South High School - Index Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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CLASS ORATION g A TEUTONIC INSTINCT FRANK HAROLD PLAISTED 5M,,.,.,,,. S we assemble here today, perhaps for the last time, Q we all realize that we have taken the first great step towards making ourselves useful in the world. Mingled with our regret at leaving a school where 5 we have assed four leasant ears, comes a certain .sw fa. N, 1 . . . . elation that we are fast nearing our goal-part1cipa- L ' .211-. . . . tion in world affairs. And how could we be other- p wise than elated? This desire to do something, to contribute to the world's prosperity, is an instinct inherited from our ancestors. WE desire to accomplish something original, to broaden modern conceptions, and although THEIR idea was the same, their execution of it was primative. We are descended from those forest childrenfl who in Roman times lived north of the Rhine-Danube frontier, in what is now called Germany. Lovers of war, their chief ambition found expres- sion in material conquest. For centuries they strove to conquer Rome, and when at last she became the victim of her own folly it was these peoples who hastened her downfall. In the same century, certain Teutonic Tribes crossed the narrow waters and invaded Britain. The island peoples, the Celts and Gaels, were unable to successfully oppose these newcomers and retired before their advance. Settling in southern Britain, the Teutons established kingdoms-little states destined in time to become one united England. When in IO66, William of Normandy conquered England, he realized that all his subjects must unite their separate interests into a common purpose, in order to secure national greatness, and he strove to accomplish that end. For generations the great evolution went on,-the best of the nation's strength being consumed in internal development. But it was not until the reign of the great queen Elizabeth that England saw her real mission-not in warfare, ll

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FRANK HAROLD YLAISTED

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nor in civil strife, but in the more modern and sane method of peaceful expansion. Then even the scant knowledge of North America obtained by the Cabots and other European explorers fired the desire in the hearts of Englishmen to explore and colonize. The uncertainty appealed to them, and of sturdier stock than the French and Spanish they planted the first permanent colony on the coast of that conti- nent, which their descendants were to occupy from sea to sea. Surrounded by enemies, often reduced to starvation, these early settlers had everything to contend against. But they were deter- mined to succeed, and in spite of the fact that the work of years of hard toil was often destroyed by the Indians, and that the lives of the settlers were never safe, the colony grew. Twenty years from the first settlement at Jamestown scores of villages and towns were established along the Atlantic coast. For some time all the energy of these colonies was expended in self-protection, but when this was no longer necessary they began to expand. Vast unexplored territory lay to the west and the Ameri- cans were impatient to explore and colonize it. As they pushed westward they bought land from their red neighbors, but much they took by force. The difficulties encountered in this growth were by no means small. As they went farther inland the Indians grew more formidable. The French, Spanish and Dutch made repeated efforts to check this expansion. The explorers found that the ground had not only to be settled but conquered. At the close of the Revolution this westward movement was greatly augmented by thousands of Continental soldiers, who went to occupy the land given them by the government in retnrn for mili- tary service. The Alleghany barrier was soon reached and the fair valley of the Mississippi lay before the eyes of the pioneer. The fact that it was occupied did not daunt these hardy backwoodsmen and by dint of grim tenacity they overcame and displaced Indians, French and Spanish, exactly as fourteen hundred years before Saxon and Angle had overcome and displaced the Cymric and the Celt. They were led by no one commander, they acted under orders from neither king nor congress. In obedience to the Teutonic instinct working half blindly within them, ever spurred onward by 12