Steele High School - Annual Yearbook (Dayton, OH)

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STEELE MAGNET Page Twenty-Five four hours, and transporting troops at the rate of eighty thousand a day. Between the troop trains, ammunition and supply trains were sent, and on the other tra.cks through the city the prisoners and wounded passed through. The prisoners were almost all wounded and were in a Very sorry condition. To see them made a person shudder at the horrors of war. The wounded were happy and gay at the thought of going to the war and getting home without being killed. They were also ha.ppy at the thought of seeing their families. One of the most amusing sights in Dresden was when the Germans discovered a spy in their midst. The spy usually ran and the people got so close to him that the military authorities would have at hard time determining who was the spy and who was not. In one case the spy was a man in nurse's costume, and he jumped into the river where so many people jumped in after him that in the confusion he was able to get away. VVe were in Dresden three weeks, and then left for Berlin, a dis- tance of a hundred and ten miles, and it took us thirteen hours to get there. In Berlin the only change the war had made that we noticed was that women drove the taxicabs and street cars and the young boys cleaned the streets. We left Berlin and went to Holland, a three-hundred-mile ride which took us twenty-four hours. On this trip we sat up, six people in one compartment. In Holland we were fortunate enough to get a boat for America, landing in New York just six weeks after the war had started. CHEMICAL ENGINEERING HENRY BLAU HERE is probably no greater progress in this era than the devel- opment of chemical industries. The primary ca.use for this decided advance is the change from old processes based on tra- ditions and kindred reasons, to procedures based on the intelligent a.ppli- cation of modern scientihc principles. But, for the intelligent application of science, a man of skill and training is needed, and such trained men for chemical industries are called chemical engineers. The training of a chemical engineer can be divided into four deinite groups, namely, chemistry, mechanics, business methods, and chemical engineering itself. Under the head of chemistry, the student is drilled in the fundamentals of chemistry and also inorganic, organic, analytical, and industrial chemistry. The mechanics studied include mechanical drawing, mechanisms, applied mechanics, and heat engineering, while the business methods treat with economics, business law, etc. The chem- ical engineering group is undoubtedly the most important, although it is really a combination of mechanics a.nd chemistry. The courses under this head deal chieiiy with determining how various chemical reactions can best be accomplished commercially and with the construction of devices and apparatus by means of which the result ca.n be obtained most

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Page Twenty-Four STEELE MAGNET GERMANY DURING WAR TIMES RAYMOND ADLER E arrived in Salzburg, Austria Hungary, on the day that war was declared between Austria. Hungary and Servia. Fearing that we would be kept in the city of Salzburg until the troops had all marched, we packed up our trunks and left hurriedly for Munich, Germany. In Munich there was talk of Germany declaring warg so, being desir- ous of getting near Berlin as soon as possible, we left for Nuremberg the next morning. From Nuremberg We went to Dresden, where we went to a hotel to spend the night, intending to go to Berlin the next morning. My father and I arose early and went down to the station to find out when the next train left for Berlin. On arriving at the sta.tion, We were astonished to iind that it was clo ed. Not understanding the reason why, we asked the nearest policeman, and he with many excited gestures and flourishes told us that the tracks would be used only to transport troops and provisions to the border, and prisoners and wounded men back to the hospitals. We next went to the North German Lloyd offices and asked them whether our boat would sail on its scheduled time. They looked at us as if we were crazy and said that probably no boats would sail for six months. But how were we to get home, if no boats were going? we asked. The German behind the counter merely smiled and told us it would be risking our lives to go out in a vessel flying the German flag. On our way home we passed the postman delivering the morning mail, and, wondering why we had not received anypmail from America, we stopped him and asked the reason. The American mail was not being delivered on account of each German soldier receiving a postal card tell- ing him to be at a certain place at a certain time in his regular fighting uniform. The postal card did not state where he was going, but only gave instructions what to do. We stepped into the Hamburg-American Line oiiices and inquired there also about the boats. Receiving no favor- able reply, we went to the consuls, and there, with a crowd of excited American people, were told the good news that the United States Govern- ment was going to send transports to take us home. In the meantime, things had been very lively in Dresden. The nrst detachment of 30,000 troops marched out two days later, at about twlo o'c1ock in the morning. In the barrel of every musket was a small bou- quet and the men marched singing joyously the Wacht Am Rheinf' while we stood and shouted f'Auf Wiedersehnf' as they passed us. It was a beautiful and sa.d sight, for they were the nation's youngest and fairest. 'Four days later lists were published which showed that ten per cent. of them had been killed. I Every day, twenty-four trains passed through Dresden, each train consisting of forty freight cars, each car containing fifty men, and ten pieces of artillery carried on four flat cars in the rear. During each night sixteen trains passed through, making a total of forty trains each twenty-

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Page Twenty-Six STEELE MAGNET efficiently and cheaply. Courses are not given for fostering the im- provement of existing processes and industries alone however, but con- siderable training is also given for developing initiative towards dis- coveries leading to new industries and their perfection through research work. Therefore, it is obvious that there must be an enormous Held for this line of work in the United States, a country of such extensive natural resources. A great many of our industries are practically in almost a primary condition, and applying science to these will undoubtedly bring about rapid progress. As an example of what efiiciency can be obtained from using sciences in industries, we have in our own city the National Cash Register Company, and the Delco. These concerns, with many chemical engineers in their employment, have built up enormous busi- nesses by perfecting their output by scientific means. To prepare men for the consta.nt demand for men to create and operate such industries that are based on and require chemical principles, is the function of the courses in chemical engineering, which are now so popula.r in our tech- nical schools and universities. UI DJ W MARK TWAIN AS A CHARACTER ARTIST CHRISTIAN VAN RIPER ARK TWAIN was once asked why it was that he could portray character with such remarkable accuracy. Answering in his characteristic manner, he said, Well, you see, during the early part of 1ny life I was so poor that I hardly ever got a square meal, so I just a.te character. And that, truly, was the secret of his success. As a boy in Missouri, it was his delight to watch the steamboats on the Mississippi, and his greatest ambition was to become some day a deck-hand, for at that time he did not aspire to that lofty position of ship's pilot. But at last the chance came when he was apprenticed as a cub pilot. Here he was thrown in consta.nt conta.ct with all kinds of 1-ivermen, and though he was not aware of it at the time, was absorbing the ways, the customs, and speech of his companions. But then the Civil War broke out and it came as a distinct shock to him, for, as he tells us 1a.ter, he had confidently expected to be a pilot for the rest of his life. Commerce, however, was now at a standstill on the river, and Mark Twain was out of employment. Soon a.fter this, his brother received a political appointment in the West and took him along as an under-secretary. Now, if ever, came the opportunity to eat character. This was in the boom times, and people from the East, North, and South, together with the few Westerners already there, were all striving to begin life over again in a new country. To complete this education was the fact that Mark Twain, at this time even, had no notion of authorship. To go and live in certain surroundings that one may be-