Lansingburgh High School - Odyssey Yearbook (Troy, NY)

Page 19 text:

there is no excuse for passing culture by because of the sacrifice entailed in owning books. They are so easily and cheaply bought that even the most impecunious may purchase them. Moreover, libraries, free for the public, are in general use all over the world. The Congressional Library in Washington will soon have a million vol- umes, the British Museum already contains a million, while the Bibliotheque National of Paris houses three times that number. To choose one's companions from such a quantity is a mammoth task.. Bacon has said, Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chew- ed and digested. Perhaps it is wisest to take those deemed by established critics as worthy to be chewed and digested. Probably those works most lauded are the Bible and Shakespeare. When Stanley set out on his long trip to Africa, he was forced to take a minimum amount of books. Four or five were selected but at the end of his journey, having been forced to lighten his load, he had but one left, the Bible. After all, the scholar knows that the fam- ed books contain, first and last, the best thoughts, and that the great novelists are consciously, or unconsciously, teachers of morals. The problems of love and greed, temptation and sin, that they discuss are as old as life itself. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter shows the necessity and greatness of repentance and confession of sin, while his House of Seven Gables proves that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. In Victor Hugo's Les Misera- bles the peace coming from righteous action is glorified above physical happiness and comfort. Silas Marner, by George Eliot, shows that murder will out and truth shall prevail. At a time when doubt had entered into the soul of the English people, Tennyson came forth with his beau- tiful Idylls of the King. This is an alle- gory showing the conflict between the sen- sual and spiritual sides of our nature. Throughout all time the poet and the writer have gone hand in hand as our divinely ordained teachers. Books are sacred. They are not things of convenience to be placed about a room to make it look home-like. The true man of letters has for his library a deep and abiding affection that can never be under- stood by those unfortunates who are unap- priaciative of books save for their material va ue. The latter, however, are more to be pit- ied than censored when we think of all the delights they miss. For the companion- ship, the diversion, the consolation, and guidance of these silent servants is be- yond all estimation. And so I say with Channing, God be thanked for good books. -AGNES M. BECK Modern Views of Education On one occaslon Aristotle was asked how much superior educated men were to those uneducated. As much, said he, as the living are to the dead. In the last four decades a greater change has taken place in education than any since the beginning of time. Previous to this time education was the priviledge of the upper classes only, but now it is within the reach of both rich and poor alike. The history of education, like the history of the world, is one of countless mistakes, with much noble effort and many noble results. Some of the parents of today recall the grammar schools of their day-the bare wall, the single dictionary as the library of each room, and the curriculum, which no- body had dreamed of enriching-reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, English gram- mar, and United States history, nothing to attract the eye, no enjoyment except at recess, no music, no intellectual food outside of the regular studies except an occasional address of five minutes by a more or less illiterate mayor. or perhaps the superinten- dent. Not only the parents' view, but also that of the students has changed. They see the full value of education and realize that they can face the problems of life more easily if they have it at their command. Many things are done today to make it more pleasant for children to go to school. Not only high schools, but also grammar schools give public entertainments, and also a certain amount of student government is allowed. This takes away the old thought of school as a prison, with the teachers as the guards, watching every movement of the inmates. It tends to develop the power of cooperation, and also gives a practical train- ing in citizenship. Music is another thing l3

Page 18 text:

Salutatio Curatores, praesis facultatis, magistri, parentes, condiscipuli et amici, hodie, nos- tro die ultimo in hac carissima schola, vos salutamus. Est dignissimum ut nobiscum conveniatis et vestra praesentia laetamur. Per quattuor annos, parentes, nobis aux- ilium tam argento quam animo dedistis. Nisi vestro auxilio fido niti essemus, in hoc loco non essemus. Nobis, curatores et magistri, dedistis opportunitates discendi, consilia sapientia, acres exercitationes. Iuvenes territi, nos adstamus apertae portae quae in latiores vias viae ducat. Rogamus ut maneamus ad nos aequo mente quod ad finem probatum ab vobis, nostrae scholae gloriosum, omnibus, bonum gratias pervenire contendemus. Itaque pro vestis beneficiis plurimis gratias maximas habe- mus. -AGNES M. BECK My Literary Angels One man has said, A good book is a good friend, while yet another, Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life. But I hold with Bulwer-Lytton who phrased these words: The wise QMinstrel or Sage! out of their books are clay, but in their books, as from their graves they rise, Angels-that side by side upon our way walk with, and warn us.. Perhaps literature might be considered the greatest of the fine arts. Certainly it is the most useful, serving not only as an inspiration, but also as teacher, guardian, friend, and servant. It has served assid- uously throughout the years to guard the mighty words of the Prophet of Nazareth in the greatest of all productions, the Bible, to guide and lead us in the paths of right- eousness. It has served when we are dis- couraged with fighting against great odds, to better strengthen our determination to fight and win by reading the story of John- son's plucky battle against all mortal limita- tions. And if we are in a mood for fun, that inimitable Tish, to my mind the great- est of all merry-makers, is ever ready to take us through a series of unheard-of ad- X entures. What more could one want than the constant devotion of these diverse friends? But one might make the mistake of choos- ing poor companions. If a man can be judged by the quality of his friends, he can also be judged by the quality of the books he reads. For a man is as liable to be corrupted by his books as by his compan- ions. On the other hand he is likely to be elevated. What a blessing that one may meet with the embalmed soul of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Franklin even in these mod- ern days! Their wisdom has not decayed in the passing of years. It lives yet to walk with and warn us in our daily con- tacts with life. And, in truth, though many of us read solely for pleasure, literature can be trans- lated into life. From biographies we learn how others have faced the same problems of life which we must now deal with. From fiction much the same sort of benefits, worked out on a more idealistic plane, may be derived. Poetry helps us in our apprec- iation of nature, and all terrestrial beauty, while history gives us a clearer insight in- to present-day politics. Are these bene- fits not considerable? On the other hand, if one is not looking for counsel, but merely for entertainment, this, too is easily acquired by lovers of books. What delight can be compared with an evening spent in their society? At any time of day one might set forth on The Royal Road to Romance with Rich- ard Hilliburton, or if one prefers the long ago, Aeneas or Ulysees are eternally eager for adventure. D'Artagnan, Porthos, Aramis, and Athos, too, are always willing to stage an enlivening scrap for an even- ing's -diversion. Or if romance and love are desired, neither Romeo and Juliet nor Priscilla and John Alden will exclude you from their company. Wherever lies your interest, literature furnishes the society you demand. In whatever walk of life you are, books may be your companions in a lonely hour until at last, as we grow in years, our circle of reading contracts, and we find our solace is all contained within the covers of the one Good Book which is the guide of youth and the staff of old age. There was a time in Greek and Roman days when books were so valuable, fortunes and lives were given as a ransom for them. Christians were burned to death to save the Bible, and it is said that Jerome ruined himself to buy the works of Origen. Today 12

