Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

Page 25 text:

SOMANHIS EVENTS 25 quisitely colored and realistic picture which appeals to the emotions and creates the desired longing for the advertised goods. Perhaps in looking through these attractive ads, you have never consid- ered their financial importance to a magazine. The income received from advertisements far exceeds that received from subscriptions. It is this large income which makes it possible for magazines to be distributed at the low subscription cost, which in itself hardly pays for the paper on which the periodical is printed; for what is a dollar or two, the amount of one subscrip- tion, in comparison with $10,000, the price of a back-page advertisement in “The Ladies’ Home Journal” or a similar magazine? Our best American periodicals have made it their policy to accept only advertisements for goods which they themselves may guarantee. They have put a ban on cheap patent product advertisements and thus have inspired in the mind of the public, a proof of their good faith. Every year an increasing number of new periodicals appears. Many of these disappear after only a few publications. Either competition with the many other periodicals which are struggling for existence is so strong that they cannot withstand it; or their value has been weighed by public opinion and found wanting. Notwithstanding, there are at the present time 24,000 periodicals of every sort published in America. Wide and conscientious reading of these, our finest American periodicals will inevitably tend toward a more intelligent, well-read, educated, and broad-minded public. Gertrude Cecele Angeli JUST DREAMS “When I grow up to be a man, I’m going to be a cowboy and ride a balky broncho and wear a red bandanna and carry a gun, ’n everything,” boasts the small boy. Or in other moods he pictures himself as a burley policeman, a daring aviator, or a notorious prizefighter. When he bran- dishes h is toy sword and shouts as if to frighten an imaginary foe, he thinks he is a bold courageous soldier; or when he arranges several boxes into rows and standing in front of them, cries, “Fares, please”, he is a street-car conductor. Thus, his mind is filled with adventures in which he plays the leading part and he is thrilled by the thoughts of the conquests which are to be his. A small boy is not the only one with remarkable hopes and aspirations. A person—such as any one of us—about to graduate from High School is filled with expectations a thousand times more carefully nurtured, absorb- ing, and perhaps absurd. He sees the world before him, and to decide which way to go is extremely perplexing. Soon, by virtue of these exercises, I shall be graduated from South Man- chester High School. During my four years here, I have taken four years of English, three of French, two of Latin, Shorthand, and Typewriting, and one of Ancient History, Geometry, Algebra, and Commercial Law. With such a background I should be prepared for something, I know; but for just what, I am trying to decide. It certainly is a momentous question. Even Hamlet in his well-known “To be or not to be” was not swayed more by conflicting emotions. There are now in the world so many more opportunities for busi- ness and professional women, that daily the selection of one’s place is becom- ing a more difficult problem. With my background of business training, I naturally turn to the world of clerks, bookkeepers, and stenographers. So, my first thought is that I will be a stenographer; an ideal stenographer, you understand, not a plain

Page 24 text:

24 SOMAN EIS” EVENTS So the periodical first appeared with “Ladies’ Journal” for its title. Under the title was a picture of a house and the word “Home.” The first sub- scriptions received asked for “The Ladies’ Home Journal” and thus it is still known, At the present time it is so widely circulated that one out of every ten women in the land wait eagerly for each issue. The purely literary magazines are among the most widely read. The “Port Folio,” founded in 1801, was the first noteworthy literary magazine in America. Its superiority to earlier magazines was promptly recognized and it soon claimed among its contributors, Charles Brockden Brown and John Quincy Adams. Its literary standard is continued today in such mag- azines as “Harper’s,” established in 1850, “The Century Magazine,” estab- lished in 1870, ‘“Scribner’s,”’ established in 1877, and “The Atlantic Month- ly,” established in 1857. . “The Atlantic Monthly” was established to express the social, ethical, and artistic tendencies among our leading writers, and to give publicity to various reforms that were under discussion. It was published without illustration. Its policy made for quality rather than large circulation. Every important American man of letters has appeared in it. It has the most distinguished array of editors in the annals of literary history, among whom are: James Russell Lowell, James Fields, William Dean Howells, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Horace Scudder, and Ellery Sedgwick. Though the magazine has become widely circulated, it has achieved its success with- out sacrificing its high standards. All these literary periodicals contain the latest works of our best American authors. These works are often in short story form, the type of story which has become so popular in recent years. Besides providing liter- ary entertainment, these magazines often publish a supplement containing a discussion of and criticism of the newest books. Despite their obvious differences because of their variety of readers, magazines are really constructed on about the same basis. The editorial column holds an important part in most of our modern magazines. In England and in some parts of the United States, editorials are called “Leaders”, for they express what is understood to be the editor’s policy on a leading subject which engages the mind of the public. The end of all editorials is the expression of good judgment and intelligent opinion. Usually the subject of an editorial originates from a newspaper article of general interest. From the facts of this article, the editor draws some con- clusion. The editorials cover a wide area range of subjects relating to politics, religion, war, business, finance, education, behavior, or philan- thropy. A local editorial takes a current civic problem and discusses whether, for instance, the city can afford a certain outlay, whether the public work is needed or desired, and whether the sum provided is enough or too much. Very often the editorial discusses and reflects upon the moral aspect of some event or utterance, thereby leading and forming public opinion. The advertisements in our modern magazines add greatly to their inter- est. Advertising has become an art in itself, partly as a result of the great competition in modern business. Corporations vie with one another in advertising their goods. Thus, the advertising section of a magazine has become a section to which readers turn with curiosity and anticipation. In these advertisements all sorts of novel devices are used to create in the reader, desire, longing, or admiration for the goods advertised. Often inter- esting little stories or a news element may be embodied. But greater and more appealing to the human emotions than any other advertisements we have today, are the pictorial ads, which have become exceptionally fine in quality. The very attractive and artistic color schemes used in these pictor- ial ads make them especially effective. Contrary to other advertisements, the reading matter in a pictorial ad is of the least importance. It is the ex-

