Urbana High School - Rosemary Yearbook (Urbana, IL)

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j: :t :: :i (Elu' Basentarg x x :: : 5: :t s: jj a :: j: x 3: :: w SYMPATHETIC VIBRATIONS A. P. JOHNSON, Superintendent of Urbana Public Schools. n J! 3: HEN the human voice is sounded in the presence of a well- tuned piano, the piano strings, capable of vibrating the same number of times per second as the vocal cords and thus having the same pitch, will vibrate in sympathy with the voice. If the voice is pitched at middle C and sounded near the piano, the middle C string of the piano will respond to the voice by vibrating, hence givng the same pitched tone as that produced by the voice. The piano string responds to its own pitch kind. The human mind also responds to such impulses, standards, and ideals as it is capable of giving out. The mind is appealed to, and re- sponds to, its own quality kind. The piano string may be adjusted so as to change its pitch and to respond by vibrating sympathetically to dif- ferently pitched voices. So, too, our minds may be developed and trained in such a way that they will respond sympathetically to different impul- ses, standards, and ideals. The high school period is the most opportune time in life to do this developing and training. How important it is, then, that we so develop and train our minds that they will respond sympa- thetically only to the most wholesome impulses, the best standards, and the highest ideals. A. P. Johnson. :c « x x X :: x x x x 3t x X 3: x s: x 3: x xix 3: s: ss 3: x x 3: (Ten)

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(Nine)

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 Rosemary M. L. FLANINGAM Principal of Urbana High School. OBSERVATION NY system of education must be wrong that unfits men and women for the positions the great mass of the peo- ple must occupy. Teach the boys and girls in our high schools that those who attend well to the work they are capable of doing are by no means making a failure of life. Then we will not be kept out of the pulpit, the bar will not be crowded with “pettifoggers” and medicine with “quacks.” Men will then learn that there is more real value in Illinois soil than in wild specula- tions in stocks, petroleum and gold dust; glow worms will then cease trying to be stars and bats will not assume to be eagles, aiming at the sun and lighting in the mud. Be- cause of these false aims, many men refuse to do anything unless they can make a terrible stir. They say, “I am a patriot and willing to die for my country, provided I may be a general; my heroism works only under shoulder straps.” Teach, that wealth and office are generally accidents; that there are thousands of poor men in the world not half so mean as some million- aires whose names are quite familiar; that the man who succeeds in going to Congress is often a more unhappy and meaner man than the one he defeated; that kingly titles and princely wealth are often the fortune of knaves and simpletons and are no evidences of superior worth or mind. That system of education is best which teaches us to strive with a purpose of honest gain and promotion, rather than to wake up some day after a Rip Van Winkle sleep and find ourselves rich and famous. Too many are dreaming dreams of romantic scenes of happiness, roman- tic deeds of loveliness, talking and writing of noble aspirations and lofty purposes, and then when they come to walk along the real path of life, how sadly their hopes are blighted and fairy dreams dissipated. The pam- pering of feverish ambition on the part of over indulging parents and sycophant teachers has something to do with creating this false ambition on the part of so many of our young. Finally I would have the pupils of Urbana High School never con- tent in idleness and wrong doing. I would have them qualified for the v highest positions and at the same time happy and efficient with the or- dinary allotments of life. Then if circumstances or the voice of the people should call them to high positions, they may, like Cincinnatus, pass from the plow to the summit of national honor with grace with dignity and success. M. L. Flaningam. AN (Eleven)