Spencerville High School - Echoes Yearbook (Spencerville, OH)

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ooo-ooo--ECHOESo00--ova VALEDICTORY---Cont. Then, too, there will be some of us who will blaze new paths up the hill of life. These people will open new fields of industry and new ways off doing things. It will offer new adventures for those who blaze these trails. No matter whether we follow the paths that are already made or whether we blaze new ones up the hill of life we must all face certain problems of the times. We must all watch for errors made by those be- fore us and prepare to avoid repeating them. A wise and thouglhtful writer says: The education received at school and college is but a beginning, and is mainly valuable in so far as it trains us in the habit of continuous application and ena.b1es us to educate ourselves after a definite' plan and system. We only hope that our school life has given us these habits. Feeling that we have gained these results, our thoughts turn toward you in heartfelt gratitude for the educational advantages with which you have favored us. With this in mind We aim and hope to become members of society, worthy of the school so well established and maintained by this generous community, For this we wish to extend to you 0-ur thanks. We, also, wish to extend our thanks to the faculty who have striven to prepare us for our start in life. Tonight we must break tlhe tie that has bound us as a class. Wherever you, fellow classmates may go, may you succeed in life and may you carry with you the spirit that has prevailed in the class- room. As we leave the school to enter upon our trip up the hill of life, let us remember this poem by Berton Braley: For the best verse hasn't been rhymed yet, The best house hasn't been planned, Tlhe highest peak ha.sn't been climbed yet, The mightiest rivers aren't spanned, Don't worry fret, faint-hearted, The chances have just begun, For the best jo-bs haven't been started, The best work hasn't been done. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllIIIIIIIllIIIIIIllllllllIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Page 20 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlllllIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllllllllllllll

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4.01000--ECI-1053000-sooo Valedictory At the Foot of the Hill - - Climbing Fellow classmates, parents, faculty, and friends: We, as a class, have reached in our high scihool careers what comes to all through patient perseverance-the end. Tonight we close our high school careers and tomorrow each of us will take his place in the com- munity along with the many others. Along with taking our place in the community comes our share of the responsibilities, our share in the profits derived from them and our share of the pleasures that come from performing these duties. As the graduating youth all over the nation take on these responsibilities they are going to demand that they have the same rights as other adults. If they can go out from high school and carry their share of the burdens they should expect to share the same privileges as older ones enjoy. As we look back and think of all the school days together, thoughts of regret rise in our minds that these school-day pleasures must end. Year after year we have gone over the same lessons, we have had similar trials, we have shared school triumphs together, and we have taken our gains and losses as one. Our thoughts have been all in oneg but now, the day of graduation marks the first great change in our lives. The course of each of us will be different in the future. As we leave this high school tonight each of us will choose a different vocation to follow through life. Some of us will probably go on and get a higher education before starting our life vocation. Whatever, though, is in store for each of us we do not know, but surely it will be a life of great activity and variety. In climbing the hill of life what paths shall we follow? Shall we fol- low the paths of those who have gone on before us? If we choose to fol- low in the footsteps of those who have gone before us shall we be able to avoid the pitfalls and crevices as we go up the hill? Some of us will probably follow the footsteps of those who have gone on before. We shall advance up that course trying to make it broader and better than those who have gone before us have made. We shall not be satisfied to stop where our predecessors have stopped, but will continue to Strive for the top of the hill-our final goal. Will those of us who follow these paths be able to look ahead to see the errors made by those who have gone before and will they be able to avoid making the same mis- takes? Only time will answer these questions. IlllllllllllllllllllIIlllIIlllllIlIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII P589 19 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-IllIIIIIllIIIIIllllIlIIIllllllllllllllllllllll

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o o 010 o 0--ECHO ESooo--oo0- Salutatory We, the members of this graduating class, are glad to welcome you to our commencement. This has long been our objective, one which we have spent twelve years reaching. Most of us were not con- scious of the fact that we had such a long way to go when we started but became increasingly aware of it as the years went by. Now that we have reached this goal we are most happy to have you here with us tonight that we might share with you the happiness that we all feel. This objective became a reality because we had other smaller objectives that took us from day to day and year to year. Some of these were individ- ual and others were of the class. Others were accepted by the school as a whole and all of these were used as stepping stones to the final goal- this, our graduation All of us have had the thought in mind of what we were to do when we graduated. Each one of us at first thought of the pleasure we would have in not having to go to school and that we might be free to do as we please. Then as time passed we began to realize that this was not true at all. We were going to have to study and work and plan as much as we had been doing and that we would have personal goals that would require us to give much of our time and effort. Now most of those have been laid aside because we have a more common goal to attain. We are glad that we can make our contribution to make this our country, if not the world, a safe place for us to live and to choose individual goals to attain. I might say that music has been some cf our goals during high school, just as music has always been a. goal to man. I would like to start here and tell something about the development of music and the type of music of a few countriesvand perhaps illustrate a few examples on my violin. When man iirst used his voice to produce pleasing tone qualities, he did not know then that he would some day produce the iine music that we now enjoy. Neither did the first musical instrument resemble our modern day instrument nor the music that was played in those days sound like ours does today. In the days of the prehistoric man music was one of the most satisfactory ways to showing his emotions, as it still is today. But so long as it was mainly by voice it was limited in compass, in dynamic power, and in rhythmic effects, and so came the development of the musical instruments. The Hrst step to a musical instrument was the stretching of animal skins over a hollowed out stone or tree trunk forming the Hrst drum. Another form was the rattle as used largely by the American Indian. The Indian used a scale of only tive notes called the pentatonic scale Cpenta for five and tonic meaning tonesl. This scale was also used by the Chinese, Japanese, Scotts, Africans, ancient Peruvians and Mexicans and others. It is like the five black keys on our modern piano starting with F sharp. The Chinese use this system of music yet today. They do not use music as a means of expressing beauty as other nations do but treat it more like a problem in arithmetic or crossword puzzle. Their scale is the pentatonic, but while we have only two scales, the major and minor, they had eighty-four. Their music, to us is singsong, shrill and nerve wracking. Their orchestras are seventy-five per cent noise-makers, and we get very little pleasure out of Chinese melodies for they seem to wander about aimlessly and do not end comfortably. Here is an example of a Chinese Hymn: Besides the drum a.nd rattle the Indians also have the flute although there is no special music for it. One of the first stringed instruments was the lyre and as used by the ancient Greeks had four strings and later seven or more. People who sang to the accompaniment of the lyre were called lyric poets . The Greek scales were based on tetrachords, tetra meaning four and chord, stringg that is a group of fourstrings. This is one tetrachord: There were also two others composed of four notes similar to the above. Another instrument invented and used by the Greeks was the monochord. It was made of a wooden box with just one string. But our modern scale-that one with which we are all familar, seems to us the most complete and satisfactory of any of those other ones. And I should like to end this talk by playing a simple American song. Thus we greet you and welcome you. Our single goal for tonight is to entertain you with our accom- plishments and to make you well pleased and happy. Please accept our greetings and thanks. IIllIllllIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII P888 21 IlIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII