Major Edwards High School - Mesa Yearbook (West Boylston, MA)

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NELLIE S. NUTTING Bates College B. A. Yale University Graduate School Education Oxford University England Summer Courses DORIS H. PARKER B • S • E • Lowell State Teachers ' College Member of Whist- ler Guild of Art- ists Worcester Museum Claeses LOUIS J. PELTIER ( Superintendent ) Clark University 1912 A. B, Teachers College Columbia Univer- sity 1922 A. M. MUDE M. SEVERENCE Mlddlebury College A. B. A. M. Dept . of Education Puerto Rico Spanish Language and Literature Mlddlebury-Graduate study in Education and Comparative Fic- tion WINSLOW FLETCHER Fitchburg State Teachers College B. S. Ed. HELEN PAUL Fitchburg State Teachers ' College B. S. Ed. — 3 -

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JOHN B. CHAFFEE (Principal) Brown University Ph. B. 1931 M. A. 1936 Graduate Study at Rhode Island College of Educa. (1931-32) Clark University (1932-34 Boston University (1940-41) Worcester Junior College (1943-44) CHARLES H. BUNKER Holderness Prep School Worcester Academy National Rec. Institute New Hampshire University Springfield College RUTH M. GERALD B. S. Ed. Framingham State Teachers ' College (1941) American Home Economics Assoc, Eastern Massachusetts Home Economics Association CATHERINE P. JENNINGS Boston University College of Pratl- cal Arts and Letters B. S. Boston University School of Education Commercial Education M. Ed. New England Commercial Teach- ers ' Association MARY R. MAGUIRE College of Our Lady of the Elms A. B. Mercy Hospital Springfield M, T. Clark University HANNA A. NAMEN A. B. Clark University B, S. Ed. Wore. State Teachers ' College Graduate Study Graduate Work Harvard University - 12 -

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C?eafi (2ta55 During the four critical years that we have lived, worked, and played together, we have learned much from each other. All my fesA messages have been written since Pearl Harbor, and now I must send you, too, out into uncertainty, turmoil, danger, because youth must go forward. My college president once wrote, Let the old, living oh a deficit of energy, despair if they must; youth with its sur- plus believes in the impossible, rallies around the ideal, and cries: ' It shall be done ' . Although you are in no way responsible for the mess the world is in, you are the ones who must do aom ling about it. As I see you go, I realize you have much that is essential. Despite your appearance, talk, and carefree attitude toward life, you have no end of charm and versatility. You have a tremendous range of knowledge. You know ten thousand things which your father and grandfather at your age had never heard of. After four years with you I know, however, that there are area in which we, your parents and teachers, have failed you. You have not yet achieved the ability to get along with your teachers and fellow-students. Remember some of those class meet- ings? It is not strange that this should be so, for most of our troubles are caused by the fact that adults have not learned to get along with each other. You want people to like you? You want to be successful in school or in your work? Statistics have shown that about twice as many workers are discharged because of social misunderstanding as for lack of skill and technical knowledge. Social misunderstanding means nothing more nor less than lack of ability to get along with people. The fundamental lesson to learn is a very simple one — think of the other fellow Instead of always of yourself, and make a determined effort to help those around you. The effectiveness of your personality will depend on how well you learn that lesson, I think that the second way in which we have failed you is that we have not taught you to bring your mind to a focus, to think hard and close. More school failures are due to lack of concentra- tion than to lack of ability. Keep your eye on the ball has be- come a watchword in our sports-conscious world. You know how the baseball pitcher concentrates his whole personality on the batter facing him; how the batter must concentrate on the ball if he wants to connect with it. Thousands of eyes watch, too, awaiting in- tently the result of a single pitch. Mow suppose it is not a baseball you are following, but a chemical reaction, a line in a poem, a trial balance in Bookkeeping, or the Ideals of the Atlantic Charter. You can experience the same t lll from chasing laws in science or meanings in history as from any game ever played. The requisite for success is the same— can you concentrate? Is your mind blurred and confused? Is it, as we say of a camera, out of focus? Blurred visions of half-truths are at the root of most of the problems of the world. They caused the tragic disillusions which followed the first World Wa?; brought about the catastrophe in which we are now engulfed, Ifeie most valuable asset you can develop is a mind which can see things straight and clear.