Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

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SOMANHIS EVENTS 29 should be extended throughout the com- munity? It is indeed so, and it is thus that high standards of character are created, maintained, and — extended throughout the school and community. THE VALUE OF THE LEADERS’ CLASS Is S. M. H. S. represented by girl ath- letes? For the past two years approni- mately twenty-five girls have met under the direction of Miss Hazel Worcester. They have formed what is known as the Leaders’ Class, an organization which has proved that S. M. H. S. has many able girls athletes. Every well regulat- ed school or business, to be successful, has certain definite standards for its guidance and certain definite aims for its goal. The aim of the Leaders’ Class is to educate its members in the theory and practice of physical education. All Leaders’ Class girls strive not only to be good athletes but also to be good sports. They learn the meaning of true and real sportsmanship. ‘Through their athletic work and leadership they hold their ideals before the pupils whom they supervise. May this worthy group con- tinue to meet with the many classes that will pass through this school, so that the true value of sportsmanship will never die. M. B. ’27 THE VALUE OF “SOCK AND BUSKIN” Just what is the value of Sock and Buskin? What do amateur dramatics do for the high school student? Do they afford some benefit, or are they merely a means of amusement? To the casual observer they may appear of little use— a passing fancy that will soon be forgot- ten. But to the more observing person they are of value. A casual observer may ask what? The parents of the aspir- ing voung actors or actresses may reply that they make nervous wrecks. But up- on further consideration we find that they afford the student of dramatics many different things chief among which is poise. Everyone is willing to admit that poise is a big asset both in the business and in the social world. A person ill at case cannot seem to “belong.” He is a mis- fit, a well meaning person who not only feels uneasy himself but makes those around him feel uneasy. The experience that a person gains on the stage in acquiring poise will naturally benefit him in the future when it is necessary to go out in the business world to earn his own living. In dramatics a person learns enuncia- tion, another thing that is always profit- able in other steps of life. Nothing is more annoying than a person who mum- bles his words and relates a long history that none can hear but himself. A per- son who cannot speak clearily is not wanted on the stage and he must cither learn to speak clearly or leave. Usually he learns to enunciate. Once he has learned how to speak plainly it is very improbable that he will fall into his old habit of muttering. Closely related to poise is self-con- fidence. Without self-confidence a per- son is lost. Many an intelligent and capable person has failed because he lacked that valuable asset, self-con- fidence. By self-confidence I do not mean conceit. Self-confidence is merely a belief in one’s self. If a person does not believe in himself, he will be a fail- ure. A person who does not believe in himself cannot hope to make others be lieve in him. Another thing of value that one meets in dramatics is effort. Flere, perhaps more than any other place could we use that old quotation “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” How many times a seemingly unimportant bit has to be done over. Every bit of energy and talent that a person has in him must be put into that piece of work. When a person practices a thing like that for about six weeks, it is sure to stay with him. Patience is another thing that is gain- ed during the long grueling rehearsals. Ilow many times it would be so much more pleasant to throw up the whole thing and enjoy yourself. But we stick to the task and in the end we usually are glad that we did. By the time the

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28 SOMANHIS EVENTS During the first years of our country, the Pilgrims believed that women were inferior to men and therefore did not need an education. Schools were start- ed twenty years after the founding of Plymouth, but there were no girls as pupils until a hundred and fifty years later when the Boston public schools opened their doors to girls for half a year’s instruction in spelling, reading, and composition. In the meantime the girls went to dame schools, neighbor- hood schools taught by women, or had private instruction. Two hundred years went by before girls enjoyed the same rights and privileges as boys in this country. The pioneer work for the higher edu- cation of women in America was done by Mrs. Emma Willard, who establish- ed Troy Seminary for Girls 1821, and Mary Lyons, who established Holyoke Seminary in 1837. There the girls com- bined housework with their studies. Later this seminary was developed, and Mt. Holyoke College took its place with the other big colleges for women—Vas- sar, Wellesley, Smith, Bryn) Mawr— which have made it forever impossible to exclude American women from college life. When the states of the Middle West and Far West took up the problem of education for women, they promptly solved it by admitting them on an equal footing with men in their state univer- sities. Today all types of education and all professions are open to women. What- ever the high school graduate of today decides to adopt as her life’s work, she finds ample opportunities awaiting her. The last and most thrilling develop- ment of the education of women is the right to vote. This means that many college senior girls are voters as well as students. They not only study about improvements, but they can actually vote for them. There are enough women voters in this country to change the course of education. It has been a long and difficult struggle to prove that woman has a part in the community and state affairs, but at last she has been ac- cepted as man’s equal in every respect. Thus as the years have gone by, democracy, education, and the increasing freedom for women have developed the woman college graduate of today, the best equipped woman that. civilization has as yet produced, THE VALUE OF HI-Y The professed purpose of the [li-Y is “to create, maintain, and extend through- out the school and community high standards of Christian character.” Since the activities of the organization are concerned chiefly with school life, it is best that we consider here the Hi-Y in connection with the school. High Standards of Christian character are instilled in the members of the Hi-Y by various means. Through the med- ium of sports and other activities Hi-Y men learn to play the game “on the square’, to play it hard, and to play it through. ‘They learn not to alibi and not to shirk. They learn in a word the code of the good sportsman, which is in itself a very complete standard of Chris- tian ideals. Having learned this in Ili- Y activities is not all. Through contact with the members and leaders, Hi-Y men are brought to the realization that this standard applies in every day life. Thus it is brought about that “high standards of Christian character” are created with- in one small group, the club proper. How these ideals can be diffused through the school and thereby through the whole community can be easily un- derstood if we recognize the fact that the members of the Hi-Y are not taken from any one group, but that they come from the three upper classes of the school; that they belong to no one of the artificial strata of our so-called social life, but that they are sons of rich men, of men not so rich, and of poor men, of law- yers and farmers, of doctors and sales- men, and of politicians and factory- hands; that they have no common reli- gion, but that they are of all creeds; that, in short, they have nothing in com- mon except that they all are Hi-Y men. Being thus representative of the whole community and having in them high ideals, is it not natural that these ideals

