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

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THE EXPONENT 11’ There is only one novel that I have ever read more than once. That one is Harold Bell Wright’s “When a Man’s a Man.” It happened that I read it at a time when I was blindly groping for a solution of a problem. That novel led me to the right solu¬ tion. It wasn’t because any char¬ acter in the book had the same dif¬ ficulty to overcome, but as I neared the end of the book, I had learned to admire the leading character. Patches by name. I simply said to myself, “What would Patches do?” and there I found the answer which I might otherwise still be seeking. Since Patches did me that favor, I’ve paid him several visits. I frequently open the book anywhere, just as I might stop in the corridor or on the street to speak to Tom, Dick, or Harry. Some day I’ll know Patches quite intimately, and in the meantime I will continue to cultivate other book friendships as well as his. To those of you who have not read “When a Man’s a Man” I do not say “Read it, by all means,—the sooner the better.” That would be foolish. Patches does appeal to me, but he probably wouldn’t appeal to you any more than the same girl appeals to every boy in high school. We are created, fortunately or unfortunate¬ ly, with greatly varied tastes. We will find, however, if we take the trouble to look, innumerable friends of all sorts and descriptions in the realm of books. There are so many of them, such as the friends in “Ivanhoe”, “Ben Hur”, “The Three Musketeers”, “Nicholas Nickleby”, and countless others who are waiting, even begging for a chance to know us. They are always ready to talk with us about anything under the sun which we may care to choose—they will make us laugh or cry; they will accom¬ pany us on pleasure trips or on thril¬ ling adventures, or through intrigu¬ ing mysteries, wherever we ask to be taken. Our high school days are finished. Some of us will never meet again. Many of our human friendships must be broken. Our book friends, on the other hand, will continue to stay with us. We can go on getting better acquainted with the ones we have met in school, besides adding count¬ less new friends from the thousands of volumes which fill the world’s libraries. So as we journey along the paths of life, let us take care to select from our book friends those that are worthwhile. Stuart Witty ’28 IVY ORATION The Meaning of Success Fathers, Mothers, and Friends: I want to speak a few minutes, if I may, on a subject which has probably been talked about so much that it is old and weatherbeaten. Speaking on dry subjects, however, is a privi¬ lege that speakers, or so-called ones, have at this particular time of the year; it’s considered a part of the season. I am going to say a few words on the meaning of success. My locks aren’t old and silvery, nor do I possess Solomon’s wisdom; nevertheless, I want to present my viewpoint because I don’t think it differs much from the viewpoint of the average young man or woman. You remember when you were boys and girls just a little while ago —perhaps a little younger than we who are here today—you used to have dreams (we’ve all had them) of what you would be when you were men and women. With some those dreams faded with the morn; with others they lasted until young manhood or womanhood; while with still others those dreams have re¬ mained throughout your lives and have made you what you are today. You know, nice dreams are wonder¬ ful, enchanting things. You can be a king just as easily as you can be anything else; you can rise to daz¬ zling heights or fall of cliffs and still never get hurt. The point is, how¬ ever, that those dreams meant some¬ thing, at the time at least; they meant that you had arrived at some definite goal, whatever that goal might be. You felt way down in you that that goal was the horizon of your life; that goal was, in your own mind, success. It is a proverb long since. Fathers and Mothers, that we Americans are supposed to be nothing more than a wild gang of prospectors—out hunt¬ ing for the elusive gold mine where¬ in is supposed to be the secret of success. It is more than true that

