course, we could not all become novelists, but we could enjoy ourselves just as we did in our childhood days when we pasted funny clippings into scrapbooks. However, that will not appeal to all of us, for— our likes and dislikes are distinctly varied. Who knows but what some of us here tonight may be now or at some time later in. our lives, great busi¬ ness men and women? What shall we do then in our spare time? Shall we idle it away in playing foolish games, in gambling or wasting our energy in some similar pastime? Or shall we keep our minds on our business from morn till night? Truly, we should not be doing justice to ourselves if we did either. Many great business men like to play golf or go fishing, where they can be in Nature’s wonderful wilds, free from business cares and wor¬ ries. Thomas Edison is very fond of fishing, and we read very often of President Harding’s relax¬ ing by playing golf. Aristide Briand, a leading statesman of France, has for his avocation fishing, as well as sailing. He is not a sportsman, strictly speaking, but he realizes the importance of good recreation. Biog¬ raphers say of his love for the sea: “He loves it in all weathers. He is not merely the summer sailor, though he spends his Parliamentary vaca¬ tion on board the yacht Gilda, but he loves the sea for its own sake, for the rude solitude it gives him, for, like many thinkers, he glories in an isolated taciturnity. Fishing, too, attracts him, and he has tried unsuccessfully to induce his friend, Presi¬ dent Poincare, to share his enthusiasm. In this pursuit he thinks more of the exercise or of the rest and change than of the sport itself. It is a mere excuse for recreation that he may work the more. But—many of us, no doubt, prefer avocations which will not require so much physical energy. Many are‘musical and find greatest relaxation and enjoyment in playing some musical instrument or in singing. Thomas Jefferson, one of the first presidents of the United States, was an arder; lover of music. He writes of himself that the pa sions of his soul were music, mathematics, and architecture, and the traditions of his violin-play¬ ing are numerous and amusing. We know that he used to play duets with Patrick Henry. His biog¬ raphies assure us that he was a fine performer upon the king of instruments, but grandmothers in Vir¬ ginia who heard the truth from the preceding gen¬ erations tell us the contrary and quote on early authority as saying that Patrick Henry was the worst fiddler in the colony,—with the exception of Thomas Jefferson. In Jefferson’s home town there was a young man who had a precious violin which he had bought in Italy. It was the one thing in all the world that Jefferson coveted most and he did not relax his persistence until he had persuaded the owner to draw up an agreement in legal form, signed, sealed and witnessed and duly recorded in the general court at Williamsburg, agreeing to sell the violin to him. To everybody but Jefferson this unique contract was a joke, but he was so lacking in the sense of humor and so earnest in his desire to possess the instrument that he took it seriously. This young man, however, soon went to war and before going sold the instrument to Jefferson. From that day Jefferson carried it with him wher¬ ever he went and practiced upon it while he was attending his duties as a member of Congress and Secretary of State, took it to France when he was minister, and occasionally played an old-fashioned air upon it while he was President. He never lost his love for music.’’ However, many of us are often inclined to look upon music as simply an avocation. It does not appear to be a regular work the same as business or professional practice. And yet there are a num¬ ber of great men and women to whom music means the necessities and luxuries of life. Without it they would be destitute. Such was the case with Richard Wagner. His family, once possessing a fair amount of wealth, was reduced to abject pov¬ erty and Richard simply had to do something to earn his bare living. He chose music, not for his avocation, but for his regular work, his vocation. He had an avocation, too, it is true, though it was not so well defined as some. His was that of pro¬ tecting animals. During his whole life he carried on a crusade against cruelty to animals. He had the provident and beautiful Buddhist theory of Pity, and he lived his theory. Believing in the eternal law of Christianity, Buddhism, and every great religion in history, in the laws of Mercy and

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6 THE EXPONENT War. After any war the foremost thought in men’s minds is reconstruction. Look at Northern France —not only buildings and farms destroyed and forests demolished, but the soil itself cut through by trenches and broken up by shells and bombs. Houses must be rebuilt, forest grounds cleared and replanted and the whole contour of the land re¬ modeled. What a vast field for architects, ar¬ tisans, foresters, farmers, yea, even common laborers. Have you a Commercial education? When did the history of the world offer a more splendid op¬ portunity for the use of your specific talents? Is not the world’s trade practically at a standstill? Is not the financial condition of almost all the peo¬ ples of the earth in greater confusion than it would be possible for the mind of man to depict without the actual facts visible? But why look abroad? Are not the conditions in our own country calling out their need of will¬ ing workers? Has our country ever experienced a greater need for wise regulations of social and economical problems and especially for reform in politics than at the present time? Consider the crime waves encircling the country. Today one cannot pick up a newspaper without seeing ac¬ counts (that being so common cease to be startl¬ ing) of robberies, holdups, suicides, and murders. The ideas of conservation laid down and put into action by such men as Theodore Roosevelt, of pre¬ serving our natural resources—our forests, our fisheries, our mines and oil wells—are endangered under the present administration. Those forests taken from public sale by former champions of the conservation policy to be made into national parks and federal forest reservations are now in danger of reverting to their former condition as lands for public sale, unless public opinion in opposition rises to such a degree as to make such a thing im¬ possible. The class of 1922 is fortunate in living at a time when everyone has a chance, when the world is made smaller and civilization has progressed by many useful inventions, the automobile, the tele¬ phone, the electric light, the telegraph, the wire¬ less, and finally the radiophone. Less than a cen¬ tury ago none of these utilities existed. Think of living at a time when none of these conveniences now so common to us were even conceived of. Think of the time taken then in crossing our con¬ tinent contrasted with the present speed of our swift twentieth century locomotive. Think of the slow-going mail correspondence as compared with the almost instantaneous communication of the modern radiophone. Then men did not hear the human voice issue mysteriously from the encircling atmosphere. Then men only dreamed of flights through the air. Again, it is our good fortune to be living in a period of history when those willing to work may succeed. In all manner of service men set a goal towards which they are ever striving, even though their exalted ideals must forbid its attainment. But with only a few exceptions, everyone aspires to s ucceed. According to my way of thinking there are two different types of people who succeed. One con¬ sists of those who have that creative power called genius, which enables them to do that which no one else has the power to do; the other, of those who have only ordinary qualities but who have de¬ veloped these qualities to an extraordinary degree. The ability to succeed is developed in this latter type of man through the instruction and education received in the schools. His success may be ob¬ tained by doing what a multitude of people-can do but what the great majority does not do. Common sense plays an important part in suc¬ cess. If every one possessed thi;i element of char¬ acter, industries would grow, people would be hap¬ pier and more contented, and the government would prosper. Any thinking person can easily see that chance also is an aid in acquiring a certain type of suc¬ cess. This is conspicuous or spectacular success. Few people succeed without taking advantage of opportunities, which arise, and it almost seems as if opportunities were imperative for success. If there is no war there can develop no great general; if no great political occasion arises there can be no great statesman. Take for example the case of a man, honored and revered by all American peo¬ ple, Abraham Lincoln. Everyone will admit that he was a success, but if there had been no war nor exceptional conditions to meet, his name would have been remembered but not immortalized. Crises are necessary that great qualities may de¬ velop. Some man may be able to specialize—to do just one thing well—and as a rule nothing else. Such a one would succeed, of course, only in those crises for which his powers fit him. True success, however, depends not on the posi¬ tion you hold but on the way you deport yourself in that position; nor can it be said that success invariably depends upon outward conditions and opportunities, for if a man lives a decent life, works fairly and squarely, so that his friends and dependents are better for his having lived, surely he is a success. Fellow students, we have not during our four years of high school life had great crises to face