Page 20 text:

which has been taken up extensively in schools. Up to this time glee clubs have been maintained only in high schools and colleges, but they have been organized recently in the grammar schools of a few cities of Massachusetts. These glee clubs are to have contests every year. All these things tend to make children more inter- ested in their school and more eager to take part in its activities. The new education opens to eager eyes all the beautiful world of science. The high schools and colleges of today believe in the elective system. Students now get glimpses into the subjects of which the children of yesterday never heard. The new education has discovered that the fit- ness of different minds for different work should be recognized. W'hen there are so many more things worth knowing than anyone can master, to force everyone though a limited number of definite tasks before calling him educated, to make him give years to studies in which he may be a dunce, without a glimpse of other studies for which he may have a peculiar aptitude, seems hardly fair to the student. Take, for instance, the old system in one of its most radical forms-learning the Latin grammar by hearty this was to some minds torture, nobody now defends such a prac- tice. Life is hard enough without our wan- tonly making it harder. Why not let girls and boys enjoy education? Why not let each one do what nature says he was made for. ' l It used to be that the sons of the wealth- iest citizens were educated by private tut- ors. This idea is practically gone out of existence, although there are a few excep- tional cases. Anyone who has observed them in college knows how much better those are who have gone to school-how the very wealth which enables a parent to give his son such a costly education, defeats its own end. Except for the occasional boy who is so backward that he can do nothing in a class, nine out of ten of these pampered youths would probably do better at a good school than under a private tutor. Many high schools maintain large art departments. In Pontiac, fMich.D High School there are several classes in jewelry- making. In the showcase on exhibition this year were many specimens of jewelry which looked worthy of a high-class jewelry store, but the craftsmen were high school students of from fifteen to eighteen years. The students are very much fascinated by this work., which is both cultural and prac- tical. Other subjects offered by this de- partment are pottery-making, batiking, block-printing, and rudimentary sculpture. This work enhances the students' apprecia- tion of everything beautiful, and perhaps reveals the talent of a few of special abili- ty who might otherwise never discover their own genius. Our conceptions of a college differ sur- prisingly. To some a college is strictly an institution of learningg to some it is a pur- veyor of exciting sporting events, to some it is a place for social experience, to many it is a sort of four years' breathing space un- til a youth is condemned for life to hard labor. The main object of college is to es- tablish character and to make that charac- ter more efficient through knowledge. True college life teaches us independent thought and the responsibility of high op- portunity. To be anything in a good col- lege, a man must do something for others than himself, something that his fellows believe to be of service to the college as a whole. An athlete is a good example of this. He is, in a boy's mind, a public serv- ant. Athletics have played, and will play, a great part in college life. And to athlet- ics we owe much of our manhood. It is athletics in which many a youth, pamper- ed at home and at school, gets his only taste of the stern discipline without which he cannot be a man. His studies he evades, land his friends pardon the evasion, his foot- ball he cannot evade, or he is branded a quitter. From his studies he gets more or less culture, but no backbone, from his football he gets the substance of his edu- cation. Class presidents in college are usu- ally football playersg and, as a student once observed, When a fellow plays football, it doesn't take long to find out what kind of a fellow he is. The business man often prefers, in his ofiice, a successful college athlete to a successful college scholar, for an athlete, as the business man says, has done something. Fraternities are exceedingly popular in the colleges of today. Probably one of the most advantageous and promising of the fraternities in the United States is the Cos- mopolitan Club. There are over 40 chap- ters in America. The Cosmopolitan Club was started by a lad from Brazil in 1902, 28 years ago. He was a student at Cornell University. One day he noticed that there were a few foreign students on the campus 14