Mondovi High School - Mirror Yearbook (Mondovi, WI)

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gret that we look back over the history of our class—pride for its achievements, regret for its failures. For four long years we ha e toiled and endured. We have accomplished much and failed often. We have added some to our members and lost others through withdrawals, but inspired by the spirit of our motto, we have steadily pressed forward to the goal of our ambition; to make the Class .jl 20 the most illustrious that has ever graduated from our High School. i To our teachers and professors we owe much for the skillful and conscientious manner in which they have guided our efforts. Especially are we indebted to Prof. Dodge for. during the entire four years of our High School life he has been with us, molding and directing the course of our history until at last we have reached our goal. And finally, to the public we owe a debt of gratitude for it is only through their generosity and kindness that we were enabled to obtain eur education. New we have come to the parting of the ways. Behind us are our school days, before us is the future. Though we may never as semble again in a body, let us still be one in spirit, in a high hesolve that wherever we may be, and in whatever circumstances we may find ourselves, we will always make the best citizens that in us lies. With this as our last hope and desire, to teachers, friends and classmates, we bid farewell. THE SALUTATORY By Samuel Blum Citizens of our community, members of the faculty, students of the Mondovi High School, to me has fallen the honor in behalr of the class of 1920 to welcome you this evening to our Commencement Exercises. We wish to give public expression of our gratitude to our parents, whose realization of the value of education has enabled us to devote twelve long years to school. We wish to thank the teachers who have labored to transform dullness into intellect, and inattention into interest, and the value of whose work we know we shall realize more fully as the years go by. Wc wish to thank the members of the School Board who have so freely devoted their time to the cause of education; and, finally, to thank the taxpayers, who have never failed to respond to the ever-increasing calls made upon them and but for whom we would not be able to celebrate this great occasion in our lives. It has always been the custom at these commencement exercises to permit youth to assume the wisdom of age. May I. with as much humility as it is possible for a newly-fledged high school graduate to exercise, ask you to consider the outstanding problem of today vnl

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come, we would be unable to take care of them. In the past, we have sent out representatives to urge the country children to enter some high school; but such a policy would now be little less than foolhardy, for our high school is already filled to capacity. The only alternative remaining, then, is equal taxation for school purposes. It is true that every country child pays a tuition fee of $72.00 a year, but this amount is not sufficient to pay the bare current expense of educating him. No provision whatever is made for improving the facilities for that education. Therefore, if improvements are to be made, all such expenses must be met by the city and school district. This is hardly fair, for inasmuch as they receive the full benefit of our educational facilities, it is only right and just that the country districts should pay their share of all such costs. T would therefore advocate that a Joint High School District be formed, comprising the city and the territory that surrounds it to a distance of at least five or six miles; and that all property within this district be taxed to build a new and modern rchool plant, and provide equipment and talent such as will enable our children to receive a better and broade education that would ever be possible otherwise. But even after we have secured a new school building and a consolidated high school, our need will not have been entirely filled. We need a system that will not only keep in touch with the child for a bare six hours a day, five days a week and nine months in a year; we need one which will reach the life of the pupil in after-school hours as well. What amusements arc orovided for children? Too often they are left to their own devices to hunt out their amusements. and the result is too well known. Why should not the city provide proper harmless entertainments sunerintended by persons especially trained for this work, through which its child life can work off surplus exuberance? Whv not take away all desire for evil habits bv providing the nroper environment to counteract them9 Why not mold the thoughts and tastes of our children through good public concerts and lectures? For the sake of the crowing children of Mondovi and vlcinitv whose educational advantsces must otherwise he greatly restricted, for the sake of the taxpayers of Mondovi who have responded in the past and who are now so unselfishlv responding w'ith financial aid: fo” tho sake of our nst?on whose future depends so vitally upon a tra’ued and eniightened c,-tizenrv. will r ot vou who live outside our school district loin w5th us Ik the support of a school system which shall »n no wav fall be’ow the b’ch standard which we have alw'avs maintained? SEVTOB9 OF 19?ft:- We are met together as a class for the last time. We have now' come to the finad mnm°pt of on- school life when we must nart and say adieu. It is with mingled pride and re-

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its only real solution? The world is cursed with a universal discontent, which threatens to convert civilization into chaos. This discontent finds its exp.ession not only in international jealousies and ilvalries, but also in intranational strifes which threaten the whole structure of society. In this country, propagandists are at work, one ■ et of them seeking to inflame us against one country, another set seeking to alienate us from another country, a third set urging us utterly to disregard the point of view of any other country but our own. In this country, too, the strife between capital and labor has reached such proport’ons as to be almost as bad as civil war. Every class in the community is apparently seeking only the interest of its own class and is selfishly disregardful of the existence of any other class. In fact, world-conditions today challenge the optimism of those who hold steadily to their faith in human progress. In one of his lines, the poet Tennyson says, “Certain if knowledge brings the sword, ’Tis knowledge takes the sword away.” Paradoxical as it may seem, it is the spread of knowledge that has produced the discontent which characterizes the whole of human kind and the only remedy is to continue to spread knowledge. In-ternat onal friendship will be the direct result of international understanding. It seems to have been the deliberate policy of the past to promote misunderstanding between the peoples of the earth in order that the governing classes might reap the advantage in military glory and in naval renown. Once let the common people of every country get to know the common people of every other country and there will be no war; because Americans. Englishmen, Germans. Frenchmen, Russians, and the rest will realize that they are “just folk ’ and not cannon fodder, and will swreep away all the artificial conditions wh ch at present keep them barking at each other’s heeb=. at the behest cf interested propagandists. The differences between Capital and Labor and between class and class will disappear if a pol cy of getting to know the exact facts be pursued. For then it will be realized that usually in every controversy bot i sides are wrong, wrhe eas both sides think they are right, simply because they do not know all the facts. I think I hear some one saying that these are high-sounding generalizations, but listen! I et us approach this subject from another avenue. The average American home today is happy not because every member of it thinks alike or feels alike or is constituted alike, but because every member of it realizes the differences end accommodates himself or herself to them »n a spirit of unselfish compromise. A commun’ty like onrs is hapny. because we do not go up and down it trying to pick flaws in each o her. but endeavor, bv balancing ou” own thoughts against those of others, to realize that we are all “pretty” good people. In every community there are busybodies and backbiters, but