Harrison High School - Harrisonian Yearbook (Harrison, NJ)

Page 11 text:

WILLIAM F. GRANT Principal STRATIGN The pleasure of publicly addressing the Class of i944 has been denied me this year. The reasons are numerous, not the least of them being your crowded schedules and changes in teaching personnel. Your ranks to date have been sadly depleted, and will become gradually less as the school term draws to a close. The rapid changes that confront you from day to day are, oftentimes, so confusing that you are apt to lose sight of the larger objectives you set when your high school careers began. lt is difficult for you to realize that our present period of unrest is merely an interim in your so very young lives. ln a word, the green of the hills ahead cannot be appreciated because of the rough valleys that must be first traversed. On the other hand the opportunities for monetary gain are so immediate and attractive as to shadow the bright future that can be obtained by education and diligence. You have already seen a great number of those who started high school with you succumb to the blandishments of present day big money. The desire to get it now has been too strong for many of them to overcome. You, perhaps, have questioned the wisdom of your choice in remaining at school, when you could be partaking of our present prosperity. Such abundance may be but temporary. Your education is permanent, and surely is no great burden to carry. Envy not the prosperity of others! Regret not your decision to stay in school as long as possible! Regret is for oldsters. l-lope and faith in the future is for you. WILLIAM F. GRANT

Page 10 text:

IOHN P. MURRAY Supervising Principal ADMINI The days that have elapsed since first you entered high school in September Of 1940, have witnessed events that are destined to change the course of history for years to come. ln your first year, the war in Europe had reached a seeming impasse, and was being characterized by war correspondents as a phony war. The average American citizen, like you and l, was not particularly interested in what was happening three thousand miles away. Events across the broad Atlantic did not seem to affect his mode of life, so he kept to the even tenor of his ways. The sudden colfapse of France, and the determined stand of Great Britain served tO awaken him from his lethargy. The aura of invincibility that cloaked the armies of the Third Reich caused a sense of uneasiness to seep into his being. Mr. Average American, like you and l, was fully awakened to the enormity of the struggle by the vicious attack on the sup- posedly impregnable fortress of Pearl Harbor. Gone was his indifference, his complacency, his lethargy. In their place burned a fierce desire to avenge such an insult to the integrity of his country. His very fibers glowed with a determination to make those who had spilled American blood pay to the last drop. Overnight, Mr. Average American, like you and I, became a fighting American. His outlook became international in scope. Oppressors of mankind, no matter where, were to be wiped off the face of the earth. The principles enunciated in the Atlantic Charter became the lodestar of his efforts. These profound changes have occurred to Mr. Average American during your four years at Harrison. lt seems impossible that you should have witnessed them in so short a time. Yet witness them you have and, what is more important, you have felt their implications. ln the clays that are ahead these impacts will be more forcibly brought home to you. You will be asked to make additional sacrifices, to put up with added inconveniences. Some of you will be asked to serve on the Home Front in one capacity or other, others will see active service on the Fighting Front. Whatever your appointed task, l know you will do it admirably, for your patriotism cannot be questioned, and your determination to make a better world for yourselves will never falter. On your shoulders, young as you are, rests the burden of fashioning a far, far better society than we have experienced in the years that have passed. May Cod bless your efforts. May He bring to a speedy fruition all your glorious hopes and ambitions' Joi-IN P. MURRAY

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L Adviser, Senior Class M. IEANETTE GORDON Commercial Law and Geography Office Practice MARIE V. WILSON Spanish CATHARINE E. WARD Office Practice Problems of American Democracy ADRIAN K. BURKE Aeronautics, Chemistry, Physics Director, Band ELIZABETH M. KUEBLER Stenography, Typewriting GRACE L. CUNNINGHAM Librarian HELEN A. OBRZUT Bookkeeping, Stenography, Typewriting BERENICE I. WILLIAMS Latin, Problems of American Democracy Adviser, junior Class CATHERINE I. DAVEY Bookkeeping, Stenography, Typewriting AGNES H. O'NEILL American History, Bookkeeping IAMES P. CUNNINGHAM Biology, English 5 jf haw T. QERARD MANNING 'w ' 5 'l Vice-Principal - AILEEN M. ROCHE Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry Cj,1,Q.g,,wuw'5-' MARIE C. MCGRATH Guidance Counsellor Secretary to Principal HELEN K. KAYSER English, Problems of American Democracy Adviser, junior Class IOSEPH P. DOHERTY Drafting, Manual Arts ARTHUR C. BARBER American History, English Coach, Varsity Soccer and Baseball