Petaluma High School - Trojans Yearbook (Petaluma, CA)

Page 20 text:

THE E N T EEPRIS E, T5 tlien we do not deserve the fine building and equipment that our fellow citizens have generously voted for our use. T am not a pessimist,—I could not be after having been four years with the boys and girls and teachers of the Petaluma High School. Therefore I do not believe that we shall fail to rise to the increased res ponsibilities which the use of our fine new building will put upon us. I believe that when we move into our new home, it will be with a spirit of thankfulness to the old for the shelter it lias given us, and for the demands it has daily put upon us to control and direct our efforts so as to overcome its physical disadvantages; that it will be with a spirit of hopeful determination to make ourselves a better school by using to the fullest the lessons learned and the character gained in the old building, while grasping with a firm and hopeful hand the opportuni¬ ties that lie before us in our beautiful new home. —16—

Page 19 text:

THE ENTERPRIS E, ’15 up of countless seemingly petty tilings,—we shall go into the new build¬ ing ready to make the most of the opportunities it will present to us, and we shall before very long become justly known as the best High School in all California. Another thought comes to me in connection with our change from our old home to the beautiful new one where everything will be right to make our best development possible. I want you to share that thought with me, and to get profit from it. This old building has served us well, and I often think that it may have served us much better than we realize. We have developed ourselves into a fairly good school in this unsightly, inadequate building, and we have had many difficulties to overcome in order to do it. It has been remotely like Lincoln’s getting an education in spite of his lack of opportunity,—circumstances could not keep from him the education that he wanted. So the fact that we have had no athletic field has made us work harder to accomplish something in athletics; the fact that we had no assembly hall has not kept us from forming a wholesome, helpful school spirit, the fact that our class rooms were half their normal size and fewer than we needed, and were, more¬ over, badly ventilated, irregularly heated, poorly lighted, has not pre¬ vented us from trying that much harder to learn concentration of mind on the business of the class; the fact that our laboratories and shops and drawing rooms were small, crowded and poorly adapted to their use has not prevented our trying that much harder to do the good work we have done in them. We have grown by the difficulties we have had to overcome, and we have reason to be thankful for the difficulties that have called into play our straightforward manly and womanly effort. I think we may fairly claim to have earned our right to the new build¬ ing with its enlarged opportunities, with its incentives to better work, with its stimulation to our interest, and, above all, with its proper call upon our sense of responsibility. For, mind, if we are not a better school in the new building than we were in the old, if we are not steadily growing in manliness and womanliness, in self control, in knowledge of the world’s mental treasures, in actual desire to accomplish more and more in our regular school lessons, in public spirit and pride in our school and its good name, in regard for the rights of all our fellows, in deep patriotism,—in all the fine qualities and abilities that should mark the educated man or woman,—if we fail in any of these things, —15—

Page 21 text:

A dlimpap nf tiff iFctir OFT California sunshine, the joyousness of the San Francisco festival spirit, these are enough to inspire us with eagerness to enter that city of beauty and wonder, so long dreamed of, the international exposition. We are on tiptoe with expectancy until we have passed the mysterious green hedge which hides it all from view; and then the glory hursts upon us,—everywhere color, beautiful soft pastel shades, copper green, delicate pink, terra cotta; everywhere fountains playing, flowers blooming, and towering above all tall pillars and arches, magnificent statues and massive domes in glistening beauty. The feeling of exhilaration and almost triumphant sense of having our¬ selves achieved something is indescribable. The mist of the fountains in our faces, we stand there, conscious that the throng about us is thrilled with the same sense of ecstasy, and more than ever conscious of the universality of it all, that this is the exposition not of San Fran¬ cisco, but of the w orld. And then suddenly we become aware of a glorious mass rolling upward and almost bewildering us with its richness of figures, its suc¬ cessions of pillars and towering of cupola upon cupola. It is only an impression which is permitted, for the eye darts first here and then there as the sun’s rays bring back a response in dazzling sparks of fire. We forget to notice its features mentioned in magazine articles and lecture courses, but we know that we have seen the Tower of Jewels and caught something of its impression of mysterious, overpowering splendor. Just whither we are bound we do not know, but we wander up and down in joyous excitement, dipping down into sunken Italian gardens, resting occasionally upon a classic bench and feeling, somehow as if carried back to the age of the Renaissance in Italy. Now we pause under a great arch, adorned with dull toned mural paintings and look beyound into the lovely Court of the Four Seasons. A still, smooth ex¬ panse of water mirrors the long colonnades and gives a dim impression of the statues, inviting us to come further. Here in soft pink lined recesses, cooled by rushing water and overgrown with vines, we find tall statue groups, typifying the seasons of the year. The autum, the —17—