Townsend Harris High School - Crimson Gold Yearbook (Flushing, NY)

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NINIITEEN-THIRTEEN-FOURTEEN 31 desire to close with a tribute to the school that farmed one, fashioned three of the best years of his life, is strong upon me. But the realization of my incapacity is equally as strong. It is with a trembling pen and shuddering lip that I invoke the name of the graduating class. In the name of the graduating class, that is no longer to be a part of you, that remained under your care--your Alma-lllatronly care for three years-that owes all it ran boast to your training and development, that will owe all that it will ever lvoast of in the future to the bias you gave it, that can remember you, your dear halls, the corridors that will be filled for it with the romance of fond uicniories, only with thazzksgizing, tempered with regrets, I close this history of you-Oh my School. With the hope that your succeeding history will be just as glorious, that your station among the schools will be just as high, if not higher, and that future classes will regard you just as dearly, with just as much tenderness on leaving you as the Upper fl Class of June, 1914. TO ALMA MATER I VI XVe come, we go. Our life is spanned By sonorous throbbings in a tower, By numbers drawing hour from hour The index of the clock's black hand. II Three years. And yet a day ago, It seems we entered through this door, Life's crucible and we the ore, And never is Time, the goldsmith, slow. III Three years. Three chapters of a dream, A memory to a memory stirred, A dream-shaped treasure in a word. So short, but yesterdays they seem. IV Where are the thorn-wreath's on Time's brow? Where are the shrunken cheeks and eye? Time is a smile and not a sigh The mist between the then and now. V The then of fearg the now of hope. The always of our love to thee, The always of our love to be, Recalled in Time's Kaleidoscope. XI We come, we go. Oh that our life, The perfect fruit of a pefect earth, Here nourished to a new rebirth, M,ight turn thy training to its strife. VII , And to the world of men bequeath Another hero born of fame, To history, another name. To awe another life to breathe. VIII We come, we gog and when the day That waits upon a term to close, Shall put upon its sky a rose, The spell of parting wastes away. IX That day has come and we must go. We face no pigmy worlds, that truth Had conquered for us in our youth. The worlds are great and we are low X Oh Alma Mater we must: part, What if the parting is a spell That witchery has woven well Around the shreddings of a heart? We gog but 'tis not to forget Oh Alma Mater, so each tower, Each golden image of this hour Shall hold our memories in debt.

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50 THE HARRIS ANNUAL some of the glories of Harris in the interscholastic athletic mirror. Periodically tennis teams and chess teams are raised up from the dust of a comparative obscurity, but they go down to the same perennial dissolution with a disappointing regularity. Perhaps it would be best to revert to the gymnasium the scene of T. H. H. basketball victories and to the natatorium the scene of swimming victories and defeats. The gym is formally called the C. C. N. Y. gymnasium. It might with equal justice be called the T. H. H. Gym. Here T. H. H. came, saw and occasionally was conquered. But, passing over this, the gym is one of the greatest athletic structures in the city. Equipped with one of the largest swimming pools in the city, with one of the best running tracks, boast- ing of the most complete athletic apparatus in the city, preserving in its management a wise and discriminative course, it has become one of the real factors in the athletic development of the school. The gym is something so fine that praise can only be a disparagement. As a building it combines with the necessary structural forms of a gymnasium, all the distinctive architectural features of the City College group of buildings. The pool in its white-tiled dignity, in the gloom of the corridors leading to it, in the soft splashing of a stray swimmer, in the gentle rippling of the water on the smooth sides, seems to have the typical atmosphere of the school. The running tracks, the hand-ball courts, the stacks of dumbbells, Indian clubs, and the wands seem like sentinel to the esoteric athletic spirit of Harris Hall. Here are bound up this school's athletic traditions in a knot which can never be dissevered. It is one of the academy's influences for good. The Stadium Another influence which promises to be just as important is the stadium. All that there is of the stadium now is the blueprints, but work is being pushed on, and in the Fall season there will be a new amphitheatre for T. H. H. athletics. The stadium, according to the plaster-of-paris cast in the Lincoln Corridor of the College, is to be simple in its structure, a Fine example of the majestic beauty of Doric architecture. It is to extend from 138th Street to 136th Street and east from Amsterdam Avenue to Convent Avenue. The field, therefore, will be very large, and there will be room for almost every activity. The original plan did not provide for shower baths and lockers. In the same breath, it neglected a fence about the held. Active work was entered upon by some wide-awake college men who circulated a petition that was signed by several thousand students. As a result, a bill of appropriation has been passed to provide showers and lockers for the stadium. The social activities of the school are not many, but are widely diversified. The diversity approaches very nearly to chaos. There is no cohesion, no cen- tral activity. The clubs are self-centered. They can realize nothing but their own petty necessities, and they provide for nothing but their own individual interests. The announcement that a General Organization was being planned was greeted with joy by sincere Harrisites, the subsequent abandonment of the plan, the slacking of the first ardor, the gradual loss of all interest in the project of all enthusiasm, the tacit admission that T. H. H. was not yet ready for it, the spectacle of virile clubs retrograding because the school was not yet ready for it, was greeted with corresponding sorrow. There is nothing left to do but to end, and yet that is so hard when one knows that soon the very name of T. H. H. will only serve to bring back memories, fond memories of days spent and enjoyed in the institution. The

