Paxton High School - Reflector Yearbook (Paxton, IL)

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THE PAXTON HIGH SCHOOL REFLECTOR 5 :he word Failure. Really, this is sad, this is pathetic, almost heart-rending; we didn’t start out to make a tale like this. Douce the briny drops, Mr. High Schoolor, and forget this’ hard-luck story. It isn’t nearly as bad as we have made out, but if you hope to make good you have got to rustle some and steal •‘time” from Old Father “Time”, and utilize that “time” too, if you ever hope to get your cognrmt n in the Hall of Fame, and your picture framed among the heroes that made history. The proposition drifts down to this: “The more you know, the more you have to know,” and “You don’t know how much you have to know in order to know how little you know.” For sale at all music stores and sung with success by the college man who dans the mortar board and swings his trail- ing robes of black. Come again! We are always glad to dope out the food for thoiight, and put the echoes to any great effort! Yours, with accent on the “thought” BILL GLENN. GOOD ADVICE Let us drop pretence. Whatever' we really are, that let us be, in all fearlessness. Whatever we are not, that let us cease striving to be. If we can rid ourselves of all untruth of word, manner, mode of life arid liv- ing, we shall rid ourselves of much rubbish, restlessness and fear. Let us hide nothing, and we shall not be afraid of being found out. Let us put cn nothing, and we shall never cringe. Let us assume nothing and we shall never be mortified. I et us do and say nothing untrue, and we shall not fear to have the deepest motives of our lives sought out and analyzed. Nothing gives one such upright digni- ty as the consciousness “I am what I pretend to be. About me there is no make-believe.” A SICILIAN SPY. (Writen for English II by Wendell McCracken.) At the time of the Austrian invas- ion of Italy, it. was my good fortune to be attached to that noble General Casco's stafT, acting as aid-de-c p. The Italians had eluded us day after day just when we thought we had them in our grasp. Every one said there wrere spies in our camp, but none could be found. Late one evening a party of- our soldiers, digging fortifications, saw a strange man, wrapped in an Aust- rian army coat,slowly making his way along the ramparts, taking in every detail. He caught up with them and even spoke to them. His nerve w‘as wonderful, and for the time be- ing the soldiers supposed he was an officer, although his face was not fam- iliar. But his luck changed a little later when he came up with me. Sinre I knew every man on all the staffs, his disguise was easy to see through. A whistle brought the guard who took him to a cell. The court martial held at daybreak, condemned the spy' to be shot at daybreak the next day. The spy took his sentence calmly. Not a nerve twitched. General Casco came to him and said he would free him if he would tell the plans of the Sicilians, but the spy looked him straight in the eye and said; “I would rather be shot than be a traitor to my country, the land wrhere I was born and w’here my parents lived.” It was found out later that his father was a general of a corps of cavalry. That evening a messenger came bringing the new’s that General Stampoff had been captured by the Sicilians. General Casco immediate- ly decided to trade the spy for the General, but thought that he would first try to make the spy tell of the

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4 THE PAXTO HIGH SCHOOZ. REFLECTOR AN INTERESTING LETTER FROM WILLIAM GLENN, '06. To the Editors of the Reflector: As the years pass and the time slips away, the Senior of four years ago in high school becomes the Senior in college. Then the said Senior wakes up to the fact that “you don’t know how much you have to knbw in order to know how little you know.” Instead of wanting that $50,000 job, with the easy pickings, that he had dreamed of in his high school Senior year, the college Senior is willing and almost anxious to get next to a job that will keep him out Of the cold and buy him three square meals at any old dump, and in addition to that'he will feel somewhat thankful that it ain’t no worse.” Now then, you High School Senior, ’fefcs up and 'admit that you ha e dreamed all along what an enviable position you are going to get when you step out of the class room for the last time, with your shejp-skin tight- ly grasped in one hand, ready to face the world and Startle the people by your brilliance and wisdom! Come now! confess, for we have all been in the same place and we know that the ideals of a'High School' Senior are lofty and mighty. But we can’t blame you for having your ideals: your character building and your suc- cess in life all depend on the ideals which you treasure. Progress is meas- ured in proportion to the ideals ac- complished and attained. After four years in high school it is a matter of no little consequence to step into a college and see all of your previous honors cast aside as mere ch’ff, and to start things all over again and begin life anew. But that is exactly what you have to do if you ever intend to go to college. At col- lege the cold-hearted Profs” care nothing for the fact tha yon were president of the literary society, that you were on the foot ball team, that you took the leading frart in Some . tragic play, that you wtehe the village cut-up when it came to playing socie'y on a straight tip at a three to one throw. No. the “Profs” care little what you did back in the country high school, and your fellow students care less. You go to college and you begin to drop. You drop from your former plane just as hard and just as rfast as did our friend and fellow- explorer Cook when he took a fdll1 out of the University of Copenhagen. Then your Sophomore year is enter- ed, and you are beginning to realize just the ’wee-est bit that there is a world full of trouble and work loom- ing up in the distance. Your Sopho- more year finished, yob feel that the beginning of the end is at hand. The next two years pass like a ship in the night”, and the uncontrollable feeling of a “lump in his throat that he can't swrallow past takes posse ’ sion of a man. What is the matter? Where is all the cdurage that he had in his high school days? Where is the knot of resolve and determination, where is the incentive for the big and mighty things that he once had, where is the spirit of defiance that used to be on tap at all times? Yes, where are those ideals that previously had taken possession of the man? They are gone! The College Senior is stand- ing in the desert, and the mirage Is passing slowly before him. On one side there is hunger and’ thirst—on the other there i£'work and • success . Bir the one is just as far away as the other. If Ife falters he is a Nlead one”, and the world has few sympa- thizers:; if he has tire right stuff in his make-up he Will push ahead, and the world cherishes the men with the will and the initiative that know not

