Reading Memorial High School - Pioneer Yearbook (Reading, MA)

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Pioneer Board EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Pauline Stephan ADVERTISING MANAGER ASSISTANT EDITOR Marilyn Ross James Killam BUSINESS MANAGER ART EDITORS Alma Skinner ASSISTANT EDITORS Priscilla Parker Nancy Davis Carolyn Snow Allison Phinney HEAD TYPIST Lee Miller

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FOREWORD We have arrived at ihe midpoint of the century. Duiing the past fifl years the world has made many important discoveries, particularly in scientific fields. For the next fifty years the world will go on to develop even newer and greater ideas, but the discoveries made in the past will not be forgotten. Instead, tempered by time, they will become the tools with which we will make our dreams of today become the realities of tomorrow. I hus the mid-century year is a milestone in the advance¬ ment of civilization. To us, the seniors of Heading High School, 1950 is a milestone in a special sense. It is the year in which we end one type of life and begin another. During the first part of our lives, we. too, have been studying, learn¬ ing and making discoveries. From this time on we will not forget all that we have learned, but will begin to use our knowledge in such a way as to brighten and enrich the years ahead of us. We are about to put the knowledge we have gained to practical application. This Pioneer is a record of the years in which we have been learning — a record of our work, our play, our problems and our progress at RTFS. We have been participating in school life in all its various phases; we are about to go on to the proverbial “wide world”, forti¬ fied by the knowledge which we have gained. It has been said that the world today has entered upon the “Atomic Age , a new era. Grateful for the benefits of the past and hopeful for the promise of the future, we have chosen this modern age and its symbolic atom as the theme of our yearbook, the 1950 Pioneer.

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Class of 1950: You are casting aside your swaddling clothes at the end of the first half of a trouble-ridden century. From now on, you will have to begin to lake your place in the adult world, either in productive work or in productive higher education. The way that you have exercised your talents during the past twelve years will determine to a great extent how you will attack the problems you must face in the more mature and exacting world you are about to enter. Fortunatelv you live in a Republic which is based on the ideal of democracy. Democracy has recently been described by the newly elected president of Yale, A. Whitne Griswold, as follows: “By democracy I mean a political society in which the greatest possible measure of justice implicit in the phrase ‘equal opportunity is combined with the greatest possible measure of freedom and encouragement for the individual to develop his own talent, initiative, and moral responsibility.” Ask vourself this question: Have I taken full advan¬ tage of mv democratic opportunties? Then ask yourself the more important question: Will I from now on take full advantage of the vast opportunities that a free democracy provides? Even if you do not plan to con¬ tinue vour formal education in some institution of higher learning, you must not terminate your education with graduation from this high school. Not only is education important for you as an individual, hut also it is an inescapable part of the process of government under which we are fortunate to live. Education, as we have tried to point out to you during your school years, is not a quantitative body of mem¬ orized knowledge salted away in a card file. It is a taste for knowledge, a capacity to explore, to question, to per¬ ceive relationships. Education should he delightful as well as useful to you. It makes every man or woman a better and happier citizen, whether in a profession or at the lathe, whether in the salesroom or in the pulpit. Education makes it possible for you to attack the practical problems of life as well as to enjoy living. As I indicated in my opening lines, you graduates of 1950 are facing a troubled world. Most of these troubles are man-made. What man has created, man can modify and change. If you can help to destroy the evil in this world and replace it with good, you will have made a great contribution to the second half of this century. There are many that feel that we are faced with the inevitable, that nothing we can do will change the course of history. I can not go along with this philosophy. 1 believe that man-made problems can be solved by man if he has the will to solve them. If you accept this admittedly more difficult approach of solvability rather than the drifting, resigned phil- osophv of inevitability, 1 feel sure that you can make your world a brighter and a more |x aeeful place in which to live. I have great confidence in the Class of 1950. I believe that you will do your Miare in solving the difficult national and international problems before vou, and that while solving them you will do vour share to protect the type of government that makes a free public education possible f r all. Rudolf Sussmann