Quincy High School - Oriole Yearbook (Quincy, MI)

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THE 012101.51 CLASS POEM FINISHED TO BEGIN AGAIN It is finished! Blow the trumpets! Sound the cymbals, beat the gong! For we've run our race and won it! Tell our victory in song! It is finished! We have triumphed! Four long years we've planned and worked, We have earned the right to glory. For we've faltered not, nor shirked. It is finished now our labor! It's a thing that's in the past, We have done what was required, We have earned a rest at last! Ir is finished? Now I wonder, Have we nothing more to do? Though great the effort of our school days, Will it last our whole life through? It is finished! Hardly classmates, It is really just begun, We've long years of work before us, E'er life's race is truly won. It's nut finished! But our school days, For the future pave the way, We have still to keep on fighting, We must work, and we must pray. It is finished! Just our school life! For the future we must plan, List the motto we have chosen, Finished, to begin again . ---Marian Oxenham ilrf lili ' -30..

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ifl' THE ORIOLEI VALEDICTORY Ephriam N. jones, known as Dick', to his friends, ran a locomotive for fifty years, then retired to begin painting pictures. Imagine the surprise of his friends. Some laughed at it as an impossibility. Now, they are not laughing. In ten years, Dick Jones has painted over five hundred pictures, depicting scenes which he retained in his mind, from his railroad experiences. When he ran a locomotive the desire to be an artist was in him. It remained and now that wish is accomplished. Truly this is a striking, modem-day example of the motto which our class has chosen, We finish to begin. Ephriam jones finished his railroad career to begin painting. Everywhere about us we may observe the carrying out of our motto. It is true in schooling, in science, in nature, and even in human existence. Never can education be finished in one lifetime. We may believe at times that we have attained the goal, have completed some subject. But time disillusions us and we realize that it is only the foundation knowl- edge completed. This basic material must be mastered before we are capable of beginning the advanced knowl- edge offered us. For it is impossible to write a theme until we learn the elements of grammar and the rules of composition. Problems in simple arithmetic can not be worked imtil we leam the four fundamentals, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. History presents many examples of those who finished school only to begin. To my mind the thought of Abraham Lincoln speedily comes. Leaving school after a few months of inconsistent attendance, he knew as much as any frontier teacher. His schooling was finished. Yet he was not content, and continued his fascinated study of English grammar to become the greatest of our speak- ers. Eastern college professors followed Lincoln from place to place, taking notes on his speeches that they might bring to their students something of the genius of Lincoln. Like Lincoln all great men, whether they have much schooling or very little, finish school to begin studying, working and accomplishing new things. One of the greatest fields in which this theory reigns is that of science. An invention is made, completed and then improved. In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. At that time how awed people were to even talk to their nearby neighbors. Now this miracle has been improved to Trans-Atlantic conversations by means of telephone and wireless. Thus in all lines of science, one stage is completed only to begin another. Nature, too, if we allow, will teach us this lesson. Even plant life finished only to begin again. The poppy, dying down in the fall, drops its seeds in the ground. The next spring a plant comes up and the flower blos- soms again. Each year when the leaves fall, the trees seem to die, but the next spring their life begins anew with the bursting of their buds. We may take any example we wish, from the simple radish to the lovely rose, all finish to begin. Not only do plants complete one summers existenceto begin anew the next spring but the completed product by the aid of greater power begins a new phase of life. Luther Burbank produced from the finished lemon and orange the new grape fruit. Probably, if he had lived his dream of a seedless grape-fruit would have been attained. Thus all nature changes but lives on forever. In this way Nature teaches us the greatest truth. For we learn from the flowers that there is no death. We learn from Nature the law of eternal life. For what is true of Nature is true of the human race. One generation finishes their work and the next gener- ation begins. Each individual finishes one task to begin another. Likewise we finish this life to enter one of which we know little. Yet we are certain of its existence because of the teachings of Nature and of the Great Creator. To be truly prepared at the finish of our earthly existence, may we live such a life that we will not fear Death, realizing that it is only another phase of our motto, We finish to begin . Keeping this in mind may we follow the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine out-grown shell by life's unresting sea! Mildred Lucas. ill' 1 Q 2 7 iiii 429-

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