Northampton Area High School - Amptennian Yearbook (Northampton, PA)

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just as America is efficient, the individual must be efficient. His first great aid to efficiency is a definite purpose. Dr. Vlordan quotes: The world stands aside for the man who knows where he is going. This is absolutely true, and he who is not driving toward some definite end, seldom gets to any destination worth reaching. Aim before you fire and remember that 'Klt is the shot that hits which counts. A blind man does not malce a good carpenter. He cannot saw to the line, or hit the nail on the head. And many of the mis- fits of life are merely blind carp-enters. They have strength to do the work, but they fail to see the nail they would hit or the line to which they should hew. Purpose makes effort efficient. Scientists tell us that there is enough energy in 'fifty acres of sunshine to run all the machinery of the world. But the trouble is. We can't focus it to a point and hitch it to the world's work. So many a man of boundless energies lacks the sun-glass of a settled purpose: as a result he never concentrates his power to a given point, and hence fails in emergencies to burn a pathway through all opposition to the desired end. Sailing, not drifting, is the motto of the man who wins and who serves his day and generation. The young man. who really serves the best interests of the race and rounds out a career of efficiency, must face life's problems with a high and dehnite aiim. Greatly begin! Though thou have time For but a line, be that sublime. Not failure. but low aim is crime. The second great aid that will help to give efficiency is energy. But in order that he may be energetic he must have Health and Equip- ment. The first step toward efficiency is to safeguard life and health. The United States Steel Corporation has expended since nineteen hun- dred and six CIQOGTH, more than five million dollars CSS5.ooo,ooo.ooD. on sanitation and precaution as expressed in the slogan Safety First . Consequently, serious and fatal accidents have been reduced forty- three per cent, and over twenty-three hundred employees now escape injury every year who would have been killed or disabled without the benefits of this Safety First campaign. The individual must have a sound body, in order that he may em- ploy his miud to do efncient work. This must be the product of proper care, rest and recreation. VVith all the safeguards to health that -22-

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holding an advantage in any way. After about ten minutes of suspense the judges returned and Att. Everett Kent presented the prizes. Isle gave a few introductory re- marks and then awarded Grace Lauer and Elmer Shafer the STO prizes and Pearl Isesher and Jacob Kaslovsky the S5 prizes. In his remarks Att. Kent plainly stated that none of the contest- ants needed to feel down hearted if they had failed to obtain a prize, for after having Hnished their parts in such a fine manner. the distinction and honor they had gained for themselves was a reward in itself. He also stated that it had been exceedingly difficult for the judges to decide just who had merited the prizes, but they had at last decided on the four mentioned above. The following are the two first prize orations: INDIVIDUAL EFFICIENCY NDIVIDUAL efhciency is, or ought to be, the highest desire of every life. To be competent. capable and efficient in some department of human endeavor. is a most laudable ambition. To be healthful. intelligent. contented, happy and at the same time use- ful, is the unvoiced aspiration of every heart. To leave the Wo-rld purer, holier, happier. richer and better than you found it, is a purpose as lofty as it is worthy. In short. to run th-e race of life successfully and win honorably bv reason of merit and efficiency, is an ambition that ought to find a habitation in every human soul. Efficiency is the science of self-management. It is the difference between wealth and poverty. power and weakness, health and disease. Efficiency makes kings of us all. Yet -it is estimated that seventy-three men out of every hundred are in the wrong jobs: that 'most men utilize only about a third of their mental and spiritual forces. Does not this show us that the American people should strive for efficiency? The American slogan is efficiency. WVe aim at world-supremacy. And the world-master must be first a self-master. England has had the efiicient navy, Germany the efficient army, France the efficient house- hold, Italy the efficient art, japan the efficient hygiene, Scotland the ef- ficient thrift. And America? The eiiicient NERVE. We will try anything, and try for anything. Our destiny lies in our daring. Our nationls flag is the stars and stripes, because we aim at the stars,-and smile at the stripes! -21-

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modern science and an educated public has made possible, inefficiency of the individual cannot be said to be due to lack of health but rather to the lack of observing the well known laws of health. But to use his bodily energy most efhciently he must have the equipment of good education. The National Association of Corpora- tion Schools has concluded that. in order to extend the American in- dustries to foreign commerce, it will be absolutely necessary to train and educate the employees better. Education added to the sound body w-ill make for efficiency. Edu- cation inlinences the youth and even the adult to seek a short cnt to the mountain of his success. Proper education is the gateway for ser- vice. The individual seeks to find the shortest and easiest way to the most important service. he can render. Xl-'hen once his highest goal is service, then only he becomes efficient. With all the aforesaid qualities he must be persistent. One stroke seldom drives a nail however sharp its point. Golden harvests that wave their welcome to the reaper and pour out their treasure to the husbandman are not the result of a single shower. lt takes more than one wave to polish the rock and to rim the ocean's beach with velvet Sand. And the young man who would triumphantly sail into any port of life worth entering, must feed the furnaces of his ehiort with the fuel of persistency. He may, and often will be disappointed with what he accomplishes: but let him remember lf, what shown afar so grand Turn to nothing in your hand. On again-the virtue lies ln the struggle, not the prize. At the siege of Port Arthur, the laps selected their position, planted their guns, aimed them deliberately at what they believed the weakest point in the enemy's works, and then fired. Hour after hour, and day after day their cannon tbundered without any visible results. But with serene purpose, calm confidence, and stolid persistency they continued to load, aim and hre. Like ten thousand battering rams the storm of shells hammered the walls until they could stand it no longerg they staggered. tottered, crumbled, fell, and one of the greatest sieges of modern times was ended. So if the individual would succeed, he must load, aim and fire again and again. and still again till the walls that stand athwart the pathway of his progress toward efficiency are