Pontiac Senior High School - Quiver Yearbook (Pontiac, MI)

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-'ls M' lf.. an V THE QUlVER 27 bilities and duties: who is helpful, obedient, unseltish. The good citizen is also a good neighbor-fair-minded. square, considerate and help- ful, not imposing on others, nor on the other hand permitting himself to be unjustly imposed on. 'llhe good citizen pays his debts, lives within his income, is an apostle of the square deal, and looks the world fair in the face, conscious, but not boastful, of his integrity and sincerity. The good citizen is in alliance, further, with all good causes that tend toward the uplift of the community in which be livcsg he is progressive, not retrogressive: he stands for good schools, healthful conditions of living, a wholesome moral atmosphere. lle is willing, it need be, to bear his share of public responsibility, and at all times stands for lite and growth, as against death and stagnation. i To sum up, good citizenship consists largely in the possession oi' certain homely and commonplace virtues, which, if practised, would lead rapidly enough to the Utopia which Plato, More, and liellaniy have dreamed for us. 'llhe good citizen does his share of the world 's work, provides for the welfare of himself and those dependent on him, is faithful and unseltish in his home relationsg is a good neighbor, an honest man, and a forward-reaching', up-building member of the colll- munity, It is this type of men and women that the connnunity has the right to expect the graduates of its high school to be. Else, its invest- ment in buildings, grounds, equipment, teachers, is disnially failing of the purpose for which it was designed. In the third place, the community has the right to expect that the four years' training of a high school 'should create and foster correct habits of thinking and a scientific attitude of mind toward the nu- merous problems that are continually presenting' themselves, lt is still one of the defects of American life that it is swayed too easily by pas- 'sion, prejudice, and mere opiuiong that snap-shot judgments are too much in evidence: and that reasoning and retleetive thinking' are still too little used. The training' in the sciences, languages, history, and mathematics ought to yield some results, not only in the amassing' of information but as Well in the inculcation of habits of application, standards of accuracy, and ideals of efficiency. It ought to result, too, in a certain power ot' inhibiting mere impulses and in substituting' therefor the reasoned con- clusions of a carefully and patiently worked out series of suggestions or thoughts. Surely the study of such a subject as physics or chemistry -if it teaches anything-teaches that Hjumping' at conclusions is dan- gerous and unprofitableg that the only 1'esults that are of any value are those that have been reached through a earefuly worked out series of experiments, or that are based on tested evidence. s t A ' WJ1.'fM-te. , ' , ' 2

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41 ' .l HE QUlVER 28 T , . . l , 4 ' 'nalg that di-af! on societys that he will neither be -1 PJUPQI' H011 itimnli ewpenm, .' - - , . . . ' -' 11113 - - - he will not be an object of charity not a source of acci 1 . to the community. It has the right to expect fhef he will engage In . . . ' ' ' ' 'de for some useful occupation in which he will be able not only to PIOU his own wants but also contribute something of value or W01 fh to Sn' ciety. Whether the boy become a mechanic or a minister, a book- keeper or a lawyer: the girl, a milliner or a teacher, a stenographer or 3 housekeeper: in all events, hc or she should do something in the work- ing' world which should serve the double function of providing Fl l1V1I1S,' and of rendering to society some service which society needs. The high school graduate has no moral right to be a hanger-on. H Clepen' dent, a drone, 'Phe community has taxed itself that he mig'ht be a pro- ducer, a worker, and the obligation to respond to the purpose and ex- pectation of the community is no less strong because it is implied rather than expressed. Let every high school graduate, then, choose some vocation, some work, which he or she can do, both that he may therein find a means of supporting himself and as well that he may usefully serve society. In the second place, the community has the right to expect that the high school graduate will be a good citizen. Now this is really very trite and comonplace-extremely so! And yet we have such an illus- trious example, in Pol. Roosevelt, of the inegaphonous dealer in the trite and commonplace, that I am sure the rest of us need not hesitate to say a thing simply because it has been said before. So, I will venture to repeat that the high school gradaute ought to be a good citizen. But what constitutes good citizenship? And who is the good citizen? It is really at this point, and not in the mere assertion that good citi- zenship is the chief aim of the public school, that we find the opportu- nity for saying something that isn 't the sheerest and the dreariest platitude. For good citizenhip is not merely going to the polls on eletcion day and voting the right ticket Cassuniing that one knows what that ist, nor is it merely knowing the history and form of government of one's country, nor putting good men in office thighly important as that isl. Good citizenship is all this-and much more. And one of the sources of obscurity in our thinking on this topic is that we are so prone to confuse citizen and good citizenship with the mere exercise of govern- mental functions, But the good citizen-the kind that the conimunit the high school should furnish-is one who is true a home relations-as father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sisterg who accepts willingly and cheerfully his share of home an y needs and that nd kindly in his d family respongi-

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I' lmrif 1 28 THE QUlVER The attitude of the man from Missouri- Y0l1,V6 gOt fc shew me is really a much more valid attitude of mind than our j0kiI'1g iUt9T'PPe' tation of it would lead us to suspect. If we adopted it mme Widely as a working principle we should not so readily accept every Story that we hear from our neighbors, every bit of gossip that comes wanderlng to our ears, every newspaper yarn that meets our eyes, or every noisily heralded 'tdiscovery in science, medicine, or religion. VV6 should hold our minds in abeyanee: we should insist that We be shown,'l As Dr. John Dewey in a recent book- How YVe Think - says: t'The most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquiring the attitude of 'suspended conclusionf And the attitude of 'tsuspended conclusion 'simply means that we withhold ,Judgment or opinion until ALL the facts are in, or until the asserted fact has been corroborated by attested evidence. One of the most humiliating, yet possibly etifective, illustrations of this lack of poise and reserve in passing judgment was seen in the case of our recent hero- Dr, Cook, Here was a purely scientific problem, to be settled only by those who had technical knowledge of the subject and the ability to sift and weigh the evidence, and yet some of our newspapers would settle the matter by a postal card vote! The Cook episode should at least serve as a lesson to us of the wisdom of the suspended conclusion, as over against the ''spontaneous-combustion conclusion. These three things, then, ought the community to expect of its high school graduates: First, that they be able to support themselves and those dependent on them: that they earn their own living and be not a dead-weight on society: that they engage in some useful occupation and thereby serve themselves and render some service to society. Second, that they be good citizens in the broadest sense of that termg not only performing their duty as voters and members of the body politic, but as well in the relations of home, neighborhood, and community, manifesting those fuiulamental every-day virtues, which, as Mr. Roosevelt says, are really the vital things in any wholesome civili- zation. Third, that they possess correct habits of thought and acquire cer- tain retlective attitudes of mind which will tend to control passion, pregudice, and unreasoning impulse, and lead to a 'saner and safer indi- vidual and community life. If the young people who are to graduate this June from the Pon- tiac lligh School shall respond to these expectations and hopeq of the community, l am sure the latter will have no reason to rearet its ex T B , A - Iwlldltllllf Of Illfmey, time, and eau-r, and it will feel that in the in- creased efficiency, civic virtues, and trained intellia-ence of its high C - 4- Y Y ,rxg Y M W Qi ik. L - ll ' 541 Y 'Hp' m e - - - -Y , L., -V ' Eff- .x. - ' 77