Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

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26 SOMANHIS EVENTS cago and San Francisco. It has landscape gardeners completing an immense park which is one of the most ‘beautiful in New England. This park also has its well equipped club houses and courts of every kind. The Aetna Fire Insurance Company, not to be outdone by its competi- tors, has purchased a large tract of land a mile from the business section of the city. Here a new home office is to be erected which will have every rec- reational advantage. The young officials of the company, who have had school and college training in athletics, are working hard to help this movement. Manchester is just as wide awake with its three recreation centers, its athletic grounds, and playgrounds. Cheney Brothers have recently donated a new athletic field which is entirely enclosed and has stands with a seat- ing capacity of 2,000. Manchester also has its Child Welfare Workers who are accomplishing a great deal. These workers help the poor to care for their children and teach the foreigners how to bring up their children in the American way. It takes money to do this, but Manchester is responding to the call. It always has done well, let us continue to give our support so that it can do more. It is worth while. Mildred Seidel ’23. THE PURPOSE OF THE FOLK-SONG It is strange that musical historians have been content to pass over the subject of folk-music with very few words. Almost all composers have gain- ed inspiration from their own people or “folk” from which this class of mus- ic derives its name. These melodies were made by musicians, most of them anonymous, whose names do not appear in history, but whose songs have lived through generations, have brought comfort, healed sorrow, and have brought about a better understanding and brotherhood among men. — The oldest folk songs are of unknown authorship; after they were memorized they were passed on by word of mouth. We receive these melodies just as they were given to us; just as we accept anything which nature has bestowed upon us. Although, perhaps, we do not realize how beautiful they are, they be- come a part of our thoughts and lives. By considering these melodies we find that they are expressions of the people in general, rather than of an in- dividual. The real folk-songs traveled from father to son, sometimes even disappearing from the place where they originated and springing up in an entirely different part of the country. Because of the fact that they were not printed, and owing to faulty memorizing and the varied vocal ability of the performers they were often changed. Whatever was beautiful and worth while, however, remained, while that which was not necessary disappeared. Finally these songs came forth from the severe tests of time, a symbol of the people, rather than of any particular individual. Health and simplicity are the two qualities that make these folk songs so beautiful. They are the main sources of beauty in any music; they are priceless qualities that cannot be imitated. Health is the adjustment of the parts of a song without friction, whereas simplicity consists of freedom from manners and ideas which are not necessary. Unlike the songs that come and go, having moments of popularity and then being banished in the dim reces- ses of the mind, these songs will live.forever. Even today it is not unusual to hear a medley of folk-melodies played or sung. These songs and folk-legends are termed by some “nature’s unpolluted pools.” In an audience of foreign-born people brought together to participate in folk-songs there can be found not merely the young, who are eager to profit

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SiOuvicAsN EMS EV NT 2 un one-third of the mentally deficient, one-third of the shiftless mothers, and two-thirds of the deserting fathers come from homes where dirty and ill ven- tilated rooms predominate. To bad living quarters can easily and without exaggeration be attributed two-thirds of the necessity for much that we call ‘problems in our reform work’.” Community houses can overcome a great deal of this. Their influence improves the standards of the people. Social workers are endeavoring to im- prove the housing conditions through the legislatures, and they have already accomplished much in this way. Many social workers are needed also in the medical department. The care of children is especially important. The following is an illustration: A baby was suffering from stomach trouble and was taken to a hospital. In five weeks it was cured at a cost of thirty dollars, and was returned to its mother without any instructions as to the care of it. This is the weakest point with most hospitals. They do not make sufficient connection between the patients in the institution and their lives before and after. All our hos- pitals write on the patient's history when he leaves: “Discharged—cured” ; “Discharged—relieved” ; “Discharged—dead”; and there the function of the doctor ends. The hospital ought to see that someone else provides “after care.” The baby was “discharged—cured” into the arms of a generous, whole-souled mother who wanted to give her children the best of everything. The child got a hair-raising assortment of food, and in a few weeks was re- turned to the hospital precisely as ill as before. Again thirty dollars worth of cure was spent. Again the baby was turned over “cured” to its uninstruc- ted mother, and again the trouble recurred. If the mother had been given proper instructions about the baby’s diet, it would not have been ill again. It would not have taken much time or any money except a few dollars to a paid social worker to do what the hospital had hitherto failed to do, and thus the mother might have been guided correctly in the care of her child. Recreation work is growing rapidly, especially in the cities. During the year 1922 over nine and one-third million dollars were spent on public recrea- tion. According to reports, one-half million more was spent last year than in the previous year. For example, Detroit increased its budget for 1922 by $200,000; Indianapolis increased its appropriation from $63,855 to $101,805; and Scranton, Pennsylvania increased its expenditures for recreation from $22,000 to $54,000. The results in good citizenship and good health are evi- dent. A western mayor is quoted as saying: “It is a case of more play- grounds or more money for juvenile courts.” People are generous in giving money and land to promote recreation. A $200,000 golf course was given to Salt Lake City, and land valued at $75,000 was given to Lebanon, New Hampshire. Detroit is especially active in this work, Eight swimming pools are situated in various parts of the city. Miles of artificial canals have been built where the people can canoe in safety dur- ing the summer, and skate in the winter. In Oakland, California, provisions were made so that every boy and girl above the fifth grade could learn to play tennis. All cities are progressing. We read what this city is doing, and what some other city is doing, but now we are reading what Hartford, our city, is doing. A little over a year ago, two club houses were finished, one for men, the other for women. Each one is equipped with a dance hall, rest and club rooms, shower baths, and similar facilities. Near these houses are two base- ball fields, six tennis courts, four handball courts, two basketball courts, a running track, and a picnic grove with ovens and fireplaces. This is what the Travelers’ Insurance Company has contributed to Hartford. Special cars go to the club houses after business hours, The Hartford Fire Insurance Company is doing a great deal for the hap- piness of its employees. The company is famous for the part it played in paying the tremendous claims that arose after the fires at Baltimore, Chi-

