Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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RAIN Hear the rain drops on the roof; Dripping, dripping, dripping. Dripping, dropping, drizzling. Drenching the parched, dry roof. Driving in a down pour From the drab dull sky. Drumming, drumming, drumming. On the dank, dark roof. Dripping, dripping, dropping Down the drab, dull drain. Droning on the roof top. Driving, drizzling rain. Dwindling, dwindling, dv.dndling. Diminishing, drop — drop — drop. Dropping in a drizzle. On the drab roof top. HALLOWE’EN The eerie wind, the cloud-swept sky Over the trees, where the witches fly To keep their annual rendez-vous. If you watch close, you can see them, too. Holding their cats that howl and wail, As past the face of the moon they sail. And the townsfolk lock their win- dows and doors. While the v histling wind down the chimney soars. For every one knows that ghosts are seen On the dark, weird night of Hal- lowe’en. Graduation Essays American Progress in World’s Fairs by Alma O’Brien T he first world’s fair in Amer- ica was held in New York in 1853. It v as an almost exact rep- lica of the London Crystal Palace Exposition of two years before which was still attracting huge crowds. America discovered, how- ever, that it didn’t pay to copy or to celebrate European anniversar- ies, for the Crystal Palace was not the whaling success that it was predicted it would be. This fair was very different from the ones u’th which we are familiar. The exhibitions were all housed in one hup-e iron and glass building, but the roof, which ' as to have been the crowning glory of the fair, leaked in rain storms. We are in- 18

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Literary rpHE “ Tiger” Staff takes pleasure in printing for its Literary sec- tion, the following poems written by the class poet, Barbara Knowles. These poems have ap- peared previously in the “Cub” and are among the best which have been submitted during the year. NORTHERN LIGHTS Arc lights of the Arctic, Flaring into the midnight sky. Turned on and off by invisible hands ; Making pale by comparison. The countless windows of Heaven, Yours is an important light For you announce the premiere of the hoary winter star. A MISPLACED IDOL My little pagan paper weight. An ancient of the east. You should be in a temple Surrounded by a feast. An ancient Chinese temple, With incense, bells, and gongs. With candles all around you And haunting, chanting songs. You ought to be in robes of silk The ancient priests have made. You ought to breathe the incense Your people burn for you. Hazy, sweet, and heavy clouds With candles flickering through. But, my little Chinese idol. You’re on a foreign sod; Now you’re just a paper weight. Not a petted, pampered god. MARCH SPRING CLEANING The angels up in Heaven, Must be cleaning house again. For they’re shaking out their pil- lows In a steady flowing train. I haven’t any doubt but that They must be awfully neat And keep the streets of Heaven Verv clean and sweet. They begin about December To shake their pillows out. There are a dreadful lot of them I haven’t any doubt. For it takes them through the month of March, To finish up the work. It couldn’t be that they are slow For angels never shirk. 17

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dined to laugh at the barbarism of the first World’s Fair, for in the 1850’s America was just beginning to settle down to be a refined and cultured nation. Slavery was still existent, and New York was just discovering how corrupt its police and politicians were and, in com- parison with Boston and Philadel- phia, how unrefined its mann ers were. This was an age of rapid development in machinery, the Mc- Cormick reaper and the first steam locomotive having been invented a decade before. It was also an age of social reform : the suffrage was enlarged ; reforms took place in prisons, asylums, and schools ; and societies for the encouragement of temperance and the abolition of slavery were coming into popular favor. An interesting fact to note in passing is that the young men at Harvard were now playing foot- ball in top hats. As a result of its amazing progress, America v as eager for a fair to show the world her great achievements and to out- do old Mother England. However, “The Iliad of the Nine- teenth Century,’’ as the Crystal Pal- ace was often termed, did not prove as successful as the people had hoped, and even P. T. Barnum with his unusual gift of enticing the public could not awaken an inter- est in it. — It may have been the leaky roof. In 1876, the one hundredth an- niversary of the Declaration of In- dependence, we find America seek- ing a fitting celebration for this memorable occasion. Philadelphia was the chosen city because here the Declaration of Independence had been signed, and here the Liberty Bell had rung. The Cen- tennial Exposition, unlike our first fair, was a marked success. Slav- ery had been abolished and the country was in the midst of a new industrial age. People gazed in awe at the sewing machines, the telephone, an instrument by which one could hear another person talk- ing way down in the next block, a continuous web-printing press, the self-binding reaper, the Westing- house airbrake, the refrigerator c r. the typewriter, and Edison’s dunlex telegraph. Little can we, who consider these things necessi- ties, realize how the people of 1876 looked upon these inventions. There was also a v oman’s plat- form at this exposition. Women were just beginning to assert them- selves. but their equality was not generally assured until the cloce of the centurv. The v orld still be- lieved that the woman’s place was in the home, and although about fifteen percent of the ladies were engaged in gainful occupations b ' ' 19