Mount Pleasant High School - Derrick Yearbook (Mount Pleasant, MI)

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af- Lai .il , Y - ima! - --g - - - ,, 117 leger? 1 -'- -5 '-:i -' N i? gg, The Golden A ge SINCE that eventful day in the earth's history, when an angry God said unto Adam, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, every generation of man has worked, every generation of man has had mighty problems confronting it, every gen- eration has had to depend upon the preceding generation for its preparation in making decisions that might mean the life or death of the race. At least four times in the history of the world, the races of men have been de- stroyed, and the civilization that they had started blotted out.. Geologists tell us that each of these calamities was caused by the lack of preparation for the cause of t e disaster. A study of history tells us that civilization has advanced with nearly geometrical progression. Geologists place man's first inhabitation of the earth about iive hundred thousand years ago. Man was two hundred thousand years learning to use stone as a weapon. Four hundred thousand years after he came, he began to polish his stone tools, had discovered fire, and possibly believed in a life after death. Only ten thou- sand years ago, he began to domesticate plants and animals, to polish his tools, and to cooperate somewhat in his work. Five thousand years ago man learned to write, to use bronze tools, and to establish a more complex form of government. Life gradually be- came more and more complex, needing still more specialization and cooperation. The passing years saw the use of iron tools, the wearing of cloth, the growth of trade, com- merce, and manufacturing. A beginning was made in the sciences, architecture evolved fzgogiq tlge canes of the cliff dwellers to the giant pyramids and more beautiful buildings o e rlen . The preceding generation has made elaborate plans for our preparation in life. What is the class of nineteen hundred and twenty-six going to do to help build higher the tower of civilization? It is for us, new generation, to take advantage of the oppor- tunities our fathers have placed before us. For the past four years, in order that we might better prepare ourselves to carry on the work of civilization, we have had the grkefithadivantage of attending this high school that our parents and faculty have es- ta is e . We, the class of nineteen hundred and twenty-six, step forth to-night to begin the woik that our fathers and mothers have commenced to lay down. What we do depends upon the preparation we have been making and shall continue to make, to carry forward the torch that is thrown to us by the generation that is now working. Let us do our woik from day to day carefully and efficiently, leaving no little things undone. For lack of a nail, the shoe was lost, for lack of a shoe the horse was lost, for lack of a horse the general was lost, for lack of a general, the nation was lost-all for the lack of a nail. Let us drive in every nail, let us do the job well, so that the following generation can say of our three-score and ten, as we do of the last generation, This is, indeed, the Golden Age of civilization. Pan Twenty

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,ua -...X X A L D Ev :za T5 ' , ,.' ..- F-Q1 -' -- ' Lf -E 5 3 gi' if-gg-Y ?E :Q Q ' MAYNARD ALLYN President FRED A XTE LL Vice-President EDWARD LYNCH Secretary Treasurer 1 ,A EILEEN WATERMAN Page Twenty-one