North Andover High School - Knight Yearbook (North Andover, MA)

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JOHNSON HI GH SCHOOL are to unite to stop the menace of dictatorships. China, with whom we are led to sympathize, is the second severest dictatorship existing today. V hen the dictator Kemal Ataturk of Turkey, a much worse dictator than Hitler or Mussolini, died recently, those editors who pretended to despise dictatorships lauded him to the skies. This illustrates the deception and falsity of the prop¬ agandists. This propaganda is evidently an evil which, if successful in creat¬ ing war, would throw our country into great turmoil and disturbance, the undesirable and underlying element of communism rising up into prominence. Be critical of everything you read and hear. Check up on editors by com¬ paring their facts, if possible, with authoritative facts from the departments of war and commerce. Don’t be influenced by the appearance of good. As soon as the emotions are played upon, stop and consider with skepticism. Intelligent doubting is to the mind as a blink is to the eyes. All foreign mat¬ ter is removed, clearness results. Keep your eyes on the stars, but keep your feet firmly on the ground! HELEN GREENLER VALEDICTORY X T is my privilege tonight to speak on the life of a man who, through his gift of melody and his devotion to his art, placed himself among the immortals of our world. He did not excel in statesmanship or in the science of warfare, but in music, an art common to all nations, all races, and all civilizations. This man was Franz Schubert. Franz Schubert was a paradox. Although during his life he suffered more from lack of recognition than any other great composer, he appears as one of the happiest of all. In his short life—- he only lived to be thirty-one— he produced more great music than many musicians who lived their allotted three-score years and ten. He was born in 1797 in a suburb of gay Vienna. His father was the parish schoolmaster. It is not surprising that Franz was musical, for his father and elder brothers were musicians, and when he was very young they taught him the rudiments of piano and violin. It was not long before he outgrew their instructions and was sent to Herr Holzer, the choirmaster of the parish, who apparently had never had such a brilliant pupil, for he later said of him, “Whenever I wished to teach him anything new, I found that he had already mastered it.” Yet perhaps the good man was blinded by admiration, for one authority states that Schubert gained more from one of his friends, a joiner’s appentice, for he took him to a neighborhood pianoforte warehouse to practice on the new pianos before they were packed. When he was nine the shy Franz, a chubby, plainly dressed little boy, went with many others to a big bare room presided over by several awesome and dignified men, whose duty it was to choose the best singer as choirboy in the Imperial Chapel, a post which carried with it a free education in the Stadt-Convict, the chief music-school of Vienna. After all had sung, the gentlemen retired for a short discussion and returned with the announcement, “Franz Schubert is the winner.” At the music school Franz not only gained much practical musical know¬ ledge, but also made many of the friends who were so loyal to him in later life. Franz was always the merriest of the group. Often he played his own 20

