Quincy High School - Goldenrod Yearbook (Quincy, MA)

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THE GOLDEN ROD. said that Mark Twain talks his stories into one, and Mary Mapes Dodge has for some time preserved her inspirations in one of these in- struments. We all know that pho- nographs, when placed in Edison’s talking dolls, are very amusing to children. I doubt if there is anyone here who has not read of the demolition of Hell Gate, and of the little girl who, by pressing a button on the farther side of the river, sent along the wire a current which ignited the vast amount of explosives. Is not this a far better way of firing a mine or blasting charge than by the old fashioned fuse? At the time of the exhibition of the United States Naval Squadron in Boston, visitors were shown some very large guns, and were told that these monsters were con- trolled entirely by electricity. They also saw the powerful elec- tric search-lights which are used to discover the enemy at night. Some of the revenue cutters are supplied with these lights and many a poor wretch has been saved from a watery grave by their help. Electricity, then, is used in both war and peace. Indeed, the num- ber of machines to which it has been applied is almost too great to be believed. In navigation this wonderful force has already been introduced. To be sure the vessel is not exactly equal to Jules Verne’s idea, but for all that, a ship has been driven and steered by electricity. Speaking of navigation, what would sailors do without the mag- netic needle of the compass ? Let us turn from mechanical contriv- ances. Of what use is electricity to physicians? Many of you can tell of some marvelous cure effect- ed by it. How great, then, is our debt to electricity! But the men who have devoted their time to it say that we know very little about it ; and judging the future by the past, what a wonderful increase of know- ledge, and consequently of power, will the rising generation witness. Horace Greeley once said to a friend seeking advice: “Go West, young man ; go West;” but the sage of today would point towards electri- city as the most promising field, for electricity may well assert :— “I am the king of the forces Of sway in the earth and the sea; And infinite suns in their courses Keep step to their music through me ” — C. L. Hammond. A WOMAN. THE red aborigines of Quincy considered all work degrading and fit only for woman. While the Indian brave hunted or fished, his squaw cleared the land for his corn, built his wigwam, cut his wood, and dressed skins for his clothing. Look about you and see what a change has taken place in the con- dition of woman. To be sure she may still make a fire on a cold morning, get breakfast, sew on buttons, darn stockings, make bread, and do countless other things ; but she is nevertheless the angel of the household, for “what is home without a mother ?” She indeed is the maker of the home ; for whatever the mother is, the home will be. She is the model for her children, as they are with her constantly in their younger days, in which their dispositions are formed and their characters moulded. In sickness and trouble she is the nurse and the soother. So great has been a mother’s influ- ence in all history, sacred and pro- fane, that it has given rise to the saying, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” But now woman’s work, as well as man’s, is out in the world. Where do we find her? In all the busy fields of life. As Harriet Beecher Stowe was making bread the idea came to her to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Few literary tasks have been accomplished in circumstances so little favorable to composition. She was at the head of a household with narrow means, and she also had small children to care for. She had Monday’s wash- ing to superintend, the Satur- day’s baking to do, her class of young ladies to instruct, company to entertain, garments to cut out.

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THE GOLDEN ROD. OUR DEBT TO ELECTRICITY. O back a hundred years to a j street of Padua in Sunny Italy. “Why are you lingering here ?” we ask one of the bystand- ers. “Why, we are watching Prof. Galvani playing with a frog’s legs,” says he, and goes off laughing. This is but an illustration of the treatment which patient, studious men often received. While search- ing for some hidden truth they were subjected to the cruel treat- ment of those who, in their igno- rance, thought that the students were in league with the “king of darkness.” One day, while preparing the nether limbs of a frog for his class, Galvani left them suspended from an iron rod. A copper wire hung from the legs and swung against the rod. He found that every time the two metals met a sharp convul- sion was noticeable in the legs. For a long time he puzzled over this strange phenomenon, and at last gave to the world his explana- tion. Then the wise men of all Europe were aroused, and every laboratory was supplied with frogs’ legs. Many refused to accept Galvani’s reasoning, among them Prof. Vol- ta, who, in an experiment to prove his own theory, constructed a cell and produced what is known as voltaic electricity. He used his new invention to confirm his teach- ings, although the cell’s action was distinctly opposed to them. We owe the beginning of our know- ledge of electricity, then, to the contention of two men, neither of whom ever knew what he had ac- complished for mankind. Yet, strange to relate, both were wrong, for we now know that the effects they saw were due to chemical ac- tion. Since their time men have been advancing faster and faster as knowledge accumulates. Intimately connected with elec- tricity is the artificial magnet. Many think of it as a trivial play- thing, but they are greatly mista- ken. The most learned man in the country—aye, in the world—can- not tell positively why a piece of soft iron becomes a magnet while a current of electricity is passing through it, and ceases to be one when the current is checked. Yet on this fact depends the value of the telephone, the telegraph, the electric bell, the dynamo, and the majority of electrical machines. The practical value of these is so well known that we need not dwell upon them. Nothing has yet been found which can compare with electricity in rapidity of motion. A current once passed, in spite of resistance from wires and telegraph instru- ments, from Cambridge to San Francisco and back, in less than three-tenths of a second. Turn to the telephone. Would not our ancestors be greatly aston- ished to see us speak into a little box fastened to the wall in conver- sation with a friend seven hundred miles away ? More wonderful still, Edison now promises that in 1892 we shall see the person at the other end of the line. Let me name a few other practical appliances ; for example, the electric car. The current passing around the magnets under the car starts the motor, moves the wheels, and the car is off. The electric light, however, de- pends on an -entirely different characteristic of the electric fluid. It is a well-known fact that if electricity meets with too much re- sistance in passing through a con- ductor, the latter is heated, and sometimes even melted. On this depends both the arc and incan- descent lights. The current meet- ing considerable resistance while passing through the carbon warms it to a white heat, thus producing the well-known soft but powerful light. Magnetism, too, plays an important part in the arc light, for if the carbons were not fed togeth- er the light would gradually dim and finally disappear. The phonograph is comparative- ly new, and is not as yet very well understood, but even now it is used by authors and editors, and also in taking testimony. It is