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30 SOMANHIS EVENTS play has been presented we feel that we could rival Job. There are a hundred other things of equal importance that a person learns in dramatics. It would not be fair to pass over the appreciation that one gains of the drama. We realize the efforts of those men and women who are trying to make the stage a thing of art, and thing of beauty, and a thing of admiration. Yes, to the casual observer, dramatics in high school may seem foolish, of lit- tle value, and merely a pastime; but to the observing person it is a thing of im- portance, a thing as important as math- ematics, or history, or the languages, because it teaches the student those things that he will need most in the future. IS AMERICA A MELTING POT? It was on one of the New York to Liv- erpool trips of the “Berengaria” that a junior officer asked the question, “Is America a melting pot?’ The upright young Englishman of whom he asked it considered for a long two minutes and then replied in a somewhat lengthy fash- ion. The junior, who is my friend and who reported this to me, sat absorbed, for the young man’s voice was pleasing- ly sonorous and the officer was a good listener. “Really,” he said finally, “that isn‘t a question that IT should presume to an- swer. Much better men than I have an- swered it completely. However , since I have been abroad seeing America for the past month, perhaps I may take the liberty to express myself on the subject. “America is, I believe, a melting pot, not in the ugly sense of the word that gives the impression of people of all the world being poured into a machine to emerge stamped according to a set pat- tern to live humdrum lives of no conse- quence, but in the sense that many people of the world seek, through the refining processes of the melting pot, the realization of their aims. In passing through the pot, they lose those sordid, mercenary characteristics to come out men and women of clear ideals and of the energy—pep’ you call it—to carry out those ideals. “Americans are a peculiar people. During my stay T met a great many of them, and TI was impressed by the fact that the names showed a varied foreign derivation, I was also impressed by the fact that cach person practiced good sportsmanship. They all had the ‘give- and-take’ and the ‘never-say-die’ spirit as a standard. It is peculiar, it seems to me, to find this one common ideal before people of such varied descent. T think I saw in them the spirit of all Americans and if Tam right in this, then America is. in truth a melting pot; for, after all, what is a melting pot if it is not a cru- cible into which different metals are placed, refined, and drawn off as an analogous substance? It is in this way that America appears to me, the an- alogous substance being the true Ameri- cans. That is my answer, captain.” My friend, who is of staunch New England stock, got to his feet, yawned, said that he had enjoyed the talk but he really couldn’t see how some of these “Dagos” and Polacks” were the true Americans and went to bed. IT agree with the young Englishman; and because the junior officer and I are true friends, I fear the day when he be- comes disillusioned. Stephen Williams THE DEAD INDIAN (With apologies to all the writers of de- tective stories.) It was one of those very sultry days in mid-summer when the gnats buzz in such a way that they make even the most wakeful feel sleepy. The land all about the little town of Four Corners was covered with a fine powder which the sun had manufactured from what had formerly been damp soil. There was something ominous in the air. It was not something of great concern, but a restlessness which seemed somehow to grip at one’s nervous system and make it tingle just a little. Old Tom Berkley observed that the atmosphere was a trifle different as he rode down the long, flat, dusty road