Somerville High School - Radiator Yearbook (Somerville, MA)

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RADIATOR YEAR C LASS o R A T I O N BY A L B E R I A L L E N TO WHAT END In our day the insistent call is for education! All over our country there is evidence of this eager- ness or hunger for learning. More is being expended on education than ever before. The number, beauty of construction, and efficiency of our schools constitute the pride of rural districts, towns, and cities alike; every college campus is swarming with eager students; university extension courses offer to the work-a-day world higher education. An edifying state of affairs, indeed, in the midst of America’s material prosperity! Yet world educators of every land—Africa, Ceylon, South America, men of the stamp of President Jacks of Oxford.—affirm that still more widespread education is nec- essary for a vigorous civilization. What does it all mean? What should he the aim and result of this Renaissance in Learning? What must this education be if America is to attain our fondest hopes for her future? The proverbial little red schoolhouse and the three R’s are a colorful myth of the past. In its stead are imposing institutions of learning. Geography and the classics have given way to complex sciences and strict training for the commercial world that stretches its network of factories and transportation systems everywhere. No one can deny that education today tends strongly towards specialization in industry, that hooks and intensive training are manufacturing skilled men for the business world. True, we can find no glaring fault in such a condition; the little red schoolhouse has but adapted itself to the demands of the times. Admittedly, then, our hook learning and our technical skill are at flood tide today; marvellously adroit human machines with their heads crammed full of facts are at a pre- mium today. But is this the sole purpose of our schools—to grind out storehouses of information? Is this the fundamental object of our educational system? Shallow and dreary is such education, because it falls woefully short of the fundamental object of real education. Book learning is of value only when that information stored away in the mind is used to interpret Life; when it fashions an understanding of men and their ways; when it teaches appreciation of those social and moral laws that form the warp and woof of human relations: in short, when it has trained the individual in the great laws which govern the Art of Living, the most difficult and at the same time the least understood art in the world. Dr. Eliot of Harvard fame put it thus: The fundamental object of education is to lift the whole population to a higher plane of intelligence, conduct and happiness.” Witness the Bible, the Book of Books, one of whose sages said: Knowledge is the principal thing; therefore, get knowledge; and with all thy getting get understanding!” Huxley, wise English scientist, conceives of the truly educated man as one who has fashioned the affections and the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with the Laws of the Universe.” In other words, the truly educated man is he who does the right thing in the right way at the right time whether he wants to or not. The laws which govern the Game of Life, whose magnitude, complexity and interest true educa- tion helps us to appreciate, we shall discuss briefly under three aspects. The first of these are the Laws of Nature, those laws which govern the environment where we play this Game of Life, and with which we must he in harmony if we are to win out. Book learning may teach structure of the body and the harm of excess, but no man is truly educated until this knowledge becomes a guide to his daily life and he has come to hold sacred the human body, “a machine fearfully and wonderfully made”, the temple of the soul. Epicurus and Aristotle of Greece, Kant, and Buskin exhorted their fellows to find true happiness in self-restraint, in living the temperate life, in maintaining bodily and mental health and cleanliness. What sadder proof that nature does not countenance excess in anything can be found than fallen, crumbled nations of history’s time-worn pages which defied this great Law of Nature? No human being can violate it without finding to his sorrow that Nature punishes slowly, agonizingly, with bitter relentlessness. 13

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RADIATOR YEAR BOOK First Row: William Vidito. Ruth Garrod. Frank Van Ummcrson. Second Ron : Dorothy Burnham. Marion Smith. Ernest Sackett. Grover W inn. Mary Gradone. Lolly Moller. Bertha Corfield. Third Row: Nathaniel Vidito. Albert Fisher. Curtice Townsend, Grethcll Simpson. Olive MacPhcrson, Jean Yacubian. Irvine Whitcomb. George Morel. THE RADIATOR During the year of 1927-1928 the Radiator has been most successful; some new plans which greatly increased its circulation, were instituted, and the business managers have been able to meet all obligations promptly. The price was lowered; it was made a mag- azine of uniform size; and with the co-operation of the drawing department, stories were illustrated and at least one page of cartoons was found in each issue. The Staff has endeavored to make the Radiator of general interest through the maintenance of several departments, the Editorial, Literary, Poetry, Library, Sporting, Alumni, Exchange, Humor and School News, and has worked hard for the success of our publication. 12