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THE GOLDEN ROD. and all the endless tasks of a wife and mother. You know how valu- able her services have been to the nation. As a philanthropist woman has done much. Florence Nightingale founded hospitals, furnished them, and was chief nurse. As superin- tendent of a staff of nurses she went to the Crimea to care for the sick. Think of her standing for twenty hours in succession, direct- ing her assistants. She always had a pleasant smile in spite of her trials, and was idolized by the soldiers. Listen to what Longfellow says of Evangeline :— “Thither by night and by day came the Sister of Mercy. The dying Looked up into her face, and thought in- deed to behold there Gleams of celestial light encircle round her forehead with splendor. Such as the artist paints o’er the brows of saints and apostles, Or such as hangs by night o’er a city seen-at a distance ” Of such there are many on earth. Evangeline is the type of woman which we reverence. As a heroine Grace Darling must not be forgotten. Think of her rousing her father, launching a boat, seizing an oar and pushing out towards the half-drowned men clinging to the wreck. In spite of the dangers of the wind, waves, and rocks, she succeeded in saving nine human lives. This achievement is unparalleled in the annals of femin- ine courage, save perhaps that of our own Ida Lewis at Newport But what a generous sympathy she had to risk her own life to save others from a watery grave. When Columbus was seeking aid for his historic voyage, Isabella assisted him by pledging her jewels. So it is to a woman that we owe our debt for this glorious land. In the civil war woman was very conspicuous in the fields, in the camps, and in the hospitals. In- deed there was scarcely a woman of the north who did not contribute time, money, and labor to the com- fort of the soldiers. While the women sewed and knit and made delicacies for the sick, the little girls, scarce old enough to know what patriotism was, scraped lint and wound bandages. Every- where there were humble and un- known laborers; but there were some who became so inspired that they followed their friends to the fields to rescue the wounded, and to cheer and comfort the dying. There are hundreds of women whose deeds have honored the country, and the nation holds them in equal honor with its brave men. Woman has done much for re- lieving the poor, for the estab- lishment of hospitals, reading- rooms, soldiers’ and sailors’ homes, and homes for aged people. The woman of today has done still more for founding religious societies. One of the most important is the “King’s Daughters.” These are generally composed ot young wo- men who help many suffering ones, ministering to their souls as well as to their bodies. We cannot re- alize what an immense amount of good these little societies do. Women are no longer limited in their occupations, as every depart- ment of life seems to be open to them. Besides the professions— medicine, law, theology, teaching, and, latest of all, architecture and civil engineering—there are indus- trial occupations, type-writing, stenography, telegraphy, and clerk ships. With such a countless number of employments much is expected of us. When we think of what woman has done to pro- mote general welfare, we naturally think of Clara Barton in connec- tion with the Red Cross; Frances Willard, the famous temperance advocate; Alice Freeman Palmer of educational fame; Miss Dix of philanthropic work, and Mrs. Liv- ermore in the lecture field. Considering these examples which history furnishes, every one will agree that woman has been unequaled as a philanthropist and reformer, and the world would not be in its present state of prosper- ity if it were not for her. It is Owen Meredith who sings:— “The mission of woman on earth! to give birth