Santa Rosa High School - Echo Yearbook (Santa Rosa, CA)

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THE ECHO OF THE SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL Lai Y SSS SS === SS = The Wonder Worker and Flower Magician HAT has been the most interesting to you in the fairy stories you have read? Was it not the magic wand by means of which common stones were turned into gold ,and rags into silk and satin garments? It was very wonderful, and no doubt you wished for such a wand yourself, but believed it was quite impossible to find one, even if you hunted the world over. There lives, in beautiful and dear old California, a quiet man, who has found such a wand and uses it for the good of others. This wand which he possesses was given him by no fairy godmother. It is his own patient observing mind which he has knocked so persistently at Dame Nature’s door that she has been forced to open and reveal her secrets. For years this magician has kept thousands of different experiments going with the idea that in plant crossing there will be as many gains as losses, as many tremendous improve- ments as utter failures. Thousands have used patents before

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THE ECHO OF THE SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL Organizations Wide awake school organizations are an important factor in the development of a progressive student body. Sufficient evidence of this has been shown in the past in our own High School. At times the lack of school spirit becomes a serious matter, for nothing can be accomplished without the interest and support of all. School clubs tend to further school spirit. Some people believe that clubs would interfere with class work, but it has been proved to the contrary that they arouse interest in study and are an educational asset. The best all-round student is found to he the one who gives support whenever it is needed. At the present time there three active societies in Santa Rosa High School, The Boosters’ Club, the Literary Society, and the Block S. Society. The members of these organizations are mainly upper-classmen, but there is no reason why Sopho- mores and Freshmen cannot become members. Already much has been done for the betterment of our school by members of these organizations. If further plans are carried out, an Honor Society may be established, and Scholarship be honored as it should be. : Our hope is that in the future that there will be many more organizations, so that every student will have the opportunity of being a member of at least one of them.

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THE ECHO OF THE SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL but not one in a hundred thousand has or will use them with such intelligence and skill as this great Magician of California. One may ask, who is this great man? The name which to- day rings in every ear is Luther Burbank. He was born in Lan- caster, Worcester County, Massachusetts, on March 7, 1849, the day which California, and especially Santa Rosa, celebrate an- nually. His ancestry is Scotch-English. He was educated in the common schools and in the academy. During his! boyhood he worked in the Ames Plow Factory. Mr. Burbank enjoyed boys’ sports, too. He played games. He fished and hunted; but he was happiest when in the com- pany of Nature herself. His eyes were so bright they saw many things that others passed by. From his childhood Burbank was passionately devoted to flowers and to all forms of plant life. His mother and sisters had noticed that whenever he was given a flower, while lying in his cradle, he always held it with certain childish tenderness, never crushing nor dropping it but keeping it, if allowed, until its bloom was faded or its fragrance gone. One day when his sister had given him a flower he held it in his usual earnestness until a petal fell off. Then, with infinite childish patience, he strove to put the petal back in place and thus restore the flower. hen a little older and able to toddle about, he chose plants for pets instead of animals. He was given a plant in a pot, so-called lobster cactus as the variety of cactus was locally known, and for hours at a time he trudged about house and yard carrying the cactus plant in his little arms. One day he stumbled and fell, broke the plant from. its stem and destroyed the pot. It was a day of great sadness, ior he greived so over the loss of the pet plant as another child would have greived over the death of a bird or a faithful dog. When the time came for him to choose his life-work, he desired to help Nature make old things better than they were, and new things better than the old. He began to raise seeds and vegetables in a little market-garden, and then a great day