Philadelphia High School for Girls - Milestone Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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PART TGWARD A SUCCESSFUL END S

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WE, TI-IE STUDENTS, ARE DCDING QUE This Fall, after we had said goodbye to our brothers and friends, and wiped the tears from our downcast faces, it was extremely diffi- cult to return to our business as usual attitude and to the studies which seemed so trivial. But what could we do? The Waves and Waacs wanted mature young women, not inexperienced students. We felt so useless. Then something snapped in our thoughts, and we began to reason that we were now the women behind the man behind the gun, and that there were innumerable tasks to perform which would, in some small way, help our boys who were cour- ageously fighting in far-off places which we had studied about in our geography courses. We unearthed little jobs which gradually be- came important activities. Uncle Sam gave us the opportunity to invest in his mammoth piggy bank by buying war stamps and bonds at booths stationed in various places throughout the school building. The drives we had for the sale of bonds and stamps soon initiated a steady stream of potential planes, tanks, and guns, which we knew were giving great discomfort to our enemies. And now, when Brother wrote home that he had had a tough time drilling that day, we knew, with an exhilarat- ing satisfaction, that our pennies had helped to buy those guns. We were another rung higher on the ladder of doing our bit. Then Philadelphia called for air-raid messengers to act as comple- ments for our magnificent Civilian Defense units. While our younger brothers and sisters lugged loads of scrap to the heaps at the street corner, we came to school with pockets jingling with precious keys. lt was a proud day when Dr. Hart announced that Girls' High had come out on top in the competition with other schools in the salvaging of small scrap. We were getting there now. Little by little, bit by bit, we were accomplishing something. Most of us joyously gave up that block of chocolate fudge ice cream at lunch time, and chipped in to buy soap, shoelaces, polish, playing cards, and other small necessities for soldiers' kits. Our eyes shone at those completed kits which were going to unknown parts of the earth as a material product of our effort. From Seattle to Tampa, we took our undramatic posts, not clothed in glamorous uniforms, but never was a group more determined to make its influence felt. Out of this zeal was born the Victory Corps, an organization comprised of the students of the United States who are engaged in at least one piece of war work. Though it is still an infant plan, it will steadily grow, inflamed with the spirit of a free youth. Now we feel that we are really fighting side by side with our brothers and friends, just as the pioneer women fought beside their men, bringing victory and peace closer.

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UNDER THE GUIDANCE CE December 8, l942. My dear Girls: The enthusiasms, the courage, and the idealisms of youth have made history since the beginning of time. Moses was a young man when he was assigned to lead the children of lsrael. The great leaders of the Crusades were young. The minute men of '76 were scarcely more than boys, and in the Civil War both North and South leaned on their armies of very young men. ln the last decade the Totalitarian States have exploited the qualities which have made youth glorious. Young men and women have been caught by the glamour of Fascist and Nazi ideology. Today, at the end of the first year of this global war, we, too, are realizing that it is our youth who must stand in the front lines of the conflict. Our instinct is to shelter and to protect our boys and girls--often much against their wills. Today, however, we realize that it is hands off. With- out the power which lies in their youth, the world will be lost. We know only too well that girls, too, are in the fighting ranks, that your youth with its enthusiasms, its courage, and its high idealism must be placed on the altar of your country. You will go through to glorious victory and in the going, l believe, learn how to keep for the rest of your lives those qualities on which we are counting so deperately now. Youth marches onfTQ VlCTORY. GOD BLESS YOU. Faithfully yours, zzz iz me Principal. 8