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1 9 3 9 YEAR BOOK Social propaganda is often interwoven with political propaganda, but still it is a definite type. Whether the objective be good or bad, the propagandists appeal usually to the traits of generosity, consideration for others, and good will. Some propaganda is undoubtedly devoted to good ends. Most of us are in sympathy with the basic purposes of those who advocate social security, old age pensions, and unemployment insurance. But observe the methods by which each reformist attempts to convince us that his plan is the best. He gives a vague and general outline of his scheme, which he claims is the best and is necessary for ideal conditions, since he is fighting against everything that is evil. He gives a heart-re nding picture of the conditions that exist now among the less fortunate, but fails to give a detailed description of his solution to the problem. The readers are therefore led to believe that they must choose between two alternatives, the existing conditions or the reformist’s excellent plan that would solve everything. The papers and magazines are always flushed with propaganda when state and national politics come into the limelight. This was true back in 1916, when Wilson was running for reelection to the presidency. Those favoring him emphasized his success in keeping America out of war for the previous four years of his term. “Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream,” they cried. “Let us keep out of war for the next four years!” The propa¬ gandists used these slogans and catch-words so that the people would infer that, the administration would, and no other party could, keep us out of war. As is known, the people were led to restore the administration to a second term. Then, four months after the second inauguration, the administration had plunged us into the great European conflict. When the recent bill for a strict neutrality policy was introduced in Con¬ gress, we saw how the propagandists began their tactics of flooding the news¬ papers with their ideas for and against the bill. The advocates of the bill proclaimed their love of patriotism and references to Washington’s Farewell Address were repeated again and again. The opponents stressed the oppres¬ sion of certain European powers and the helplessness of the weaker nations. They stated it was necessary and reasonable to aid the oppressed and they expected the people to believe that it was only logical to make alliances and fatal to remain neutral. The propaganda which surely interests us most, but still is carefully con¬ cealed, is international propaganda. Look in the papers and try to find com¬ pliments and flattery pointed at Hitler. It cannot be done. Whatever Hitler does is wrong. Every advance he makes is a threat to the democracies. He was only a paperhanger from Austria, so naturally, he has no knowledge of managing the affairs of a country. Who is so cruel as this tyrant who is persecuting and slaughtering the Jews? Such assertions are so plentiful that the majority of Americans are led to despise and hate Hitler. If you stop and consider, you would realize no human being is so entirely bad as the propagandists claim Hitler is. These war-mongers and hate campaigners have brought to life the cry to save democracies, in these times, by fighting the dictatorships. The nations we are to fight are Germany, Italy and Japan. Germany and Italy, we admit, are dictatorships, but Japan is no more a dic¬ tators hip than England. Among the “democracies” we are supposed to fight for and save are really more dictatorships than the two dictatorships we are to oppose. For instance, to read descriptions of advances of Hitler and Mus¬ solini in central Europe, one would think Russia was one of the endangered democracies; in fact Russia has been included in that list of democracies who 19

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1 9 3 9 YEAR BOOK compositions for a circle of admiring comrades. They were proud of his musical talent and provided him with music paper, since they knew that he had little spending money. At this time he was active both in the school orchestra, and, on Sundays and holidays, in a quartet at home. After supper his father and his two elder brothers would go into the living room and tune up their instruments while Franz hunted in his music case for a new composition he had written for them. After five years in the choir his voice changed and he had to leave the music school. To avoid military conscription he taught in his father’s school. He disliked teaching the restless little boys, and did it very poorly, but the posi¬ tion was not without its compensations, as he formed many new friendships during this period. One of them was with the poet Mayerhofer, many of whose poems Franz set to music. His naturally sunny disposition contrasted strangely with the extreme melancholy of the poet, yet they became firm friends. Another compensation was his composing. During these years of drudgery in the parish school Schubert wrote an incredible amount of music. One of his compositions, the Mass in F, was performed at the centenary of the parish church, and he himself conducted the orchestra. His father was so pleased at this that he gave him a new piano. Also in this period he wrote one of his best-known compositions, the setting of Goethe’s poem “The Erl-King.” After he had read the poem the story of the weird ride took possession of him, and he composed his setting on the same day. His friend Spann appeared in time to see him writing furiously at his desk, dashing to the piano to play the notes, then dashing back to his desk to write more. Oddly enough, Goethe never liked this setting for his poem, nor did he approve Schubert’s settings for any of his other poems. He prob¬ ably regarded him as an obscure composer who sought to rise to fame on his reputation. It was shortly after this that Von Schober, a well-to-do young law student, heard some of Schubert’s music at the house of a friend. “He cannot be al¬ lowed to waste his life in teaching school!” he cried. Schubert had just made an unsuccessful application for the post of choirmaster in a neighboring town and had been feeling particularly miserable about his failure. Von Schober invited him to join him in his lodgings, an offer which he readily accepted. Thus he was finally rescued from school life. For a while he tried to support himself by giving music lessons, but this was just as unbearable as school teaching, so he abandoned it for composing. It was at this time that he said, “I write all day, and when I have finished one piece I begin another.” He was the only composer who ever successfully employed such a method of work, but his gift of song would not be stilled, even to the extent of revising music once he had written it. Although Schubert’s music was beginning to be performed by several fam¬ ous artists, little of it was published, and he had practically nothing on which to exist. He and his friends shared food, lodgings, and everything else they could get. At one time Schubert, who always wore glasses, could not find his wooden glasses case for several days. Finally he noticed that his friend Schwind had filled the case with tobacco, bored a hole in it, inserted a stem, and was using it for a pipe. This was in one of their less affluent times. When one of them happened to come into unexpected wealth, they all lived in luxury for a few days. 21