South High School - Index Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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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

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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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their desires, they made homes for their children in the wilderness, and in so doing wrought out the destiny of a great nation. In 1803, Louisiana was bought and another outlet provided for our rapidly growing population. The true history of this cession may be found, not in the doings of the diplomats who determined merely the terms upon which it was made, but in the western expan- sion of the people of the United States, which made it inevitable. The men who settled and peopled the western wilderness were the men who won Louisiana, for it was ceded by France merely because it was impossible to hold it longer against the American advance. Jefferson asked only for New Orleans, but Napoleon thrust the great west upon him, because Napoleon saw what American statesmen did not see, but what the Westerners felt,-for he saw that no European power could hold the country beyond the Mississippi when the Americans had made good their hold upon the eastern bank. But even this immense acquisition did not satisfy the progressive instinct of the Americans. The north demanded Oregon and the southern slave interests were determined to possess the land to the Rio Grande. Both desires were satisfied-one by treaty, the other by war. The discovery of gold in California greatly hastened coloniza- tion, and in September of the year following the discovery of the precious metal California was admitted to the Union, and towns dotted the landscape of nearly all central North America. Few people realize that we are the greatest colonizing nation of the world, for the immense tract of land of which the United States is composed is rarely conceived in its true dimensions. You might add the areas of the six first class powers of Europe-Great Britain and Ireland, France, Germany, Austria and Italy, then add Portu- gal, Switzerland, Denmark and Greece, weld them into one mighty empire and this great total is only one-third of the area of the United States west of the Hudson River. And the mighty task of colonizing this tract has been accomplished in three centuries. Now the questions arise, Is this instinct of progress dead? ls it of the past? These questions are being answered every day n the negative. It is not dead, it is of the present as much as of the past. The building in which we are gathered is a proof of this statement. All modern improvements are proofs. The people of 13