Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

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30 SOMANHIS EVENTS EXCHANGES A PLAY IN ONE ACT. Time: Late in May. Place: The Interior of an Exchange Editor’s Brain. Persons: Optimism, Pessimism. Scene. A musty, arched cave, hollowed from rock. Stalactites hang giittering from the roof: there is no other decoration; only one tiny beam of light. The ground is littered waist-deep with papers and envelopes, empty ink-wells, broken pencils, and dust. The atmosphere is heavy with silence. Suddenly, there is a rustle among the papers and a smile bobs up. Oua: Hey there! Hey! A growl below the papers: What’s the matter? Opt: Hey, wake up! Wake up and get to work. Pes: (his shaggy head appearing reluctantly) | Work! always work! Can't a feller sleep? Opt: We are going to have the fun of telling all these school papers how splendid they are. Pes: (sarcastically) How original! Why do that? Opt: To encourage them of course. Come get to work. (He picks up a heavy volume). Not many papers have such well-written stories and interesting notes! And funny—listen to this joke! Pes: That’s no use, telling them their good points. The staff must know that by watching the faces of the subscribers when they are reading. | What every Exchange department in the country needs is the audacity to give lots of adverse criticism. Opt: All right, let’s try. Pes: Yes, and get it fired back at us! Opt: But that is exactly what we want. Pes: We'll be swimming in it by next month. Don’t worry! Opt: Good! Now let’s begin. I was criticising one of the best first: The Rayen Record. Pes: Put down: “Space or lines needed between jokes to distinguish for the witless where one ends and the next begins.” Opt: (writing busily) ‘Doggerels excellent.” Pes: We've got to cut the praise for the present: Put down: “Secretarial reports a bit too long and formal. An interesting write-up of the club meetings would make better reading.” Opt: Why pick on the Rayen Record so much? Here’s another good paper: “The Pennant.” Pes: Too bad such good material is not bound in magazine style. It looks better and lasts for future generations to set their literary standard by. Opt: See if you can find anything the matter with the “Orange and Black.” Pes: ‘The last number I read didn’t have a single poem in it, and there was not a story with a plot either.

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4? SOMANHIS EVENTS 29 CLASS SONG Tune. “Till We Meet Again.” By Irene Benson. There's a time in our lives we'll remember, When we bid our schoolmates good-bye; We'll ne’er roam thro the halls Or look on these walls— Oh, we're trying to stiffle a sigh— Chorus Gold and blue to you we'll e’er be true, Tho the future scatters us afar; Memories fond we have for you Down in S. M. H. S. Lessons, socials, all have had their place, And of sorrow there is not a trace, We'll bid each other now adieu Till we meet again. We are facing a world full of mystery We must fight our battles and win, All our victories you'll trace, For we'll be in the race And bring back the laurel, you'll see——Chorus. K ® DEVELOPEMENT OF PHONOGRAPHY RITING began with the Egyptian picture signs, and was developed into an alphabet by the Greeks. Men desired a quicker way of writing and consequently, before the Christian era, experiments were made with shorthand. Shortly after the time of Cicero, every great poet, orator, and emperor, had his own shorthand writers. Julius Caesar himself, attempted to learn the art. The shorthand vocabulary increased so rapidly that men dispaired of learn- ing it. and in a very short time, phonography was a lost art. In the 14th cen- tury, the art was revived with the finding of a codex of the Psalms in shorthand. Modern shorthand dates back to 1588, but little advancement was made until 1837, when Isaac Pitman introduced his system. The Gregg method is now fast gaining favor. It was invented in 1888 by John Robert Gregg, and introduced to this country in 1893. A writer of Gregg holds the world’s shorthand championship with a record of 300 words a minute, 5 words a second! It marks man’s supreme writing achievement of 5,000 years. A man of the stone age could write one word a day; a man of today has written 5 words a second. What is not possible to the finger skill of man when backed by an active brain and a strong will power? Shorthand is not yet perfected; it has unlimited possibilities. What will its future be? Irene Benson, °19.

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SO MAAN Ss EVEN iS 31 Opt: I bet you can’t crab over “The Piquonian.” Pes: Yes, I can. They have no poems—at least in the issue I read. 1 think every issue ought to have a few poems, if they are only jingles. Opt: “Green Witch” next. Pes: She is so fearfully thin! Opt: She will fill out as she grows older. (The cave is gradually becoming darker and darker). Opt: We should give one more criticism before we go to sleep, my friend. Pes: (eagerly) What paper is that? Opt: (trembling) Somanhis. (For the first time Pessimism loses his “savoir faire.” It floats from his bonnet in the shape of a green beetle. Optimism precipitantly deserts the cave. The foot-lights go out, and where Pessimism stood so arrogantly on the pile of papers, appears only a glow, like a hot coal. It grows deeper, deeper, until the whole cave is a weird red. It is all that remains of Pessimism—a blush.) (Curtain).