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RADIATOR YEAR BOOK What do we find when we question the results of man’s intellectual training in the field of scien- tific investigation? Inquisitive science has relentlessly delved into Nature, and behold: Pierced and torn asunder are towering, venerable mountains; disclosed is Nature’s alchemy in flowers and trees; fearful maladies arc absolved of their terror in medical laboratory; reproduction of the human voice has been heard in England across a protesting sea; with exquisite efficiency is each element of indus- try’s products used to advantage. Grateful humanity ponders: What motivating force caused such self-sacrificing folks as Goethals, Madame Curie, Pasteur, Carrel and Daken-in antiseptic surgery, Michclson in physics to devote their lives, their very life- blood. to live intimately with Nature that they might rob her of her secrets? The truly educated scientist is he who so loves life and human beings that he toils unselfishly that his fellow-men may live most fully in that physical environment where they play the Game of Life. This, this is godlike, sublime Service! But when the scientist mobilizes ingenious scientific inventions for barbaric war- fare, and, slave-like, is subservient to the black god of War and Evil, then the Laws of Nature have been defiled, then learning has been warped and disfigured beyond all semblance of true education! Necessary as it is for man to understand Laws of the world of Nature, yet that he appreciates the Laws of Man’s relation with Man is of vital importance. Democratic America, which with a lavish hand expends millions of dollars for the education of her youth, anxiously declares: “My concern is whether this lavish expenditure of time and money is infusing in American youth a keener appreciation of the Laws which govern his relation to his fellow-men.” In the seething, feverish whirlpool of American industrial life, how does the book-trained man conduct himself? Does he forget courtesy, generosity, honesty and justice to his fellow-men in his greed for gold? If so, he is disregarding great social laws for which true education teaches respect. The educated man is aware that not in such conduct does honor lie. Happily, a superior sentiment is growing in the world. It is the eternally righteous doctrine that not gold, not self, but Service to fellow-men, brings lasting happiness and honor. Selfishness and self-aggrandizement are not the badge of the truly educated. With the loftiest principles of American political and civil justice, obedience to law is inex- tricably fused. They are one and inseparable. Yet increasing crime with the attendant filling of jails has reached an appalling crisis. Is this due to environment or unfortunate heredity, as social workers assert? Is crime due to laxity in laws and law enforcement, as many judges maintain? I he world laughs at American hostility to law. The average, well-meaning citizen shakes his head ruefully, despairingly. Yet to him who carefully ponders the subject, it is evident that much of our education has failed ignominiously to bring about an understanding of the Laws governing Man’s Relation to Man. The knowledge that crime, injustice, lying, and dishonesty are base and contrary to the inexorable rules of the Game of Life has not been co-existent with learning. In the true education, all agree, lies the solution of the crime problem, for it inculcates a desire to harm no human being; it fosters a respect for law and consequent obedience, and it instills devo- tion to American ideals and institutions. Defeated is insidious crime when the true education exerts its benign influence. Is true education an effective instrument to combat that international curse—Intolerance? Each day America is striving to banish misunderstanding and crush intolerance, that canker that weakens and embitters, and plunges nations into war. We are truly educated when we love our fellow-men and feel a broad, generous tolerance that respects all races, creeds, religions, and customs, though they may he widely different from our own. Is not every human being an expression of God? Then the more we appreciate and love our fellow-men. the nearer to God we climb. Let this chord of sentiment vibrate over the spirit of democratic America! But there is a surpassing, supreme attainment of true education. Its most sublime influence lies in directing us to right relations with God, the Supreme Being, the motivating force that drives man and nature. Phillips Brooks tells us that the strongest democracy is a spiritually minded one. An urgent need of our day is a counterbalance for confusing material prosperity. Whither shall we turn? To the establishment of a closer bond between man and God. Far too many of the youths who are at this very time being graduated, literally by thousands, from our schools and universities 14