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SOMANHIS EVENTS 27 by anything which nature may throw in their path, but many past the prime of life. Have they come to seek “nature’s unpolluted pool’, in order to wash away the discouragements of everyday life? To these older people life has meant a long, hard struggle, as can be discerned from the worn expressions on their faces, and from their eyes that have become slightly dimmed by look- ing down at their tasks instead of up at some cheerful vision of hope. Their tongues have gone through the ordeal of learning a new language, their minds, of trying to fit themselves to new social and political conditions, and even their hearts, of learning to love a new country. In spite of the many years thus spent, their work is only half completed, and some invisible cord ties them to their fatherland across the sea. At the first note of a well remembered folk-song their eyes begin to shine, their heads to nod, and their feet to tap with the music of a recollected folk-dance melody ; they are carried back to the days of their childhood when their mothers sang to them, or when, perhaps, they were dancing on the green with dark-eyed Tina or blue-eyed Alice. Perhaps it is the same Tina or Alice who is now seated beside them, and by close observance one can see that her eyes are often dimmed with tears, not with the sadness of re- gretting, but with the joy of remembering. These were, most likely, the came tunes that cheered them at the altar. comforted them in time of need, lightened their burdens, gave them courage at sea, and encouraved them to enter the battle-field with a shout for king and country. These songs have been their companions all through life, and now have helped to link the pres- ent with the memories of the past. In these melodies are “visualized all in- timate aspects of their own past and their souls are granted one of life’s re- cesses in which precious memories are gathered up in a golden cup and offer- ed to lips, longing it may be, for jvst one refreshing draught.” Such an audience is musically unspoiled. It does not like a song be- cause its neighbor does, nor does it owe its musical tastes to education ob- tained from the daily newspapers; while one group may favor the melodies of its own native land it maintains an attitude of neutrality toward the pro- gram as a whole. ; The war awakened a keen inte-est in the life and thoughts of alien peo- ple, and the study of folk-lore has helped to open up new paths for under- standing the immense groups of foreigners forming the population of our crowded cities. It seems curious that just at this time when a civilization, a century old, seems to be tottering on the brink of an abyss, caused by com- mercial jealousies, imperialistic greed, and racial hatred, when music, art, and literature without the least resistance are hecoming expressions of a world governed by materialism and machinery, there should be a revival of folk: songs. This may be the reaction of the world grown timorous by the dis- appearance of some of its accustomed things. and now reaching for some- thing fundamental in which it can obtain a firm grip, and which in some measure it finds in the “supremacy of the imagination.” There is at any rate something significant in the revival of the folk-song, for while some. persons may think that such a movement is emphasizing the spirit of nationalism for the elimination of which much money and effort is expended here in our country, there is another side te the question which shows that by means of the folk-song there is a possibility of creating a “binder of songs” between foreign groups in search of a better understanding of the national character- istics and racial psvchology. Nevertheless this is certain, that however the nations of the world may differ in character. speech. manners, and customs, the folk poetry and folk songs of all countries are based upon lasting human traits. It is in the folk song that we hear the harmony of the folk soul, and the finely attuned ear may catch the faint overtones as they come forth from the depths, coloring and enriching the mother tongue but leaving no doubt as to its basic origin. Henrietta Kanehl ’23