Rome Free Academy - De O Wain Sta Yearbook (Rome, NY)

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THE SENIOR ANNUAL. f This last year has been notable be- cause of its many suspensions. We conclude that the good work of the last term is owing to this fact. Freshmen, when you have been here for a year or two, you will begin to see the value of a little study now and then. At a meeting of the class of Igo1, held at the home of Miss Clarabelle Lawton,the chairman, William B.Eames, appointed various committees. Miss Anna Briggs was then elected gamnol- ogist and Stuart Smith necrologist. It was decided to hold the alumni ban. quet June 27. The new pictures in the study hall have been much admired and greatly appreciated. Three of them are the gift of the Wednesday Morning Club. They are “The Courier,” “Moon Beams,” “Over Pathways, Waste and Wild.” The picture of the lion is the gift-of Mr. W. R. Huntington. For the last two years the usual sing- ing on Friday afternoons has been omitted. Let the faculty remember that we can sing, and that we wish to do so. What the school needs is new singing books. A change would be acceptable, and a greater interest would then be taken in that part of the exercises. The beautiful flag which now adorns the study hall is a gift of the late Arthur W. Soper of New York. While at the Paris exposition, Mr. Soper purchased six of them. One was given to Hamil- ton College, one to the Rome High School and the others were given to his friends. The flag is made of the finest silk, It hung on the American build- ing at the exposition. | School building. 6 We have now been in our new quar- ters for three years, but as yet we have seen nothing of a flag-staff. The little flag in the attic window does not mate- rially add to the beauty of the High A new flag pole is more than a luxury, it is a necessity, if the dignity of our fine building is to be | preserved. The Open Door and the Self-Made Man. In recent newspaper discussion the phrase, “an open door”—a Bible | simile—has come greatly into use. The | word door finds its synonym in oppor- tunity. The carpenter left the door in the old school house to pass through, in an out. Opportunity is a door in an | otherwise closed wall of fate opening to the fields beyond. It is a door, an open door. Sometimes we think of this oppor- tunity not as opened for us, but as a | door we incidentally open for ourselves. | most fundamental In the relation between himself and the power that undergirds him, man con- ceives himself as a solitary toiler, un- toiled with, with this hidden power But in the Bible use the is simply passive. of the phrase, “an open door,” fact mentioned that the highest power in the history of | man is constantly opening a door to | ingly and really lessen. him and pointing the way in. This power is spoken of as aggressive. One thing, however, life does not do, which is to drive us through the door. By every open doorway a statue of Pa- tience rises to tell us that the power that opened it can wait. The oppor- tunities will multiply and the entice- ments also, but the compulsions seem- He who will

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6 THE SENIOR ANNUAL. edict forbidding so great a calamity be- falling the school as to have the ‘ fresh- ies’’ appear with caps bearing 1905 con- spicuously on the fore. No use, they would wear the caps. On one of the balmy (?) days of March, just before the bell rung for the after- noon session, a great cloud of dust, verily like that described by Scott in his was seen approaching from ‘ Marmion,’ the vicinity of the police station. A passing hurricane wafted the cloud aside and behold, there were the freshies with set faces and 1905 caps, bearing down upon the stupefied crowd that blocked the sidewalk infront of the school. The sight of the caps to the upperclass was as a red rag to a bull and the seniors, those tried men and true, shouting at the top of their voices their rallying slogan, ‘‘Heyrube’’ formed in battle array. Words can not describe the shock that was experienced as the two masses came together. Some aver to this day that plaster was shaken from the walls of our school building but the general belief is that this happened before and was due mortar in construction. the Board has had steel ceilings placed in all of the rooms. Speaking of the shock caused by the combatants coming together, it was as to defective Since the row nothing compared to the shock which was felt by the d sturbers stalwart, brawny, bluecoated men, other- when those wise known as the Rome police, appeared upon the scene. There was a scattering and when the schoul was assembled, all was as quiet as the proverbial spring lamb, except now and then a suppressed ‘‘Ouch,’’ or the covering up ot the place which a coat button bad once occupied Occasionally a little snuffing might be heard and jesently a thing that appeared like an anarchist flag would come from the pocket of some one of the verdant Freshmen. Thus passed the class row. Notes and Comments. Those students who attended the reading classes regularly, found them to be of great interest and profit. Those who have been fortunate enough to hear the lectures on Califor- nia by Rev.J.H.Egar, D.D., have found them te be very pleasing and instruct- ive. The new urns add very much to the If the students would exercise more care and appearance of the front lawns. would keep on the sidewalks the grass would have an opportunity to grow. Each year the D. A.R. offer a prize for the best oration and for the best certain This year more stu- essay written upon assigned historical subjects. dents competed than ever before. This increasing interest must be very grati- fying to the ladies. We stage will be erected in the assembly hall. The large enough for one to stand upon, all hope that next year a new one we now have is not without being in danger of falling off. We ought to have one three times as large as the present one. The one thing necessary to make the assembly room perfect, is a new refer- Those who have to use the that it is both crowded books ence table. old one, find Reference and inconvenient. need care. Students look upon them as common property, to use as they see fit. If large, well ordered tables were provided, and the books were replaced in position after being used, the real value of the reference table would be more apparent to the students.

