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

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THE GOBBLER-1946 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL best, lures us on to the pathway of success. Then it continues to serve as an unfailing landmark, should the shades of disappointment or failure fall around us. And when we have learned well the story of the past, whether that past reaches back into the antiquity of Rome and Greece, or whether it extends no farther back than last week, it fires in us an ambition, a hope, and a dream, to carry the story on and to weld it to our Book of Life. This thought was beauti¬ fully expressed by our own Oliver Wendell Holmes, when he wrote, in “The Chambered Nautilus”: “Build thee more stately mansion, oh, my soul As the swift seasons roll!” That is one of the great lessons of education—to garner the golden grains of the past which others have sown before us and in our turn sow them again to provide harvest and nourishment for those who will come after us. And so our happy, busy days at Johnson High School are drawing to an end tonight. Here we wove the ropes that will ring the bells of the future. Here we have made lasting friendships among fellow students and teachers. Here we learned the physical habits of neatness, cleanliness, and good grooming. Here, too, we developed the moral habits of respect for authority, of promptness, reliability, responsibility and honesty. In this old building we learned our country’s history, the glories of her past, and the golden hopes she holds out for the future of mankind. Nor during our four years have we forgotten to realize the sacrifices made for us by devoted parents. At first, we absorbed these lessons with no great thought, but as the senior year wore on, we began to understand more each day that teachers and parents were changing the leading strings of childhood into the ropes that we could grasp to ring the bells of the future. And because the lessons of both school and home were well taught, we know in all humility that we shall ring the bells with these ropes, and that the strains will join the sweet music of the spheres to ring in the song of peace. Norman T. Campbell VALEDICTORY A Plea to All America T HE United States has just won the greatest war in history. The ingeniousness of the American people, coupled with the good old Yankee doggedness that kept every American at his job, has seen us through this most critical point in our history. And now, another great challenge faces us; another task which calls for even more sacrifice than winning the war did. The people of Europe are starving! The scraps from your supper table tonight might have saved a life, the crusts that Junior wouldn’t eat, the dark bread that sister abhors, the white bread that puts too much weight on Aunt Jane, the potatoes that you, yourself, couldn’t finish.

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THE GOBBLER-1946 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL handicapped. And yet we sit back while our lawmakers slap the faces of our loved ones with a pension too small for subsistence for the most miserly human being. It’s up to us as good American citizens to exercise our right to repeal the passage of Public Law 144. The boys did their job, and medical authorities did theirs. Now what are we going to do? Would you become a cripple for twenty dollars a month? Do you have the heart to deprive our American heroes of a decent normal life? Stop, and really think about this pathetic problem. Laborers can use many effective methods for obtaining higher wages. But these boys lying helpless on army cots in hospitals throughout the country cannot solve their dilemma. It is entirely up to us to write to our Congressmen to have Public Law 144 repealed. We are very fortunate. We can earn a good full week’s pay. But what could you do with fifty-eight cents a day? To efface this shameful situation and to speed our veteran’s recovery, write to your Congressman today, without fail. Shirley M. Wentworth CLASS ORATION With the Ropes of the Past, We Will Ring the Bells of the Future m AN has always felt two seemingly contradictory urges within himself. One urge results in the thirst for novelty, and in the changes that will bring a fuller and freer tomorrow. The other is the equally basic urge to hold on to what we have, “to stand pat,” not to gamble present advantages for theo¬ retical improvements. But these urges are not contradictory. They work together and supplement each other. The conservative urge, the urge to keep what we have, is a divinely planted instinct that keeps us in touch with each other and the past. By means of it, we develop that marvelous product called habit. By it, we eliminate a constant life of chaos and repeated errors. It develops for us magnificent traditions such as Washington’s advice to cultivate “friendly relations with all, permanent alliances with none,” or Lin¬ coln’s sublime appeal to live “with malice toward none and charity for all.” This urge to preserve the best of the past keeps fresh in our minds the great truths of religion which we learned as trusting children. It was this urge which caused the old Scotchman of Victorian days, Carlyle, to say, “The older I grow, and I am now on the brink of eternity, the clearer comes back to me the question and answer I learned at my mother’s knee: ‘What is the end of man? To know God, to serve Him, and to love Him here and to be happy with Him forever hereafter.’ ” But this urge does not bind us with our faces to the past, longing for the days that were, and blinding us to the glory that is and shall be. For like the beacon or the headland that guides the sailor to the coast, and which, when reached, opens up to him the channel to a safe harbor, this urge to conserve the 22

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THE GOBBLER-1946 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL It is hard for us here in safe, happy America to realize it. We complain about shortages; sugar is scarce and butter more so; but, there are honey and oleo¬ margarine to substitute. Yes, we have our struggles and shortages, but we are not starving! It is easy to be a little selfish when our larders are full to the brim. A trip through our local market would be a voyage into fairyland for the children of Europe. The bananas, oranges, grapefruit and tangerines would doubtless be strange, new wonders to them. The heaps of fresh vegetables, lettuce, spinach, asparagus, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, string-beans, would be unheard of. The shelves of canned goods with tempting labels, and the glass jars from which gleam carrots, beets, apricots, prunes, golden corn and peas are a sight they have never seen. And what an impression the tempting and beguiling forms of grain cereals would make upon a child who has difficulty getting even the most essential grain food—BREAD! It is natural to assume an air of indifference. Europe is many thousands of miles away. We have just finished sacrificing our men and materials to save its civilization from a war that we did not want. Many parents have lost sons; many wives have lost husbands; and brothers, fathers, and sweethearts are con¬ spicuously absent from American homes everywhere. These people are bitter toward the unknown nations who claimed the lives of thei r loved ones for their defense. In their bitterness they are likely to take the isolationist’s attitude, “Let them shift for themselves!” Little do they realize that in their blindness they are punishing the Europeans who did not want war any more than we did; mainly the children, and then the women and the old folks who knew freedom and peace, perhaps, under an old regime, in a generation when Hitler and Musso¬ lini had not cast their sordid shadows on the history of the world. Perhaps some of us cannot find the reason why we should take food from our mouths to feed someone we don’t know, that we’ve never seen, that a few months ago was hated and feared as an enemy. You are not being asked to deprive yourself of food; merely to conserve. Use up your stale bread in puddings, sauces and casseroles. Don’t over-buy. Purchase just what your family is able to consume, and don’t throw away any single thing! It is unbelievable that the growth and living standard of future Europe lie in our hands. Every day men are fainting at their work in factories and shops. Every day essential workers are being confined to their beds. Every day farmers re dropping behind their plows. All this for lack of proper nourishment! All this because you threw away a crust of bread tonight, or last night or last week. It is impossible for the people of Germany, Italy and other occupied countries to carry on the vital work of rebuilding a civilization that was torn down by the ravages of war if they haven’t the fuel that will give them the energy to carry on. That fuel is our staff of life—BREAD! With the civilizations of these countries too weak to rebuild their essential industries, the burden of supporting them falls twice as heavily upon our shoul¬ ders. Starving people suffering from malnutrition cannot work. That means factories are idle, which, in turn, means there are no goods to be sold from which