Norfolk High School - Milestone Yearbook (Norfolk, NE)

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THE MILESTONE. 27 and teachers, in parting we address been the time. Hut these sweet our gratitude. You have been ties must loose and we mmst enter sympathetic, patient and interested each the seperating paths of life, in our welfare. We have felt that Hut where e’er in life we journev, you were not only our instructors to place however high or lowly, but that you were our friends, may ours be lives of purity and And now we say to you, farewell! honor, such that all may say for us and may the class of ’98 be ever life’s lessons have been truly held in kind remembrance in your learned. thoughts as it shall ever hold sweet memories of you. Classmates, to- Aud now lnu come the time to part— This friendly grasp release, We pass the open threshold Where common interests cease. But like sweet distant music Will flout back from the past, The memories of our school life, Sweet thoughts through life to last. in hand through the spreading fields of knowledge. Sweet has been the companionship, happy has i ogeiner we nave passed tlie years upon the course, advancing hand

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2K THE MILESTONE. taxed and even imagination stands abashed. Look! yonder in a throng of listening people. Men of strange dress and manners surround a speaker on whose calm, majestic face shines the light of love and wisdom. List to the words he speaks: “Consider the lillies, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet 1 say onto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the held, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you. 0 ye of little faith.” How simple the lesson,and though uttered centuries ago, the light of modern science but strengthens the application. Physicians are beginning more and more to realize the evil effects of worry and the blessings of a free and easy mind. A spider taught Robert Bruce, as he sat in his prison cell, the lesson of perseverence and as a result Scotland breathed again the jiir of freedom. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide, overseer or ruler, provideth her meat in summer. and gathereth her food in harvest.” Such are the little things in nature that speak to the observant mind. But nature in her grandest and most awe inspiring phases, also claims our attention. Gaze at the myriad glittering hosts of heaven, think of the enormity of space through which ranges system upon system, each single member passing through its orbit with unerring precision. What harmony, what perfection and what sublimity! Does it not speak the existence of a master’s guiding hand and teach to man belief and reverence? Thus nature plants her sign-posts by the road of life. But man learns most from man. In the page of history stretches before us the lives of those now passed away, around us is a world of fellow-men. We see the pit-falls into which others stumble, or the steps by which they rise, and passing through the years, learn to avoid the one and mount the other. Thus life to each brings its own lessons, some bitter and some sweet. “Tis checkered shade and sunshine,” but to him who learns its lessons well, the shadows pass like clouds from off a summer sky, leaving the sweet abiding peace of a life well spent. Valedictory. To us, now entering the conflict, of life, the past has been a time of preparation. Our minds and characters have, in a large measure, been nourished and developed in in the public schools of our city. And now, as we leave behind the schoolroom, we wish to express our appreciation to those who have been interested in and have aided our progress. To the citizens of our community, we extend our thanks for the opportunities and facilities which we have been able to enjoy by their generosity. Members of the Board of Education, Gentlemen: To you we extend our thanks for the conscientious and judicious method which you have pursued in the accomplishment of the trust reposed in you and which to a large extent lias made our school life happy and successful. May the knowledge that you have aided in the development of so many young lives be some compensation for your labors in our behalf. And now to you, our superintendent

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Prof. O'Connor's Address Young Ladies and Gentlemen ok the Class of ’98: It is with feel- ings not unmingled with pleasure and pain that 1 undertake to address you in these the closing exercises of your public school career. Emotions thrill the heart as we revert to the past and note the progress of each of you from childhood to young manhood and young womanhood. Through summer’s rain and sunshine, through winter’s storm and snow, your zeal for improvement, for culture and learning, has inspired you to exert noble energies to reach the present goal of your ambition. These, ennobling virtues a desire for self-improvement, devotion to duty and an ambition to excel, added to patient labor, energy and love, produce a charm whose spell can not be broken except through pain. And the pain produced tonight is such as devoted friends feel for each other, w hen with clasped hands they say good-bye, perhaps for the last time. So far. all your life, perhaps, has been basked in sunshine and serenity. I trust that the future has in store for each of you only such trials as will test the truest manhood and womanhood of each. Do not hesitate at obstacles in your pathway; surmount them. Do not fret and pine because of disappointments; brush them aside. Do not mourn because of recreant friendships: cling the more closely to the friends you have. Some one has said that a land without ruins is a land without memories; a land without memories is a land without history; the land that wears the laurel crown may be fair to see; but twine a few sad cypress leaves about the brow of any land, and though that land be barren, beau-tiless and bleak, it becomes lovely in its consecrated coronet of sorrow, and wins for itself the sympathy of the heart and of history. Crowns of roses fade: crowns of thorns endure; the triumphs of night are transient, they pass away and are forgotten: the sufferings of right are graven deepest on the chronicles of nations. Likewise may it be said of men. They who 3ass through life as through one ong continued day of sunshine, unclouded by the disappointments of adversity or the sorrows of misfortune, can not understand the loveliness of the laurel crown, nor the tender sadness of the cypress wreath. Tonight you are garlanded with the laurel crown crown as nobly won as any that ever adorned a victor’s brow. The memories of this night shall cling to you as the fragrance of fresh blossoms. May they often recur to cheer you in life’s pathway. There is another suggestion we might be pardoned for offering at this time. It is this: Do not allow the talents you have been culti-