Page 26 text:

26 SOMANHIS EVENTS stenographer. Please deliver me from that; it is the very abyss. Webster defines a stenographer as, “a writer of phonography.” If this definition were complete, | should be unafraid; but | can enlarge upon it. In one of my textbooks, a whole chapter is devoted to telling how an ideal sten- ographer is the next thing to perfection itself. She must be an expert typist, a rapid and accurate transcriber of shorthand, and above all a good speller. There I am very fearful, for I cannot spell. I have learned spelling rules galore but there are so many exceptions to these that it is of no use, I can- not spell. For this reason Iam one of those people who are firm advocates of phonetic spelling. If psalm is pronounced salm, why should a confusing p be placed in front of it; and why should weird be spelled weird, and siege siege and seize seize? No, I never will understand it. If spelling is so necessary, | must discard the hepe of ever being an ideal stenographer. My next thought is that I will be a writer. Then I am free to invent new words and spell them as I choose. But the field of writing is so large that to say one wants to be a writer is rather indefinite. There are three pos- sibilities which interest me: the short-story, the novel, and the novelette. The short-story has one disadvantage; it’s too short. The novel has a corres- ponding fault; it’s too long. So I think I should prefer to write a novelette, which is a happy medium between these two, as it has all the characteristics of a novel in a shorter form. The plot seems easy. It will be a realistic story of modern life. The hero and heroine are two up-to-date jazz-lovers with no thought of the future. Their parents are aghast at their actions and try with little success to show them their folly. Now, [am in a dilemma. My hero must be made to think of the more prosaic things of life, and my heroine must be brought out of her mad rush for pleasure and converted into a sweet, loving, and dutiful daughter. How may this best be accomplished? Perhaps I should kill off the hero and then let the heroine come to her senses, turn martyr, and pine away and die. But who will kill the hero? He is the most popular man in the community. Even the blackest villain re- spects him, because he is chief of the fire-department. Ah! I will have an unknown assassin shoot him in his study while he is writing a letter order- ing more chemicals to put out a fire raging in a neighboring town. Still— that would be resorting to fate. It really won't do. I’ve heard that any story that resorts to Fate in order to bring it to a climax is worse than no story at all. Alas! Until I learn how to end a story with such a situation, T cannot be a writer. The third possibility is that I be a teacher. I feel that perhaps I know more about this profession than any other, as I have been in almost daily contact with certain of its members for thirteen years. But a teacher must know a tremendous lot, not only about her chosen subjects but about simple facts of general science, literature, languages, etc. as well. How often have I heard this remark—perhaps I’ve said it myself—: “Oh! Ask her; she ought to know, because she’s a teacher.” Ah! The magic of that word teacher! She must know everything—whether it be why tides change, or exactly what is radio, or who is the greatest man in the United States. Be- sides, children have an inexhaustible stock of mighty questions which they seem to delight in asking the teacher. Though the answer may be simple, it requires tact and a good vocabulary to explain things to an exacting child. A small friend of mine is quite disgusted because I cannot explain to him the solution of such questions as: “If aman was up in an aeroplane and the earth came to an end, where would the man land?” I do think teaching would be very interesting, and perhaps after I went to a special school guaranteed to educate one to be a teacher, I might succeed at it. And so I dream and similarly, I suppose, other people dream. Hope and youth go hand in hand. We look forward to brightly-painted futures.