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6 THE PAXTON HIGH SCHOOL REFLECTOR Sicilian’s plans before giving him up. The next morning the young spy was led out to the fortifications and placed with his back to the white- washed wall. He was smiling, his eye was bright and reflected the glory of the morning. A hush fell over the crowd. Only the sergeants’ voice could be heard: “Ready!” The six rifles were leveled. “Aim!” “Fire!” There was roar, and when the smoke lifted, the spy was still standing with a smile on his face. The guns had been loaded with blank cartridges. General Casco stepped up t o the young man. “Such a brave man as you should be spared,” he said, and at sundown you shall be exchanged for General Stampoff. The spy thanked him for his great kindness in sparing his life. So at sundown his father, with his staff, and under a flag of truce, came to give up Gen- eral Stampoff for the spy. At the Sicilian camp he was wel- comed by the soldiers and generals, and was promoted to the rank of Sergeant of the Scouts, where he performed many other brave deeds for his country. THE SOPHIES. Of the classes of Sophomores whom we have known, seen and closely ob- served in the various high schools of our state, surely the Sophies of 1909- 10 of Paxton High, are the very best bunch. Next to them we would rank the Sophies of 1908-09. It is, I believe only natural that we should do this. But the Sophomores of the present time. 1909-10 are the ones of whose attainments we wish to speak. We Juniors, as you may know, watch the Sophies very closely so as to note improvements over the pre- vious year. Thus we can judge very well with regard to the standing of rhe aforementioned Sophies. When the school year started with Caesar, Zoology, History and Rhetoric as the main Sophomore studies, some of the Juniors said, “Now you just wait and see! Those Sophies will never be able to read Caesar. It was all we could do.” At this time, nearly the close of a semester, the ignorance or rather poor judgment of a few has been revealed for the Sophomores are going through with flying colors. To be sure there was some friction at first with regard to the hats, pins or whatever it was—you see we are not supposed to be acquainted with the facts—but now the class as a united force is working for the best interests of Sophomoredom. Hail to the Sophies who are helping to uphold the honor of the school. Now there are Angie and Mack who could be more persevering and earn- est in their work for the P. H. S. Re- flector than they? No laggards! For how could Sophies be lazy and suc- ceed as they do? There is our friend, wee sma’ Lois. Can anything be done to tickle the Juniors, and Seniors too, more than to say “Yes an’ Lokie Richards is goin’ to speak a piece.” Florence Wesslund, Mabel Fiedler and Nora Ryan, as you know, sing in the chorus. Helen Nelson! Well, Hel- en can recite too and laugh! Why. its just catching—that laugh, and you never can tell when it will Caesar. There is Carlson of football fame, and Crow who does as his name implies. Donald Moffett! We must not forget him either. A good Caesarian is he and quite popular is his sunshine. And Currie! Goodness, the Sophies have a fine example of perseverance and stu- dent energy, as well as the Freshies If it wasn’t for little Mills, the world would take on a sober hue. But per- haps this is wearying. There ara many more Sophies who deserve a