Mineola High School - Signet Yearbook (Mineola, NY)

Page 5 text:

ALOEN IM STAFF Lack roiv (I. to r.)—Evelyn Brown, Muriel Brink, William Ruckh, Herbert Pearson, Alice Tesar, Eunice Young. Middle row—Miss McCarthy, Anna Thomas, Sadie Karpel, Bertha Pribul, James McLaughlin, Yetta Siegel, Miss Rooney Front row—H rry Cornwell, Isabel Von Oehsen, Lillian Von Oehsen, Joan Smith, Ruth Downs, Lillian Katz, Raymond Rolfe.

Page 4 text:

PLAYING THE GAME From the earliest times it has been the custom of man to take great pride in his athletic achievements. Then his only thoughts was winning, whatever the cost. The loser always suffered heavily. But as man became civilized and educated, the idea of the winner’s inflicting punishment on the loser be- gan to change into what we now un- derstand as “fair play.” This consists largely in treating the opponent fairly and courteously, so that he will be willing to engage in more contests at a future time. Along with this man came to realize that athletic contests are beneficial only as they serve to strengthen the body, and when they fail to do this have lost their useful- ness. The one thing to which man still clings is the desire to win. It is a vital thing in athletics. In one way it can be used to develop many fine traits of character, but in another way, it may be misled and become a dreadful evil. It becomes an evil when the desire to win is allowed to become so strong that the players stoop to the use of unfair and un- manly practices in order to secure victory. But in its true field, the desire to win is able to overcome the inei'tia of man and get him to spend many tire- some hours in training. This training develops his will power and makes him master of himself. Often he is compelled to sacrifice personal glory for team play. This gives him his first idea of real co-operation. In or- der to be successful he must practice right living. In his contests he meets many problems, which require con- siderable thinking. In solving them he learns to think for himself and un- consciously his self-reliance is de- veloped. When he enters a game, all these qualities are stressed to win the game; but to win it fairly. But it isn’t the athlete alone who plays the game. We are all playing in the game of life. In every way it is a bigger contest than athletics ever was. Our greatest training is the training of the mind. That is our work here in high school. Each of us is preparing to take our places in this world of strife. Are we getting the right training? It is all too frequent an occurrence that pupils come to class without any preparation. They haven’t had time. This means that they did not exercise enough will power to place important things first. They are not fair to themselves. But far worse, they are selfish in that they want and ex- pect a larger share of the teacher’s time than the student who has placed his studies first. It is an example of his utter lack of team work with his classmates and teachers. Those pupils who are frequently ab- sent without reason, those who are habitually tardy, those who always find it necessary to do errands during school hours, and those who find it so necessary to stand in the halls or talk after classes begin are likewise failing to play the game. They are unfair to themselves. They are miss- ing and have missed valuable work. They are unfair to their classmates in that they expect that the work cov- ! ered in their absence shall be repeated for them. This means they are steal- I ing the time to which their class- mates are rightfully entitled. But perhaps those people who play 1 the game most poorly are the ones who frequently cause disturbances in j class. They will neither work them- | selves nor allow their fellow students to work. Their time and energy is used in annoying and fault-finding. Neither time nor energy is used, in doing constructive work. They will j in later years, become our national | destructionists and the wast enemies of education and democracy. Habits are formed not for school days, but for life. He who forms right habits now will make habit his servant; but he who forms bad ones j will be the slave of habit. Those j who now are unprepared, unreliable, tardy, and generally in the habit of avoiding as much work as possible will be the ones who will spend much of their time looking for positions. We are playing the game of life. Let’s start today to play it right and win.

Page 6 text:

 miss McCarthy Class Advisor —