Lansingburgh High School - Odyssey Yearbook (Troy, NY)

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THE 1930 and that they kept to themselves, talked their own language, and had little chance of mingling with Americans and learning American ways and thoughts. The idea came to this Brazilian lad that it would pro- mote international fellowship if a club were started where students from other lands could meet for social and friendly associa- tion. He sought his professors and talked it over with them. They encouraged him in his idea, saying it was just the sort of thing the campus needed. Today, 15,000 foreign students are enjoying the fruits of that idea. The Cosmopolitan Club pro- vides an outlet for both social and intellec- tual activities among the foreign students. Socially, it provides its foreign members a chance to meet Americans on intimate footing, and intellectually, it is a meeting ground for the discussion of all questions that confront the world as a whole. This fraternity has led to the affairs known as international nights on the cam- pus in the spring. They are popular af- fairs and most entertaining. Guided by na- tive men and women of culture, one literally takes a trip around the world. You hear the music of China, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Latin America, and learn of the culture, traditions, and customs of people of distant lands. So, that student from Brazil who started the movement, although he is un- known, forgotten today, is really a peace hero, because he has caused international appreciation and understanding among American college men. Thus have the schools and colleges of today been improved from those of four de- cades ago. Learning has become more of a pleasure. The college graduate would almost as soon think of selling his children as of parting with his college life. On the gates of Harvard College appears a motto which may be taken as an expres- sion of all that is best in modern education: Enter to grow in wisdom, depart to serve better thy country and thy kind. -DORIS HARRISON Valedictory And now, Classmates, the time has come when we must depart from our beloved Alma Mater. The shining goal to which we have been looking forward throughout these four beautiful years is now within our grasp, and we are about to go forth to a new field of opportunities in which we shall try to honor our Alma Mater. We owe our sincere gratitude and deepest appreciation to our principal, who has so willingly aided us in all our tasks: to the faculty, by whose cooperation and advice we have been guided along the road to suc- cess, and to our parents, through whose sacrifices we have gained the priviledge of obtaining our high school education, and whose sympathy and encouragement have urged us on to attain this goal. This, our Commencement Day, is one we have long looked forward to, but it is also one of sorrow, for on this day we must all part, and each must go his own way through life. Classmates, we shall always remember the pleasant days we have spent here. Let us always strive to uphold the ideals of the Lansingburgh High School. Alma Mater, the class of 1930 bids you farewell. -DORIS HARRISON --lv-airs!!-43-iq.. 15

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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

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ALBERT ANDREW ACKER Al Valley Falls, N. Y. That proud exception to all laws. Albert is very proud, but he is so much fun we forget that part. He just hates to be call-ed a farmer, therefore we enjoy teasing him about it. - Classical Club, Boys' Hi-Y, Glee Club, Choir, District Chorus, Dramatic Society. RUTH Bfuusv Bailey 3 l22nd Street Let good things get together? One seldom finds all the good things wrapped up in one, but we have found them in Ruth. We see now why Fred was captivated. Adelphian Socfety, Girls' Hi-Y, Glee Club, Choir, District Chorus, Dramatic Society, Odyssey Board. AGNES Mum: BECK Agnes 371 Fourth Avenue And reading much she burned to read still more. Agnes is usually seen and not heard-around school anyway. However, she has a very jolly disposition and is always there with the glad hand. We wish you the best of success in the future, Agnes. Salutatorian, Dramatic Society, Debating Club, Clee Club, Choir, French Club 135, Scholarship Society, Adelphian Society, Classical Club, Science Club, National Honor Society. WILLIAM BELL Bill 6 119th Street Whatever other faults I may have I take great pride in being on time. HBill has made a record for punctuality which we can never forget. He has been a great help to the musical clubs and a good friend to his classmates. Clee Club, Choir, Boys' Hi-Y, District Chorus, Dramatic Society, French Club, Debating Society. FRANCES M. BISSELL Fran 329 Third Avenue Happy at midnight, happy by day! Ever in motion, blithesome and gay. This is the way Fran always is with us and the same with Jerry, of course. We hope she never loses her happy ways. Dramatic Society, Girls' Hi-Y, Adelphian Society. Glee Club, Girls' Basketball Team, Odyssey Board.