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

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THE C-OBBLER-1945 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL CLASS ORATION Finished Yet Beginning I T is said that a man’s job is never done. These words were well spoken, for as soon as one task is completed, another, usually resulting from or connected with the first, is at hand. Yes, a man must work hard and stay on his toes to keep up with the world. ■ This class of 1945 is finished with its basic education only to find itself con¬ fronted with a new and much harder education; the education of life where mistakes are so costly and situations arise where the individual has to tax his brains ten times as hard as he had to in solving his most difficult theorem in geometry or his most perplexing problem in physics, with much more at stake than a zero on a report card. The jump from high school to earning an inde¬ pendent living is a terrific one for which the individual must be thoroughly prepared. But this is nothing compared to something I’d like to mention, something that concerns everyone: the finishing up of this war, a giant task, and then afterwards, an equally great task, the reconstruction and policing of enemy and occupied countries. It is evident that the period after this war won’t be the Utopia some people have the idea it will. It is another case of working hard and using brainwork. Think of the system that will be needed to control the actions of 3,000,000 men of ours plus a far greater number of allied forces. Supplies and food will be a great problem. War-torn Europe can’t offer much, nor Russia, nor Asia, nor any of the countries near the battle fronts. It will be the Western Hemisphere that will have to feed and equip the world. Cooperation with our allies will be another problem and the hardest task will be to utterly destroy the Nazi element down to the last instigator. If an international police force is established, which seems rather probable, this will involve much expense and experienced leaders. This again will be the beginning of another task resulting from the finish of the war. But we must be thorough in our work. Everyone knows that this war re¬ sulted for the most part from a poor and inefficient mopping up and policing of Germany after the last war and no doubt the same thing after this war would lead infallibly to a World War No. 3. So let us be prepared to do a good job. Cooperation with our allies is a “must” in keeping peace and world order. Pessimistic commentators tell us something like this: “A war with Russia is inevitable” or “England will be done out of her power by the United States and Russia” or similar talk. Whether they mean to or not, these critics have stirred up, or will stir up suspicion among the allies. If we try to trust and have confi¬ dence in our allies (and they do the same), think of all the unnecessary trouble it will save. But on the other hand if we go gossiping that England is no good or Russia is not to be trusted or France will stab us in the back, then the world will return to the chaos from which it will have just arisen. Indeed, cooperation with our allies will be essential to post-war peace. 21

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THE GOBBLER-1945 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL great an influence parents have on the character of their youth? After this war is finished and peace is settling over a weary world, youth will greatly need the help of their parents in solving their problems. They will want some independ¬ ence, youth always does, but they will also want someone to advise them and help them when there is need of it. The love that is within the home is unequaled by all the adventure and excitement of the street to which many young people have now turned. Much of the guidance of youth will be through the schools. We have found that education is the basis of democracy and it will be a great weapon with which to ward off depression. It is the youth who someday will be the leaders, and they must be prepared to carry out the high ideals of peace which our great leaders all over the world are striving so hard to attain and for which our boys are fighting and dying. School is where our youth first meet and learn to solve problems; here they learn to get along with other people and to cooperate. The expert counsel and advice of teachers does much to help them choose wisely and will play an important role in the life of our coming youth. Vocational guidance will be needed in all schools to help youth get the most out of school life and plan for careers. Recreation in the form of clubs, such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the Y. W. C. A., and the Y. M. C. A. has been and will continue to be recognized as having done much for youth. During this war, many clubs for young people have been disbanded because leaders could not be found. Without these forms of recrea¬ tion, boys and girls seek adventure in the streets and again we find a cause for juvenile delinquency. Community groups will be a great factor in teaching co¬ operation and clean living for boys and girls in peace time. Youth needs recrea¬ tion, planned and carried out by them with adult guidance. Without it, juvenile delinquency may easily win out. Yes, youth will need guidance in the home, education in the schools, and recreation from clubs, but the need greatest in my mind is security, security from the topsy-turvy world at war and security from the horrible emptiness of a world in depression. War has left its mark on our American youth as it has on the youth of every other nation. They have seen those they loved leave for war, many never to return, and they have shouldered their burden by collecting scrap, saving their allowances for stamps and serving in every possible way. Yet we are luckier than those of foreign countries, for we have never known the terror of bombings, the fear that every plane that rides in the sky might drop its bombs upon us, destroying our homes and those we love. It will be a long time before the youth of all countries will begin to forget some of the sufferings that they have gone through and return to a happy, normal life, free from fear. Even after the war, hopes for security could be destroyed. Depression was the result of the last war, a terrible depression which left three millions out of work and caused youth to suffer and grow hard before it had hardly begun to live. May we ever remember in planning this peace to provide for youth, for his needs are many and his hopes are high. Lois H. Valpey 20

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THE GOBBLER-1945 JOHN.SON HIGH SCHOOL I will conclude by saying that there will always be a task before us, so why not do a thorough job? This can be accomplished by preparedness, cooperation, and the use of common sense. Carl W. Schofield, Jr. VALEDICTORY “I Ain’t Goin’ to Study War No Mo’ ” PME are graduating at a time when all the world is in an uproar and confusion, i ij I Nation is fighting against nation; man against man; and machine against LU machine. Sometimes we wish we could get out of the confusion- of these times and view ourselves from somewhere in space and realize that we have lowered ourselves to the level of beasts fighting needless death struggles. Yes, war with its far reaching results is terrible, but science has made it even more terrible. It is needless to say that science has advanced very rapidly during the last century, and that as a result our standard of living has also increased rapidly. We now have untold thousands of modern conveniences which our grandparents never dreamed of, and also have a much longer life expectancy. We now can sit calmly in the front room before the radio and listen to voices from all over the world, go for a ride in comfortable cars, have our work practically done for us by electrical appliances, and travel from one end of the country to the other in a few hours—to name just a few of the conveniences that science has brought us in the last few years. It seems that the nations who produce the greatest number of scientists and scientific discoveries are the ones whose standard of living is the highest. In peace science is a wonderful thing. Before the war it accounted for a large number of jobs as well as being beneficial to society in its application. Television was being perfected, disease was being conquered, new and bigger airplanes and ships were being built, household appliances were being improved upon and new ones being invented constantly—all for the benefit and improve¬ ment for society. And then came the war. Immediately all scientists turned attention to the tremendous task before them—to win the war and to outmatch the enemy in the fight for scientific superiority. With vigor never seen before scientists of all countries worked and turned out new implements of destruction and man¬ slaughter. The radio was turned into an implement of lies and propaganda; peaceful airplanes were turned into flying guns and carriers of deadly bombs to eliminate whole cities; ships were built to sink other ships, to bombard and destroy shore installations and to launch dive bombers and torpedo planes; radar, a development of the radio, was perfected to seek out enemy obstacles in order to destroy them; poison gas, although it fortunately has not been used in this war yet, was nevertheless perfected in case of emergency; automobiles were turned into large and powerful tanks; and now with the development of the German rocket bomb, the V2, even the United States is a possible target