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10- . THE EXPONENT settled by the World Court.’’ Our answer to South America is simple. We have acted as a media¬ tor only when a boundary dispute might mean the extension of Europe¬ an colonization. We have intervened either when the states have asked us to help them, or it was evident that a European power would intervene if we did not. Although the United States is a powerful nation, it has no intention of entering the republics to stay. This has been proved by our withdrawals from Cuba, Porto Rico, and Nicaragua, when affairs had been settled in those states. Therefore, have we not upheld the Monroe Doc¬ trine and held ourselves within our rights? Can it be possible that the Latin-American states so little appre¬ ciate our aid? The Sixth Pan-American Confer¬ ence gave the two Americas a better understanding of each other. Espe¬ cially did it help the Southern re¬ publics to see our point of view. In¬ deed, we find many of the Latin- American statesmen using their elo¬ quence in our behalf, which shows their good-will toward us. May the peace relations and this better under¬ standing between the Americas con¬ tinue, so that there may be ever¬ lasting peace and, at length, the blending of the two for the progress of all science and culture. And may the American people be eternally mindful of and grateful to the “good¬ will ambassador”—Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh! Virginia Harper ’28 CLASS ORATION Friends Worthwhile What a wonderful blessing friends are! What marvelous foresight it was on the part of the Creator who made us all with an insatiable longing for friends. Friends—what does that word mean to us? I hope it means more than a circle of acquaintances with whom we happen to be a little more than we are with others. If we search from pole to pole, we shall find few things more beautiful than friendship. Love, the greatest thing in the world, is always, must of ne¬ cessity be, built upon a solid founda¬ tion of friendship. Can we imagine a world without friends? What an unbearable place this would be, if there were no one to share our joys or to lighten the burden of our sor¬ rows, no one to glory with us in suc¬ cess or to speak a word of sympathy or encouragement in times of failure! Friends, however, like many other things which we seem to take for granted, are all too frequently ne¬ glected. We seldom appreciate them as we should. Particularly do we ne¬ glect a class of friends in praise of whom I wish to say a few words — our book friends. Let us think of books as friends. Generally they provide merely a pleasant way of passing the time or a means of acquiring knowledge. But if we consider them as friends, they will afford us more pleasure and point the way to greater knowledge. Books are alive, just as much as human beings. Yes, even more so. Just as there is more to a man than the body of flesh and bone in which he lives, so there is more to a book than the cover and paper and ink with which it is printed. A book is a personality. That is the reason that many books— the Bible and Shakes¬ peare’s works, to mention two out¬ standing examples—have lived for innumerable years, and even centu¬ ries. Yet there are so many books to be read and so little time to read them that it is utterly impossible to do justice to the world’s literature. It will, therefore, pay us to select friends worthwhile. One reason why we have neglected our book friends may be that we are with people so much that we hardly think we need friends of another sort. There are times, however, when people are no comfort. Hasn’t everyone of us been with a crowd, and suddenly felt terribly alone? We say to ourselves, “I wish these peo¬ ple would clear out and leave me alone. No, I’d feel even worse alone.” It isn’t company we want; it isn’t solitude. What it is then? Compa¬ nionship? Ah, that’s it—companion¬ ship. Someone to whom we can just pour out everything that is bound up in our hearts. Then we realize that there is no one, no one whom we would care to tell even if we could. Yet we can find comfort when we feel like that; when human friends fail, try a book. Perhaps we shall find that certain characters appeal to us more than others.

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12 THE EXPONENT not only many Americans, but men from all nations and from the begin¬ ning of time have had this mistaken idea that the gold and earthly pos¬ sessions a man accumulated on this earth were the one measure of his success. How wrong that idea was and still is! It is undoubtedly a great thing to have enough money so as to live in comfort; but money after all is only a medium by which we can obtain something we desire. What did Carnegie do with the great wealth he accumulated? Did he hoard it in vaults? He did not. The great ambition of his life was to collect wealth, not for himself, but so that he might be able to help the world as a whole, by founding libraries and institutions of learning in order that his fellow men, less fortunate than he, might enjoy a few earthly pleasures. That is why An¬ drew Carnegie’s name stands high on the list of great men who have been successful. Therefore, in closing, may I say to you, classmates, when you go through the portals of this build¬ ing for the last time, or through the por tals of a higher school, with diplo¬ mas in your hands, don’t be de¬ ceived by the idea that success lurks just behind that pile of gold on the horizon, because it doesn’t. Success doesn’t hide itself nor is it to be grasped all at once. We all must find some gold because it is a neces¬ sity of life, but real, true success is the ability to fit your lives into the lives of others, as you tramp along the road that leads over the horizon, so that both the giver and the re¬ ceiver may profit thereby. Eugene Crawford ’28 HISTORY OF CLASS OF 1928 The scene is laid in the State House of the Confederated States of Greenfield High School on the Continnent of Education. The characters are an assistant to the Secretary of the State, and a government historian. H. “I am interested in the ar¬ chives of the State of 1928, as I have been officially appointed by the Governor to write a history of the first four years of these eminent citizens. S. And quite interesting reports they are, I am sure. H. It seems that they were ad¬ mitted into statehood in the fall of 1924 with a population of 227. S. Yes, at their first election held at the national capitol, the infant state prided itself on knowing as much about the intricacies and wind¬ ings of this new building as their more experienced sister states. H. Whom did they elect as their first presiding officers? S. As Governor they elected the Honorable James A. Ballou, who had distinguished himself as the hero in a play given in celebration of its graduation as a dependent territory in the Grammar School of Education. As his Lieutenant Governor they chose Marion Young. The keeper of the archives was Katherine Fleming, while the Secretary of the Treasury was Tracy Burnham who was assist¬ ed by his brother Howard. H. And here it tells how they were first honored in recognition of their independence by their sister states. S. But what is this weakness of mind that the citizens showed? H. Oh! It was the middle of the year when some of the nation’s authorities questioned their ability to uphold a statehood. S. Evidently it was not serious, as there is no disaster recorded. In fact, everything seemed to run smoothly for several months. But alas! Peace only precedes a storm; here is a revolt. H. So I see. Some of the citi¬ zens not liking their status as citi¬ zens of one of the Confederated States of G. H. S., revolted and would not meet the requirements of their state. But the storm soon cleared, and their ranks moved forward, un¬ broken, to a second year. S. That year they elected Tracy Burnham as Governor, Katherine Fleming, Lieutenant Governor, Stu¬ art Witty, Secretary of the Common¬ wealth, Stanley Pekalski, Treasurer and Margaret Ballard, his assistant. H. Soon after their election they gave a reception at the Capitol in honor of the newly admitted state of ’29, at which time some of our worthy citizens wolunteered their