Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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The students feel very proud to be able to help win this war of freedom. Many of them having obtained some training in the Civilian Defense Or- ganizations have joined the armed forces and have found themselves much better off for the time that they sacrificed :o these units. We now have six young men from this year’s class in the armed service. The students feel that by helping in Civilian Defense they are helping themselves to become better citizens in the best country in the world, the United States of America. POETRY, A LINE OF DEFENSE By Ruth Wilson A ll nations at war eventually come to play the fascinating game of rationing. It is a hard game, but every- one starts on an equal footing and shares the same handicaps until the play is over. It is a fascinating game, for everyone must take part and feel the sense of unity which comes from par- ticipating in a crucial contest. More- over, rationing serves as a kind of intricate census by which the govern- ment can discover how many aunts, sons, fathers, daughters, etc. there are within its boundaries. The government can also compile statistics about height and weight so that newer, more accurate charts, founded upon the supposition that all men are created equal, can be hung in classrooms to show pupils how much they should weigh at a given age. Every day we hear of some new product which the government is likely to restrict for public use. When we think of the possibility of giving up our afternoon tea, we wonder if some- thing such as poetry will not be the next victim. Perhaps people are read- ing too much poetry, using up valuable eyesight and time. Rationing of poetry could be made according to the weight of brain divided by the average number of poems enjoyed per month, or some other such method. Seriously, however, we realize that poetry is as necessary to the defense of national morale as submarines are to the protection of our naval forces. William Rose Benet, a critic and a poet himself, has written, “We have had to face the facts with bitter realism, and we realize that against a malign foe . . . nothing will avail so much now as airplanes and armored equipment. But we also know that in the end, nothing will avail so much for the world as dedicated art and the power of the intellect ... It is up to the poets to give us some real light and leading.” For an overexerted na- tion bending over factory tables for longer hours every week needs the illumination of a poet’s insight to paint the true picture of the Goal for which the muscle-aching labor is given. Understandably enough, then, of all the phases of the last war it is the poetry that we like to remember and still enjoy, rather than the battered tanks, and mangled bodies, the burning cities and the barbed wire, or even the Ver- 29

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In case of an actual air raid these Jobs should prove very dangerous; therefore, only quick-thinking, reliable, cool-headed people are enrolled. With quick thinking and reliability stressed in high school it is no wonder our stu- dents are gladly accepted as messengers. About fity per cent of the messengers arc now high school students. Another vital contribution of the Ipswich High School to the war effort was evidenced in the Defense Bond and Stamp Campaign. When the Treasury Department of our country started to organize a pledge campaign in this town, the newspapers printed an an- nouncement to the effect that all those who wished to volunteer as canvassers in this campaign would meet at the town hall on a given evening. When the evening arrived, at least one-fourth of the volunteers who responded to the call were high school pupils. Asking for money is never an en- viable job and this interviewing of people for the purpose of eliciting pledges to buy bonds was no exception. Patience, tact, and courtesy were only a few qualities of character which the job demanded in order to make plain the necessity of these pledges. The pupils rose nobly to the demands made upon them and completed the task success- fully. Some of the students, however, not content with just helping, took a bigger share of the responsibility by becoming section captains. Besides ac- quiring pledges themselves they had to see that their helpers had their share done at the given time. After this they had to compile for their section a report which was to go eventually to Washington. There v, ' ' ere many head- aches among the captains at that time, but nevertheless they had the satisfac- tion of performing well their bit in the cause of freedom. Th: students in the industrial arts division have shown their ability and at the same time have contributed a large share to defense work. In the first place they constructed twelve stretchers for the Red Cross, thereby saving monye for more needful uses. The Report Center of the Civilian De- fense Organizations of this town is now situated in a section of the high school that has been converted from a store room. After partitioning the room off and laying a new floor the boys made telephone report booths. While the shop boys were doing the construction work, the print shop printed four different application forms for various Civilian Defense Organizations. Al- together this year the shop division has done most of the construction and a good deal of the printing for the Town of Ipswich in its defense program. Furthermore the Ipswich High School boasts students in every Civilian Defense Organization to which they are permitted to belong. We have mem- bers in the Convoy Corps, the First Aid Classes, the State Guard, the Adminis- tration Office, and we even have an assistant Air Raid Warden. 28

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saillcs Treaty and other “practical phases of the war. It is the poetry that is immortal, for it lifted the world above the grim heartbreak and showed a Purpose and a Future. A young Englishwoman, Sylvia J. Read, recently tried an experiment of reading poetry on various subjects, in- cluding the war, to soldiers in British camps. She approached the first such reading with not a few qualms that poetry and soldiers do not mix, but every selection was applauded. Some soldiers shyly produced verses of their own; many of them entered into lively discussion about poetry: one of them told her that the experience had been “more real than living”: and all re- quested certain favorites of the other world war to be read. Unfailingly, Rupert Brooke’s sonnet. “The Soldier”, was among the first to be requested. This sonnet was written shortly before the young tennis champion with all of a vigorous life before him, died of fever on the journey to the Dardanelles Campaign of 1914. “If I should die. think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust con- cealed : A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware. Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England’s, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away. A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given: Her sights and sounds: dreams happy as her day: And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness. In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.” There were two other equally-loved poems written also by soldiers of World War I who died in action but left their verses to inspire and soothe their com- rades and the rest of the world. John McCrae, a young Canadian Lieutenant- Colonel, challenged the living to carry on the cause of the valiant dead in “In Flanders Fields”. “Take up our quarrel with the foe; To you from failing hands we throw The torch: be yours to hold it high.’ ' Alan Seeger was a young American soldier who died on Independence Day, 1916, in a battle in France. He tells us; 30