Harrisburg Central High School - Yearbook (Harrisburg, PA)

Page 46 text:

Having come to Freshmen's estate and learning by bitter experience where lay the pit-falls for unwary feet we logically set about removing the stigma to which we were heir by defeating at base-ball the Sophomores, our natural enemies. Perhaps 1903 still remembers how hopefully it shouted The game's young! the game's young! to no avail, for the First athletic venture of 1904 was one of victory by a score of 17-12. Since then we have never suffered defeat at base-ball and in June, 1902, having vanquished the classes of IQO3 and 1905 to the tune of I7-II and 25-16 respectively, the championship became indisputably ours. Let us acknowledge, however, that in December 1900 and 1902, we were defeated at foot-ball. But intellect, as well as muscle, counts in the Class of 1904, as from the beginning we ranked among the highest on the school records. Early in the Sophomore year we organized a Literary Society. For several years there had been no such organization and even to-day the Tennyson Club is the only society of its kind in the school. It has grown and improved since it sprang into existence and is now a source of great pleasure and interest to the class. In january, IQO2, the first steps were made toward class organization and a constitution was adopted on the seventh day of February. Later Yale Blue and White were chosen as class colors. Blue stands for fidelity to all that advances the interest of our school or classg and White, for the honor we hope to keep unsullied. On the 7th of june, 1902, the class, now juniors, laying work aside went picnicking among the inviting shades of Mount Holly. What a day of pleasant memories that is to many E Boat loads of merry-makers stealing in and out among the cool recesses of the lake and loitering among the nelds of lilies, which dotted the surface of the water, through the morning hours. But sandwiches, cakes and olives had power to lure from even so fascinating a pastime. ln the afternoon an exciting game of base-ball between the picnickers and a Mount Holly team was just under way when a mischievous shower fell in a twinkling and scattered players and rooters helter-skelter to the protection of sheds and pavilions. Far from spoiling our pleasure in the least it passed as it came and left everything bright and fresh. A band had been engaged to furnish n1usic for the evening but they sent their regrets at seven o'clock and we danced to music furnished by a very rustic individual with a fiddle. Regretfully we saw the evening pass and turned homeward, tired but happy after a day of fun and folly punctuated with thrilling rescues and hair- breadth escapes. The class-meetings have, since our organization, been a source of greatest pleasure. There we mingle sociably with our class-mates and all feel one common bond of friendshipg for let it be known that in the Class of 1904 there are no cliques or factions. The Mandolin, Glee and Guitar Club furnishes entertainment, and Ravellings, a bright newsy class paper keeps us in touch with all class doings, be they wise or otherwise. 46

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I 2-2 I Histor of 1904 I x I 3. Ba 3. O one realizes so well as the Class Historian the truth of the old saws, History repeats itself, and There is nothing new under the sun. After all, is not every class history the same story retold to the taste of different writers with, probably the change ofa few dates and a better or worse athletic record? So it seems-at least to those who have had no part in making of that history. Each Freshman Class is just as green as its predecessor, every frightened Freshman hides his awe and pride under the same mask of innocent blandness. Who, that has passed that tender age, cannot remember how carefully he carried his books to and from school with the name written in big, black, inky letters, exposed so that those who run may read, wondering, perhaps, if they did not pity and marvel that a mind so young could comprehend such weighty subjects as Latin and Algebra. This trying age safely passed, he shifts into Sophomoric dignity and becomes full of the impression that upon him rests the responsibility of making of marring the school, and yet he secretly-oh! very secretly-cherishes a little envy for the upper classmen. Quickly the junior year comes on and he buckles down to hard work and here and there a little hard-earned pleasure. The chief passion of the junior is, as it should be, jealousy for the honor of his class. Last of all, Seniority, symbolic of studied dignity and disregard, and after the longed-for turmoil of graduation he passes into what he delights to term, 'tThe wide, wide world, and a little regretfully resigns his place to another who is following the same apparently uneventful course. Such is the impression made by the written record of the history of a classg but it is, in fact, the least part of a Students' career through the High School. Back of this outward effect lies the untold struggles and disappointments, the joys and griefs of the individual that make the history, in many an instance a comedy or a tragedy or, perhaps, a romance. Nevertheless, the Class of Nineteen Hundred and Four has a history of which she is proud. 45

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In the Fall, I902, when the leaves began to fall and jack Frost to pinch the noses of jolly juniors, there must needs be a chestnut party. What though the morning of October 18th did dawn with a slight mist falling,-it could not dampen'-Iunior ardor. A merry crowd rode away from the school-building for Peters Mountains that morning in search of fun-and chestnuts. At noon the sun came out and laughed at those who had stayed at home. The capacity for sandwiches that day was no less than miraculous. Those who defied the weather found the fun and the chestnuts. So, contentedly, 1904 jogs along toward the goal, proud in the knowledge that she is doing her best,-and that best is not poor. Many have dropped from the ranks, either because they found the struggle too hard or because they discovered a field of usefulness elsewhere. At any rate, only the tried and the true remain and regardless of what was before us, regardless of what shall succeed we endeavor to fill our niche to the best that lies within us. CLASS HISTORIAN. 47