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32 Tl-lli HARRIS ANNUAL THE VOICE OF THE VIOLIN Sz MIDST the confusing noises and shouts that pealed forth Q from the massive tenement houses whose tops were crim- soned by the fading rays of the November sun there were lggsyx heard the sad and melodious tunes of a violin. The brisk and chilly autumn wind took up the sweet notes and spread them through the yard in which the player stood. He was a gray- haired, wretchedly clad beggar, and as his sweet, pathetic strains filled the narrow inclosure, the discordant voices around were grad- ually silenced. About him was gathered a crowd of eager-faced, bright-eyed chil- dren, listening attentively to the music. The sight of his ardent auditors seemed to move the old man, for two pearly tears rolled down his meagre, wrinkled cheeks and were lost in his long gray beard. The golden hair, untroubled blue eyes, and innocent smiles of the youngsters seemed to recall to his mind scenes very dear, very near and very holy to him. Meanwhile, in response to its masterls emotions, the violin expanded its sweet, gentle tunes into a wonderful vibrant melody. lt was soul-stirring music! The passionate tunes spoke of the life of the old beggar, of his joys and sorrows, of his hopes and disap- pointments. It told how, many years ago, during his childhood days, far away in likaterineslov, in the southern part of Russia, he resolved to achieve happiness and success. It recorded vividly the happiest moments of his life, when his cup of bliss was filled to the brim, and he became first a husband, then a father. The past delightful after-marriage life arose like a fantastic dream before Joshuais eyes. He began to perceive mentally the blissful evenings he used to spend in his cheerful home. After the evening meal he would take up his violin and play many a melodious air. He still possessed a realistic image of his golden-haired little David sitting near him, and with his beautiful blue eyes gazing at the instru- ment and its kind master. On his imagination was still vividly por- trayed the touch-scenes when, with his loyal instrument, he lulled his little David to sleep. Especially was one Saturday evening of a by- gone winter stamped upon his memory. That evening was the last of his quiet, gentle flowing life: it was the last time that the little family was united about a cozy hearth, it was the last time that David heard the soft strains of his father's violin playing his own beautiful composition, Oh, Child, My Childf, lt was for the last time that the little one felt the loving motherly kiss on his full red lips and his crown of golden hair. For the next morning the merciless whirl of Russian hatred and barbarism that had ruined so many peaceful Jewish families had also swept the town of Ekaterineslov. The scenes of that horrible Sunday morning came back to him with all its dread. He heard the fiendish yells of the savage Russians like those of demons let loose for ravage and plunder. He saw once more the flying forms of men, women and children, running, stumbling before the murderous tempest, and falling into the very jaws of death.