Washington High School - Massillonian Yearbook (Massillon, OH)

Page 22 text:

THE CLASSES Time Marches On .... . There is something fascinating about time, something in its utter lack of permanence, something in the way it stretches endlessly into the past and forward into inhnity, something in its absence of beginning or end-something, too, in its changing effect upon people, especially young people in the most plastic years of their lives. Three years is a short time, but what hectic ones these three are! We enter high school naive, simple, uninitiated-and we leave wise, learned, polished. The molds of time, experience, and contacts change us, and so gradually and silently that we are at a loss to pick the trans- formation out of the general melee of school life. Nor can we credit the work to any one of the scores of things of which a high school consists. And it is a marvelous work. When we enter high school every- thing is so bewildering, so en masse --new faces, hundreds of wrong doors, the endless tangle of halls, upperclassmen who squelch us at every turn. We are a timid group with dumb soph written all over our blank faces. Because we are handicapped by not knowing the ropes we are considered the legitimate prey of the educated juniors and seniors who take fiendish delight in scaring us with horrible stories of blood- thirsty teachers. The first thing sophs learn is to stick together for protectiong for a soph, like a banana, is liable to get skinned if he leaves the bunch. Green is the traditional color for these novices, these appren- tices of learning who receive the social cuffs and blows of the schoolis caste system. The second thing sophs learn is meekness and observation. And by using these worthy attributes they soon sense that their intel- lectual superiors do, occasionally, make mistakes. But only the march of time teaches a sophomore how not to be sophomoric. And when we come back the next year we find welve changed. We've returned to familiar surroundings after an absence. With a steady step and unwavering eye we go through a door and there's Mr. Wright-we knew it all the time. We amuse ourselves by watching the sophs behaving as sophs will, and feeling vastly superior, forgetting that they will soon supplant us and in their turn be supplanted. Somehow 18

Page 21 text:

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19114,- we have become juniors, getting the hang of things but still amounting to little, bolstering our pride by scorning the new sophomore crop. Sophs look so uneducated,', we remark when no seniors are near, and receive encouragement from the seniors who condescend to give us their unofficial recognition. Another summer-Then the tumultuous senior year! Something doing every day. We ind we really aren't so disdainful of underclass- men, we're just too busy to be concerned with infants. We gradually realize that it is only the possession of self-assurance that distinguishes seniors-knowing everyone worth knowing, knowing all the answers Cwell, most of themj, knowing how to handle each teacher diplomati- cally, knowing how to break scholastic laws without really breaking them, being individuals. We study, too, as we never studied before. And behind it all the dominant realization that it's drawing to a close. Then, suddenly, quietly, as we discover ourselves in caps and gowns . . marching down an aisle, a bit relieved, a bit scared. A man talks . . . will he never stop? . . . names being called . . . we walk across a platform and receive a roll of paper, a symbol of an intangible some- thing that has taken years to acquire . . . and it's all over. Or isn't it, rather, a beginning, a commencement? For time is still marching on.