St Anthony High School - Tattler Yearbook (St Anthony, ID)

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Page Four THE TATTLER student must be home at five o’clock in winter and six in summer. The student is not allowed to go to the theater with- out the permission of the principal. Un- just inspectors and teachers often spy out the very thoughts of the students and attribute to them wrong meanings. Moreover, they prohibit them from forming and expressing their opinions freely. But I must not pass without mention the pride and ambition of a German student formed in spite of such unfavor- able conditions, perhaps even because of them. His earnestness ard thirst for an education conceals one great thought— one great idea; to help anoth- er. This fills the heart of every student. The one who has had a chance to grasp something worth while, think for him- self, feels an obligation to walk per- haps several miles to help out less for- tunate students. Days of hard work, days of trial, come constantly to my mind when I think of my school life in Germany. One sad picture follows another, and on- ly a few single events shine out among those recollections as bright stars on a stormy night. Among these one kind face of a woman who had studied at a foreign university and had been broad- ened by foreign ideas, comes constantly to my mind; and closely associated with her and as dear to me are those memor- able nights when she gathered a small group of seven or eight around the li- brary table. With wide open eyes we followed anxiously every word of her reading as though it were from God himself. The reading over, this woman used to leave us to ourselves to argue until tired over things which we really did not understand. These are my best school memories. It seems to me that never again shall I spend such evenings or enjoy such morning prayers with bowed head and closed eyes. But I thank that happy chance which brought me out of the mist and horrors from the people who are striving toward the light, into this bright ard sunny place, America. Here under the guid- ance of kind teachers, I am encouraged to think and reason for myself. I am no longer a member of that little secret community which shivers for fear of having somebody hear a bold remark. Instead, I may express all my emotions openly, cry them out! And there are no objections, only kind criticism. That is almost inconceivable for a German; but Americans, you who have long en- joyed this freedom so precious ought to reverence it, love it, and be proud of it, for what more than freedom and self- thinking develop good character! -L. B. ’18. i i 1 1 qr ALL, in Canada, is the most C | beautiful part of th e year with its mellow, hazy days, wonder- ful sunsets and waving grain fields that stretch like a wonderful golden sea for miles and miles, against a back- ground of purple foot hills. The traveler’s first thought is that the grain fields are unbroken but as he comes nearer to them he sees the great swaths cut by the binder and men shock- ing the bundles to dry ready for thresh- ing. The typical Canadian rancher em-

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THE TATTLER Volume II May 15, 1915 Number VIII (itrntan mtb American Sc haul Ultfc By a Former German Student N attempting to write on two different educational systems, I bow before both in reverence. I am like one who has lived the greater part of his life in the arctic region, and has been suddenly thrown by some supernatural power into the tropics. At first he is constantly suffocating but gradually descends the night with its soft breezes and sweet is the tropical air! With every successive day his love for the tropics increases until finally there is no possible way of persuading him to leave. So felt I and many another girl and boy feels likewise, who comes from the severe German school to the American. What is this, a school? are those the pupils? Yes, my little girl, yes. No more shall you be distinguished by your black uniform. Hereafter, you will not he compelled to wear your black little hat with the sign of the institution on it, but any one you like. All this, which you cherished so much— for to you it stood as a symbol of equality in things intellectual— shall now rest for the time to come. New cares, new hopes are be- fore you. You will not have to wage battles against inhuman teachers who are there to kill in you all your highest instincts and ideals, teachers that confine you to the narrow field of an untruthful textbook; teachers who find pleasure in your misfortunes. Here you will not have to pay a heavy tuition and obtain justice through bribery. A German school day! an American school day! What is the difference? The German school day begins with a prayer, during which all stand with bow- ed heads and closed eyes, while a pupil from the uppe r classes reads it out loud. Then follows the long but enjoyable day with all its restrictions. Restrictions! Is this word strong enough to express all that a German school day and school life means? It is quite doubtful, there- fore I appeal to your imagination, my lucky reader. When entering a gymnasium school one receives a little book with rules which are to be carried out at school and at home. Students must always and everywhere wear their uniform. A winter uniform is made of heavy black wool, the summer uniform of black al- paca, with a black apron for every day and a white one for Sunday. Every

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THE TATTLER Page Five ploys from five to twenty men while cutting and shocking the grain and the threshers from twenty to forty men during threshing time. It was at this beautiful and busy time that Shorty, a little French Canadian, came to our farm and asked for a job. Shorty was indeed a shorty, but had he been measured by his soul he would un- doubtedly have been larger than even Bill, the biggest man on the farm. He was a decided mystery from the first, never taking part in the Sunday and aftersupper sports of the other boys. Instead, he either went to his room or amused the children with stories of the Peace River country or Old Quebec. He seldom talked at the table when the other men did their gossiping but occa- sionally he would interpose some sarcas- tic remark when the talk drifted to “Near and Dear relatives.” One day after harvest, as the boys were sitting around the fire waiting for supper one of them suddenly became bold and asked him why he spoke so sarcastically. He did not answer them because supper was just announced. After supper, however, he told us his story— how he had become a wanderer, and why, and we ceased to wonder that he was so silent and strange. His father and his mother’s brother had worked in a bank together. The brother was a “sport” and it was the old story of misapplied use of entrusted funds but it was Shorty’s father who was convicted and sent to prison for “not more than ten years.” His good behavior won him his freedom in five years. “When he came home,” Shorty con- tinued, “Mother’s brother was still liv- ing with us. One night he came home drunk and insulted my mother and then taunted my father with being a jail bird. Father would have killed him but for mother who pleaded so piteous- ly for her only brother’s life. My uncle left that night but father soon died of the disgrace and in the winter when all the earth was white, mother follow- ed him, dying of a broken heart. Then and there I vowed I would find the beast who had caused all this suffering and kill him as my father would have done.” “Boys, I’ve met him twice since, but it was always the face of the little moth- er pleading for his life as it did that night years ago, that saved him, but some day I’ll meet him again and when I do !” He did not finish the sen- tence but we all knew what he would have said and we also knew he meant it. He rose abruptly and went to his room without his customary good-night and for a time the rest of us sat in pro- found silence and then we each said good night and went to bed to dream of our “little mother” or some one equally dear. Shorty stayed with us all winter but when spring came, that morning of the year when all the earth is made clean and pure by the smell of freshly turned sod, and the foothills are a soft, beautiful green, he came for his “time.” Daddy paid him and after bidding us all good- bye he started for town. As he reached a small knoll he stopped, and stood black against the gorgeous red that gradually faded to a delicate pink in the fleecy cloud of the sunset. He turned and waved his hand to us and then con- tinued slowly down the hill and out of sight. The last we heard of him he was in one of the great logging camps in British Columbia and apparently the