Oxford High School - Ravelins Yearbook (Oxford, MA)

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RAVELIN 'S houses but they are not commong they are the exception, not the rule. Here, if we had to subject ourselves to extreme poverty, as the Chinese on the Whole are forced to do, we would consider ourselves terribly imposed upon, and we certainly could not be happy. How many of you people here would be happy living in straw huts? How many would be happy living on a river boat in the Yangtze River, washing your dishes in the river, bath- ing yourselves in the river? If you Want a drink, how would you lIke to dip down in that river and take the same water and drink it? That is the proposition they are up against. Take medicine, for instance. In China a man becomes ill. They call in the medicine doctor and he says a spirit has taken possession of the patient and they have to frighten it out by mak- ing a lot of noise and racket. They say the man is cured. In America we don 't do it that way. We say there is something wrong, that he has some kind of a germ and we find out what the germ is and how to get rid of it. VVe go to the basic cause. But China is moving ahead and being like America. It is said that women in China are backward, but they are trying to copy their western sisters. They have begun to paint their faces. A missionary was teaching the Chinese girls in one of the eastern school gymnasiums. Dumb bells were introduced and girls were taught not to use too much paint but to use dumb bells to get color. One of the Chinese girls said, Well, you are right, but is it not true that too much color is used to get dumb bells? Now why are we happy? Let us contrast some of the circumstances and conditions of China and America. European historical and polit'cal sages were amazed when America de- clared the right to be free. VVhen our nation gained its independence, Europe and its politi- cal sages looked at us and said, lt is beautiful, but it is hopeless. Later on when we pros- pered, they predicted that our nation would be washed on the rocks in ten years, then twenty, later it was thirty, and still nothing happened. Then gentlemen saw a kind of culture develop- ing in the United States. They called it cul- ture for want of a better name, and found something entirely different from that which existed in other countries. They found that everybody had an automobile and a home and we Americans were slightly different from the people of the rest of the world. Vife seemed to be happy. And in contrast to this, we find-China-a nation composed of two distinct groups. There is first the remains of the old aristocratic order comprising 960,000 people. They enjoy life. In the second group is the mass of the people, 440,000,000 odd souls. They are famine-stricken and poverty-stricken and enjoy but few of the necessities of life. VVhat is their Philosophy? To the Chinese, the philosophy of life is a chart organized according to the diferent val- ues that they can obtain from life. In doing this, they try to ascertain the value of different things that are going on in their daily life. Happiness is not what they have, in the quan- tity of things. Happiness to the Chinese is the satisfaction of what you have. The famines, starvation, and civil war are not the ideals of Chinese philosophy. They are only caused by some contemporary or uncontrolled things like an earthcuake, like a flood, like a drought. It doesn't mean that the Chinese people are not happy because of these things uncontrolled. They have learned to control their in- ward desires. Probably to the materialistic- m'nded people, they are living in misery on ac- count of the famine. But as to the mass in general in China, they still live in hope. Think of our forefathers when they landed at Ply- mouth. They had hardships but they lived in hope, so do the Chinese. American philosophy places a premium on working for things rather than in being satis- fied with less than we can have. Now, we do not wish to give up our radios, automobiles, electric lights and telephones which are almost unknown in China, but let us remember some of the Chinese philosophy of life-we will not spend all our lives building up a bank account: for happiness is the satisfaction of what we have. The best philosophy of each nation should be combined to make the best philoso- phy for both nations. So if we learn to control our desires and stress spiritual values as well as material values, we will have reached the happy medium. l30l