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8 THE SENIOR ANNUAL. may enter, while he who is careless, let him be so still. In this respect it is that the spirit of modern life accords with the old-time ‘Behold | before thee open door. ”’ word, set an Life’s chances multiply and freedom to decline them grows. A hundred and one compulsions fall away. We will suppose you are an academe graduating today and away to college on the morrow. What is the position £ of the now-a-day college but that of an open door? A college used to be a compulsory institution and was prone to open the door of opportunity for culture and thrust the student through. In the earlier day he was forced to come daily to chapel and say his prayers; now the opportunity is simply pre sented, the privilege of worship and religious exercise stand, not as a part of college discipline, but as a supreme opportunity. ‘‘ Whosoever will” is a motto of the What, in fact, is the elective system— religious university. a classification of study according to individual taste—but a multiplying of doors? A great university shows its greatness in no way more than by its multiplication of doors, that the young student may choose for himself a way into some field of intellectual endeavor. And then when those doors are thrown open and the boy makes his response, the university does not compel the allegiance of the indifferent. Like the great- God above, the great school simply points to its door of oppor- tunity. calmly waits for the student’s choice, and quietly says, “ He that is lazy, let him be lazy still.” It may be that this academe goes not to the university but out into the world of business activity. Herein the sphere of human industry, what does the in- | of his interest, athletics. telligent citizen ask of the state, what does. the most advanced statesman seek but an The socialist asks more,— to guarantee to all citizens, open door ? for the dead level of assured comfort, that the state shall fix all the details of individual industrial success. Socialism says that the lazy shall not be lazy still, that and does not, shall drink of the industrial But wisdom tells us that the land is best governed when whosoever wants, whosover waters freely. the door of opportunity stands wide open, equally helpful to highest and The state, like the great university, will say, lowest—a door no man cut shut. “ He that is lazy shall have the free- dom to be lazy still. ” Now character as a force, or its lack is shown by those who stand by these If one loiters there or doorways of life. the through with avidity, we have a sign, the of The self-made man is the man capable of self-help, unchecked and by affluence of opportu- nity or poverty in the same. He it is who goes through the door he chooses. No great university can in itself make a scholar, neither can the man deprived in air of indecision presses one way or other, worthy note. unfeebled of early advantage fail of scholarship in the end if he thirsts. Professor James speaks of the boy who wasa dullard in his class, apparently, yet was a walking encyclopedia of sporting He was the most brilliant scholar in his class in the line facts and figures. Other doors of the university than this swung open to him in vain; he would not pass through. Others need not only a deepening interest but a stouter reli- ance upon the principle of self-help. Ericsson, the inventor of the Monitor,