Salem State University - Clipper Yearbook

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Seniors expecting to go out to teach should be able to address a large audience without embarrassment and with easy conversational tones. That is why we have had three minute talks. VVe know now what it means to lecture to an audience and most of us have fully made up our minds that we do not care to lecture for a living. Even though we do not like to do the lecturing our- selves, we do like to hear others, and our principal has several times invited professors or superintendents of neighboring towns to visit us and give us a little sound advice or entertainment, as the case may be. Marks have come the same as usual, four times this year, but it was passed or not passed with us Seniors. We had no short breaths and quickenings of the heart. VVe like our work better every day, We can visualize now, we understand that all things being equal ------ g we've learned to teach rote songs, but even now there's a suggestion of a tremble in the voice, we are just getting able to look at' a caller without seeing his internal organs, we know how to please our supervisors in drawing and can evolve any example in percentage and illustrate as we talk. Oh, yes ! we are brim full of good ideas now and expect to be launched out into the world next September, when we may show the people what the Salem Normal School has done for us. For many years the numbers of the morning hymns were written on the blackboard but when these boards were tinted, cards with numbers printed on them were hung on the wall. These cards looked very much out of place beside the beautiful decorations of the hall. 25

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stood, too excited, during the whole afternoon, to once neigh or eat any of the food we gave him. Country lasses in sunbonnets and pinafores and a lad in overalls and jumper received our guests and tried to give them a good time. When they got hungry we gave them doughnuts, peanuts, corn balls, molasses kisses and new sweet cider sucked thro' a straw. Did they have a good time? Ask them. You have heard of gathering chestnuts cf course, but have you ever heard of gathering caterpillars and earth worms? We do it at Salem. It was no uncommon sight a few months ago to see a crowd of students on Lafayette street, gathered around one of the girls who was holding a wonderful something in her hand that looked like a curled up leaf. A Sphinx, girls! she would cry exultantly. The rest would turn away with wistful faces, sigh and say, O why didn't I see that lovely caterpillar! We are not partial creatures, but are just as good to earthworms as to caterpillars. We collected a great many of these worms in a box of dirt. We watered them, we fed them, we tended them for hours until at last they grew to be nice, fat and healthy worms. Then, with hearts almost bursting with pride, we carried them to school and exhibited them toagroup of envious girls. Sleepy when juniors, we are sleepy as Seniors. One day especially that feeling of drowsiness came over Senior I in Arithmetic class. Sally was asked to do a problem involving the laying of a carpet. She fopened her exercise with the casual remark, Now, I am going to er-stretch. 24

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One of the Seniors, with the aid of our drawing master, designed and presented to the school a hymn board which is a very artistic addition. Shall we in years to come forget that 'April Fool's Day when there was no song numbered 178? No indeed. We had intended to give a play this year, just as the previous year's class had done. The plan did not work, however, and we were obliged to give up the idea and postpone it for next year's class. We did not intend to leave school without doing or having something a little extra, so we decided to publish a class book, The New Mosaic. The Seniors this year gave a party on February 22, then all learned what it was to have a dance at Normal School with young ladies and gentlemen. The gentle- men invited remarked on g their way home, Salem Normal isn't so bad after all ! We should say not. The juniors gave us a good time several weeks ago when they had a Japanese afternoon. On April 30, Seniors and Juniors together gave a party to the teach- ers. The S. N. S. festivities of the class of 1904 end with their reception at Commencement. During the last few weeks the girls are busy finding positions for next year. There have been scores of ap- plications sent to superintendents. One young woman, two months before graduation wrote toa superintendent, I will be graduated from the Salem Normal School in June. Another informed the person to whom she ap- plied that she was prepared to teach any primary or grammar grade. A A third, with possibly six months' experience, said her specialty was the second grade. 26