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RAVELIN 'S derlying cause. It would be an undertaking to benefit the interests of the general public. After the system were in operation for a year or more I venture to say the investment would be well paid for. The only way the utilities of Oxford can be made public is by the people's expres- sion of opinion on the subject. It has been proven that public ownership is a success in other places, let us make it a reality in our own town. TWO CIVILIZATIONS By Sophia Nesta NUMBER of years ago Kipling told us that East is East and West is West, and Ilev- er the twain shall meet' He must have noticed the variations in customs and manners of the peoples in the Orient and America, for each has its own civilization and philosophy of life, and the question is, which seems most likely to bring real happiness to mankind? There are many mistaken ideas of Chinese civilization. American people have always thought of the Chinese people as composed of only two classes-laundrymen and chop suey artists. In the average western mind, China is made up of opium smokers, or men who do dark and devious deeds that are no credit to any na- tion. But nothing is farther from the truth. There are some famous men such as Confucius who are Chinese. Chinese people believe happiness should come from spiritual values-things not dependent upon money alone. Chinese people get happi- ness in learning to control their desires, rather than by satisfying all of them. Living in China is an art. They live in hope, in spite 'of famines and civil war. The Chinese, however, spend too much time in thinking and not enough in Work- ing out their ideas. The Chinese pursue truth for the sake of truth and Americans pursue it for what the truth can give them. Instead of keeping sci- ence just for scholar's pleasure, We make sei- ence give us better homes, better cars, control of disease, and better transportation. The Chinese are wrong when they say that all this doesn't bring about happiness. Chinese boys and girls stay with, and care for, their parents, and try to make them happy. They do not leave their parents and go far away from home to make their future. The home is a spiritual unit where they strive for everything that is beautiful in life. They strengthen and cherish it and give it the best that they have. They are proud of their home. American ideas of happiness are founded on how much money, or what material things a person may have. This makes a short-lived happiness because We are happy only when We have 116W thi11gS. Take the average Amer-i- can. When is he happy? He is happy when he has bought his car or his first radio. Take the housewife. She is happy when she has a Hoover cleaning machine, for instance. She is happy when she has bought a new dress or the one-hundredth new dress, as it were. Then af- ter a while, when the novelty has worn off the thing, she lapses into her ordinary routine of life and is thinking of a new idea of how she can be happy. All these material things make happiness for us. America is a nation of business men who are too busy earning, to be happy. Money, the al- mighty dollar, is the mark of success in Ameri- ca. The dollar is chased so seriously that the spiritual things in life are forgotten. We should not be too materialistic in our conceptions of the important things of life. Take the big apartment housesg are the hu- man values there? Not at all. A man may live in an apartment and he may not even know the man who lives next to him. Love thy neigh- bor as thyself the Christian religion tells us, but he doesn't even know his next door neigh- bor in the big apartment house. In the morn- ing he sees neighbors on the stairs and g'oes by without saying good morning. What is the re- sult? Why, he gets to thinking of materialis- tic things and forgets the human things such as love thy neighbor as thyself and to honor thy parents with all the love you have. We might consider buildings and h'omes. In China you walk down the street and see a great many huts. Occasionally you see elegant l29l

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RAVELIN 'S SENIOR PAGE By E, J avery and H. Dalev The ideal high school senior girl is made up Don 't you Wish you had: Helen Daley 's hair Sophia Nesta's eyelashes Gladys Stone 's nose Dorothy Eames' lips Claire Perry's teeth Mary Vitkus' dimples Blanche Clark 's complexion Viola Lyman's smile Sylvia Greene 's dignity Eldora J avery 's personality Hazel Stoll 's clothes Elsie Willey 's eyes The ideal high school senior boy of Karl Cheney's hair Philip Fales' eyelashes . Lymert Balcolm's nose Henry Dalbec's lips Louis Malkowski 's teeth George Leclaire's complexion Carl Carlson's smile Merritt Harrington's personality Harry Jolly 's clothes Vililfred MarcouX's eyes is made up I 31 l Lymert Balcom's baseball ability? Peter Beliauskas's jovial disposition? Carl Carlson 's musical ability? Karl Cheney's fair complexion? Blanche Clark 's pep and vigor? Henry Dalbee's Witty expressions? llclen Daley's daintiness? Marjorie Davis' poetic ability? Dorothy Eames' lack of Worrying? Philip Fales' quietness? Charles Farrar's sheiky looks? Sylvia Greene's famous Hell-o'o ? Merritt Harrington's athletic ability? Robert HelliWell's vocabulary? Eldora J avery 's ability to be a leader? Harry Jolly 's break with the sophomore girls? George Ijeclaire's ability to argue? Norman Lovett 's reading ability? Viola Ly1uau's sweet voice? Louis Malk'oWski's Willingness to Work? Wilfred Marcoux's speaking ability? Edith Munn's dancing talent? Sophia Nesta's ability to ask questions? Claire Perry's pleasant smile? Raymond Porter's nickname Fire Chief ? Joseph Prunier's Hpokerfacen? Edward Robidoux's knowledge of Charlton? Gordon Shortsleeves' generosity? Hazel Stoll 's giggles? George Sibley 's knowledge of Commercial Law? Gladys Stone's ability to be heard? Mary Vitkus' calmness? Elsie Willey 's studious ability?