J Sterling Morton East High School - Mortonian Yearbook (Cicero, IL)

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frwffiir ' fi ' f F UUI' Alsgrr Ntic ...gs-gg-5 ,I HB QRS ' Q , Nerf-l FEL ltllll 11.151, The hest senior themes Checking out home reading hooks just before the Weekly delivery 1:xi1--.....'-:f:,.fw:fDnwll W fr- Av' . as was W l distinct parts instead of being simply an assortment of books and themes. Literature is one part. By literature we mean all good reading. Composition has two parts: written composition-the art of writ- ing and oral composition-the art of speech. At Morton we are trained in all three phases of English. The first division is probably the largest. English is the study of our language and its literatureg one can get but little idea of either without reading. For four years, now, I have been reading some of the best books in the English language. Through them I have travelled over most of the world and lived in most every century since books have been written. I saw Troy with The Iliad and Rome with Julius Caesar. Sohrab and Rustum took me to Per- siag and there, along the Oxus River, I watched the combat which decided the fate of the Persians and the Tartars. Although I have never actually crossed the ocean and gone to England, I have been there often in the company of books. My earliest visit was with the Idylls of the King to King Arthur and his court. Many interesting things happened on that trip. The next time I visited the court of Cedric with Ivanhoe. Twice I was in Londong one time with David Cop- perfield and again, about the time of the French Revolution, with Dr. Manette and his daughter Lu cy. They took me to Paris, too, and from them I learned The Tale of Two Cities. Later I stayed for awhile at the cottage of Silas Marner, and he almost taught me to weave while I was there. Perhaps I should have seen America Hrst, but by seeing it last I have learned that it is best after all. I discovered some of the secrets of the old colonial mansions in The House of Seven Gables. I saw the Western frontier unfold as I travelled over the Oregon Trail. The Virginian, too, told me much about the West when I visited his ranch. The Civil War era was described by Booker T. Wash- ington in his autobiography, Up from Slavery. I saw The Weelzlyls editors at Work

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ENGLISH by Mary Lou Spink When I entered high school four years ago, I was not the only freshman who was worried about Eng- lish. The books the seniors carried were huge and doubtlessly looked even larger to a freshman than they actually were. It was not only the books that were so formidable, I heard stories of themes, memory lines, home reading, and a host of other things that all fused into a haunting fear. Gradually as I became ac- quainted with these new things, I began to wonder what had been so frighting about them. They did not bite me, nor was I even any the worse for having met them, but of course, I still dreaded the senior theme and some of the books that had once looked so forbidding. Now my English course is nearly completed, and I have gone through each of the drill books-first the green, then the orange, the blue, and finally the red one-have written my quota of themes, reported on many surprisingly interesting books, memorized lines and lines of poetry, and learned to know and to enjoy many books which because they were called classics I had thought must be uninteresting. I have discovered a great many things about English in these four yearsg perhaps I should not say English alone, for directly or indirectly it has been the cause of in- teresting and pleasant discoveries in many fields. There is no need to describe them, for everyone has had his own similar experiences. One of the things about English which has been rather surprising to me is the fact that it has three Studenfs model of the old Globe theatre Classroom dramafiZation Preparing, editing, and typing material for tlve Mortonian V

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the typical American Revolutionary village in Drums, the modern industrial city in The Turmoil. I have actually possessed but one dog for a pet, and not many more cats, but Smoky, the horse, made a Hne friend, and Dawgs made grand pals, IOO. Of course, not everyone can know the world's prominent people personally, but one can always meet them in books. Modern Biographies introduced me to a number of prominent personsg and I met Abraham Lincoln in a biography. There are many, many similar experiences that I could enumerate, but whatls the need? You have had the same things happen to you, too. We could not have had all this experience had not someone been able to use the English language to convey his experiences and imaginings so vividly that others can have those same feelings them- selves. We shall always be indebted to 'the writer who fills out our thin range of experience with these thrilling reports of life in other times and places. Expressing oneself accurately in writing is also a phase of English and an obviously important one. Literature depends upon the knowledge of language and the ability to command words, just as a know- ledge of the language and the ability to use words properly depends upon literature. It is a reversible proccssgv one result is as important as the other. As a freshman studying Adventures Wise ana' Otherwise, I learned many new things about our language and of course reviewed other things I al- ready more or less knew. So it was each year. I learned much about capitalization in the sophomore class that I know I shall never forget. Our junior book made punctuation of compound sentences clear- er and taught me to outline. Higher Levels has been a rather fitting climax with its guidance in broader New hooks: more interesting reading Using the lihrary's collection of fine pictures A picture display of Shaleespearek Hamlet Canvas-sing the shelves for home reading hooks