University of North Alabama - Diorama Yearbook (Florence, AL)

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Senior Class Oration BY L. L. JAMES. ANOTHER race has been run; we who have labored ihe iast few years within the walls of our Alma Mater will in a few days be standing upon the threshold of a new career. The trials and the hardships of our school days have all been forgotten, and there remains but the recollections of the pleasures and the happiness. My dear classmates, we, who should be the truest men and women under the sun-kissed skies of Alabama, should go forth clad in the livery of our Alma Mater and armed with the knowledge she has been able to give us. We must receive the challenge of the world in a new day. The struggles that have been ours in the school-room have, in a small measure, tested our skill and our armor for meeting and combating the obstacles and trials which shall confront us in future life. But without a steady heart and sinews of iron and a fixed and determined purpose, can we ever expect to return the proud victor from the combat with the world of today ? The challenge is not borne to us by ringing peals from warlike bugles, nor by stirring blasts from brazen trumpets, yet the gods themselves with all the powers of the universe at their command could not challenge us in a language more forcible than the challenge of the world to train men and women. We, in our brightest day dreams, have built magnificent castles, accomplished great things, and been crowned by fame with the richest laurels of success. But now the day is almost upon us when we must cross over into the lands of tomorrow, and begin the fight in reality for those things of which we have dreamed. Upon the border of school days and after life the questions must come to each of us, What am I going to do with my life, and of what use am I going to be to my fellow man? Not all of us can hope to be kings and queens, nor the favorites of fame and fortune; but all of us can be far greater than all of these, if we but serve well the state, the country, and the God to whom we owe so much. Success is not measured by the glittering heraldry of pomp and display, nor in the idle praises of our fellow-being. But it is rather . measured in the good we may be able to do in whatever line of work fate may see fit to place us. The greatest success will be the life of the man who climbs the rugged ladder of fame with his hands and his brow crimson with the stains of his own life-blood, shed in the service of his fellow man, his country and his God. The foundation of success is character, and by the service we render time and humanity we make our reputation. Let us, if we wish to prosper, serve well

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History of the Senior Class w E can hardly realize that the history of the class of 191 3 has been made and settled forever. Nine months ago we started on onr career as Seniors. There was not a heart but swelled and thrilled with the realization of its new elevation and importance. Even Mr. Seale (com- monly known as Billie ) has not lacked in dignity, for, although he is not quite so tall as the average, he has felt every inch of the height willed him by the class of last year. We have two members in our class, both young men of great worth, who, though they would hardly confess to have ever been less than a Senior, have risen by slow strides from the first grade of the Model School to their present seat of dignity ; and years hence, when their hair begins to turn gray from the toils of life, their dearest memories will hover around the same little Model School. : 1 We are especially honored in having as a member of our class a young lady who has made herself famous as a detective. We all remember how successfully Miss Wayne Morris won this name by capturing the only Outlaw in school in her Ereshman year. School had rocked on until near the middle of the session when the Seniors ' feeling of dignity was changed to one of special privileges. Once during the morning exercises a buzz was heard in the rear of the chapel which sounded very much like the hum of a gear wheel in a sawmill and that was what Dr. Powers called it. Every eye in chapel was turned toward us. For three whole days every way we turned, Buzz-saw Seniors was thrown in our faces. But Dr. Game came to our rescue a few days later. He again held us up as the model for the school, and now even Dr. Powers will say that we have gained our former station. Dr. Game has decided that he had better be careful how he advises young people who do not enjoy teaching to go marry, as his doing so has caused us to lose a member of our class. We are very proud of the fact that we have broken the record of the previous classes and have successfully gotten out an Annual. We hope the future classes will follow our example and improve upon it. Mary Lipscomb. THE END.

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ihe imperial land of the South, that her glory may be kept untarnished by our lives, and that in and through us she may become greater than her far-famed glory of today. At last we have come to the parting of the ways. We all agree that the years we have spent here have passed too quickly. Xo doubt, it is a sad thought to all of us to think that we are to say our last good-byes to our classmates, school friends, and last, but not least, to our beloved teachers. The memories that have made our school days dear we may keep until we have crossed the bar, but the work that this College expects us to do demands that we do not idly bask in peace and ease, but be Up at the work the world would have us do. The call has gone out to all ends of the earth for men and women who have been trained both by the knowledge that they have gotten from college and from experience. The mighty undertakings of the age and the great strides which all the world is taking today calls for trained men. The work of the pyramids and the hanging gardens of l.abylon are no longer a wonder, but such engineering feats as the Panama Canal, which will bind the two highty oceans together and make all the world closer, or the aeroplane that sails through the air at a rapid rate, or the wireless telegraph messages that flash across our continent in a few seconds. From out the field of such work as this comes the call for men, men who have the ambition and the confidence to plan and to accomplish still greater things than all of these. We have long since crossed the Mississippi into what vas a new world to those who moved West in wagons before the Mexican War and the railroad broadened our dominion, and we are bounded East and West by the oceans. We are living in an enlightened age of the world, an age which accomplishes those great feats that were considered impossible by our fore- fathers, and, above all, an age in which we can see in the near future the blend- ing of all these wonderful forces in unison toward such marvelous strides of progress and civilization as make the myths of the past fade away. You and I are the promoters of this age. There is much work to do all over the world schools are to be taught, educational needs to be met, and a thousand and one problems greater than the world has ever known are to be solved. We are the men and women to accom- plish these wonderful feats. In every field we are needed. The farmer, by the knowledge he has gained, is able to make the old red hills of Alabama blossom into the richest of fruits and into waving fields of golden grain and snowy acres of the fleecy staple, King Cotton. By this same knowledge photography is bringing to us, as on parchment leaves painted in, sunlight, the secrets of the depth of the sea and sky; it is finding new stars, and with the telescope camera liknesses may be snatched across spaces im- penetrable by the naked eye.