Steele High School - Annual Yearbook (Dayton, OH)

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STEELE MAGNET Page Twenty-Seven come familiar with them, is a favorite trick of the author 5 but still there is not that feeling of absolute equality, because the author is not striving after the same ends that his companions are. With Mark Twain it was different 5 he was one of their number. Not until he had returned to the East did he consider his experience in the light of so much capital from which to draw an income. But when he did, the world was given one of its best delineations of American life. Perhaps his best-known work is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In this book Tom is not the description of one boy, but of several known by Mark Twain in his childhood. At first one might think that this would spoil the character, but it only serves to increase the life-like nature since the reader, if he were ever a boy, will surely recognize some trait of real boyishness. For instance, who has not nursed in solitude a broken heart, wished himself dead, and then wondered if mother and the rest would not grieve their eyes out for not appreciating such a noble but misunderstood lad? But nature does not allow the spirit to part so readily from the body, and after a time sends little snatches of more nour- ishing food for meditation, even to the disgust of the would-be martyr. Or perhaps the reader can remember some Becky Thatcher for whom he would have taken the severest iiogging and have been glad of the chance. But, mayhap, he was of sterner stuif. Then, too, with Tom Sawyer he would have liked to sail the Spanish Main with skull and cross-bones Iioating before him. The companion book of Tom Sawyer is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Here the character is practically reversed, for the hero aspires not to the emotional, for the commonplace was good enough for him. This very easily fits in with the boy, who was one of the ignorant ffwhite trash of the South. Just the same, we find the philosophy of a sage often proceeding from his lips all unconsciously, and when we hear it we are reminded that we can learn something from the humblest per- son on earth. Take, for example, the case of Huck and Jim, the run- away, on the raft. After wearing himself out with grief and exertion dur- ing a fog, Jim is overjoyed to see again his friend Huck, but the latter makes him believe he has dreamed it all. Then according to the preva- lent negro superstitious, he proceeds to interpret the dream, embellish- ing it highly to suit his fancy. When he had finished, Huck pointed to a broken oar, and demanded to know how he accounted for that. As soon as it dawned on Jim that he had been the victim of a cruel joke, he silently took himself to the little Wigwam on the raft in shame. Then, to use Huck's words, It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger, but I done it and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. Can you find anywhere a truer picture of the courage it ta.kes to acknowledge one's faults, or the peace of mind afterward? One more illustration from this book: There have been those, though their number is rapidly diminishing, who have held that one's, conscience is infallible and that it will dictate the true course to follow Whether educated or not. Be it as it may, Huck Ends himself in the middle of the Mississippi helping a runaway slave to secure his liberty.

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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-

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Page Twenty-Eight STEELE MAGNET Now, according to our belief, slavery was morally wrong and to aid in helping off a fugitive was an act of mercy, else why did our good old Quaker ancestors so zealously run the risk of fine and imprisonment for operating the Underground Railway? Born in the South, an abolutionist was scorned and considered among the worst of sinners, while a nigger stealerv was held in about as high esteem as a horse thief in the West. What, then, should he do-inform on Jim and be respectable, or help him and be despised? His conscience and training told him the latter was the course to take, but his sympathies and promise were with Jim. Perhaps the state of mind tha.t Huck was in will be made evident by a short ex- tract of his mental soliloquyz U. . . It got to troubling me so I couldn't rest, I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home to me before what this thing was I was doing. But now it did . . . and scorched me more and more. Next comes that wonderful passage of a.ttempted self- deception. Huck did not know anything of ethics from a scientinc view- point, or its relation to sophistry, but he did know that he was not play- ing square with himself, for he continues: HI tried to make out to myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner, but it warn't no use, conscience up and says every time, 'What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her, so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, . . . she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. Tha-t 's wha.t she done! As a result then of the dictates of his conscience, Huck decides to inform, and straightway is at ease. That he does not do so is not due to the ultimate action of true conscience, for in giving up his purpose it caused him mental pain and dejection, and these are not the accompany- ing feelings of obedience to conscience. In this, then, you have set before you in miniature a counterpart of the struggle between human desire and training. To write it took the skill of a grea.t author, to translate it from real life was the work of a genius. And so it is with all Mark Twainis other books. Roughing It, or the story of his Western life, is full of bits of humanity interspiced with the keenest of fun, and if you read his other works you cannot fail to 'rind Mark Twain a friend of humor, the soul of wit, and the faithful scribe of human nature. UI FRAU STEINBRUNNER'S LETTER AUSTIN F. ZICHT NY mail for Frau Steinbrunner?,' inquired a weak, little voice at my elbow. I turned and surveyed the questioner. She was an old woman, wrinkled, and thin of frame, with a faded remnant of a shawl thrown about her shoulders. Her yellowed hair, twisted and rolled into a tiny knot at the back of her head, was partly covered by a black bonnet with strings tied in at neat little black bow benea.th