Trafalgar School - Echoes Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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Reflections (With apologies to William Shakespeare) To-morrow and tcmorrow and to-morrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last hour of our school career, And all our yester-years have lighted girls Beyond matriculation. The time is short: School ' s but a preparation, a brief test. Through which we strive or fret our way to the Great tasks of life which wait us at the end; It is a pebbled shore, with tiny troubles Scattered o ' er the strand, but shelves into The stormy sea of life, which all must weather. We each have our appointed work to do In school and in our later life, and by This work we either make our mark Indelible upon the sands of time. Or else erase our birthright. Be it so! Whatever we become in after years. We owe to our old school a lasting thanks. For all the happy days, the knowledge gained. And all the friends we found at dear old Traf. Alice Smith ' Johannsen, Form Upper V. First Girl — Oh! but that was crazy; why didn ' t he jump in the Seine and be done with it? Second Girl — ' ' Because that would have been in Seine (sane). Lines to a Desk (With apologies to Keats) I have heard that on a day Kay Wood ' s desk chair broke away; Nobody knew why, until A very silly Trafite ' s quill To the Traf. Mag gave the story. Said she saw it in its glory, Then beheld a tiny screw Fall away, whence no one knew. And lo! the chair with sickening noise Carried with it all Kay ' s poise. O you Trafites passed and gone, In what Elysium have you known A downy couch - come now, beware— Cyhoicer than a Traf. desk chair? Marjorii ' . Lynch, Form Upper VI.

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Impressions of New York FAR above Broadway the Paramount building rears its head — modern, striking, unusual, ultra- American, symbolizing the fabulous wealth of the nation — but at its feet stand the unemployed. It is sad to think of those who have come eager and hopeful from lands across the sea to the City of the Golden Pavements, only to find those pavements quite as drab as the ones they have left behind, and perhaps a little harder, morally if not physically. However, one must not be a pessimist, and those who have got jobs may not be particularly happy either ! The streets of New York are a never-ending source of interest for those who like to study people. Here one may see old, young, rich, poor, handsome, haggard, well dressed, meanly dressed, all types, from every walk of life, crowding along side by side. Purposeful people hurry about their business, aimless people just follow the crowd, cynics watching the world go on to perdition, romantic people with the awful spell of the city upon them, and disillusioned people walk through these streets together. The most interesting street of all is Broadway. For here it seems that the very essence of the city ' s being is to be found. In the daytime Broadway is just a busy street, a little wider than most, running diagonally across the city. But at night! New York ' s life blood pulses up and down that mighty artery all night long — rushing, noise, lights, and people, people, people just going with this day ' s madness, the go fever, driving them madly on. Some of these people have a gift from the gods. They can live for the moment. Though they know that tomorrow lies ahead, and that life will be waiting for them, grim and inexorable, in the cold gray dawn of another day, yet for now they can forget, and be happy while they may. Life is a chance in New York, a game, which some may win but many lose. For some it is a glorious battle, for others a bitter struggle. There are people whose life is a reckless fight and they thrive on the very hazard. Some love this city with all the ardour of American patriotism. Others (shrewder) say that the city gives no man more than a thrill, and if you ' re not up and doing, you ' re down, and being done. With these, too, we find courage, faith, hope, and far down underneath even a little charity. Somehow, on Broadway, every night and all night long, these conflicting opinions are welded together into an indefinable something — the spell of the city perhaps. The Bronx Park was cool and still, under the setting sun. Far above a lonely crow cawed in the blue-gray smoke-flecked sky. A light wind ran across the ponds with a shivering sigh, and died in the calm of the coming night. Here the sleep time had come, and the end of another day, but beyond the walls the first restless throb of the hectic night had begun to fret, and the Voice of the City rose high above the peace of the garden. Here, as in an oasis of quietness, we listened to that wonderful roar of human activity. Some- times we tried to distinguish the individual sounds, sometimes to blend them all together into a single melody. The steady beat of pickaxes, wielded by swarthy representatives of half a dozen different nations, was the rhythm of that colossal song. We heard jarring steam whistles, starting the long night shift for men at drills and excavators, traffic whistles, screeching brakes, auto horns, taxi calls, the rumbling of elevators and street cars, all mingled together to form a very chaos of sound. We could not pick it out, but we knew that the deafening roar of the subway was helping to swell that mighty voice. A fire reel clanged by, but nobody noticed that more than the other sounds. Once the merry whistle of a boy, but he was very young and had not yet learned that Life and Death were gambling — for him. The Voice of the City is never still. It goes on and on with a strange wild song, weirdly fascinating to man, lifting, degrading, inspiring, but changing in some way or other, all who come under its magic spell — and the Spell of the City is contrast. Anne Byers, Form Upper VI.

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Our Opportunities GIRLS at our age are, as Longfellow says, Standing with reluctant feet, where the brook and river meet ; and the most important question now is, What are we girls going to do? Up to about twentyfive years ago women seldom left the home to earn a living. In the Victorian era they looked askance at any women who dared to go into business, be a doctor or a nurse. It was then considered the thing to be a little delicate. They were the clinging vines, and the men were supposed to be their sheltering oaks. Whether the oak got tired of being clung to, or the vines got tired of clinging, we do not know; we only know that the old order changeth, giving place to new, and women now cling no longer, but stand on their own feet, and enter almost every field that formerly was monopolized by man alone. Florence Nightingale opened the field of nursing for women. It is one of the noblest profes- sions : — For lo! in human hearts unseen The Healer dwelleth still, And they who make His temples clean. They best subserve His will. The Business field has also thrown open its doors to women. In New York one woman has opened three of the largest restaurants in that city; two of the foremost American magazines have women as managing editors; one of the newest hotels soon to go up in New York is to have a managing directress; and in our own city of Montreal one of the largest chain of restaurants has a woman as a buyer. In the Literary field women are forging ahead also. The most successful of all plays in New York ' s history, Abie ' s Irish Rose, was written by a woman. Besides this, we have one Federal M.P. in the House of Commons who is a woman. Miss Agnes Macphail. Of course there are some things men do better than women; they can play Rugby better, and can whistle through their teeth ! My father says that undoubtedly women are smarter than men . He has been married nineteen years, and has heard that every day, so it must be so! But whether that is so or not, what we must realize is that the world needs men and women who do things well. For: — The gods make room upon the hills sublime, Only for those who have the will to climb. Most of our opportunities come to us disguised as hard work. Abraham Lincoln, when he was a young man, bought an old barrel from a passing peddler, and in it he found some old law books, which he spent all his spare time in studying and reading. Later in his life this very studying and reading helped him to win a very difficult case in court — he was prepared when his opportunity came. In an old Greek city, there was a curious statue which has long since disappeared, but a story about it has come down to us. It is in the form of a dialogue: — What is they name, O statue? I am called Opportunity. Why art thou standing on thy toes? To show that I stay but a moment. Why hast thou wings on thy feet? To show how quickly I pass by. But why is thy hair so long on thy forehead? That men may seize me when they meet me. Why is thy head so bald behind? To show that when I have once passed I cannot be caught.