Jamestown High School - Red and Green Yearbook (Jamestown, NY)

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NN'erc Thales, thc grcat Greek thinker. living in this age of revolution, he would feel doubly certain that mind and not matter Mind and rules the universe, Yet so easy is it to comprehend the Revolution visible, the tangible that we often fail to sense the existence of that quite invisible mental force back of all phenomena. While Revolution and War are children of the same parents, the former is not synonynins with the clash of saber, the throw- ing of bombs and the boom of cannon. These are but evidences of revolution-mere testimony of a movement full grown from seeds planted deep in the minds and hearts of mankind. Every normal individual is the rightful possessor of certain inherent tendencies, which he intuitively knows he should have the right to de- velop and express, and the nature of the forces trained upon l1is mind, particularly in youth, will determine in a large way what tendencies hc will be most desirous of expressing and developing when grown to man- hood. Individuals when grouped into communities and states, from common training, develop connnon tendencies and consequent common desires. If this development takes place within the bounds of arbitrary restraint, there is an inevitable struggle-a revolution. The more spo- radic the training, the more scattered and ineffective the struggle. The more constant, the longer and the more universal the training, within persistent arbitrary restraint, the more noble, the-more spectacular and effective the revolution. Under continued training the revolutionary forces gradually compel successive compromises on the part of .the re- straining power and such victories often continue over a long period of time. Then, if the arbitrary power dies hard and its final overthrow is illumined by the rocket's red glare, we become suddenly awakened and are conscious only of the last struggle of what has been a long revolution. The state with its individuals left free-free to develop and give expression to their innate qualities becomes republican. The three great revolutions now most vivid to us Americans were all born in the mind-results of particular training. The American revolution had its origin in the minds of our fore- fathers trained in the school, centuries old, of Anglo-Saxon principles of liberty and justice. In that school, from the ancient laws collected from Kent and Mercia, Alfred the Great had taught the principle of justice and the right of individual development. The witan, the hundred, the shiremoot, and the tumnoot, embodying the principles of representation and power emanating from the people. had all been grounded as funda- mental in the minds of our sturdy New England fathers. Their desire and determination to safeguard their inherent rights were nurtured as they saw in imagery, upon the green meadow of Runnymead, that historic gathering forcing despotism in the person of John Lackland to sign the Magna Charta. ln that article,-UNO scntage shall be levied with- out the consent of the common council of the realm, they read the princi- 28

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Owing to the lack of room accomodations, due to the increase in number of high school pupils and the resultant increase in Arrangement number of teachers, a new plan of organization was Satisfactory put into effect last September. ln brief, this organiza- tion was arranged through three separate assemblies of the students, the elimination of school study periods for Seniors and juniors, and the lengthening of the school day by the addition of two periods. The Senior and junior classes in one unit have assembly at S210 a, ru., and complete their recitation work at 12:05 p. ni., being dismissed at that time for the remainder of the day. The Freshmen have roll call at 9:05 a. m., chapel exercises at 1:35 p. ni., and are dismissed at 4:00 p. m., having spent seven periods in school. The Sophomore class is di- vided into two units which have roll call at 9:05 a. m, and 10 135 a. in.. respectively, chapel exercises for all the classes at 1:35 p. ni., and re- main in school until 4:45 p. in., thus having two periods in the morning and four periods in the afternoon. As far as the limited sources of information available indicate, the students seem to maintain about the same average of work as has been done in previous years. The plan makes the arrangement of schedule quite difficult, and the organization of the whole school for common purposes less satisfactory. However, the greater use of the school plant, and the resulting better accommodations makes the arrangement satis- factory as long as the capacity of the building is limited. Merton P. Corwin. Q 0 Q 4 .-X very good law was recently passed in 'Albany which requires every student in the public schools of New York State to Physical take at least twenty minutes of Physical Training each Training school day. Some of the benefits derived from these exercises are: better ventilation in the school room, for the windows must be thrown open, and the student inhales the fresh air in the regular breathing exercises given: as a result of the bending and stretching of the body the blood is forced more freely into all parts: the relaxation of mind and body tends toward clearer thinking when once more the student returns to his work. The fact that many schools throughout the state report that they have enjoyed the work and have found it most beneficial is interesting. This law was largely a result of the efforts of Commissioner of Education, john H. Finley, who, because of his own love of the great Outdoors, felt that each boy and girl should have the opportunity to develop strong bodies as well as minds. I Edward Rosengren, '20. 27

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ple of No taxation without representation . Likewise in those sacred provisions,- To no man will we sell, deny or delay right of justice, and No free man shall he taken, imprisoned, destroyed or preeeeded against save hy the legal judgment of his peers or hy the laws of the land, they saw embodied the fundamentals of habeas corpus, trial hy jury and those basic rights of all-life, liberty and property, ln the same school, our fathers learned how, four centuries after the Magna Charta, growing despotism had been beheaded and how, from its clutches, those ancient principles, as enlarged upon in the Petition of Rights, had been set free. They learned how half a century later, when the late King james did endeavor to subvert and extripate the laws and liberties of the land. despotism had been effectually overthrown and liherty and justice firmly established and recorded in the Bill of Rights, No question whatever was left in the minds of our colonial fathers as to what constitute the inviolable rights of mankind. American thought upon the principles underlying liberty and justice had been graduated from the Anglo- Saxon school. Against the arbitrary power of the French system in America, we gladly joined hands with our English brothers. The more we invested in the cause of liberty and justice, the more sacred they he- came and the more determined we were to preserve them. When again, as over our linglish brothers, arbitrary restraint in the person of a German anxious to be King began to assert itself over us too, we could do nothing' else but follow the dictates of our training. Like our lingflish brothers in 1215, 1628, and l689, we struggled with despotism for ten years to secure liberty aml justice as Englishmen. When however by 1776, we found George lll and his cohorts still very uneonipromising, we proceeded to obtain our rights as men-rights which we wrote in blood to form the Great American Charter-rights which we had learned to lc.-ve when linglislnnen in the old Anglo-Saxon school-rights which, under such great liherators as Gladstone, Balfour, .-Xsquith, and l.loyd George, have now firmly anchored themselves in the minds and hearts of our linglish brothers. The French revolution was not a sudden eruption of an unthinking populace. The fall of the Bastile only resounded the audible clash of a struggle long existing between arbitrary power and a people he- coming trained in the spirit and philosophy of liberty and free institu- tions. The French peasant, fighting under his despotie king against the English, had long since come in contact with .Xnglo-Saxon representa- tive government and Anglo-Saxon conception of individual rights. Montesquieu had been horn for a century and two generations of his French brothers had read with great interest his unstinted praise of the English system in his treatise on The Spirit of Laws. Likewise Rous- seau in his Contract Social had firmly planted in the minds of French youth, then grown to manhood, such seeds of liberty as the right of the majority to rule and the sovereignty of the people. The American revo- lution had been fought and the heroic French soldiers, who had struggled 29