Randolph High School - Vergisz Mein Nicht Yearbook (Randolph, OH)

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VERGISZ-MEIN-NICHT were creased. You see, no one wore creased trousers to high school in those days but Archie Mumma. And when one day Frank Miller came to school singing a wonderful new college song that the Moist boys had taught him, my mind was fully made up. That song was about some beautiful girl, and I have forgotten her name and all but two lines, which were, Oh, youire such a fascinating shape, you would charm the blue- faced ape. Perhaps Frank re- members more of it. And so I went on to a course in a big University. I had little money, but the ideas, the enthu- siasm, and the ambition instilled into me in the days at Randolph High School stayed with me and a way opened up before me, as it will for any of you. Years have 'gone by, and I have gone away to other states to make my living. But I can never forget my four years at old R. H. S. Nothing can ever take their place. . Let me tell you once again. Cherish and make the most of your high school days, for they are the most important ones you will ever have. You may not agree with me now, but 'long about 1926 you will. Yours truly, HARRY R. O'BRIEN, R. H. S., '06. sl is sl Dewey- I suppose you have a career selected? Leon - Why-yesg but we hadn't intended to announce it till after commencement. April 12, 1916. Dear Editor:- Your request is indeed gratifying and I take pleasure in contributing this short letter for publishing in your paper. Being remembered in this manner vividly recalls to my mind those grand old school days I enjoyed while attending Randolph High School. Since I graduated, which was in 1910, many remarkable changes have been brought about. The paramount one, however, would be the erection of the new High School building. The patrons of Randolph Township are certainly to be congratulated upon arrang- ing for such a splendid structure devoted exclusively, as I under- stand, for. high school purposes. There is an old saying that Fine Feathers do not make Fine Birds. Notwithstanding, a modern, well equipped building certainly offers more arguments toward securing a larger attendance and adds in- ducements in the way of better fa- cilities for conducting laboratory work in connection with the lecture and quiz periods. Speaking for the Senior Class which will probably graduate in the near future, the hoped for 'aim of each one is undoubtedly to at- tend a higher institution of learn- ing. True it is, a college education is becoming a more vital necessity each and every day of our lives. It is to be greatly deplored that more of our young people cannot attend the State University or college of some sort. The assertion is often made that the majority of our na-

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VERGISZ-MEIN-NICHT together. I might tell for the first time the real story of the founding of the C. M. A., the wonderful boys' lodge that was organized in the spring of 1904, but if I did, I would never dare come back home again. I might tell about how one of the boys walked to Happy Corner to take home a girl from meeting and she had the nerve to say, No, thank you, papa's here tonight. I might disclose the secret of where Wilbur Lucas used to find all of the big words which he used when he talked-but you see, Wilbur is a friend of mine and I do not want to give him away. I might tell how Frank Miller baptized a cat one night-but it would never do to tell in print. No, I take it that this book you are getting out is not to be a scandal sheet. I do want to tell you that the things you do today and this year and during your high school career are the things that will stay with you all your life. This very morn- ing, and every morning, I went thru a set of gymnastic exercises- and they are not the ones that a high salaried instructor taught me at the University. They are the ones that Prof. I-I. W. Mumma made us do back in 1903. Well do I remember how I used to go out in the cow pasture and practice them in the evening, while mother milked the Jersey cow. This winter I bought a victrola, and one of the first records I bought with it was a song, Beau- tiful Isle of Somewhere. I bought it because it was in the old red song book that was used in high school when I was a freshman, and be- cause one of the girls, now dead, used to sing it so prettily. Last night I sat down to the piano in the dusk to play, and before long, without noticing what I was play- ing, I was pounding out a piece of music that I played as a piano solo at the high school literary society in 1905. Sunday morning last I walked for miles in the woods, hunting for a wild iiower, the name of which I learned in the course in botany I had in 1902 in high school. And sometimes, when lights burn low, and an old bachelor sits by his fire and dreams, what pic- tures come to his mind? Not col- lege scenes, not college faces, but the vision of a rosy-cheeked girl with a white sailor suit, an anchor worked on the left arm, and tied in front with a red cord. Down in the bottom of my old trunk is her picture, just as she looked that day at the high school picnic at Over- look Park - I have forgotten whether it was in 1903 or 1904. I'd like to tell you more, but, you see, her husband can run faster than I can. I Cherish' your high school days. Make the most of them. There will be born in your brains all of your ambitions in life. There it was that I got the idea that I would go to college and try to be great in this world. One time Harvey Moist, home from college, came to visit high school, and the thing that im- pressed me was that his trousers were creased. Right there was born in me the ambition to go to college, too, and wear trousers that

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' VERGISZ-MEIN-NIGHT tional figures are college graduates. True, in some respects, but many of our most prominent and success- ful Amen and women engaged in various pursuits never had the ad- vantages of a college education. I do not wish to leave the impression that a college course is not needed. It is, and everyone should go who has the time and financial means to do so. The high school curriculums are now so arranged that students are taught many of the subjects which formerly could be obtained only in the colleges. .Agriculture, for in- stance, prior to the last few years, was taught as a modern,.science, but limited exclusively to the State Agricultural Colleges. It now ap- pears in addition as a regular sub- ject in both 'our high and grade schools. For a school situated as Randolph Township High School, in a rich farming community, it certainly is one of the strongest subjects which can be applied to a high school training. Wishing the-future of Randolph High as successful as the past, I remain Yours very truly, G. E. O'BRIEN. If I .lf THE BROKEN WALL fMildred Gilbert, '17J , There is a popular faith that God takes care of children, fools, and the United States. We deem our- selves a chosen people and incline to the belief that the Almighty stands pledged to our prosperity. America, as the land of promise to all the world, is the destination of the most remarkable migration of 1 which We have any record. Like a mighty stream, it finds its source in a hundred rivulets. The huts of the mountain and the hovels of the plain are the springs which feed. The over-population of the coun- tries of the Old World is the force which moves. It is a steady flow, the like of which the world has never seen, and the immigrating masses are animated by but one idea. that of escaping from evils which have made existence intol- erable and of reaching the free air of countries where conditions are better shaped to the masses of the people. In this country every man is an American who has American ideals, the American spirit. Ameri- can conceptions of life, and Ameri- can habits. A man is foreign not because he was born in a foreign country, but because he clings to foreign customs and ideas. The causes of immigration are variously stated, but compressed into three words they are-attrac- tion, expulsion, solicitation. The attraction comes from the United States, the expulsion from the Old World, and the solicitation from the great transportation lines and their emissaries. Sometimes one cause is more potent, sometimes another. Of late, racial and religious persecu- tion has been active in Europe, and America gets the results. In Rus- sia there is an outbreak hideous and savage against the Jew, and an impulse is started whose end is not reached until it strikes Rivington street, in New York. Among the new immigrants there are individ- uals who are moved to come to this democracy by as lofty motives as ever moved the Puritan Fathers. They seek a better country, where the struggle for subsistence is not as hard and the fruits of one's toil are more secure. Cause and effect are manifest.